by jam 12 Replies latest jw experiences
Thanks for all your input, Band on the run, good you
are pain free.
But in seriousness, Iam still having A hard time in believing
the Bible and God, life would be A lot simpler if I did, (all
my family are JW,s or believers). I ask the question in
the hope that those of you who are Christians can logically
answer it. Maybe you view God in all his deeds as love,
bad and good. But now not under the mind control of
the JW cult, I can not see A loving God.
by Randall Watters
link: http://www.freeminds.org/blogs/from-the-desk-of-randy/why-my-dad-was-better-than-jehovah.html
I can remember when the personality of “Jehovah” was first introduced to me. The day I found the “Truth” book (The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life, Watchtower, 1968) in my parent’s dining room drawer, my introduction to this “god” began.
First came the exuberance of joy that life DID have a meaning and purpose, and it was pretty simple to understand! There was this god Jehovah who was really the Jewish god Yahweh or something, and he had a universal problem on his hands. One of his subordinates got out of hand, known as Lucifer – who was then renamed Satan and called a devil – and he made Jehovah look bad, or at least Jehovah worried a lot that it did. So he needed some bold people who could work hard and suffer a lot of pain and abstinence to prove to this devil guy that Jehovah was still almighty, like King Kong or something.
The dilemma was, that once you read the Watchtower book, you had to pick sides. You either sided with this Jehovah, or you were lumped in with the devil. The reason: now that the devil knows that you know that he exists, and are kind of leery of this whole thing, he will do everything in his power to lure you away from that “mean old Jehovah.”
Thus began an imaginary world of demons and enemies and future catastrophies and great castles in the sky to come… IF I play along.
My common sense wrestled with this new dilemma for weeks. All sorts of tests were made up to see if Jehovah was really there. (Actually it was more exciting to figure out if the devil was there, because I loved horror movies). But you can’t really expect much help from a devil (duh!) so I focused on proving to myself that this Jehovah was real, and he somehow had this “Truth” book written and sprang it on me at an opportune time. (In the 60s, legitimate worries over being torched by nuclear bombs from Cuba drove me to find answers.)
If you choose to live in an imaginary world, or you really actually BELIEVE you are inside one, confirmation can be a bummer. I had been talking to Jesus for years; only NOW to find out he might be a smaller part of a bigger overall plan! I had never feared him, but this possibility of a BIGGER invisible character that all of a sudden put all these requirements on me that were quite weird and uncomfortable, and that Jesus would stand back and only communicate with a few old men, was disturbing (and a bit exciting, as I liked supernatural worlds).
Life was somewhat boring anyway, so why not?
I just wanted confirmation… ANYTHING… that this Jehovah was there (NOT the devil, please). I set up scenarios in my head where I would say, “Okay, if this is true (Watchtower supernatural world), then let me see a sign.” There were the usual, “Okay, Jehovah, if you’re there, show me by that star up there moving to the right,” or “Make the neighbors’ peacocks stop shrieking.” (At 5 AM, mind you.)
The final time I tried this confirmation business, the devil moved in to trick me. THIS was proof that the devil existed, and therefore Jehovah was right by proxy!
I was in the den, sitting in my dad’s sofa looking at a TV that was turned off, and Priz our cat appeared in the doorway, looking at me in her typical flat, expressionless face that always made me think she was smarter than I was (especially since her tail would indicate that – you have to understand cat movements). Priz did not particularly like me; at least she never cuddled up to me. And she WAS black. (Not to mention the evil practice of bringing live baby cottontails home to torture them before letting them go.)
So… okay miss devil cat. (…and here was the hard part that would be solid proof of… something supernatural!… figuring only God Himself could get her to do this stunt)… “If this book (Truth book in my lap) is true, then let that cat jump into my lap.
Only it didn’t quite happen that simply. It WAS supernatural, because, in the few milliseconds of inventing my test, Priz jumped into my lap before I could finish my thought!
Scared to death, I leaped out of the chair and decided not to test Jehovah. From what I had read in the Bible, he didn’t like that anyway, making sure your test would NOT come true if you had the affrontery to attempt it.
Just to test you, of course.
The trick was, as all kids know (at least of the devil, if not God), is that both God and the devil will mess with your head and never give you what you want them to do. You just had to believe and fear them.
OK well I had never feared Jesus, being raised a normal Baptist, but this Jehovah was kind of demanding and not very friendly. I vowed I would never stand ashamed before him and for 8 years forward I never did. For the next 8 years I did/did not:
And so forth, you get the point. The geeky Witness you love to hate for being a goody two-shoes. But Jehovah never said squat to me. Bad manners, if you ask me!
At Bethel I learned that Jehovah was apparently a supernatural collage of the minds of several key old men, notably Nathan Knorr, Freddy Franz, Richard Wheelock, Calvin Chyke and a handful of other curmudgeonly guys that ran the place. For the first three years I tried to be just like them, so Jehovah would notice me and at least talk to me! (I mean, what does it take, for God’s sake?)
So I gained their favor and became an elder and floor overseer and all that. Jehovah must have been happy with me because I never got chewed out, as others did.
I did my supernatural world right!
But then in 1979-1980 Jehovah spoke through Nathan Knorr, Fred Franz, Albert Schroeder, Karl Klein and others who represented him and revealed himself for what he was: a mean, bigoted god of a few people, who wants to commit genocide on all others who do not stand up for his pride when the devil embarrassed him. He wants us to be mean to those who can’t live up to all his requirements: going door-to-door, shun the weak, and practice abstinence from sex or having kids or going to college and making any money. This Jehovah/composite character was nothing more than the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz; nervously shaking and trying to keep things together in his fake supernatural world. He was mean, he was a coward, rude and nasty, and a prude.
Bethel was a repository for bad dads, especially from Rutherford forward. Mean bastards, drunks, arrogant megalomaniacs, and cold, heartless father-types. Frankly, it was a kid’s nightmare! So this supernatural, composite, angry, petty composite Jehovah was a nightmare, too. Outta here!
My dad was not that way, he was much better than “Jehovah”.
If my dad was a supernatural god, it would go like this:
… and so on.
My dad was a WAY much better dad than that cranky old Watchtower Jehovah.
Too bad so many people think he’s real. Sick!
If you’re going to believe in someone supernatural, believe in Jesus; he’s a lot more fun and will take the time to hang with you.
Revelation 19:14,15; yeah real fun......
