by John Aquila 76 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
maybe theres something in it and Jesus will come back, maybe he won't, either way waking up is making me realise
1. Better earn more cash and start saving
2. Better enjoy life now
saw some jws at the weekend, when you ask 'how are you?' it was all 'were scraping by, were struggling through'....what a way to live!
Tornintwo
maybe theres something in it and Jesus will come back, maybe he won't, either way waking up is making me realise
1. Better earn more cash and start saving
2. Better enjoy life now
I think that is one of the most important reasons why it is so important to wake up.
What went through you mind?
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDGE!
Did you break down and cry?
Broke down, but didn't cry. Still feel broken as I have to waste time in this cult while I try to get my wife and maybe some other family members out.
Did you feel like killing someone?
No. That's not my personality. I wouldn't mind violently shaking someone though. :)
Did it take weeks to recover, or months, or years, or are you still recovering and see no end in sight?
Too recent (3 months or so). No end in sight until family wakes up.
Great post JA. I have really enjoyed reading the responses.
I'm not sure how much I ever really believed so it wasn't really that big of a shock to me to wake up and realize I will die one day. I'm not angry or depressed about this. It's just a fact of life. I am however really pissed that I can't figure how to wake my wife up. I can't let my two daughters grow up believing this lie like I did.
I'm not "gonna" get old, I am old. Do I expect to die? Yes. Do I hope to see my relatives again? Yes. Why? Because I do not believe this life is all there is. The Witness religion did not define my belief in God, I did not believe in God solely because I was a Witness. I believe in God because I have not closed my eyes to him. I have not turned my head away just because there are things about God I do not know or understand.
What this does is it keeps my mind and heart open to "seeing" God in the natural world around me. I do not have the cold feeling that all around me is there only because something called "natural selection" made it happen. That the love of a child toward its mother is just natural selection, the cold survival of the fittest. That the fragrance of flowers is just natural selection. That laughter is just natural selection. That the fact that, unlike the animals, my late wife could, and did, allow her hair to grow long and beautiful was just natural selection. That I can look up at the stars and the moon and enjoy their mystery and beauty just because of natural selection and so much more!
That natural selection made my body less able to defend itself than many of the lower animals. That I have no natural body armor or hide, no claws, no hind legs able to leap myself out of trouble. In a naked state I am quite vulnerable. I do not blend in as easily as many other animals. My teeth are not made to rip open the hide of cattle as easily as an animal predator. My hearing is not as good as many animals. My ability to smell is not as good. I am in almost all respects quite inferior and should not be around if my species from the beginning lived as the animals lived and had to fight as the animals fight.
Something happened that made us different. But here's the thing that "something" had to happen rather quickly. We were comparative pieces of defenseless meat naked in the jungle waiting for natural selection to finally provide us a brain good enough to allow us the ability to invent defenses we were not naturally born with? To have all the abilities that the animals have and more but not the physical; rather the mental capacity to invent a world in which we ourselves are the top dog without actually being a dog. And all this through natural selection which decided to keep the dog, a dog, but make the defenseless piece of flesh the superior animal mentally?
This would mean that natural selection decided to make the most physically UNFIT the top dog on earth. Survival of the fittest...Not!
Truly, in my opinion, the best answer is that we were created by someone who knew in advance what we would be and what we needed. Someone who did not need to wait for natural selection to slowly cause us to be able to defend ourselves with this very vulnerable body we call home.
Yes, I believe in God because it is logical, it makes sense.
Frank
JOHN AQUILA:
When I started my "fade" the first thing I did was make peace with the idea of death because I feel their teaching was a cruel trick to play on my mind. Surprisingly, I adjusted very well.
I don't think I really bought the idea of everlasting life all that much.
Since I was not the type to study my Sunday article beforehand, the 1995 changed teaching on Generation was a shock to me at the hall. I felt like I got sucker-punched. It was then I knew they were stringing all us suckers along and I knew it was over between me and this "religion".
I also knew some JWs who never wanted Armageddon to come. They wanted to live their life out and die in this system. This sounds fine to me as I do not relish the idea of living through "the end of the world".
My personal philosophy is to just forget the religion's teachings and live one day at a time. I enjoy the small things in life!
Best of luck to everybody.
When I realised I was going to get old and die I thought I'm thirty, going on the three score and ten thing, I've got forty years to live. I stopped washing my face with soap 😀
Seriously I just wanted to get out of the poverty trap we were left in after pioneering for ten years. Did a degree, got a job, bought a house, had a child. Damned hard work but worth it. Yes we didn't cope well for the first two years, did a lot of falling apart, but it gets better I promise you.
Accepting one's mortality is a natural occurrence, that takes place as one gets older. Unfortunately, JWs are generally very stunted in this area of growth, among others. When one learns that they are not going to cheat death, especially too late in life, I would imagine it would be very disconcerting.
There are all kinds of problems believing one is going to live forever causes along the way though. Not planning properly in terms of education, career, retirement, etc., for one. Becoming insensitive to other people's problems, health, and ultimately death, for another. Missed opportunities all around because of waiting for "the future life", yet another, ad infinitum. I did fine on the education, career, and hopefully retirement parts, and making up for the lost opportunities all the time, but the insensitivity I cannot take back. I can only improve on that moving forward.
I don't think I personally ever really wanted to live forever in that Stepford world. I think this helped to allow me to focus on what I can do now, even while I was still in. It is just multiplied by at least 1000 now. And while I am not ready to die just yet, I have come to accept a long time ago that I will die someday.
d4g
