Do you sometimes bemoan the LOST idea, or Belief, that Someone Powerful was going to set all things right?

by pistolpete 18 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  pistolpete

  
  

  So it looks like about half of my JW relatives are not going back to the meetings once they open up the Kingdom halls.

  The main reason all of them give is that if we were truly living in the last days, Jehovah would not have allowed the door to door preaching work, and Kingdom Hall meetings to STOP for over a year.

  The elders have talked to some of them and tried to convince them that letter writing is accomplishing the same thing as door to door, and Zoom is the same as meetings-----------but my relatives just won’t buy it anymore.

  Just a note here, at first, the Kingdom Hall lock-downs, and the No preaching door to door was not that bad,the relatives still held on to their faith strongly because they believed it was temporary. But after several months with no end in sight, they were so confused and depressed, they went on the internet LOOKING FOR ANSWERS, because the elders and the branch had no answers.

  All of them ACCIDENTALLY found out several things like 607 not being the real date Jerusalem fell, Child abuse in the organization, and a lot of other things.

  And they were pissed off, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

  But then, it dawn on them what that meant.

  The WORST THING OF ALL is----Finding out that there is not going to be a God of Justice that is going to step in and make all things right.

  Like resurrect those millions of innocent mothers, fathers, children, young couples that were gassed in concentration camps during the Nazi regime.

  Like resurrect the millions of people who have been burned alive, thrown into the Roman games to be eaten by lions, torn apart by hyenas, beautiful young girls force to be raped before they reach puberty.

  Like getting rid of all the evil people in the world who have trafficked, murdered, raped, other human beings.

  Like giving children who died early of cancer or birth defects, another chance of the real life.

  Being shocked that there is going to be NO resurrection for your parents, children, wife or husband that has died. The idea that You’ll never see them again is unbearable.

  The feeling of being Deeply Sadden that,we will NEVER BE ALIVE AGAIN, just like we were not alive for billions and billions of years.

  This is the only thing that I just can’t help my relatives with. There is nothing I can say to comfort them. And now most of them have done the research on the Bible and know it’s not God’s inspired Word. So they found out all on their own, without any help from me, that the paradise earth hope was just a story made up by some ancient people, and then the story was deified and made true by others wanting it to be true so badly. .
  

  Do you ever look back, ----and LAMENT--------to those days BEFORE you started seeing the hypocrisy,

  
  

  before you started questioning the Organization.

  
  

  When you really believed With all your heart and soul that it was TRUE!
  

  before you found out “Things” on the internet,

  When you still had that feeling and Belief of complete security, that One Day Jehovah was going to come down and Set things straight, and remove all evil persons from the earth, and resurrect all those people that deserved a second chance, including the people you’ve love and lost.

  And the feeling that if by some chance you died, -----You Would Eventually be Back in a Better World.

  That’s what messing up my jw relatives that are waking up.
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  Biahi

  Methinks the society made a BIG mistake closing down the Kingdom Halls and door to door preaching for so long. Unless they are planning to be “raptured” soon.
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  Rocketman123

  Living in a state of delusion based upon ancient "fictional" mythological expressions is never going to be good for anyone.

  It can never be because its not structured within the parameters of factual reality.
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  minimus

  Many people like to shirk responsibility. I won’t worry about it. God will take care of it in his due time. Thousands of years later, the wait game continues.
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  GrreatTeacher

  Yeah, I do sometimes feel bummed that evil people won't get what's coming to them and good people won't get do overs. That's a tough one to get over.

  I don't have any miraculous words of wisdom to help people get over it, either.

  At some level they understand the reality that the world's a rough place, that might be what drew them in or kept them in the religion with its hopes of righting wrongs and making everything right one day.

  But, now they have to sit with the fact that the world's a rough place and it's up to them to make the best of it. You live once and that's it. In some ways that's comforting because that leaves the effort to have a good life in your own hands and that's now allowable, unlike living life under the JW regime.

  I'm sure your relatives can see that you've created a decent life for yourself so that means it is possible for them, too.
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  Pete Zahut

  For most JW's, believing that a sky daddy is going to fix everything was a way to feel ok about copping out on life and not doing anything tangible in the here and now to help others. It gave them permission to feel virtuous about closing their minds and not seeking answers or asking questions anymore.

