I never would have suuspect this board would do so much for me. When I registered I had been out of the WTS for about 15 years. The first 10 years I remained a true believer. Then I got on the internet and started reading. I was floored. I could not believe what I was reading. Like many of you I didn't want to believe it. For over 30 years this business company had controlled so much of my life and almost sent me to the edge of suicide.
I looked for proof the things I read on the internet were wrong. When I couldn't deny the evidence that was so well researched I started looking for answers to the "Why do they do it?" I was angy that it came down to money. There were 2 crucial things that helped me realize that money was at the bottom of it all.
The Mexico/Malawi double standard was the first. While we were being told to write letters to everyone about the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Malawi the Witnesses in Mexico were not calling themselves a religion because the government required ownership of all religious property. So Witnesses there bribed officials to get cards saying they had served their mandatory time in the army. They did not pray at meetings or sing songs. They didn't even carry Bibles with them in the ministry.
So while Witnesses in one country were being beaten, raped and killed in one country because they belonged to a religion, across the ocean they were denying they were a religion so that they could maintain their Kingdom Halls and call them a cultural organization.
I looked for proof the things I read on the internet were wrong. When I couldn't deny the evidence that was so well researched I started looking for answers to the "Why do they do it?" I was angy that it came down to money. There were 2 crucial things that helped me realize that money was at the bottom of it all.
The Mexico/Malawi double standard was the first. While we were being told to write letters to everyone about the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Malawi the Witnesses in Mexico were not calling themselves a religion because the government required ownership of all religious property. So Witnesses there bribed officials to get cards saying they had served their mandatory time in the army. They did not pray at meetings or sing songs. They didn't even carry Bibles with them in the ministry.
So while Witnesses in one country were bing beaten, raped and killed in one country because they belonged to a religion, across the ocean they were denying they were a religion so that they could maintain their Kingdom Halls and call them a cultural organization.
The second thing I learned was that the Watchtower Society was applying for funding from theHolocaust Victim Assets Litigation for money that was supposed to go to surviving victims of the Holocaust that had been placed into camps during the Second World War. (see: http://www.nyed.uscourts.gov/pub/rulings/cv/1996/671622.pdf page A-30) They weren’t even planning to give the money to the survivors. They wanted the money so they could yet again proclaim how persecuted they were. My problem here was that the Watchtower Society wasn’t the one who suffered. It was the victims and they should have gotten the money.
That was the end for me. Shortly after that the scandals regarding the protection of child sexual abusers over the need to protect children exploded on the internet and in the media. I needed no more proof how unethical and immoral this business company was. It was websites like www.freeminds.org and the old Watchtower Observer site and this one that helped me immensely in my search for freedom.
Finally I was really free.
So thanks to those of you who came before and did so much work to help set others free.