When they knock at your door

Not just the catholics with child abuse covered up

It has been a rather long time since I blogged anything specifically about the Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, if you want a in depth analysis of the technique used in selling the faith to you then  check out this blog here.

To summarize, as you can imagine it is about introducing themselves, telling a narrative (crime, pollution etc) and closing a deal that the bible has something for you to meet these concerns. You can buy into this at no cost no risk – with a free book and at some point a free bible study. Of course the not celebrating birthdays, not voting, and keeping company with fellow believers while being on watch for none believers can wait as you are sucked in to the promise that you can live forever on a paradise earth because the bible tells you – but only with the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

They are the ultimate salespeople. Trained how to preach the word, they sincerely believe in the faith they are selling you. Though of course that is not how it sounds at first – rather it is like they are offering an education into what the bible offers. The rest will come later.

While I have discussed whether they are a cult or not the blog mentions this point:

Witnesses are presented with an elite social milieu, a feeling of certainty, and a hope for better things. These are things that most people dearly want to find. It takes great bravery to give it all up.

It is exceedingly difficult to face this challenge alone. If you have decided to leave the Witnesses, your first priority should be to find whatever support you can get, through books, articles, web sites – and people. As you move away from your “new” life into a newer one, you will find that the world is not as shadowy as the Witnesses have led you to believe. Love is everywhere, in many forms.

Be careful, though, that you don’t leave the Witnesses and jump into yet another controlling group (religious or otherwise). Take your time, and always remember the dictum: Tout ce qui brille n’est pas or – not everything that shines is gold.

Think for yourself, and keep asking questions.

I could not more agree, and if you are in that situation please get in touch. Because you are not alone in having gone on that road to come through the other side.

OTHER BLOGS:

Jehovah’s Witnesses (blogs under category)

Personal story in the JWs

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Sharing the Gospel

Down in London last Saturday I passed a rally in Trafalgar Square. Having just eaten at the Texas Embassy and had a Mexican beer (always liquid fuel for philosophical thought on past form) I was feeling pretty good. However the speaker was talking about happiness and the banner in front of his podium had the word Gospel.

Life cannot really be less without accepting that someone was tortured to death, and that their death on a wooden beam allows humans to be worthy. It makes me rather unhappy to think that an other’s death due to religious intolerance as the ultimate scapegoat is the basis on which the validity of the human race depends – our actions meaningless without accepting the dogma of the economy of salvation.

This dogma makes me sad. The idea that Jesus proved Satan wrong – that it was possible for a man to live in a way that Adam failed – seemed a better one when I studied the bible. But then, according to that study Jesus was born only of woman – and in a previous incarnation was the first of all creation. According to scripture this was man plus – one that has never walked the earth before or since with such timeless first hand knowledge and supernatural power. The Christian role model is a hard act to follow, and morally speaking sometimes questionable when it comes to family and the destruction of those that disagree with you.

In the Jose Mestre blog someone is offering to send me more Jehovah’s Witnesses literature – stressing the hope and comfort the teachings give. Yet the hope and comfort I get in life comes from something greater then the supposed authority of the Gospels. It comes from the fact that many people will speak out because of injustice, even if it means their death. That as a people, sometimes against insurmountable odds, we shall reach beyond what is deemed possible for the betterment of ourselves.

Life has it’s highs and lows. The good times and the bad – and we can be fixated on particular moments, chained to them as a prisoner or drunk on their memory like a maturing wine in the cellar that we keep getting drunk on – not moving out of the rut. Happiness is indeed a quality that makes the human condition bearable.

The happiness that day in London was being able to see people I disagree with being able to talk without fear of imprisonment; to be able to eat a good meal; to go to a book shop without fear of censorship. And joy for my friend and her husband who I found out in London are expecting their first child.