There is no "Oww" in Holy

There is a ubiquitous expectation of religion. It is there to bring you comfort. Comfort that in your piety, you gain salvation. Comfort that your suffering is not without purpose. Comfort that your self-denial will reap rewards in due time. Comfort that the temporary nature of our existence will be supplanted with eternity given the proper behavior.

So, what to do if your religion doesn't supply that...

As one of Jehovah's Witnesses, I was never comforted. That's a big statement, and I accept that it's a little hard to believe. I am, however, confident that I speak it truthfully. In twenty years of conscious, active participation in the Watchtower Society's organization, I had an unquenchable ember of anxiety burning a hole through my soul. Sometimes it would burn with the fire of a thousand suns. Other times, it simply smouldered in the dark as an irritating reminder of my own insufficiency.

There were two absolutely reliable things that I would encounter at three weekly meetings. First, the platform would tell me that I didn't measure up to God's standards. There was always something more that needed doing. More study. More meditation. More ministry. More self-denial. Second, the vast majority of the congregation could have been breaking their necks looking down their noses at each other. Brotherly love? More like brotherly rivalry. As the old joke goes, you don't have to outrun the bear, just the hiking partner you're with. The same thing works for piety. You don't have to be holy, just holier than the next guy.

In those two respects, the religion failed to be what all religion is really supposed to be - a platform for a personal relationship with God(s). Watchtower, by accident or design, fosters a pecking order based on fear of eternal death. It's a rat-race to salvation. The only measure of success is really how high up the ladder you can climb.

When I realized this, I also became aware of how miserable I really was. It truly was the sense of obligation that kept me going to the meetings for so long. I genuinely hated every meeting I went to, every door I knocked on, every talk I gave. With that went the self-loathing of being a public face that carried out a lie for the benefit of people that I didn't respect, and didn't respect me.

The assured reward was always just beyond my grasp, as I imagine it was for most Witnesses. To ever be so certain as to confidently declare that you were sure of your spot in the Paradise was outright haughtiness, and therefore reason enough for you not to be worthy. In fact, the proper mindset to have, so far as the platform would have you know, was to feel as if you weren't doing enough and should therefore strive to do more. Yes, a sufficiently righteous person is convinced that they aren't righteous enough!

Now, if I have you scratching your heads at that, you're not alone. As I said earlier on, the Society wants more from you. Your time, money, dedication. But the only way they continue as an organization is if you feel like it's not enough. It's the only way you give more. It's the only way to feed the beast.

But what is the logical conclusion that is to be drawn from that? The faith provides no comfort, only motivation for greater effort. Of course, as a matter of operational certitude, you come into the group with a ledger that's already in the red. At the very least, you're operating on a heavily extended credit line, and if you ever decide that you don't want to keep paying on a debt that you didn't agree to, your account is closed and your reputation destroyed (see Disfellowshipping).

The model itself declares that discomfort is the only proof of success...

I'm going to dramatically rub the bridge of my nose for a moment...

This falls under the umbrella of asceticism. It is the constant-self-punishment-as-the-only-means-to-salvation version of Christianity that society generally looks upon as fucked up. Witnesses are pretty good at pretending to be happy, but then depression and anxiety wouldn't be so disproportionately common among them. There wouldn't be high instances of alcoholism, domestic abuse, and drug use. The faith does nothing to curb these actions that are common enough in the general population. It can be reasonably argued that it contributes to them.

So, having entered the circular reasoning of saved = suffering = pious, we have to accept that we cannot be one if we are not all three. So you see, I'm not lying when I say that it never brought me comfort.

There are three different Gods in the bible. The Hebrew God tried to baptize the entire world at once via global flood, and when that didn't cleanse the earth of sin He dropped flaming rocks on them. That God was sort of a dick. Jesus' God was all about the love. Be good to people; help them out; don't be judgy. Doesn't sound too hard. And then there's Paul's God. Love people, but hate everything they do, and teach them not to do the things you hate.

Protestant Christianity is a bigger fan of Paul's God than Jesus' God, which is odd in many ways. Paul was an exclusionist who was far better at telling you who wasn't deserving of grace than telling us how to help those who needed it most. As the Protestant Reformation was founded on the premise that Catholicism was too stingy with clerical power, I find this particularly ironic. Christ, whether divine or not, had a single interest; making sure that the whole of mankind was not tread upon. Treat them with tenderness, compassion, and community. Jesus commanded us to look after the infirm, sin prone, and suffering.

Paul, however, was a shape-up-and-fly-right kind of apostle. His advice often focused on making sure that free thought was weeded out of the congregation. He prattled on about how those who were guilty of long lists of sins were not worthy of God's love, and how it was only proper to remove sinners from our good company. He was quite the opposite of Jesus. Quite the opposite.

It is also noteworthy that this is the Paul that was previously known as Saul of Tarsus; not the one that was of the first twelve apostles. He was a notorious persecutor of early Christian disciples and no 1st-party acquaintance to Jesus. It can't even be established that he was known to any of the original twelve apostles. That's right! The man most credited as an author of the New Testament (14 of 27 books, the now scholarly-rejected Epistle to Hebrews included) never met the man whose message he perverted and then promulgated. 

For as much as Witnesses claim to be Christian, there is very little that can be said to be Christ-like about their activity. They minister, yes, but only with the focus of redirecting the ways of Paul's sinners. There is nothing done to actively bring them comfort; to show them love that has no conditions. They provide no safe harbor for the abused or battered. They provide no relief for those in dire need. They neither feed the poor, educate the ignorant, nor employ the downtrodden.

Their only form of comfort is a promise of a future without disease or want. It is a future that, as described above, is only attainable through suffering... now. Their succor is to make the misery of today seem like it is a blessing. Jesus at the very least fed the hungry, treated the ill, and shouldered the tears of the broken-hearted. He eased their suffering without ever exacting a price.

If a religion cannot do that first, what good is it? There are needs of today that are not out of the reach of any person or church to address. The true test of holiness is, must be, the capacity and willingness to provide comfort. If not for our bodies today, then for our souls in eternity. If it fails at both, it is no reflection of the divine.

"Love your neighbor as yourself," he said. Loving ourselves is the first of our duties. When we do that, we can love others. Loving ourselves is not a sin. In fact, it is the foundation of all good things that come from us. To wallow in discomfort, in the punishment of self, is not loving. It is not the model that Jesus gave us.

"Love your neighbor as yourself," he said.

He did not stutter.