Hi all again...I had said that I would post a little more about myself, not too much, I hate to be long-winded and boring, but I also like to keep my word, so here goes.
There were always 3 nagging doubts that I had in the back of my mind: one was how come we as Witnesses commemorate the death of Christ if he specifically states "do this until I return", yet the WTS stated that he returned invisibly in 1914? (Im sorry I dont have any kind of bible handy to quote this scripture word for word, Im just going on memory) Of course I now know that the "official" position on 1914 has somewhat changed, but when I was a dub, it was all the rage, in addition to the whole "generation" teachings. Some witnesses in my congregation actually braced themselves for 1994, anticipating something. Nothing happened. Going back to my first doubt, I asked at least 2 elders and 3 MS in the congregation and got a total of 4 different responses and one very honest "I don't know" by an elder, which I thought was actually a great answer. As you all get to know me better, you will find out that I hate arrogance (WTS is full of that) and that I have a very low tolerance for bullshit (WTS has a lot of that too).
Doubt #2 had to do with a female witness, middle-aged, who claimed to be of the Annointed class. I thought that the collection of the annointed was completed in 1935? This person was not even being thought of in 1935, so how did she know she was annointed? I got some lukewarm response from my mom about how some annointed lose their seats in heaven for acting incorrectly, sinning, etc. I thought that was stupid. Furthermore, I thought, and probably still think, that everyone, Witness or not, should go to heaven after he/she dies. IMO it's only fair. Some people's lives suck so bad in the here and now, why wouldn't there be an afterlife so they can a least enjoy themselves in the hereafter? Just my 2c on that.
Doubt #3 had a lot to do with the nature of God and the idea of a destruction/Armageddon/1000 year rule/whatever. As I mentioned before, my father and 95% of my relatives are not Witnesses. Why should they die? What did they do wrong? They wont subscribe to the Watchtower and Awake, so they are worthy of death? That did not make sense to me. What made less sense was the concept of the 1000 year period of resurrection and paradise-like conditions, where at the end of these 1000 years, we would all be judged again, and some scripture in Revelation states how "many would fall..like grains of sand" (again paraphrasing). Why? Isn't surviving Armageddon enough? If many are expected to fail that final test, then what's the point?
Above all things this was the thing that disturbed me the most, but it was something I also feared the most. I knew from a very very young age, probably 4 or 5 that I hated the "dingdum hall" as I called it then with all my might, but what if I was wrong and God inflicted all his rage against me? I had nightmares as a kid, where I would see God's face and I would see the anger and disgust in his face as I stood before him (he looked a lot like an elder that at that time I was really scared of).
Over and over again, none of these things made sense to me. But I couldn't do anything about it. I just went through the motions, going to the meetings, field service, assemblies, on and on. When I was about 15-16 I butt heads with my father a lot because I think that he saw that I was "not doing anything with my life" as he put it, meaning that I had no future goals, no ambitions, I got just so-so grades at school with no plans for anything after HS but probably get married to some other JW fanatic and continue in "this lunacy." Even though I am out, it's kind of hard to undo all those years of mental conditioning; I have to coach myself through a lot of simple things that others would probably take for granted. So I guess in a way my father always gave me some clues, some nudges towards finding myself and defining myself outside of WTS crazy half-wit norms. It amazes me, all that from a man with a 3rd grade education.
More to come some other time, maybe
What the head makes cloudy the heart makes very clear.