  There was a mourning period once I fully let myself face the fact that I had spent my life engaged in magical thinking. They say that one should allow themselves 1 month for every year they were involved in or with the thing that they are mourning. For me that meant 50 months or 4 years would have to pass before I truly began to feel comfortable again. Little by little I was able to find peace and be emotionally strong without the world having to be perfect or by mentally resting on the the idea that most of mankind having to be destroyed in order for things to be normal.

  These days, I'm simply taking a "wait and see" attitude about the "big picture". I figure that if there is a God and he/she has good things in store for mankind, there's no reason I shouldn't be a part of it as well. There's no reason that I should receive the same fate as Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Ted Bundy and all the mass murderers and the various human monsters that have walked the face of the earth, simply because I stopped attending those mind numbing meetings at the Kingdom Hall.
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  shadowclone

  No, haven't lost that belief
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  pistolpete

  At some level they understand the reality that the world's a rough place, that might be what drew them in or kept them in the religion with its hopes of righting wrongs and making everything right one day.

  I agree! I believe that's the reason why the jws still in will continue to stay in regardless of any bad the organization does. No matter how bad the publicity.
  

  these days, I'm simply taking a "wait and see" attitude about the "big picture". I figure that if there is a God and he/she has good things in store for mankind, there's no reason I shouldn't be a part of it as well.

  I take the same approach. For years I've been trying to find some evidence of a good God, but nothing yet. Who knows what the future brings.
  
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  Disillusioned JW

  From time to time I feel very sad that my body will become frail when I become very old and that I eventually will die and that is there is no resurrection. I also feel very sad when I contemplate the major problems in the world that thus far are not going away and that most of those are caused by human society. For example watch the programs called "Extinction: The Facts" and "Climate Change: The Facts" by the natural historian David Attenborough. The shows aired on PBS in the USA and they aired on the BBC.

  But, during my teen years as an active JW and during my adult years as an active JW I did have serious doubts from time to time about the very existence of Jehovah God, Jesus Christ, Satan, angels, demons, and that any miracles ever happened. I thus didn't have great hope that Jehovah would be the one to solve the world's problems; I probably had more hope that humans would solve some of the problems, since history shows that humans have solved many problems. For example: humans ended slavery in virtually all countries, eradicated the Polio disease, have thus far avoided a nuclear war (other than the two nuclear bombs that were dropped in WWII), repaired the ozone layer (sealed up the ozone hole), dramatically reduced the per capita violent crime rates in multiple countries, made factory work far less dangerous for workers (at least in the USA), increased average life expectancy in many countries and standards of living, etc.

  Regarding KHs being closed and the door to door work stopping, in past the WT/JWs fought many legal battles against various governments for the right to go door to door (including on Sundays) and to keep in KHs open. But when Covid-19 came they quickly cooperated with the governments to stop meeting in KHs and to stop preaching door to door; that is kind of strange. It is even stranger when one thinks that according the WT and the Bible Jehovah God is the creator of all living beings (other than Jehovah himself) and thus even the creator of bacteria and viruses, yet Jehovah did not prevent Covid-19 from severely disrupting the worship practices of Witnesses of Jehovah around the world.

  The Bible also says that Jehovah brings diseases to punish people, yet Covid-19 is severely restricting the preaching work and in person worship meeting attendance of the Witnesses of Jehovah. How could those things happen if Jehovah is real and if Jehovah is the one and only true God and if the JWs are his chosen religious people and ruled by Jesus Christ the King of God's Kingdom? JWs should think about that question.
  
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  Disillusioned JW

  Regarding 607 BCE not being the year that Jerusalem fell, I knew at least since the time that the "Let Your Kingdom Come" book (copyright in 1981) was first studied in congregational book studies that historians say it fell in 587/5866 BCE. That is because the "Let Your Kingdom Come" book has an Appendix to Chapter 14 in which the WT tries to defend its 607 BCE date while admitting that historians say the city fell in 587/5866 BCE instead. For example after presenting certain lines of reasoning based upon certain evidence the book says "From a secular viewpoint, such lines of evidence might seem to establish the Neo-Babylonian chronology with Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year (and the destruction of Jerusalem) in 587/6 B.C.E." Or, perhaps I first learned several years after the year 1981 (by reading articles online about the fall of Jerusalem) of the historians' dating of the fall.