Captain code named SD-7. Self-destruct code 0-0-0-Alpha-Gamma-1.
This will be my final entry on jehovahs-witness.net. First I want to thank the good people I've met here who have been very comforting to me in this distressing time. Jamie Bowers is #1 on that list by far. Thank you, Jamie. You've been a true friend.
At the shepherding call last night, my wife broke down crying and confessed everything to the elders. She explained to them that I had doubts about the 'faithful slave'. So, unsurprisingly, the first and only real question they asked was, "Do you believe the faithful slave is what it says it is?" Bottom line. My response was a lie. "Yes." I looked at my wife, who knew I was lying, and said, "Of course they're providing food at the proper time for us." They then asked, "Have you been reading apostate material?" My response, which is at least partially true, was "I've been reading the Society's publications." Which ironically, are themselves apostate material, hence the need to remove pre-1950 literature from our attention.
I denied as much as I could. I behaved like a coward. I thought there was still a chance to salvage the situation. My wife then pulled the only other card she had left to throw on the table. She told them that we had sex several times before we got married. They seemed very interested in getting me to discuss the situation, but I had nothing of value to say to them. I did not wish to be interrogated about things that happened before we got married. I acknowledged the wrongness of my course. It wasn't even my wish to engage in that behavior with her when it all started. But I'm still at fault for not being the man I should've been.
They told us to read Psalm 51, claimed all this bull****...about mercy and all that. I just told them, well, just read those 9 words from the platform and remove me from the congregation. They claimed that no one who is genuinely repentant is removed from the congregation, "but you can't sin in Jehovah's organization with impunity." F***ing lying sons of b****es. The people at the top can lie all the time with all the g**d*** impunity they f***ing want.
I'm not going to deal with any committee for this sh**. Repentance can't be determined by committee, unless that committee's made up of the Father, Son, and holy spirit, maybe.
The wife got mad at me because I told her after we left this 'shepherding call', which, as the lying elder said, "Was not to get into our personal business, but just to welcome you to the congregation", that the elders reacted exactly as I had anticipated. That their words about mercy were transparent at best. That it was only about justice, nothing more. I explained to her that I had nothing else to fear. I already died. The most these bastards can do is write an epitaph on my tombstone. This organization killed who I was. I believed in something, but they destroyed that. She got angry and said not to say anything else negative about "Jehovah's organization, the organization he has put his spirit on." Unfounded statements like that, which cannot be put to the test without the result being DF'ing, are the reasons why things have happened as they did for me.
The great thing about it was that they were able to take my sins and blame it on "doubt", claiming that "Satan" was getting to me. Maybe seeing in black and white that you've been lied to tends to disrupt your moral compass for awhile. That's just my take on it. That's the only reason why I made those mistakes. I was hoping to remain unassailable in the moral department--not that it would've meant anything to them. But for my own satisfaction.
My wife didn't want to talk about it. I told her that if she had a problem with it, she should do something about it. She then got out of the car, taking her daughter with her, and disappearing for 20 minutes. Because the KH parking lot was poorly designed, I was blocked in until the other meetings going on were over with, and then some. Couldn't get out of the space. So, I was left pondering what my research was doing to my family. It sure as hell wasn't building it up on anything. And it led me to commit fornication several times. It accomplished nothing good. Because, as Batman said, sometimes truth's not good enough. Sometimes people deserve more, sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.
I apologize for the language. I only cursed once in my life up until yesterday. Is that my 'true identity' emerging? If so, it's hardly beneficial. Nor is it a testimony to anything good coming from apostasy. Even if the facts are the facts, good works did not result from it all. Only bad works, works of the flesh.
My wife eventually came back to the car, apparently only willing to ride home with me (5 minutes' drive away from the KH) if I agreed to stop saying negative things about 'the organization'. I agreed. She got the baby and joined me in the car. After waiting for the parking lot to clear, I put the pedal to the metal and sped out of the lot as fast as the vehicle would respond, just to take out the anger. She freaked out, but the fact is, I was watching the speedometer--I let up on the gas as soon as I reached 35 mph, which was the speed limit. She claimed I was endangering her and the baby, when I just made a left turn, went maybe a couple hundred feet at 35 mph, with no one in front of or behind us on the road. I did accelerate too quickly for her comfort, and that was wrong. But I didn't break any laws in doing so, nor would I ever endanger the wife and daughter I've come to love, no matter how pissed off I was.
I was starting to feel pretty suicidal by the time we got home anyway. My first act after we got home was to bag up all of the books I'd acquired during the last year of research--thought reform, mind control, Gentile Times Reconsidered, books the Society quoted from, etc. I bagged them up and put them in the trunk of my car. I've not decided yet whether I'm going to simply throw them in the garbage or give them to a thrift store. I deleted all computer files relating to my research--which consisted almost entirely of Watchtower publications (ironically)--early 1900s Watchtowers and Awakes, The Finished Mystery, The Harp of God, Millions Now Living...the works. Last but not least, Crisis of Conscience and In Search of Christian Freedom. Later on, I started hitting myself in the face with my own fists, not in front of the baby, of course, but my wife grabbed my hand and told me to stop. I apologized for involving her in this mess that I created by researching this stuff in the first place.
She considered (we could almost say threatened) going back home to her mom until I sorted out my emotions, what with not wanting her daughter to see me upset about all of this. I can't blame her.
