You make a good point, this is why I like the way we go on doors and openly preach in a way that people can take it or leave it, If I come to a door of a mormon and mention the paradise hope he can say I am happy in my belief and make it clear he is not interested in my points, I will walk away knowing I have giving him the opportunity. Door work is a very open and honest.
Hi Reniaa,
Well here we are again at the sticking point. But just to say that you would at least try to get him around to your way of thinking and you would hope that he would see your faith and become a member, being that I also used to do the ministry and know what JW’s are trained for and what their end goal is. You are out to save people, as you see it, even ‘happy Mormons’.
I am offering something when I go on the Doors, I goto to each door with a full Plate of Spiritual food. With a message from God, we are not telling them God doesn't exist.
I appreciate that this is your take on your motive of going around the doors Reniaa, but just suppose for a minute that what you are preaching isn’t true, and that your god really and truly doesn’t exist, and that your hope for the future doesn’t exist either. Then the preaching work wouldn’t be such a good thing and as I would see it, it would be a harmful thing to mislead people in such a way. But ultimately, even though you would be promoting a ‘god’ to people, you would in practice actually be offering people nothing at all, just a fanciful belief.
What I don't approve of is that motivations of hate and revenge tend to colour the methods as well, like the list I gave above these are not loving and your hands are completely empty.
Well let me please assure you on this point once again, being that you do tend to have a little difficulty seeing it, which I fully understand being that we are coming at things from a totally different perspective. My motivation in liberating people is because of the fact that I have seen the hurt people suffer and wish to alleviate their pain. There is no ‘hate’ attached to anything. I don’t like seeing people get hurt so if I can help someone free of a situation that is bad for them, then I will do all that is in my power to help them. So please don’t confuse my motivation. It is not hate. It is genuine concern.
But just to answer your original question Reniaa, whether I would try to convert a ‘happy’ JW who was suffering no ill effect from being a JW at all…… my answer is no, I wouldn’t even bother trying.
Who would I be to do that..?? I have no problem with religion, or any other concept come to that, if it is not harmful in any way to people. It is only when I see people hurting that I will be moved to action and try to help them. I see the JW movement as just another religion, no real different to many others. They claim to be the chosen ones, but which religion doesn’t? There are worse cults around, but as I don’t know enough about those and don’t often bump into members of other religions who have problems, I tend to focus on JW’s as I know a lot more about that religion (being a former member obviously) and I know how to show people that it is not what it claims itself to be, the ‘truth’. I saw countless people pretty crushed and oppressed while I was a member, so after leaving and seeing through it all I thought that I would like to help the people I so desired to help when I was going but couldn't. So that is all I am doing.
I agree with you that there are some on the forum who do sway towards hate and revenge, which in some cases is understandable, although other cases not, but I personally am not motivated by hate at all. I hope you can believe this and at least check your quick reaction to accuse nearly everyone who opposes the society of hating them, or JW’s at large. I still have friends who are active JW’s and we get along fine.
But just to challenge your OP about being a Saul or a Paul, depending on your view of things will be how you view either of those people. A Pharisee would love Saul, a Christian would fear Saul. A Pharisee would hate Paul because he was a turncoat and went against a belief he once held and went onto liberate thousands against an oppressive institution that genuinely could claim to be from god, but if they stopped and thought about it, even though they had a ‘legitimate’ claim, their actions negated their claim, even though they themselves thought that they had the ‘works’ to prove that they were. They thought and could prove they were the ‘true’ religion, but in practice they were nothing of the kind, and they were too haughty to see it when it was pointed out to them. Be careful that you are not falling into a similar trap Reniaa, because you have had fair warning. Your reason for wanting the ‘truth’ is quite obvious to me, but just because you wish it to be true doesn’t mean that it is, no matter how much you want it to be.