So, a YouTube member by the name of CRACKMEDIA (you can visit his page here: http://www.youtube.com/user/CRACKMEDIA) sent me a message this morning. It read:
“‘I make my livelihood in a different field’. move on get over it. If you don’t want to worship Jah anymore why do you wast your time doing things like this. What good will it do for you. One thing you do know the organization will always more on. That you can’t stop. Move on have a nice day.”
Though most people that write to me know when to use a question mark, messages like CRACKMEDIA’s arrive in my inbox a few times a year. I always respond. I’m always polite, and sometimes I even encourage them to go confess their ‘sin’ (of visiting an ‘apostate’ website) to their elders. Anyway, I decided that, this time, I would concoct a very thorough response, send it to CRACKMEDIA, and save it for future use. That way, when I (inevitably) get a message akin to this one again, I can just copy and paste.
Here’s my response…
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate getting feedback – it let’s me know that people are interested in the things I’ve made!
I receive comments like yours quite often; wherein people (usually active Witnesses) indicate that I should just “move on”. When I was a Witness, I felt the same way, too. However, I find that such comments are made, not so much due to a person genuinely concerned for the use of my time, as they are uncomfortable to see such information available online.
I’m sure you would agree that the religion dominates everything in a Witnesses’ life. So, leaving the religion is a major decision. I have moved on (or, perhaps, more correctly, I am trying to move on), but the enormous ramifications – including the knowledge that I wasted much of my life in a fruitless endeavor, am now shunned by many of my relatives, and must now live in a world which I was taught would be gone by now – mean that moving on is a long process of healing. I would compare it to divorcing a mate to whom I was married to for decades, while simultaneously being demonized by persons who claimed to love me.
As a Witness, I was always taught to make known the truth. I was taught to never let an opportunity go by to tell others about the ‘truth’ that I knew. Indeed, I was even expected to go, uninvited, to people’s doors, and share my beliefs with them. Weekly, I received training on various means and methods to do this (primarily in the Service Meeting). Unfortunately, I discovered that the Witnesses do not have the truth. Worse, the religion has caused great harm to many members, including some quite close to me. This caused me great vexation, as I did not wish the religion to not be the truth – particularly since I knew that those who no longer believe the religion are shunned by all their friends and family who do! Nevertheless, much as a person may not wish to believe they have a terminal disease, my desire for what was true or not true had no effect on what was actually true or not true.
I realize that the Watchtower Society likes to paint ex-Witnesses in a negative light. For example, when I was a Witness, if I saw an ex-Witness at a store, and that person said hi to me, I would think “Oh, the nerve of that person, thinking that I want to talk to them!” Conversely, if they ignored me, or walked the other way, I would think “Ah, see, they know they’re in the wrong, they’re too ashamed to even say a greeting!” My thinking was, as you know, in perfect harmony with the Society’s teachings. So, I know Witnesses desire to spin my videos and website in an evil way even though it is fallacious to discredit a perfectly valid argument by making an irrelevant attack on the person presenting it .
Still, I’d like to point out that, as a Witness, and as I cited above, I was always taught to champion truth, and to make the facts known to as wide an audience as possible. Unlike my days as a Witness, however, I do not aggressively proselytize door-to-door, but instead passively make information available online. In a way, it’s a healing for me, but also, it helps others who are looking to uncover the facts about the religion. It also gives non-Witnesses a glimpse into the Witnesses’ organization. Since Witnesses pride themselves in doing research and making their beliefs known to others, this shouldn’t be a problem.
As an illustration, compare my story to the woman who founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or the woman who started the Susan G. Koman for the Cure foundation. Those women lost a son to drunk driving and a sister to breast cancer, respectively. But why did they then use their energies to engage in the activities they did? Why didn’t they just “move on”? Wasn’t it to raise awareness, as well as to find healing themselves? Also, let’s face it…it’s what they knew. I’m sure there are worse problems in the world than drunk driving, so why did that woman use her time on that particular issue? Because that was what she knew. Likewise, if you work for a company that you subsequently discover to be engaged in fraudulent acts, do you stay with them? Do you quit the company but then just shut up about it?
Finally, yes, I do know that the Organization will move on. Like all religions, the Witnesses are a robust entity. Though their yearly increase has slowed in recent years, they will likely exist as long as they can change and adapt to the world around them. But to use yet another illustration, if I experience bad service at a restaurant, should I complain? I mean, after all, my complaint is unlikely to close the establishment.
Again, thanks for the feedback. I hope my response helps explain matters.