Posted by SpudMama [SpudMama] on November 08, 1999 at 12:24:28 {Nq8EnQ8RVALnU7DNQgZIPGEmg6dhnA}:
In Reply to: xJW haveUlterior Motives? posted by Just Asking! on November 08, 1999 at 10:09:09:
For me, the "JW religious lifestyle" boiled down to useless canned preaching and judgementalism. I left when I realized that conforming to JW expectations made it impossible for me to follow the Golden Rule as Jesus preached it. When was the last time you heard a real-life story of a Witness playing the role of a Good Samaritan -- playing it to the hilt, as in Jesus' parable? True "good samaritanship," really "loving your neighbor," will throw you into association with "worldlings" all the time. The emphasis on "guarding your associations" in the late 80's and early 90's made this impossible.
Your questions about leaving to "make it in sports," or some other secular activity, boil down to a single question: Did you leave because Jehovah's Witnesses made it impossible to be yourself? Yes. And isn't that a kind of enforced hypocrisy? Is this not a legitimate reason to leave?
As I said elsewhere on this board:
I still revel in the sheer pleasure of looking into the eyes of a stranger and seeing an equal, even a potential friend, not a doomed soul. I get nourishment from reading books about comparative religion, and history, and all kinds of secular things, and knowing that they are now central to my spiritual growth, and not irrelevant to it. Our home is so much happier now that we can tell each other what we really think, plan for the careers and lives we really want to lead, celebrate the holidays that actually mean something to us precisely as we want to, picking and choosing and even remodeling traditions precisely as we see fit.One of the most important things I have learned about spirituality since I left is a proverb from the Asatruarer (modern Norse-type pagans): "The gods are your friends, not your masters."
exuberant potato grrrl