So, I am getting ready to move across the state. We bought a home there, and have taken a couple of loads over, with the main move being this next week. I went over this last week cause I wanted to paint the kitchen and dining room before we moved in (a lot easier to do without Grandkids and dogs under foot).
Anyway... Here I am painting away when there is a knock on the door. I opened it up, not knowing who to expect to be there. Wearing dresses and packing book bags I realized right away who it was! As she started spouting about encouraging Bible reading or something, I thought back to the thread I had just read about all those great one line comebacks. My mind went totally blank! I couldn't think of any of them!! What did my paint fume filled up mind, put on the spot, come up with to say?
I said you're JW's aren't you? She admitted they were. I said I was I very familiar with what they had to teach and no thank you. She asked what it was I was at odds with. (everything!!) But then I spouted how I knew they had taken worship of God and Jesus out of the equation and replaced it with worship to a publishing company.
Of course she denied that! So I asked her that if I told her I was Jesus in the flesh, would she believe me? She said no- that his return to earth would be an invisible return-not a fleshy one. So I asked if her magazine were to publish that Jesus had returned and was living as a 50 something woman at this address, would she then believe it to be true? She just stared at me for a minute (probably only seconds), and I jumped back in. I said well, if you say Yes-that you would then believe it- then that proves to me that you worship the men running the publishing company, not God. If you say No, that you wouldn't believe it, even if your magazine printed it, then you have just gone against the teachings of your religion and you would be disfellowshipped or kicked out from your religion for having a view other than theirs!
At that point, the older woman exclaimed She's an apostate! Let's go! They hastily retreated from my doorway.
I'm not even moved in all the way, and have already been 'marked' as an apostate! I guess you can attack them- but don't say anything about their beloved magazine company and the men who run it! Must have been a dead give away? Or maybe the use of the word disfellowshipped? Oh well, if I have the pleasure of going another 20 years without talking to another one, I'm fine with that!