So I wrote an email to my brother to tell him that I love him and that it's sad that a religion has come between us. This is the reply I got:
stupid and ignorant. You have no idea what i have been thru in my life. I was living a worldly life and i saw the shallowness of it all so i made my decision based on lots of study to return to the truth. MY DECISION. Things have never been clearer. Don't send me anymore messages.
Which is just such a nice email to get, don't you think? :-(
So of course I want to reply. Something like this?
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Living a "worldly" life? Oh, I guess you must mean drugs and alcohol and sleeping around. Yes, of course, because if you're not a Jehovah's Witness, you must automatically be living an evil and self-centered life. Give me a break. And don't talk to me about study. I researched the Jehovah's Witness religion using only witness literature - did that for two years before I realised I had sadly been following something that was incorrect for my whole life. I had no choice but to leave my friends and family. I'll never live a hypocritical life, and if my family cut me off because some men in New York tell them they have to, then I can't do a damn thing about that.
No-one should be made to pay the price of their family in exchange for truth and freedom, but if that's the choice I need to make, I would make it a hundred times over again. How extremely awful of you to talk to me like you did in that email simply because I don't believe what you believe. If you want my heart, I may as well cut it out and hand it over on a plate. But you do not own my heart, it is alive and well and beating better than it ever did.
PS What's the latest change on 1914? Surely they're going to drop that once it hits 100 years on? Bit embarrassing, that's for sure.
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Okay so maybe I'll drop the PS.. :-)
Not sure if I'm on the right track with this email - it's hard to see things through that cognitive dissonance mentality, and I would sooner try to appeal than dig in points that really will fall on deaf ears.
Thoughts?
x