I have to say that personally i have a HUGE vendetta against the Jehovah's Witness cult. For the first eighteen years of my life, i was lied to, tricked, brainwashed and discouraged from being myself and exercising my personal strengths. I was unable to find anyone within the cult that could i could relate to on a personal or intellectual level. (I have a love for ideas in the form of philosophy, art, politics and literature, all things of which the watchtower is blissfully unaware at best, and shunning at worst.) My socialization as a young adult focused around meetings, service and attending the lame-ass "get togethers." I was never able to find someone that i could share a chai with and discuss the writings of Karl Marx or Bertrand Russel. Sure i knew some people from school who shared my interests, but i couldn't "associate" with them out of fear that they would "spoil my useful habits."(scripture citation deliberately removed. I think we've all read enough of that shit,) I mean, could someone explain to me how joining the philosophy club at school would be "bad association?" All i wanted to do was think for myself, but i was afraid to. It left me a confused, ambivalent, nihilistic shell of a human being. (a little dramatic... maybe, but not overly.) I almost wonder, and i hesitate to say this for fear of sounding arrogant, if the witnesses are so anti-intellectual because they fear the conclusions of critical thought. A current JW would do themselves a lot of good to heed the words of Karl Marx when he said that "rational thought should not fear its own conclusions."

For reasons that i won't explain on this post, (look for my story later on, i promise i'll post it.) i did accept the doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses for a time (not without a great deal of ambivalence and cognitive dissonance, of course.) I had "friends" in congregations all over my area. then, when i realized that the whole thing was a big joke, nobody asked me why i felt that way, or how i came to that conclusion, they simply shunned me. I was even told by an elder, just after i handed him my dissasociation letter, "you will never be happy, never have any friends and any goals you may have won't be fufilled in this system. And if you think me saying that is harsh, just wait 'til Jehovah gets through with you!" Those were his exact words. I still remember them to this day. While they both haunt and anger me, I do take a bit of comfort in the fact that he was wrong. I'm back in college, i've met some great people who won't shun me whether or not i believe their particular religion, or any at all. I'm getting better, and the emotional scars are healing quite well...except the brooding anger i feel whenever i think of the lies i was told and the huge turn for the worse my life took for simply questioning doctrine.I don't think i can ever forgive that.