I bought in to the "armageddon's just around the corner" crap for the first 7 years I was a JW, but not later. I used to think since Jesus didn't "know the day or hour", then how could the watchtower? So I started working full time and furthering my career, and planning for retirement.
I think people are mostly responsible for their own choices. I think most JWs are aware that the society has had to cover its ass revise its expectations a number of times, and should know it would could happen again. They should plan accordingly. One way to do this is to follow the example of the presiding overseer?. I've never seen one who didn't live well. And I've never seen one who was a pioneer?. They all had full time jobs, owned their own homes, and vacationed in the tropics at least twice a year.
I don't know if they should pay, but they are paying. And so are we. As their children the price for the care of our elderly destitute parents will ultimately fall to us in one way or another.
Many Witnesses who have reached middle age unmarried, childless and uneducated are told that the choices they made were their own responsibility and that the Society have never tried to predict when the ?Old World? will end or tell its members how to live. Even so, I feel a degree of sympathy for them. I got out in time and feel lucky.
My family continue to shun me but if they ever crawled out of the illusion they live I would show them compassion. After all - we all make mistakes!
There are many mistakes to make in life, a young girl can get pregnant from a one night stand when she's 18, a guy can get into drugs and maybe an criminal record, all these sort of choices affect you for the rest of your life.
My thing is, all our choices affect us. I do feel compassion, but I also feel the need for people to accept responsibility for their choices and actions.
I appreciate what you are saying and share your sentiments. I suppose we all want people who have hurt us to accept responsibility for the hurt they have caused and to suffer a little before we accept them back into our lives.
I feel that if ever the JWs who have shunned us, and felt so sure were right, were to face the pain of realizing they had been tricked and left the WT Society, they would go through more than enough pain to teach them humility.
In such a situation I could do the most to expose the tyranny of the WT by showing understanding rather than condemnation. This would help them to realize the difference between the WT ideas of humanity and real humanity.
I suppose I am generous in my outlook because the pain I have felt in my life has helped me to grow. It has made me comfortable with my own company, in a way that is not possible until all illusions are shattered and replace with the quiet peace of unconditional reality.
