While I highly recommend the exchange of ideas and the informative camaraderie found on this board to anyone leaving the confines of the Watchtower, I see an unhealthy pattern developing in me that tells me I should take leave, at least for now.
It's enjoyable and practically everyone is gracious, except for a few, and it does feel good to stretch the ole "thinker" in a bit of debate or even in-depth discussion.
But I sense in myself both a desire to "prove" myself linked to my past ego of yesteryear Jehovah's Witnesses proselytizing conflicting with my current understanding of why I left that type of religion behind.
Unique Among Discussion Boards
Very few discussion boards have an audience that understand terms like "Qumran 4" or "Masada" or
"proto-Masoretic," or at least has the capacity to look it up and come with a comprehension of its usage. If anything good does come out of being one of Jehovah's Witnesses, it's that we come out being capable of study and retention. Application is something we come to realize we can do that sometimes leads to our leaving the religion in some respects, but that nevertheless also becomes a trait we share in common-something not found in the average churchgoer.
But this place also totters dangerously like a tightrope walk for an alcoholic who must manage a stroll across a thin wire over the showcase floor of a liquor store. While I am speaking for myself, I don't think I'm alone in saying it can become a replacement for the enabler the Watchtower was for those of us who have a bit of a disordered need to "know the truth" about that which is actually supposed to transcend human thought, namely religion.
Need to Throw Out the Right Bathwater
Some have accused those who choose atheism or agnosticism after leaving the Watchtower as "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." While that might be true for some, we cannot make a generalized judgment about anyone's conscientious decisions. Unless expressed in detail, we do not know what the other person has had to deal with upon leaving the JWs behind, and what factors contributed or even prohibited their becoming the person they are today.
Besides, I don't think it is as much of an issue to concern ourselves with. To use the same analogy, I think we are worrying too much about the water that used to bathe the baby and forget that we need to bathe after coming back in from our time from being slaves to the whims of the Governing Body.
If I may be so bold, I fear too many of us might be in our current place based on reliance on Watchtower teaching than we suspect. Some are still using the apocalyptic writings in the Bible like a fortune teller's crystal ball that has a means to tell the reader the future if only they can unlock the meaning behind its symbols. Others are still convinced that Christianity is or should be a product of the Bible when in reality it is the other way around. These are just some of the problematic and untested convictions many of us do not dispose of upon leaving the Witness camp and might use to make later judgments regarding life in the real world.
It is very difficult for an individual to note what is and what is not a carryover from Watchtower theology. We can't hope to do it alone. This board itself is one of the best places to aid in doing that. But it does little to reshape the egotistic pride that comes with "knowing" facts and tidbits, a bad habit the Watchtower indulges left and right that is a trademark of its appeal among its adherents.
These are the type of things we need to be on watch for, and these are the things we need to wash ourselves of, and this is the bathwater that needs to get thrown out. There should not be a baby in it to begin with, so to speak.
When we don't do this, then our current convictions may not be as well thought-out as we claim they have been. If we did not unlearn, relearn, and the learn new ways to reapply on new learning after leaving the Watchtower, then it's possible we've made some conclusions that are far from efficacious.
Question Everything, but Accept Nothing?
I think it is good that we question and examine all that comes our way. Too many still do not do this.
However there is a point of excess that doesn't get checked enough on this board that we might want to take heed of if we are to continue on what I might say is a heroic exodus that few ever have to make. Of all people we've had to make far more use of the need to question and test in order to survive, and the good results of this trait must never be forgotten or under-evaluated. But it is a problem that we lead to our undoing if we keep it unchecked.
Our main resolve should be to heal and help others on the path to doing so. We must recognize that others will not take the same journey we do after leaving Jehovah's Witnesses behind. Regardless of this, we should encourage and defend their choices more than anything careful not to bruise what has already suffered enough under Watchtower/Governing Body rule.
That doesn't happen here the way it should. Now I know this is not my board, and I'm not advocating a change in the exchange of ideas that I just praised at the beginning of this post. But I have suddenly found myself doing this because it runs rampant-and it's the same little creature that was allowed to run so when were once members of your "friendly neighborhood Kingdom Hall."
Our current convictions (or a claim to a lack thereof) no longer come with an "attached duty" to promote them at the cost of our neighbor's personal dignity in connection with their own. We can offer our views in such a way that does not seek to insult others with a different view, but we don't. The rule of thumb here seems to be that those with a religious view call those who choose atheism names, and vice versa. Just as we did when we were Jehovah's Witnesses, we reduce each other to labels and therefore make it easy to exalt our current choices and convictional stands.
For example, while we might believe the Bible is rubbish now that we have left the Watchtower, is it respectful and more importantly responsible to use certain types of cynical language in a forum where others might just be leaving the Watchtower behind? If we believe it is, then we may be one of those who have not sufficiently washed ourselves of the Jehovah's Witness persona.
The same goes for the theist who demonizes the atheist as something evil or hateful. Are we doing this and not realizing we have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire? We've traded being in a religion that lords itself over us as judge in order to become the judge ourselves? Do we have that recording of the heavens opening up and the Holy Spirit descending on us like a dove as we were appointed to do so once we left the Jehovah's Witnesses? I think we need those kind of credentials before we start going down that road again, hmmm?
That little creature that runs around freely in Kingdom Halls is a suspicious belief that "I know better." It questions everything to the point of being as hard-headed as the Witnesses we claim we once were. Our challenges are often more cynical than critical, and nothing we hear here gets accepted without a battle.
