Blast from the Past…
By Jim V.
I was in the “belly of the whore” from the time I was eleven years old until about six months before I turned forty -I am now 51.
Many things were typical; I was all-but forbidden to attend college (although I have a Mensa-tested IQ within the top 1%), I was told not to worry about retirement or a career (just get by for a while -everything is going to end soon -this could be the year)!
After 29 years in the church with all of the “answers,” all I had was broken dreams, a spokesmanclub certificate -and gray hair. I had a string of lost/missed jobs and opportunities that seemed endless, and at times, hopeless. I also had a marriage that wasn’t much more than an endurance contest (we get along better now than we have in many, many years).
I was isolated, indoctrinated, unplugged and trapped. Unplugged and trapped from reality. My years within the “whore” left me totally unprepared for the real world, for a real life, and for reality…
Which brings up an interesting point -does anyone remember revelations? Remember the “great whore” who had many daughters? You know, the one church that gave birth to many daughter “splinter whores” -from her own belly. Does that sound familiar? And wasn’t the “great whore” involved with the kings of the earth? I wonder if the original Greek can be translated into “Gulfstream” and “Stuben crystal”? Maybe we have “new truth” being revealed here, maybe herbie armweak was kinda, sorta right about something after all. Only it’s wasn’t the Catholic church giving birth to the Protestant denominations -it was the WWCG giving birth to the ABC, XYZ and the WWFU churches. Maybe someone should start a WWSDW church (World Wide Splinter Daughter of the Whore). Or better yet, the WW$$-4F church.
Sorry, I got “off track.” I will repent, pray all night, fast for 5-6 weeks and send in a huge offering -plus the building fund…
Old habits are hard to break -and that is exactly my very real, and very serious point. It takes a long good-bye. It takes years to say good-bye to a lifetime of mind control, brainwashing and indoctrination. It takes years to purge the “new truth,” the old truth and the untruth. But worst of all, it takes years to rebuild a new life that is founded on the “rock” of reality. Who was it that said it is ten times harder to unlearn false knowledge than it is to learn true knowledge?
I did not leave because of the rumors, or the actions of others. I did not leave because of the Gestapo-like actions of the local “Ministry.” It was in March or April of 1988 that 29 years of doubts, questions, suffering, hopelessness, and feelings of failure and guilt finally melded and fused into a bolt of reality. The “alarm clock” of reality reverberated throughout every fiber of my being, throughout my entire mind and my -soul -if you will.
I will share my exact thought at that moment, “This way of life won’t work -it’s impossible.”
While that may seem to be the end, it was only the beginning. I had many superstitious, stone-age attitudes to overcome.” I had false “truths,” phobias, induced paranoia’s, siege mentalities, demons behind every rock and tree, God is going to “get ya,” Sabbath keeping, holy day watching, song singing, note taking, foot-washing, attitudes -and they were all out of touch with reality. In fact, they were insane.
I now have two college degrees, and I have learned that it is very possible for a sane, stable and rational mind to contain very irrational and even insane attitudes and beliefs. It is like a sane, rational computer that contains insane, irrational “software.”
When you leave the church -you begin real life. Now you have to worry about retirement, pensions and -the future. With the church, there was no future -only Petra (and $$).
It takes years to come out of this bondage, and it is not easy. I fully believe that the “hate mail” to this web site is by people who are still is such bondage that they break out in night sweats out of fear and terror -they are still terrified of “blasphemy” against the “apostle.” Either that, or they cannot comprehend what we have been through.
When the bolt of reality hit me, I decided that I would not waste any more of my life just because I was so wrong in the past. Maybe that’s why so many cling to the “splinter whores,” they simply cannot admit they were wrong. If they want to waste the rest of their lives in a vain effort to prove they were “right all along,” then I feel very, very sorry for them. But at the same time -I will move on.
On the other hand, maybe the “splinter whores” are still terrified, and are in bondage. Maybe they still stand in terror of blaspheming the “nonexistent.”
According to the “bible,” God is not the author of confusion. That is an absolute guarantee that He is not the author of politics, religion -or the bible. Maybe religion is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated in mankind’s history.
I learned in my marketing classes that the basis of success is “solving a problem.” Religion “claims” to solve the greatest problem of mankind. We all die -but religion claims to have an answer to that -eternal life -if you will listen to them, and pass the plate.
I have spent 12 years of my life scratching, clawing and digging my way out of the “belly of the whore.” I am just now learning and realizing things that “normal” people learn in their late teens or early twenties. I will never be what I should have been.
I still believe in a “something” God, too much has happened in my life. But if there is a God -he is not religious -and no religion knows what the hell they are talking about. And I also believe this, and this changed my life around. If there is a God -his “will” is written in our own genetics. If a person has the genetics to be an artist, then that is “God’s will.” We have to follow what we “are,” not what we “do.” It is not easy to discover what you “are.” But then, what is?
It takes -a long good-bye.