The Triumph of Failure

Terry

Experience in life teaches us ambiguity is a larger truth.

Good and bad things happen to us; often, at the same time.

Admirable people are flawed. Flawed people are admirable.
Good and evil are inextricably intermixed in human affairs; success may involve failure of a different kind, and failure may be a kind of triumph.

I failed to be the perfect Jehovah's Witness. In that I triumphed.
I almost succeeded in seeing life as strictly Us vs Them. But, not entirely.
I came close to viewing everyone and everything as Either/Or; black/white.

My chief conceit was stunning. I took pride in my humility! While perfectly capable of thinking for myself I bowed to the dictates of a faceless hierarchy claiming divine authority.
Yet, so cunning was this Authority claim--being the mouthpiece of God--my leaders could simultaneously claim to be only human and fallible. Especially when they persisted in being wrong time after time!

Here is the beauty of their ambiguity: being wrong reinforced their claims of humanity!

A claim of courage and eagerness replaced the virtue of accuracy and veracity. They were dynamic and courageous in being willing to put their reputation on the line in risking being seen as frauds, charlatans, dunderheads directing others to believe and act on puffery.

Watchtower leadership was deeply cynical. A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.
Watchtower theology is always prematurely disappointed with man's future while elevating their own to mythical status. A status of Moral Superiorty is heady stuff.
I caught a whiff of it and was, at once, intoxicated. Absolute Certainty is the next best thing to actually knowing something and standing up for it, you see.
But, as I said: I failed to be the perfect Jehovah's Witness.

In the New World Society you live in Hope without proof, happiness as a direction rather than a place and pride in your humilty at being in possession of perfect knowledge from imperfect men courageous at speaking FOR God and getting it wrong.

I must confess: I am glad that I failed. This failure is my triumph.

talesin

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.

Awesome definition.

thetrueone

I must confess: I am glad that I failed. This failure is my triumph.

Sounds to me like your own inherent personal integrity overwhelmed the corruption of this religious publishing Corporation.

Your experience Terry made humanity win.

moshe

Terry,

You are morally superior to JWs as you saw the error and lies of the WT Org and you finally refused to bow down to liars anymore. JWs just keep taking it up the keester- and the WT leadership is getting bolder in the demands they put on JWs in order for them to prove their loyalty to God's true earthly organization- them!

Kudra

Terry,

usually I cant/don't want to make it through your posts... but this resonates with me.

I struggle against black and white thinking. It comes naturally to me and was reinforced as a JW.

Your thoughts here (especially in your first 3 or 4 paragraphs) are refreshing.

Kudra

factfinder

Very good post Terry.

I also still struggle with all or nothing/ black or white thinking.

Terry

The strong pull.....the selling point...of JW logic is that EITHER/OR component.

It is the spearpoint.

Why is it powerful? I think I now know.

If you look at nonWestern philosophy and religion the first thing to strike your Western mind is how embracing BOTH has replacedeither/or.

The East did not receive Aristotle through the conquests of Alexander the Great. He stopped on the outskirts of the Orient and died.

Aristotle's mammoth contribution to human thought was THE LAW OF THE EXCLUDED MIDDLE. This was the birth of LOGIC. Logic made science possible.

Namely, something cannot be TRUE and UNTRUE at the same time.

This sounds pretty obvious to us today. But, we have a legacy of western logic because of Aristotle and it has penetrated everything we've ever heard.

When the Western mind searches for TRUTH is has learned to scrape away the UNtrue. What remains from the sifting, the experimenting, the exploration is TRUE in a binary way.

In the East, by embracing BOTH rather than either/or....Science was delayed for a thousand years. The West triumphed in science and technology and the orient has struggled to catch up ever since.

Back to the Watchtower and Jehovah's Witnesses....

The strong and magnetic pull of the Jehovah's Witness truth is that it is presented AS A BINARY SCIENCE!

It isn't presented as FAITH.

Stop and consider that for a moment.

Faith is mentioned, described, defined but it is not the THRUST of JW teaching.

JW theology is EITHER/Or....there isn't any OPINION; there is no "sort of".

JW's don't debate JW's. There are no votes on beliefs. You cannot accept this and reject that and be a real JW.

The black and white of it is A BEAUTIFUL ENTICEMENT to the human mind to let go of doubt, skepticism and autonomy.

You see what I'm saying?

The non-existence of "chatter", "argument", "debate", "opinion", POV is what triggers ACCEPTANCE and makes it safe to invest ABSOLUTE certainty.

You can let your guard down. Relax. Listen and perform. Listen and perform. Listen and perform. OBEY. OBEY. OBEY.

Jehovah's Witnesses seem to not know that religion, belief, doctrine aren't ACTUALLY EXISTING THINGS, but, are mental constructs of opinion.

Yet, JW's proceed to teach this human opinion as though it was DATA.

This is what hooked me. It sold me. I grabbed it and ran with it.

Humanity lives in uncertainty. Life or Death is binary.

The easy mistake is to reach for a binary solution which DOES NOT EXIST in reality because it is a product of imaginary speculation.

I know know that.

JW's don't.

trailerfitter

Beware the wolf in sheeps clothing. The WT might appear to be humble and almost admitting mistakes but leave it another generation or 2....what date will they be preaching to be the end of the world again?

trailerfitter

Beware the wolf in sheeps clothing. The WT might appear to be humble and almost admitting mistakes but leave it another generation or 2....what date will they be preaching to be the end of the world again?

factfinder

Terry- another great post! Thanks!

Yes -it was that jws seemed to have all the answers to my questions from the Bible that hooked me. Everything was the absolute truth. So I trusted them- as you said- no uncertainty-what they taught was fact. And I did not think of it as a "religion". It was an organization (yes, God's) that taught the truth. Anything opposing wt teaching was false, just that simple.

Now we know, as you posted here, it is really all just ideas and opinions made up an imagened by the human mind.

The Triumph of Failure

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