by Chemical Emotions 61 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
There's a pretty long list but...
I was just remembering way back as a kid hearing an experience from a bethelite in our congregation. He told me at morning worship one of the GB answered the question How could Jehovah kill little children at Armageddon? His answer was "Little rats grow up to be big rats."
That statement disturbed me my entire life.
Racism was something I recently started to have problems with but I always chalked it up to some 'locals' and never noticed this was a widespread issue in other congregations as well. In a mixed congregation it seems like the members of the race with the most elders have it much easier than the members of other races to 'attain privileges'.
When I started an interracial relationship it has become even harder and I was being talked about, again by the predominant race of the congregation. When I mentioned that I perceived a problem in the congregation to one of my close friends who was of the other race he felt personally offended and started ignoring me.
There are so many problems in any congregation. In most congregations I attended the elder bodies are entirely populated by intermarried families. At first you wouldn't notice but when you start building relationships you find out this elders' wife is the daughter of this elder or this elder is the brother of this servant and this elder has his nephew fast-tracked even though there are plenty others in line that would be much better suited.
On the other hand, so many people are under qualified to do their jobs as servants or elders. Servants should require a minimum of math and basic reading skills but so many just wing it and 'with Jehovah's spirit' do a half-assed job. One of our elders has a very hard time reading and it's a pain to see him do any of those reading assignments, not because he's dyslexic but simply because he never got the schooling necessary to learn how to read properly.
I know I commented earlier, but in a simple sentence...
Being forced by the threat of banishment and shunning to pretend to believe something I knew to be false.
SIAM
I could not believe God was not love, even as a young child. As I grew older, my classmates and outside influences, such as the Beatles and reading history, made me despise the Witnesses. My father was very abusive. He dragged me against my will to the KH, pinching me and kicking me in full view. When he saw I loved the Beatles, he confiscated all my teenage music and Beatles posters,articles, etc. I was told I had to stop being a candy striper. He was trying to pull me out of high school and I was facing a court order to a foster home when he died from heart disease. I went to the KH one more time with my mom and siblings. I was sixteen. When she told me to get ready, I screamed at her that I would never go again and that she wanted to personally kick me, she was welcome. The rest of the family went one more time. No one ever went again.
Reading other's posts, I now realize I had it good in many ways. My mom's family was multigenerational to Russell. She was never disrespectful but cautioned us to not get baptized until our mid thirties, not be afraid of Armageddon b/c the Society announced a date years before, family and friends went to a mountain, after giving up all their assets, and had to walk down the mountain. She shared "hot" "Juicy" Bethel gossip. I accidently found this trove of old WTs and Russell literature. The occult stuff scared me out of my wits. She said times were different. When she was a girl, Bethel had a Christmas tree. Everyone celebrated Christmas. When she was a tween, the convention speaker suggested giving Society lit as good Christmas gifts.
My father's actions meant he had to be aligned with Satan, not Jesus. Where my mom's shared tidbits of wisdom showed me the WT I presently endured was not writ in stone. The entire extended family shared Bethel gossip. It was funny. My aunt's husband, a Bethelite, thought gossip was wrong and that exchanging info of old friends one saw at a different assembly was gossip. So my aunt, so submissive, and my mom made appointments to meet where my uncle could not know. They could go on for hours. Nothing was so outrageous but I knew humans, not God, were involved, no matter what the WT reported. B/c they were in from the ground floor, the extended family thought they had certain rights that run of the mill Witnesses did not have. Bethel was telephoned if there were every a KH problem. Viewing it as an adult, I don't think we had special rights. The illusion made me see flawed humans, though.
1) wasn't the truth
2) they were pharisees
3) I had other stuff to do
I left because I learned that it is NOT the "Truth" from Gods word, any religious group that treats their members who have shown some transgression in an unloving way, while at the same time telling them and the other members it is loving, is not practicing the personality of god.
The innate necessity to BE HAPPY!
Chemical Emotions - As an Elder I got "see behind the curtain". Very disturbing.
I felt a bit guilty when I left, because I wasn't sure if it was the truth or not, but I was bored to tears at the meetings and none of it seemed to make sense; though I didn't know why it didn't make sense- it just didn't! That was 1988- The Dark Ages! (At least before the internet!)
The UN involvement got the ball rolling for me, once I saw the documents and how they'd tried to cover it up and lie about it, they lost credibility with me. I googled jw's and went to freemings, and here in jwn. The rest is history.
