A JW knocked on my door this morning and she was with her young teenage son, who was dressed in tie, suit and shiny leather shoes. She has been in the religion for 18 years. We had a looong conversation and discussed many issues (briefly). It was really hard to get a word in as she was a good talker.
She started out with her bible and read a scripture then went to a booklet, which was underlined and plenty of notes written in, then back and forth between both. She was very confident and so I let her go on for about 20 minutes. Then I started to explain how I knew what she was talking about and then the conversation was more specific.
I told her that even though I had grown up as a JW and left, I had now been looking closer at the teachings. I said I was very dissapointed about the idea that the JWs were teaching that Jesus was not the mediator for the great crowd. She was very surprised and asked where I got that idea from because it simply wasn't true. I mentioned I had been doing a lot of research on the JW CD Rom. She asked how I obtained that as it was only available for JWs and otherwise illegal to obtain. I mentioned that my sisters were still in the religion. Anyway, as she was the one doing most of the talking she read out 1 Tim 2:5.6 which says how Jesus died for us all. Naturally I said that is how I personally fell about it but the JWs do not. She basically gave me a guarantee that this was absolutely not the case and that is why they even pray through Jesus. She said how she had been a witness for many years and she was now standing in front of me and swearing that Jesus was her mediator, as he was for all mankind. I mentioned how I had another guy who drops off the magazines to me and he came with whom I assumed was an elder once and he confirmed that this was definately the case - Jesus is mediator for the 144,000. She was taken aback but you could basically tell that there must have been some truth in what I was telling her. She said she would have to do some research on it.
We seemed to go from one topic to another - as I said she was a great talker and seemed to go off in every direction, so I only brought up things when I saw the opportunity. I did express my disappointment in the GB and she went on about the F&DS so we had an interesting conversation there. I mentioned about the number of times Armageddon had been predicted, of course she explained 1975 as being interpretations of some JWs only and it was a weeding out time. I expressed my disappointment at the GB not having cleared up the problem (that they created) until after 1975. She said there was only one other time they had stated a year and that was 1914 - she knew this because they were so open about it in the proclaimers book and this only indicated that they knew that year was special anyway. I said that there were several other years before and after that time that were predicted and they could be found in earlier publications that were no longer available and that the proclaimers book had left out much of the early history. I could tell she didn't believe me. I mentioned that this was from the organisation that was supposedly appointed in 1914 but still setting dates and teaching much that is unrecognizable today.
Naturally at one point she said that even though I had a bad experience with the JWs many years ago she thought I was just looking for things to criticize. I explained I was only looking for the correct viewpoints on matters and if I was to trust the GB once again I had to believe what they were telling.
I also mentioned how it was disappointing that the Society had become a member of the UN, even if it was only the public information section for the purpose of research and they resigned immediately only when it had become public. Here again she didn't believe me and said she would have to ask another elder about it. I explained what she would be told but the fact that they did this in the first place was not good.
She started explaining how only JWs did the door to door work and she got really defensive when I discussed issues about that. She told me how effective it was and I explained how she was using the wrong word to describe it.
Anway, when she left she said 'I hope we meet again' and she said she might possibly call again if she found something interesting from her research that she wanted to share.