I don't hear of us battling with those "experts" we agree with who underline our current set of convictions. If we like being religious, do we fight "tooth and nail" with every new idea we come across from our new spiritual sources? If we enjoy being an atheist, are we likewise carrying on debate with those writers and speakers who promote the same view as we are with those who do not?
If we don't argue with both sides equally, then we are just fooling ourselves if we believe our current convictions didn't develop with some bias. We might have chosen atheism because our faith in God and the Bible was destroyed by the Watchtower. We might have selected a religious path because we fear the wrath of God still, that we will be punished if we don't have the "truth."
You Don't "Know" It, You "Love" It
And finally the big question. How do we "know" we have the "truth"?
If we are still looking for that answer, then we definitely need one of those "Silkwood" showers to wash off the JW still attached to our skin.
While there is also room for the mind to be enlightened and a place to exercise reason when it comes to religion, it is not an exercise of the brain. One cannot expect to "know" the "truth" about religion. That is a Watchtower concept, one also shared with radical religious groups.
When it comes to religion, especially Christianity, one does not become a saint because of their academic skillfulness in knowing their religion; on the contrary, one becomes a saint on account of the quality of their faith in that which can't be completely understood.
If we don't like it, we can criticize it all we want. In that I give the atheist full reign to preach against loud and clear wherever they wish. But that, in a nutshell, is what the religion of the Christians has always been about.
While we do have to be studied in what we're believing, in the end you should not be in a position where you are convinced of mind. Instead you should convinced of heart via faith, and not a faith of your own strength or design. If it sounds foolish by academic standards, well then it should. But I think I would at least have the intelligence of the atheist to back me up in this that at least it's calling religion what it is.
To claim that we have the ability to possess the mind of God by a comparatively few finite pages in a book doesn't make for a very powerful deity. And then to take that ability to understand those few pages and put it into the hands of a self-appointing group of men who dictate what those pages mean and demand strict adherence and obedience to their ever-changing teachings-that's not religion at all. It's just a shame.
True, other religions have their leaders, but even the most ancient don't make such claims or limit the scope of their deities to the confines of a book and what can be learned from within. For example, Christianity is not based on the Bible. It's based on a person, Jesus Christ. The book is based on the person, a product of and for that religion, but it isn't its source.
For the religion of the Watchtower, the Bible is the beginning, the middle, and the end. In fact, let me rephrase that, the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses interpretation of the Bible is the beginning, the middle, and the end. The only mystery about their religion is not found in God-as it should be-but in the Governing Body itself. By absorbing this claim to the transcendent, they have made and set themselves up as God, stripping away His claim to judge, to show mercy, to discipline, and to forgive, but most of all to teach that which not even God shares with others.
Atheists should be given their due when they criticize religion on its adherence to faith. Faith, at least for the Christian, acts in place of evidence for now. It's not supposed to find its full explanation in reason and study. That claim that the Witnesses make on religion is a mockery of what religion is.
One doesn't know. One loves it. While one must never attempt to leave the reasoning mind out of it, one will not find its conclusions possessed by the mind. Religion is not explanation. It is, in the end, faith. As a believer I am proud of that.
My Unhealthy Attachment to Trying to Convince
But in the end, I cannot be critical of all voices or claim that what I've written applies to everyone. I know it does not.
I am describing my problem, more than any.
I've left some participation on this board unfinished and uncompleted. It will remain so. People can look up more information on these subjects anyway.
And besides, we can't convince each other with fancy talk or speeches. We've all grown way past that, most of us at least. And despite all the problems, if anyone is going to help others do the same it will be most of you here before anyone else I can think of.
Despite the strong adherence we types may make to our current convictions, we who have left the Jehovah's Witnesses can at least make claim to a balance most might never have. Like me, we can stop and say, "I'm taking myself too seriously. I've been down that path of self-righteous, always-in-the-right attitude, and it does no one any good." If we do have a common gift, it is that one that keeps waking us up and checking "our temperature" and pushing our convictions aside if we have to in order to pull someone else out of the muck we once found ourselves drowning in.
Oh, if we could only convince all of them that they are drowning in it too!
But we are, more by our actions that our words. Each day we survive outside is another "proof" that the Watchtower is wrong. We can't put words or definitions on that either. You just have to see it and experience to believe it.
And I'm not saying we shouldn't get totally invested in something else if we find what we really believe it the correct path to take. There is right and wrong, correct and incorrect. It isn't necessarily the same for all, perhaps, and we might never have the means to explain it fully, but we all know deep down inside that it's there.
But before I get induced to start going down this path of arguing my neighbor's convictions down, a path I once trod with the Witnesses, I bow out.
This is a good place to be, but only for a time. Except for those who may need to stick around to help the constant inflow of escapees from JW-land and can teach other the ropes, not many more of us should be expected to stay here. Why even those voices who at first blush might be found offensive might really be saying: "Good for you. Here's some more food for thought. But now go out and make a good argument for yourself. And not in how you can argue it here, but in how you live."
And that's what I've learned here. That's what I thank all of you for.
Spank me on the behind and send me off. My best wishes to you all.
Oh, and if there is one right path to be on, I like to think that all of us here, despite our claims to "different" convictions, may have just found it and are walking it right now.
Blessings on all of you. Peace.