by pistolpete 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I was constantly analyzing was this organization to which I belonged really righteous, honest and true ?
Did it uphold the basic tenets of Christianity in speaking the truth as instructed by Jesus Christ ?
Eventfully I concluded this was all a mind F to control people with deliberate and intentional acts of coercion, fear mongering, exploitation and manipulation.
There were and are a lot of nasty people in this organization. Is sharing the earth for eternity with them paradise?
Lets just say this organization blurred and confused the perception of what was righteous and true., there was always a perseverance of hype that this organization was more righteous than other christian based faiths which were all labeled false religions.
Once leaving the Org. one can truly see that this is not true, its just a enforced brainwashed perception orchestrated by the top directors of the Org.
Still is
as a young teenager i just accepted it as the truth--because we were in it!--therefore it must be right. baptised at 14, left school at 15 , pioneer at 16. Not through parental pressure--far from it: dad although baptised , wanted me to go to uni. Instead i listened to that jerk Ron Drage spouting forth at an assembly and i went with the young dub crowd.
only when i was 23, married--wife expecting--did i really give it all a lot of thought and reasoning--and the whole house of cards collapsed. i was done.
I was born and raised as a Witness. My dad was an elder and PO (now COBE). My mother was the matriarch of the congregation. I truly believed in the religion, but saw through the organization.
It wasn't until I was about 25 that I ever once thought about living forever on a paradise earth. The first and only time I gave any thought to it was when a close friend of mine had a mental breakdown, committed a serious crime, and went to prison for a decade. Right after his incarceration I had a dream that he and I decided to hike the entire planet after Armageddon. That was the only time I ever thought about it.
Waking up ,for me, was a fairly quick process once it happened - around 40 years after I was child-baptized.
I was thinking about "the truth" and as usual questions arose about why certain things made no sense. For the first time I dared to ask myself "Suppose it is just not true?"
That was it. Everything crumbled in that moment. I sat for a while in a state of shock after such an epiphanal moment. I then felt disappointment. I was not going to live in paradise. There was no New World and I would never see my dead mother again. Anger too at having wasted three quarters of my life.
Was I a victim? Yes although I know we all have choices but the knowledge was not available then.
I believe it was Ray Franz who wrote that "we are victims of victims" . I believe that to be true. Every Witness from the top down has followed those who went before him and believed what he was taught
It just takes one person in a state of mental delusion, people who have it cant tell what's real from what is imagined, this delusion can flourishes upon itself out appealing self imposed identity.
When others start to believe that person's delusions, it can start a sociological and psychological following, a religion, a mass group of people in a state of delusion.
I then felt disappointment. I was not going to live in paradise. There was no New World and I would never see my dead mother again.
That's the worst thing about learning the Truth about the Truth----To find out that it was never really about us.
It's "The Matrix" conundrum - would it have been better to take the blue pill and live in blissful ignorance?
The trouble is that you imagine you could have continued in blissful ignorance. The truth is that I think everyone realizes at some point that it's all a lie and it's better to realize sooner than when you are 90 on your death bed.
At best it's the happy escapism of immersing yourself in a great sci-fi movie. A different life, a fantasy, for a short while.
Reality always bites.
pisolpete - "...they are reminding themselves, that in the New World there will be no more crooked Presidents, no more crooked Politicians, and no more corrupt leaders anywhere in the world..."
...whilst completely missing the fact that in the WTS's vaunted New World, the Org will become said crooked and corrupt politicians and leaders.
