by Deleteandrestart 29 Replies latest jw experiences
if ever you need to resort to praying to god--just get yourself a nice plank of wood and draw an angry miserable face on it. then pray away to your hearts content.
you wont get any answers--or miracles.
so--your plank will respond exactly as jehovah does.
The "hole" in a person's life when they leave fondly held beliefs is a very difficult one to deal with at first.
I was shocked when I realised that I was going to die, I had been taught from birth that my destiny was to live forever.
I was shocked when I realised that Man Created God, and not the other way round.
I soon came to terms with reality, though I missed not having someone to thank for all the joy and beauty in the world. But I can thank all those very real people who do make the world a joyful and beautiful place, which is much better than thanking a fictional character.
One of the best OPs I have read on the painful effects of seeing the 'org' as not the representation of the very persona of God, 'Jehovah'.....because that is exactly how witnesses are manoeuvred and manipulated to think....and that spiritually rests on delusions and half truths, and too many rules and edicts that have no basis in Love....
It is a 'scorched earth' scenario in the aftermath.
'Keep knocking, keep searching' - Those words have meant much to me - I believe they are written for a reason....it's a journey.
In a way I am grateful that I have been raised as a Witness. Finally (after 35 years) seeing through all the JW nonsense freed me of all faith based & religious superstitions. Getting rid of JW beliefs = getting rid of Jehovah/God for me.
Had I been raised in a less cult-like religion, I might have believed the tales until I died, even if I ever rejected the group.
I'm quite sure Jehovah is nowhere to be found. If he, or any other god who cares, is to be found anywhere, they're too good at hide-and-seek. Or they don't care. I imitate God by not caring either.
When I was a JW I knew the answer for everything and now it is so much fun
to learn, to discover new things. For me no personal God, I deal with it, It's a fact of life.
Look at the bright side, you no longer have to worry about eternal punishment. You live
your life as it is and not relay on some imagined afterlife. You live by the rules that is
set by society because you want to respect yourself, religions have been the most
immoral forces in human history.
And where is GOD? They say that when you die you become closer to God. You damn right
you do, because you no longer exist.
I was at this point over a decade ago:
If "the truth" was a lie, then all the beliefs that I had developed would need to be thrown away. It would mean that God didn't
intervene in my life and give me a higher purpose. I wasn't serving Him by
peddling WATCH TOWER magazines. I only saw two options: blame God for taking me at my most vulnerable moment and leading me
into the Watch Tower organization, or remove God from the field and take blame for myself for being duped into the religion. I needed Him as my scapegoat.
But as time went on, I discovered so much more. Millions of people are duped. I don't need to wallow in self-blame. I made what seemed like an important life choice, a valid one at the time, and I was wrong because I was misled by a dangerous mind-control cult. My bitterness with God died and I remained bitter with the organization known as Watchtower. It does no good to self-blame. That's something that many abuse victims go through also, and it just isn't reality to self-blame.
I tend to agree with you that there is no Jehovah in all that, and my atheism is from a serious look at the evidence. But even without such solid evidence for a lack of God in things, I wouldn't serve God through religion now unless He personally proved himself to me.
I have taken years to find peace, to find a balance because i still have a wife in the JW's. It's a tough road, but there was never any possibility of turning back or remaining the the congregation as a silent nonbeliever.
The OP said that Jehovah was the WT and the WT was Jehovah.
That's the problem, I think.
The possibility that God exists but that he has nothing to do with the WT and is very different than the WT portrays him is very hard to fathom.
Of course when you realize it's all just horse pucky it's very hard at first. You go from having all the answers to having none, it's like being hit in the face with a gallon of cold water. Reality bites! But it gets easier as time goes on. You realize that you don't need to have all the answers, that it's better to deal with reality, however uncomfortable, than have a false certainty. You realize you have been avoiding uncomfortable subjects, burying your head in the sand because you needed to protect your fragile belief system. You now have intellectual freedom, you can live your life however you think is best, no need to follow a strict set of rules or have others judge you.
I saw someone on this forum mention Jehovah as the invisible cult leader and it has stuck with me. As a cult leader he becomes whatever you want him to be.
(of course you can't get to Jehovah except through them - they invented him!)
