As a Child, Which Did You Think About More? (page 3)

lisavegas420

I always wanted my own animal collection,

but knew I'd never make it though to the paradise.

lisa

Black Sheep

Paradise??????

I wasn't going to make it to Paradise.

You had to make it through Barmygeddon to get to Paradise.

I had no dreams about getting in to Paradise.

There was all this stuff you had to do or not do so that God wouldn't kill you and I wasn't up to the task. Some of the stuff you had to believe seemed a bit nutty, but you weren't even allowed to question it without being threatened. "You wouldn't want to displease your Heavenly Father now, would you!!!" was a statement, not a question.

I don't ever recall praying to Jehovah. To do that would have been suicidal. Prayer would open the door to your real thoughts, not just the words that came out of your mouth. This fecker could read your mind and He was a killer. Lock him out.

Jeesus. I'm glad I got over that.

Cheers

Chris

BabaYaga

Wow... I can't thank all of you enough for your responses.

It seems that holding out to us the "carrot" of Paradise was not enough, after all. Most of us were too busy with the nightmares of Armegeddon to even think we would ever make it to "the New Earth".

Twitch

Yea, the big A was always on my mind. That's normal right? lol

beksbks

I barely remember the Malawi stuff, mostly just how wonderful our brothers and sisters were for staying faithful to J in the face of such tribulations. It almost seemed like something to look forward to, when we could get a chance to prove how faithful we were too.

I was more like Primate Dave, in my head fantasizing (and feeling guilty for it), or drawing. I still have an old bible full of pictures

My biggest fear though, was the demons. That was very very real and frequent.

BabaYaga

Not one of us out of all these comments thought about the paradise promise more than the terror of annihilation.

Pretty stunning, really.

Mickey mouse

As a small child, I actually heard of SPECIFIC METHODS of TORTURE being used on "our Brothers and Sisters in Malawi" from the Kingdom Hall platform. As you can well imagine, that has scarred me to this day. I will spare you all, I will not repeat that horror here.

I wonder if it was the same specific form of torture that scared the **** out of me? I'll PM you.

I think I've mentioned before that I experienced night terrors and nightmares which often had a concentration camp or Armageddon theme.

Dagney

Very interesting thread.

Petting the animals.

Although, those black and white pictures in the "Paradise Lost" book with the dogs and bikes and kiddies tumbling down the crevice was spooky. Had this same discussion years ago when I was "in," and the significant number was traumatized by the impending destruction rather than the "purdy paradise."

I do remember hearing talks that said to "picture yourself in the paradise...make the paradise 'real.'" I had a difficult time doing that, and Lord knows I tried.

under_believer

Oh God, the things I remember...

I remember sitting, aghast, listening to fetishistically detailed torture methods employed on our "brothers and sisters" from whatever landlocked African shithole du jour was spastically destroying itself. I was under ten years old. I have never, to this day, been able to look at bicycle spokes without having images straight out of Stephen King's worst nightmares springing instantly to mind...

I remember, years later, sitting in a car full of young JW teens, with everyone speculating on what things would be like in the "New Order." When it came to be my turn, I couldn't think of anything to say. I believed, even then, but my otherwise rather copious imagination always failed me when it came to imagining Paradise...

I remember shutting my eyes tightly, every night, and praying "incessantly" because I was terrifed of demons. I always laid awake for at least an hour, every night, without fail, with every part of me covered by blankets except the tip of my nose. I remember hearing stories of levitation, of telekinesis, of changed voices, of visions in mirrors. Supposedly secondhand stories from people whom, at the time, I trusted implicitly. For years I could not look at mirrors in the dark because I was afraid of what the demons would show me in them. To this day, in the fullness of my adulthood, I still have a hard time looking into mirrors when it's dark...

I remember hoping that God would spare me, that he'd know I was "just saying it," because I knew I'd never be able to look into a loved one's face with a gun held to their head and not denounce everything I believed in to spare their life.

I remember losing myself in fiction, especially science fiction. I remember wishing that I could wake up one morning as a character in one of Anne McCaffrey's novels. I remember the escape these dreamings provided...

Now, as an adult, an avowed and confirmed "inactive," someone who stays (barely) in for his wife's and his parents' sake, who looks for every excuse possible to miss meetings, who has not prayed to an imaginary, petty, vindictive, evil old man in the sky for over five years, who has not knocked on a door nor raised their hand to "comment" in a similar period of time, who lacks the guts and the balls and the personal integrity to just make a clean break, AS THAT GUY, I sit and watch my wife tell my children to pay attention at meetings.

I listen to them talking about how utterly vile the world is, how nobody in the world will help anyone else, how everyone is just out for themselves.

I hear them monger fear, fear of Satan and demons and the Great Tribulation.

I hear them talk about rape, and sexual immorality, and oral and anal sex, right in front of my three- and eight- and ten-year-olds, as though it is a proper thing to talk about in public in mixed company in the presense of children.

I hear them vilify Harry Potter and, ironically, the works of C.S. Lewis.

I hear them demonize college, and doctors, and the medical community, and science, and scientific thought, and independent thinking, and homosexuals, and female ministers, and every other religion on the face of the planet.

And I think... how much more of this can I let happen? How much longer can I let this go on? And when the times comes--and come it will--when I move from passive, self-hating, pathetic inaction to actively controlling my own (and my children's) destiny... what will happen then? Will I even be allowed to see them anymore? Will they grow up hating me? What will they be told about me? When and how will I will back their trust, their love?

Make no mistake. This "faith" screws children up, really badly.

BabaYaga

Under Believer said: I have never, to this day, been able to look at bicycle spokes without having images straight out of Stephen King's worst nightmares springing instantly to mind...

My heavens, UnderBeliever, that's it. Reading that nearly took my breath away. (On a quiet note, let's not elaborate lest others be scarred, okay?)

And Mickey... YES.

Also...

Under Believer said: And I think... how much more of this can I let happen? How much longer can I let this go on? And when the times comes--and come it will--when I move from passive, self-hating, pathetic inaction to actively controlling my own (and my children's) destiny... what will happen then? Will I even be allowed to see them a

That paragraph is haunting me. I don't know what to say, but the answers are already within you.

As a Child, Which Did You Think About More?

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