All ex-JWs everywhere share some similar traits, regardless of the immense diversity of cultures, races, nationalities, and social levels that exist among us.
Although at one point we called it and believed it to be The Truth™, the inescapable reality is that we’ve learned that virtually every single one of the “teachings unique to the Religion of the Jehovah's Witnesses” is categorically untrue, mostly untrue, or at the very least not fully supportable by known facts. Because of this, we eventually realize that these “truths” are unworthy of our confidence and so we’ve discarded them.
Another likeness we share, closely related to the first, is the common knowledge that within the confines of the Watchtower Society, real, verifiable truth is not what matters if an individual wants to fit in or, especially in the case of males, Make Progress™. No, what matters is whether one is willing to support the official party line and espouse it to still others. One’s sincerity in believing the hogwash is often not an issue. One’s behavior always is. Such duplicity came to have a loathsome taste in our mouths, and like others in the recent and distant past, we came to regard a clear conscience of far greater worth than the approval of men.
It was then that we became living ironies. Despite the detestable labels the Organization eagerly placed on us, our leaving came as a direct result of our sincere love of the very thing the Watchtower Society falsely claims to be the sole proprietor of – truth. And we have shown our resolve by being willing to suffer all sorts of slurs and insults in varying degrees in order to maintain our distance from a theology of untruth. Truth, then, ultimately became a divider of people – of us from them, part of them being life-long friends (who we thought would be our friends forever) and close blood relatives.
Now, don’t think for one second that our experience in living through this divisive byproduct of Truth is at all unique. No, no, no! Fact is, the role of truth as a Great Divider is a fairly common occurrence, far from the exclusive experience that many ex-Jehovah's Witnesses in these 20th and 21st centuries might think it is. Throughout human history, once finding (or stumbling upon) genuine truth, peoples of all description have been moved to distance themselves in various ways – sometimes physically – from those formerly of like mind. And this has been true not just in the field of religion.
Those raised to hate others of a different race or culture eventually learns that good and bad people exist in all races and cultures and that no race is pure, not even their own; those of a certain political inclination discovers that there are no perfect political parties; patriots learn that their country’s leaders are less than virtuous; employees working for a company that claims itself as protective of the environment may find that The Company’s actions don’t harmonize with its mission statement; gang members learn that gang life has no real purpose—or future. At times like these and many others, truth becomes a powerful divider of former allies.
The reason is that truth is usually inconsiderate and often ugly – inconsiderate because it is not prone (as we are) to make distinctions in people or circumstances, ugly because like a terribly accurate looking glass, it forces us to recognize our own imperfection. In the case of people like those mentioned in the previous paragraph, it forces us to acknowledge wasted time, wasted resources, wasted effort – valuable commodities which can ever be replaced – as well as wrongs we may have committed for once believing an untruth. Truth also points to our tendency to be gullible and not always think things through. By our own admission, we have been tricked once, so it may happen to us again. And again.
Making such admissions, facing real truth, is often painful, so painful that we may attempt to hide from it, conceal it, distort it, kill it. Ridiculing, trying to discredit the bringers of it, is a common ploy of those who hope to escape it. But bona fide truth is relentless. Like an immortal and fearsome titan, it lives on. If we are lucky – or better yet, wise – sooner rather than later we stand up as mature people and face the truth, accept it, embrace it, then love it.
Of course, when we do all that, it’s often a matter of time before we are divided from still others – others who may not share our regard for truth. At the same time, we seem to find still others who share our side of the Great Divide of Truth.
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Next time, I will expound on the somewhat vague and amorphous concept of truth itself – its tendency to alter its appearance relative to where we are as individuals in the cosmic stream. Like a shape-shifting character in a science fiction movie, truth is sometimes hard to identify.
Till then... toodles.