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( Note : I don't wish to be seen as picking on Jehovah's Witnesses in particular. They just provide a good example of a typical group of theists. Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and all the rest have equally odd ideas. I see the JWs as just a variation on a theme, neither better nor worse than any other religious group. ) I've had a rare insight into the bizarre world of the Jehovah's Witnesses
- I dated one for about six months a few years ago. She was a lovely,
sweet, normal girl, and I didn't realise she was particularly religious
until one day when we were driving along in the car. I said something
about evolution, and she said, in a rather suprised voice Some of her more unusual beliefs included:
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that God is going to End The World very
soon, within our lifetimes. Everyone who is a JW will live on in God's
Love (they seem to have their own ideas about Heaven), everybody else
will be excluded. They won't exactly go to Hell or anything, they will
just be excluded from God's Love (which will be just as bad, it seems).
If you are visited by a JW, ask them to
A street I used to live on had regular visits from JWs, they'd come round knocking on doors every six months or so. They always came in pairs - one older, more experienced one and another quite young one, presumably some sort of initiate, being shown the ropes. A friend of mine was visited by such a pair, and he started to ask the young one why she believed in what she did. She said, quite innocently, that it was what she had always been taught to believe by her family. He probed a bit further, and her expression changed as it suddenly dawned on her, for the first time in her life, that the only reason she had her beliefs was because that is what she had been taught since childhood. She realised that never in her life had she thought to question what she had been told by her family and church. The older one quickly ushered her away before any more damage was done to her flimsy grasp on religion. I also know a woman who used to be a JW. One day she began to question her beliefs, and when she started to ask awkward questions of her fellow JWs, she was "disfellowshipped". Since that time, her mother and father have not spoken to her, and none of her previous friends will have anything to do with her. Her life was ruined simply because she expressed some doubts about what she had been taught. It is possibly a dangerous thing, therefore, to point out the gaping holes in a JW's belief in front their young companion, as it could cause considerable disruption to the poor child's home-life. If they're adult, or on their own then by all means rip them to shreds with reason. It is a bit of a Catch-22 situation - if you manage to make the kid start to think for himself, he will have a lot of trouble with his friends and family; but if you do not, and he grows up as a JW, he himself may one day be party to the "disfellowshipping" of one of his friends or relations.
Another friend of mine caused some distress to JWs by talking to them about their reasons for going round knocking on doors. The conversation went something like this:
"So, you want me to convert. If I don't convert, I will be damned when I die?" At that point, they scurried away confused and dazed.
When the Witnesses come round to your house, it's usually quite obvious that they are in fact Jehovah's Witnesses. Apart from looking like religious types, they normally carry a bundle of WatchTower magazines with them. I've noticed a disturbing trend recently, but I'm not sure how widespread it is. I was on the way out of the house a while back when a young couple came to the door. They didn't look like stereotype JW's or Mormons, so I was happy to listen to them. They said that they were handing out booklets to do with raising awareness of the aged, and the problems that old folks have to deal with, and would I be interested in taking one to read sometime. I said I was just leaving, but I'd be glad to take one and I'd look at it later. It was just a small A5-sized booklet, nothing obviously religious about it, and from the cover it appeared to be exactly what they'd said - a booklet about pensioners and other older people. Not the sort of thing I go out of my way to read, but they were friendly and polite so I was going to have a proper look at it. When I got home later, I sat down and picked up the leaflet. A brief flick through it quickly revealed that I had been decieved. There was indeed an article about the aged, but the rest of it was typical Jehovah's Witness doctrine, rambling on about the scientific evidence for Noah's Flood and the infallibility of the Bible, and other such nonsense. Maybe the JW's are beginning to realise that people simply don't want to hear what they've got to say, and so are finding it necessary to use deception and other blatantly dishonest or morally reprehensible tactics (bearing false witness?) to sneak their literature into people's homes. I guess as long as God wants them to hand out their leaflets, it doesn't matter how they go about doing it as long as they get as many WatchTowers as possible into people's houses. Personally, I think this behaviour is shameful and is only likely to decrease the already low opinion that many have of doorstep proselytisers. There's quite a good attack on the beliefs and doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses here, ironically produced by another Christian organisation... © Adrian Barnett 1998 Last updated 29th November, 1998 |
