by ljwtiamb 92 Replies latest watchtower bible
Since I am still active (somewhat).
I have not read the book and you know what the org says about it.
Will Crisis of Conscience surely send me into a tailspin? I haven't had the guts to read it yet. I believe that I can maintain an objective viewpoint, just from my experience on sites like these. I do understand everyone's anger, frustration, etc. Yet, I don't quite feel like dropping WTS totally.
Whaddya think?
Reading CoC did not have to much effect on me, the books that really made me think were George Orwells '1984' and 'Animal Farm'.
Will Crisis of Conscience surely send me into a tailspin? I haven't had the guts to read it yet. I believe that I can maintain an objective viewpoint, just from my experience on sites like these. I do understand everyone's anger, frustration, etc. Yet, I don't quite feel like dropping WTS totally.
I was the same way about 4-5 years ago. And when I got the "guts" to order it ( and when I did I was scared poopless, but wanted to be "objective" anyway). It was about the middle of the end. The beginning of the end had already started some years previous. I still felt there was some "truth" to the WT, but is slowly faded away. After all.........it was all that was inputed into my brain for 30 years! Even after I read CoC, I tried to justify the teachings I was taught. But in all things.........................TRUTH always overrides falsehood...........and now I am free.
If there are such things as Saints...........then Ray Franz should be the next one. Although I don't believe.(I left the Catholic Church in my younger days to become a JW) I would be one of the first to have an altar to Saint Raymond. (This sounds corny, but.........Ray has been a Godsend to 10's of thousands of JW's with nagging ??????'s
HappyDad
Imagine a black box that you've always been told contained diamonds. You believed it, so you spent your life striving to one day own the box. Then one day you read a book by a guy that helped build and load the box, and he admits that it's only gravel. He has scans of internal memos talking about the gravel, how they can't let anybody know it's just gravel, or they'll all quit working for it. He names names of people you can look up, he's still alive and you can email him. And to top it off, the other box-maker's got together and kicked him out of the club, forbidding all the box-workers from ever talking to him or reading the book.
We went door to door trying to sell a box of gravel and calling it diamonds.
Crisis of Conscience will help you see it for what it is. The truth is disappointing, but you come to realize that whether you believe the diamonds are there or not, they really aren't.
Better to know the truth, than to believe "The Truth".
Go for it!
Dave
Thanks for the comments, but keep in mind that I have already spent quite a bit of time at JW HQ.
I've seen the failings, flaws and weaknesses of this org, personally and in detail. Still, I see lots of good within.
If that did not send me running, I don't THINK that anything will.
Its not actually about..failings , flaws...or weaknesses in people or conversely, their goodness...or whether there is good in it. Its about TRUTH..Is it THE TRUTH?
For instance...The Watchtower states that the Good news of the Kingdom is the news that Christ took up invisible kingship in the heavens in 1914 CE. That is the central core message that JWs preach around the world today. If 1914 is proved by FACTS to be wrong, then the whole message is wrong unless God is quite happy to allow UNTRUTH to be preached for all these years.... So try proving that the starting point for the calculation of 1914...607 BCE is the correct date for the fall of Jerusalem. Better still, read the WT own calculations at http://quotes.watchtower.ca/607bce.htm and i believe you will only come to one conclusion.
Also I suggest you read Captives of a Concept by Don Cameron. These guys arent focussing on peoples imperfections...but on cold hard facts.
No - wanting to read CoC will.
I'll wager that if you don't read CoC and leave that org. you have a serious emotional dependency that has everything to do with the illusion of safety and nothing to do with actual facts. Reading that book is like taking the blue or the white pill in 'The Matrix'; once you find out the truth re. the truth.. you can't go back.
BOO!
GBL
I've seen the failings, flaws and weaknesses of this org, personally and in detail. Still, I see lots of good within.
By good, do you mean promoting high morals? Encouraging people to read the Bible?
There are many religions and non-religious orgs that promote good morals without imposing a controlling, legalistic lifestyle on their members. And my brief experience with churches since leaving JW's shows me that they actually use the Bible just as much as JW's.
I would bet any perceived good from the Watchtower is available from other organizations.
Meanwhile, did you know that while brothers in Malawi were being told to accept torture and death rather than buy a political party card, the brothers in Mexico were being told to continue bribing the local officials to stamp their military service cards 'completed'?
There's lots of stuff in there you just couldn't know without getting it from someone on the GB itself.
Dave
Keep in mind that I have had very, very responsible positions within WTS. Nothing that you mention is new to me. I don't claim that we & WTS are perfect in any way. Yet I feel that JC and his band of 12 merry men were quite the group of misfits also. Still IMHO lots of good resulted. My initial question is only to gain insight from those of you who have read CoC and been in my position before. Others, opposers, etc. I do understand many of your frustrations. WTS & JW are simply not for everyone, but neither is Coco-Cola. I respect your opinions.
