NrFive

Well, almost atleast.
For the first time in my whole life, I´ve been searching the web for information about the Jehovas Witnesses. Doing the aspostates work, so to say.
As I earlier stated, noone approached me, and tried to make me change my viewpoint. I myself have led the search for a wider base of knowledge.
And this grows more and more interesting. There are so many things I´ve never thoughts of, and some that I´v had a feeling about, but not beeing able to put words to it

Im not gonna go through the different "evidence" that the Witnesses are not governed by God, but instead of imperfect humans, but the evidences are there.
I´v read both sides, and there are some large holes in the doctrince that is the life of a witness.
I grow more and more asure that I´v lived my first 24 years in a lie....
And the funny part is that it doesnt really bother me that much. I know I´v learned a lot from it, and Im "blessed" with the fact that Im still rather young and have the majority of my life still left living.

Anyhow, there is a whole world out there with both "good" and "bad" evidence for both causes. And I can only trust my own mind to pick the right one

How could someone come up with the stupid idea that any friday is a bad day? It would be a lot easier to understand if it would be monday or tuesday. We all hate those days anyway.

But why are some people afraid of this date and day?

Apperantly this has started sometime in the early 1800:ies There are som different ideas on where this comes from.

One is that Jesus had 12 apostles, and when Judas the Betrayer laid down, he was the 13:th. Or that they were 13 at the table and that Jesus died on a friday.

Some other folklore tells that Loke, God of evil and betrail, came as the 13:th guest to a feast in Valhalla. At that feast he trickt another God to shoot its brother by misstake.

The nr 13 has been cirulating as a speciel nr for several thousand year. Before christianity one can find it in books of magic and witchcraft.

I you wanna read more about it, look here

Be aware of renegades that will twist the word of God and sow doubth in your heart.

I wonder where are they hiding? I´v never been contacted by any renegade, or promted by anyone to read books or articles from renegades.
I actually still don´t read them, since many renegades are bitter and angry, and not objective in their writing.

I want the facts, not the twisted truth of fanatical worshippers or bitter renegades

When I grew up, We always heard that the divorcerate was rising, and that more and more marriages failed.
According to this article, that isnt true. This is only for Sweden, but since Im from here, and live here, thats whats interesting for me.
According to this site, which tracks the population in Sweden we can see a large increase of divorces in 1974 and 1975. About 25,000 marriages each of those years failed and ended. Considering that we have increased our population with about 1 million since then and that the divorces are now down to about 20.000 one can actually see a decrease in divorces.
There are, as far as I can see, no real decrease of the nr entered marriages, so according to statistics divorces are actually less during my lifeperiod, than before.

And for all of us divorced people out there, we are not alone. About 9% or 867 000 people in Sweden have at least one failed marriage in their baggage

To keep the congregation pure and true, people that don´t follow the rules, are excomunicated. The rules are absolute, and if you persist in denying the rules, showing no remorse, you will get kicked out.
Actually, I don´t find this especially strange.
This is the same as with any organized group of people. If you don´t follow the rules set by the group, they have the right to kick you out from the group. You have the free will to do what you want, but you still have to take the consequenses for it.

But is there any difference between beeing excomunicated from a religion, then from a political or social group?
Yes, there is.

The first difference is that in a religion, the rules are supposed to come from God. We´re talking about divine rules here. Nothing you´d easily could argue with. You have no say in the matter. Eiter you follow the rules, or you leave. And while they want you to belive that it´s God that is doing the excomunication, this is not true. The decision is taken by people. People that do misstakes, that are corrupt or just plain humans.
"note:" This is not an argument for or agains the justness in my excomunication. Im only trying to see and write down all the facts

The second difference is that a religion often shapes large parts of your life. Your friends, family and many social things are conected through your religion. Many religions is so powerful beacuse they give people the feeling of belonging to something, and they matter to God. As with an excomunication, all this is ripped away from you.

Third difference is a continuation from nr two. And this is not always true either, depends on the religion. And this is true in my cause.  When family decides that they will have nothing to do with you. It´s debateble if the bible condone this kind of rules, but some religious groups have decided that it is God´s will. I have had none to very little contact with several parts of my family, including my father. And this sarifice pains me more than anything else.

I know of people that killed themself after beeing excomunicated because they couldnt handle the emotional pressure.
Im not saying that the only reason was the excomunication, but it could have been what made them tip over.
I know of the pain and the pressure of beeing excomunicated. I hade hope, and could see the light at the end of the tunnel. It was an emotional rollercoaster, but I learned something and got out of it with both feet on the ground.

A religion have a responsibility for its congregation. The people give their hope and lives to God, and God promises them that he/she will guard over them. By excomunicating them and cutting of all contact with them, the religion fails to sheperd over its weak or damaged herd.

You are a sinful man! From the day you are born, to the day you die you will crawl in the filth that is sin and death.
There is no tabula rasa, your story has alredy been written.

Well, perhaps things are not that bad, but what I´m getting at is the absurd notion that we all do sin everyday and should feel ashamed for it.

Im all for feeling ashamed for things you do. But then it should be something you actually did, that you should have prevented. Perhaps you hurt someones feelings deliberately, or you commited a crime against someone..

But to go everyday and ask for forgivness for beeing human, thats just plain stupid.

Lets take an example: As a witness your not allowed to masturbate. This is said to be something wrong. There are actually nothing in the bible that say that its not ok. Someone lectured in bibleknowledge might ask about Onan? The man that had sex with his brothers wife but ended the intercourse, drew out and came on the ground. He was later killed by God for this. But when you read about this in the bible you soon discover that Onan got a mission to inpregnate his brothers wife, so that the brother could get an offspring. This was something that God wanted, and by not doing his "duties" he displeased God, and got the ulitmate punishment.

Anyhow, Witnesses decided that it´s wrong, since it breeds unpure thoughts and can, according to them, lead to an earlier sexual debut and more active thought towards this unpure subject. And there´s a lot of different religions that of some reason feel that this is wrong.
If this is true, why did God create us with the highest sexual urge before the age of 20, and then recomends that we do not get married before we grow older and more mature? He gave us the abillity to greatly enyoy sex and also the capacati to do it on our own. Why should we then feel guilt for answering this desire?  I read somewhere that about 95-98% of all people have masturbated. This is nothing you need to be taught, there is noone that tells you that you should start masturbating, there are no educational videos about it. But still, almost everyon has done it..
Can it really be said that something that comes so naturally to all of us should be banned and frowned at as something inpure and sinful?

We have sin, so that we can be controlled. By making us feel ashamed we seek forgivness from our Father, we want to feel aproved and loved. By controlling sin, you controll man. Guilt is a very strong emotion, and doesn´t have to be logic or relevant.

To be a good man, is not about feeling guilt, its about always aspire to do good things.