De Témoin de Jéhovah à athée
From Jehovah’s Witness to Atheist
A question frequently asked of me is : how did you go from being a Jehovah’s Witness to being an atheist ?
When I began to question the doctrines of the Witnesses, I found it necessary to learn to question authority. It was difficult to do at first ; I had been fully persuaded that the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society had the truth, and knew better than I. But when I began to « cross-check » their own publications and compare one argument to another, it soon became clear that what they said about themselves, their history, world history, the Bible, evolution, and the « world » was largely false and often self-contradictory.
After leaving, I studied the Bible, evolution, and philosophy on my own. I wanted to see how much of what I had been taught was true. I wanted to know how much to keep and how much to throw away. The idea of the « faithful and discreet slave class » was already thrown away, along with the « ark of salvation » doctrine, but the rest remained in question.
I concluded that the Witnesses were correct in their claim of a pagan origin for the Trinity, Hell-fire, immortal souls, Christmas, and Easter (although an equally valid case can be made for the first three from the Bible). What I discovered is that they had not gone far enough in uncovering what was « pagan » in Christianity !
I read « The Golden Bough » by Sir James Frazer. I learned that Christmas and Easter were not just pagan « holidays » : the idea of a divine being born of a virgin, sacrificed, and rising from the dead for the salvation of mankind, was itself a pagan myth ! It related back to the primitive notion of the dying and resurrecting god of vegetation. That is why god dies in the winter and comes back to life in the spring (at « Easter »). Paul, and the Catholic Church were adept at taking « pagan » ideas and adapting them to « Christianity ».
When I started studying the Bible on my own, I found that the same methods of analysis I had used in looking at the Watchtower writings carried over. I was still « questioning authority ». It soon became painfully obvious that the writers of the Bible were very much like the writers of the Watchtower ! There was twisting of quoted Scriptures, self-contradictions, statements at odds with known facts and history, and a spirit of bloody vengeance.
I found the Hebrew Scriptures (or « Old Testament ») to be the account of a barbaric people worshiping a monstrous god who delighted in blood. The « Christian Greek Scriptures » (or « New Testament ») proved a mass of contradictions with no clear message other than, « believe or else ! » But just what it was that one was supposed to believe was anyone’s guess and depended upon which verses you chose to read as-is and which you chose to explain away.
I read Thomas Paine’s « Age of Reason » and realized that Christianity was based on two unjust principles : Punishing a sinner’s descendants for their ancestor’s sin, and punishing a sinless man as a surrogate for sinners. The « Divine Plan » fell apart.
About this time I heard on the news that a church roof collapsed during a service, injuring many worshippers and killing a nine year-old girl. That incident simultaneously caused the collapse of my last vestige of belief in God. Without the fairy tale of Genesis providing an excuse for God’s permission of evil, I found I could no longer believe in an all-loving all-powerful God. It no longer made any sense to me to think that because of a vain « bet » he’d made with Satan, an all-powerful God chose not to delay the collapsing of a church roof on a child engaged in worshipping him.
Looked at objectively, the Bible is a grossly immoral book which encourages the worship of a fiend. I went looking for something better and found it inside myself : empathy. I have found that an « ethical system » does not require tedious study of ancient, contradictory books or modern interpretations of them. All it requires is empathy. It is outrageously simple and its rewards are immediate ; if I have empathy then making someone else happy makes me happy, whereas hurting someone else hurts me. We don’t need the promise or threat of an afterlife frightening us from living our lives in this world. Empathy results in a full, rich, moral life right now !
