Last Saturday I got paid a visit by my local Kingdom Hall. It was two gentleman with a young child, probably about six years old. The two older men had him ask me, “Do you think suffering will ever end?” I’ll address the bigger problem in a bit, but first I responded with the idea that suffering is a part of life and it’s part of the human condition. Suffering ends when our lives lead. The younger of the two men seemed happy with my answer and then the little boy read a verse from a tract. It turns out that the kid was reading from the Book of Revelation (. He handed me the tract and they went on their way. I wasn’t mean; I spoke with them; I took their tract and wished then a good day. I did this because I am almost always friendly to people, and there was a child present. Another reason is that I don’t want to feed their “persecution fantasy” that many evangelical religions have. I don’t also want to give them a reason to say that I’m one of those angry “worldly people”.
My biggest problem of this whole story is having such a young child with them. This, though, plays into the persecution narrative, “Not only was he mean, he was mean to a child.” That’s not the impression I want to give. I do object to making the kid ask the questions and read the verse from Revelation. To the people standing at door, this visit is supposed to be the most important part of their religion, and they’re going to let a little kid do the talking. When I answered, I addressed the adults, because it was actually them asking. That child didn’t know the deep meaning of that question and he didn’t understand my response, and I refuse to answer at a child’s level. Also, the child didn’t know the verse he was reading from Revelation, nor does he have any understanding of the Bible. Hell, I’m fifty years old and reading it with a commentary and an annotated Bible, as well as watching and reading biblical scholars, and I’m still having to go back and reread.
I still have the tract and I will look it over and maybe write a post during the week. There’s not much to it, but it does have verses from Revelation, which is common for an apocalyptic religion like the JW. I do want to get the Watchtower and I am always willing to take any tracts that any readers don’t want anymore.
I mentioned it a while back, but I may end up going back to previous posts and updating them as I get more information on the Bible. I’m currently reading The Atheist’s Guide To The Old Testament by Dr. Josh Bowen. It’s a two volume set that dissects the Hebrew Bible and adds historical context and explains the meanings of the text.
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