Hi everyone. I was raised a Jehovah's witness, and I was devoted to that for years. I believed in a global flood in 2370 BC as well as other myths that were mistaken for literal history, and I believed in a philosophy of history that anticipated a coming "new system".
None of this makes sense to me now, and none of it passes the straight face test, but there it is.
My deconversion story begins with disillusionment. My brother was bureaucratically shunned from this pretty obvious cult. I'll spare so many details but it opened my eyes, and in despair, I decided to take a second look at the claims our religion makes about the world and history. I already understood evolution to be a fact, even if I tried to rationalize it with the whole "microevolution" business.
A global flood? Nonsense, and the human population has evidently never fallen below 10,000. There are also relics from around the world right around the 24th century BC and before AND after. Just, so, so, so many problems with this if you take it literally.
The first man was created about 6000 years ago from a golem spell? Absolute nonsense, and the artifacts of our evolution remain with us today, such as EVRs and fucking wisdom teeth.
The Bible is the inspired word of God and the first five books were written by Moses? I'd read in Watchtower publications all my cognizant life that Bible critics were foolish and to be avoided, and so I decided to read them too. Inspired word of God? Apparently, that depends on your definition of "God".
This led me to ancient theology, where I looked to the origins of the concept of the Biblical god, Yahweh/Elohim. This is a Canaanite storm god with roots going back to Ancient Egypt and into Africa, as mythology developed throughout the ancient world. Homo sapiens like to tell lies to gain power and control.
And this led me to read up Qabbalah, astrology (Ezekiel 1), etc. Not because I believe it, but because it obviously had an effect on the theology. I'm a naturalist, not a spiritualist.
So yeah.
None of this makes sense to me now, and none of it passes the straight face test, but there it is.
My deconversion story begins with disillusionment. My brother was bureaucratically shunned from this pretty obvious cult. I'll spare so many details but it opened my eyes, and in despair, I decided to take a second look at the claims our religion makes about the world and history. I already understood evolution to be a fact, even if I tried to rationalize it with the whole "microevolution" business.
A global flood? Nonsense, and the human population has evidently never fallen below 10,000. There are also relics from around the world right around the 24th century BC and before AND after. Just, so, so, so many problems with this if you take it literally.
The first man was created about 6000 years ago from a golem spell? Absolute nonsense, and the artifacts of our evolution remain with us today, such as EVRs and fucking wisdom teeth.
The Bible is the inspired word of God and the first five books were written by Moses? I'd read in Watchtower publications all my cognizant life that Bible critics were foolish and to be avoided, and so I decided to read them too. Inspired word of God? Apparently, that depends on your definition of "God".
This led me to ancient theology, where I looked to the origins of the concept of the Biblical god, Yahweh/Elohim. This is a Canaanite storm god with roots going back to Ancient Egypt and into Africa, as mythology developed throughout the ancient world. Homo sapiens like to tell lies to gain power and control.
And this led me to read up Qabbalah, astrology (Ezekiel 1), etc. Not because I believe it, but because it obviously had an effect on the theology. I'm a naturalist, not a spiritualist.
So yeah.
