This is an important addendum, at least to me.
Yes, the about face with the Catholic's stand on meat on Friday and the JW crowing about it was the thing that first tapped me on the shoulder.
The thing that really got me going was a JW publication; the JW apologia, "Jehoavh's Witnesses in the Divine Purpose." That's what really did it for me.
If you've got a copy, take a look at it, especially if it's the original version.
In there, for instance, is the story of how Russell - whom they attempt to make look like some kinda later day Moses - stayed up past his bedtime, furiously studying scripture "heedless of the hour." Shit, which one of us hasn't done that fooling around on the Internet, or watching a late movies, or toking up with a girl/boyfriend with hopes of getting lucky later?
"Heedless of the hour" my ass. You'd think the bastard was about to part the Red Sea or something.
Then, speaking of Rutherford, Da Judge, the account is given of how he went around challenging any, all, several, and joint religious leaders to debate him about the scriptures and how they all chickened out, "proving" that theirs was a "false" religion. The nub of this one is that the pamphlets challenging these guys to debate, that I think the judge had tossed out of airplanes over cities, were said to be in fulfillment of some scripture or other about how the words of the prophet were like "tongues of fire" burning all those in opposition. Pamphlets mind you! Fucking pieces of paper tossed out of an airplane window are "tongues of fire" no less.
Reading this book and seeing how the society applied each and every little tidbit of scripture to their "anti-typical" fulfillment in the JWs and in Russell and Rutherford struck me as a HOOT on the one hand, and as just about the most arrogant damn thing I'd ever seen on the other. Pamphlets raining out of an airplane fulfills scripture about tongues of fire.
And of course they went on and on and on about the miracle wheat, and Rutherford's pedophillia (probably why the JWs are so tolerant of the bastards now), and the radio station, and Beth Sarim. Now that one was rich. Beth Sarim. Build for "olden worthies" to live in when they were presently resurrected; but Rutherford, selfless guy that he was, lived in it while waiting for Moses and that crowd to show up, the better to keep it warm for them.
Anyway, I remember how that one phrase, "heedless of the hour" so offended me, and was so blown out of proportion and how it never left my mind. Heedless of the hour. What a joke. Then the entire rest of that JW apologia. It was an open invitation to laugh in the face of the JWs.
I just wish I'd started laughing sooner. Because I waited, I covered myself with thousands of wounds by staying in the borg too long. And now it's too late to ever recover from all the damage they've done.
End of addendum.
Francois
Where it is a duty to worship the Sun you can be sure that a study of the laws of heat is a crime.