I didn't stand up for what I believed in. I didn't blast the elders with any information. I didn't think they would care anyway. If anything, I just made my wife even more loyal to the organization. I came out as the villain, the one wanting to conceal wrongdoing. The liar and the hypocrite. And I did lie to them.
I did speak one hint of reality, when the elders asked if I believed the faithful slave was wrong about something (which is a strange question to be asking, given that we're not really a cult and all that). "If that were true, I wouldn't have the luxury of admitting it," I replied. They left that response alone. Not like they could deny it. They proceeded to show me Galatians 5:19-22--"divisions" being one of the "works of the flesh", of course. They mentioned general vague statements about apostates twisting the truth, about knowing someone who disassociated himself. Nothing surprising, nothing I've not seen in a Watchtower or ten. They seemed like such nice gentlemen. I figured it wouldn't be proper to pick a fight with them on these matters.
They genuinely believe they're not policemen. That they're looking out for the flock. I let them continue believing it. I let my wife continue believing as she wants to believe. A judicial hearing will begin soon. They told us, which in my mind is usually that big red 'You're going to be disfellowshipped' sign, to continue coming to the meetings and associating with the friends, not to get discouraged, etc. It's a nice way of saying 'your days are numbered, say goodbye to all your friends now 'cause you won't be speaking to them again for at least a year, if not more, you sinful pieces of sh**.'
So...it's done. I fought the cult, and the cult won. As I anticipated, my wife will most certainly leave me if I make any further issues about the organization. Negative thoughts are not to be tolerated. True or not, verifiable by the Watchtower's own words or not, negative thoughts are pointless. Look what they've done to us anyway. Hell, I'd rather die by not taking blood. It'd be a f***ing blessing from Jehovah to die on behalf of his name.
And you know what? I'm 95% inclined to believe that there is no God. That maybe there's nothing out there that gives a damn about us. Because no god of love would stand by and let this type of sh** happen to people. And sure as f*** no way that Jesus would become king in 1914 and sit on his a** and do nothing for 96 years. He was a man of action. Of righteous idealism. A symbol of what good people are supposed to be about. So if they're out there, there must be some other plan for humans that ain't nobody heard of yet.
I wasn't strong enough to save my wife or myself. Perhaps in my arrogance, I actually believed it was possible. If so, I was a f***ing fool. There is no such thing as 'Christian freedom'. It's just another delusion cooked up by people whose hands are just as dirty as mine, dirtier.
Fact is, universe seems pretty damn quiet. Maybe the story went something like this in the real Genesis. In the beginning, man showed the f*** up. Man created God, and then God created man. See, man didn't know what the f*** was going on or why the f*** he got here. So he had to make up some f***ed up reasons for it and some f***ed up rules about how to live and then claim some invisible guy in the sky was involved. So they could justify murdering people for picking up wood on one random day of the week, or killing a man's whole family 'cause he picked up some gold and a T-shirt from a city where they just finished slaughtering all the men, woman and children ANYWAY. Maybe that's how it really went down.
...
Listen, here's the deal. You and me, we're done. I might keep an eye out just to see some replies to this post, but that's it. In the absence of better ideas, here's my plan for all the books I got. I'm going to make a list here, and if you know somebody who knows somebody who wants a free copy of these bad boys, I can send 'em to you at cost to myself. Here's what I've got:
Combatting Cult Mind Control
Removing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves
Classic Christianity
You Can Heal Your Life (probably another cult book in itself, not recommended)
The Gentile Times Reconsidered
The Psychology of Thought Reform: A Study of Brainwashing in Communist China (forget the title, it's the original book on mind control by Robert Jay Lifton)
A Beginning & Intermediate Greek New Testament Grammar--James Allen Hewett
Truth in Translation--Jason David BeDuhn
I think that's it. You want 'em, PM me an address to send 'em to. Otherwise, I'm dumping 'em at the nearest thrift store or in the g**d*** trash can. They've caused me enough f***ing trouble in my life.
I hate the research I did just as much as I hate Jehovah's Witnesses. None of this is worth the pain it causes. Both sides can go straight to hell as far as I'm concerned. On the plus side, at least that's something can't none of us avoid.
I'll understand if I get idiotic responses, and I'm not in the mood for them. But it doesn't matter now. If it weren't for being married, or having debts to pay, I'd have committed suicide by now. It's long overdue. It should've been done 12 years ago, before all of this sh** went down. I could've saved myself a lot of f***ing trouble.
I'm sorry if you bothered to read this sh**. It's not worth your time. I don't mean to offend anyone in particular. I'm just messed up right now, and forever. If I could've kept it zipped, maybe I'd be living the free life like some of y'all are doing. Instead, I'm here.
On the plus side, least my blood tests all came back okay, except cholesterol's high, blood sugar's high, and vitamin D's low. Fornication doesn't always immediately result in HIV and death, but it could. Maybe my last psycho girlfriend will show up one day and blow my brains out for dumping her because she kept asking for large sums of money all the time. She'd be doing me a favor. Whatever the case, finding out all this crap led me to making all the worst mistakes I've ever made. It wasn't worth it, not one damn bit.
So...warp core is blowing the frak up, and the Borg cubes will just modulate their shield frequency again to adapt. Assimilation begins now and resistance, of course, is futile. Captain's log, calendar date 1.29.10.
SD-7
P.S. I'm just going to dump those apostate books. Why put anyone else through what I went through? Don't ask for them. Within 12 hours they will be in the f***ing garbage where they belong.