Non-Believer Former Members of the Worldwide Church of God

To anyone even remotely touched,

What a wild thing it is to read some of your own thoughts and memories without having personally recorded them. I can at least say that our family was not active in a WCG congregation (or whatever they call it, sleeper cell is probably more accurate.) But that certainly does not remove the fact that Armstrong and a pile of Plain Crap— I mean TRUTH— were present in the house.

I remember Christmas as a very small child and then one year, “We’re not celebrating a Pagan Holiday, it’s wrong in god’s eyes,” was the excuse for the onslaught of plain old totalitarianism and dictatorship, or how about just a cheap bastard. I don’t know if I would classify the old man’s behavior as child abuse, although the courts today certainly would, but having my ass beat on a daily basis has made me a physically hardened man. Thanks Pop! I will say that I have no personal desire to beat any understanding into my children but I do have to fight the urge to kick the shit out of those doing so. I did not learn any other lesson except “don’t get caught” from that ongoing extensive exercise. I actually became very good at it and eventually openly defiant as the “Power of the Darkness” took hold, which can be translated into reality as logical free thinking that has proven itself time and time again. Even to this day the exercise of freely documenting such an admission brings back the neural connections and memories, except without the fear, because I’ll return the favor and beat you back now.

I’m not real sure when the old man decided to move away from the main body of WCG doctrine, but his alternative was just as dark and cold. He and my mother decided to take the four little heathens into the Jehovah’s Witness program for the morally unstable and add that bizarre twist of guilt and unworthiness as icing to the cake, “What a long, strange, trip it’s been.” Mom died when I was 12 after laying on our couch suffering for days. The only comment I vividly remember was from my old man saying, “I am glad she is waiting for the resurrection.” Very comforting indeed. He got his ass thrown off the bus of 144K of the righteous for some reason or other. Hell, I don’t even care why. Needless to say we’re not very close to this day.

I grew my hair to my ass, got tattooed, started riding motor cycles, and wearing my Black Sabbath concert shirts openly and welcoming the confrontation and strife. Have you ever tripped on acid while attending a Jehovah’s Witness meeting? They couldn’t cast out the demons… imagine that. By 16 years old I would not even listen to true logical thinking— just my own— which certainly was not of sound logic at the time. I’m still quite convinced that I am the only one that can steer my life correctly. Except now I’m not wasted or drunk. Now I have my own full faculties in play. Now I out perform the highly educated “elite” or “cream of the social stock” on a daily basis. I personally believe that many of the root ideologies expressed in the WCG and the JW sects are equally at play in business and world governments. The same totalitarianism, the same dictatorship, the same “holier than thou” metaphor except expressed through other channels and our tax dollars fund it all. Oh… and just look at the wonderful results. These are actually psychological covers and safety mechanisms for people just like everyone else except their offices of “higher standing” say they must be better because they are “leaders”. I wouldn’t follow today’s government and business world leaders to the shitter except to laugh at them. We have our work cut out for us just to keep the next generation from committing suicide. I certainly did not expect to be here at 40 years old. But here we are. I will openly confront any illogical thinking and make on the spot challenges regardless of who you are or think you are. I think my greatest fear is actually the internal realization that I’m not afraid of anything except the damned things you can’t control, and even then only if harm comes to my children or wife.

Thanks for putting this together. If my ranting is of use to anyone please post it. If it is not, at least this exercise was therapeutic for me. I actually feel very good about myself. As for my religious views, Energy is everything, and most of everything is dark energy amidst the condensed energy we label as matter. Things are created in this universe and they are destroyed in an awesome cyclical dance. Burning hydrocarbon fuels is the only sin we really need to worry about at this point. The rest of it just happens to be the great works of assholes. It really is that simple and most people are just full of shit and they hope no one notices.

Sincerely,

James Michael Taddeo Sr.
Test Engineer and a Hell of Daddy

Blessed are those who Realize they actually know very little, at least they are less likely to screw someone else up.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 8th, 2007 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Personal Story. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments must be approved by the moderator before they will appear.