In http://www.freeminds.org/bethel/bethelguest.htm
Remote User : Date : Thursday, December 07, 2000 Time : 09:28:01 AM
Comments
My name is Lyron Andrews. I am originally from Southern California. I worked at Bethel from May 1988 to May 1997 until my wife and I left to have our beautiful baby girl. We moved to Park Slope Brooklyn. I spent the whole time in the factory in various capacities. During my first 6 months I worked on a cutter as a stacker in Job Press. (My overseer in Job Press was Tom Combs. He could be a very demanding and harsh person and wasn’t very popular with anyone. Later when I became an overseer I would see just how hard he worked to benefit folks behind the scenes. Truly a sad case.) Then I became a freight elevator operator moving 3000 pound loads on the pressroom floor in what was the hottest summer on recorded ; the pressroom floor would get up to 118 degrees on some days. I never felt in better shape in my life, and I have never slept better than then. After that I became the cutter overseer and then coordinator of the M.E.P.S. This lead me to many times having to walk from building 1 to 25 Columbia Heights to stop in the offices of Schroeder, Jaracz , or Henschel to get print approval signatures for talk outlines, manuscripts, Bethel, circuit, district, and branch letters and the like. Henschel was by far the friendliest and most homey and always had some joke to tell. He called me LA. At about this time I began to develop a deep interest in the original languages and made many contacts on the outside with Bible scholars within and outside of the organization. Many that were inside the organization were considered to be fringe witnesses and “non-team-players” especially if they published, yet society used them. With some I acted as a liaison and got to sit in meetings with Schroeder and his apprentices Lawrence Bowen and others. Sometime after 1993 I was appointed a Bethel elder and became the assistant overseer of the Factory Computer Services. Gary Hall was my overseer. I had many good times at Bethel but, I also discovered the foibles of an organization that feels itself to be the sole channel of God. Gradually almost imperceptibly each ones personally beliefs becomes the laws of others. After leaving Bethel I was used several times on special committee cases where we would hear appeals of those that had just been disfellowshipped by another committee. This exposed the ‘sole-channel’ syndrome even more. I also worked as a pioneer along with my wife for close to two years after leaving Bethel. With the time added before coming to Bethel I used 13 years of my life in the Jehovah’s Witness full-time service. I was used frequently for talks on the Circuit and Special assembly days. I would use these occasions, congregational talks, wedding and Memorial talks to try to moderate what I view as being a constant psychological abuse of “do more” talks that ignore the health and problems of the many ; placing heavy loads on the people. My Congregation was in Central Harlem, 125th street for 8 of the 9 years I was at Bethel. I spent the final time in the organization with the Times Plaza congregation in Brooklyn.
At this point in my life I am able to believe freely what I want to believe. I am an agnostic. I think I have always been even though I worked hard to convince myself otherwise. I believe that throughout history man has many times attributed to mysticism what many years or centuries later is explained through science. Especially when it comes to wanting to know what is unknowable for his time period is man prone to complete the picture with mysticism. Man has come a long way both religiously and scientifically but still has the same wish to know things that he has not paid his dues in discovering. I am now comfortable in having the thought that some things will just not be knowable in our time.
These feelings along with a developing picture of how wrong the society has been at practicing their own religious beliefs and the Bible led me to allow space for consideration that my hope and happiness would not be found in any organization. After being the MC at very close friends wedding I remember going back to conduct a book study one last time. It was in the Greatest Man book and the subject was on the deaf man who was removed from the ancient Jewish organization for believing in Christ. With all the proof of the man’s cure the temple leaders would not accept his change as valid. What an excellent Bible lesson for the Watchtower Society’s leaders ! My conscience could no longer excuse me teaching others what the organization was not practicing. It was becoming unbearable to carry on this conflict of supporting an organization that would not accept the proof that it had been wrong many times in the past and is wrong in many ways now. When I said goodbye to everyone that evening I knew it would be for the last time. If the average Witnesses knew just ¼ of Society’s real history and foundation, it would be very hard for him/her to remain one in good conscience. I wrote a letter to the Times Plaza congregation telling them that I no longer want to be known as a Witness on October 15, 1999. It contained no bitter words of resentment nor was it heavy with anti-Watchtower language. Basically it declare I don’t believe in the Governing Body or it’s teachings.
I have many people whom I still love and have great respect for that are still in the organization. Some of my friends are well known in the organization and other not at all. Not one of them is allowed to talk to me. It is so wonderful to see people as people and to know them and let them reveal themselves to you instead of you immediately categorizing them. Unfortunately you must pay a steep price to leave the organization, but it is worth being free. It is like leaving the mob. You can pretty much guarantee that you will be in a casket. They assassinate your character in the organization. Of course the rumor mill was fast to work. Since my wife didn’t disassociate herself she has heard second hand insinuations that I left the organization because of being caught in fornication or left my family, or some other unmentionable deed. My wife and I continue to be in love with each other but our love is stronger since the fabric of unconditional love binds it. It is every Witnesses right to remain a Witness just as it is my right to remain a citizen without a religion. I feel so much relief in not raising my daughter as a judgmental outcast.
Besides working as a Network Manager, I sometimes teach Microsoft curriculum on the side and work as a target speaker for Verizion (formerly Bell Atlantic), JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley.
I did not mean to be so extensive. I just couldn’t stop writing. Besides my loving wife, this is the first time I have really hashed it outside of my mind. Perhaps I should just write a book. lyron@mail.com
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