I Am Determined to Read the Holy Scriptures

Every day, as I read the Holy Scriptures, I felt a great pleasure. Before I became acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, when I went home from work I usually did not know how I would pass my time. But now I would go home with such joy at the thought that I was going to read the Holy Scriptures. On weekends, when I was together with friends and heard them say they were bored, I would think to myself, “How can a person be bored when there are the Holy Scriptures?” I knew I could not explain this to them. In fact, while reading this book I only kept silent. I mentioned it to no one. First I had to be convinced myself. And even if I were convinced, I also had to possess knowledge. Although I was reading these books with the aim of opposing them, on the contrary a great love and faith was developing within me. If I say that the most joyful and happiest time of my life was spent reading the Holy Scriptures, believe me, I would be speaking very truly. You know how, if someone were to tell you to go back and ask which time of your life you would like to return to, I would surely say “to none of them,” but if they asked, “what made you happiest?”, then I would answer, “reading the Holy Scriptures.”

My relationship with the Witnesses had begun little by little with this elderly couple. But it was, I think, our third or fourth meeting, and I was going to ask them about the spiritual crisis that disturbed me and the voice within me. As I say, a person cannot talk about such things with anyone. And a person does not always have around him someone who is intelligent, sensible, knowledgeable, and above all loves you. If someone has intelligence they lack love; if they love you they are foolish! And afterward you also get labeled a madman. Perhaps I really was mad. But would a madman know that he was mad? Whether he would notice that he himself was mentally ill, I do not know. How would I know—I was not going mad and coming to my senses again every day, so that I would have such experiences. Besides, I was someone who found things like spirits, jinn, and fairies to be utter nonsense.

Thinking to myself, “these people are strangers anyway, and no matter what I say no one will hear it; perhaps they can even help me,” and hesitantly, I told the man my trouble. Probably because I had always been affected by the questions I asked and the answers I received, I had begun to feel a certain trust toward this man. I did not want my wife or anyone else to be at home at that moment. My wife and I had divorced, but we were still living together. She had never had any interest in such topics anyway. That day too, if I am not mistaken, she had gone to the swimming pool. Or rather, I had strongly encouraged her to leave the house. She usually worked, but that day, as if out of stubbornness, she happened to be at home. Anyway, she left too, and I opened up my trouble to the man—his name was Josef. “I have never told this to anyone, but I suppose I can tell you,” I said. “I hear voices within me that I do not want. And sometimes it even says wicked words against God. It disturbs me. It does not matter if I suffer, but I do not want those words spoken against God. How can this happen when I do not want it? Or is this the beginning of some illness?” I said. I expected Josef to laugh mockingly and give empty advice. Although he had surprised me on many topics, he surprised me on this one too. After listening to me, he seriously opened the Holy Scriptures and told me to open mine as well. The place he opened was the Matthew section of the Gospel. He began to read from there. It was written as follows: Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. And after he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the Tempter (the Devil-Satan) came and said to him: If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.

But Jesus answered and said: It is written, “Man must live, not on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Then the Devil took him into the holy city and set him upon the tower of the temple and said to him: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will carry you on their hands, that you may not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus said to him: It is also written, “You must not put the Lord your God to the test.”

The Devil also took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and the Devil said to him: If you fall down and worship me, I will give you all these things. Then Jesus said to him:

Go away, Satan, for it is written: “It is the Lord your God you must worship, and it is to him alone you must render sacred service.” Then the Devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

Josef looked at me and asked: “Who was speaking with Jesus here?” “Satan,” I said. “Do you think it was like speaking with a man standing face to face with him?” he said. “Wasn’t it?” I said. “It could be so if he wanted, but this one we call Satan is a spirit creature, that is, one who, while being an angel, rebelled and revolted against God. We humans, however, cannot see spirit creatures with our eyes,” he said. “Satan spoke with him here, but this conversation was taking place in Jesus’ mind; we must not necessarily look for someone physical standing before him. In fact, it was in the minds of the prophets too that speech occurred; that is exactly what it means to receive revelation from God. They heard this voice whether they were walking on the road, or lying down, or sitting. They even saw visions about the future, as if watching television. For God everything is possible. These books show this to us,” he said. “Well, since the voices in my mind are wicked, do these voices come from Satan?” I said. “It need not necessarily be Satan. When you read the Gospel, it speaks many times of Jesus rescuing people who were under the oppression of demons,” he said, and I said, “and who are the demons?” “They too are spirit creatures, and all of them were once angels. But by being disobedient to God, they came to follow the path of Satan. Satan is the first of these, the Devil, which in its dictionary meaning is rendered as one who rebels, a rebel. Because of his rebelling and revolting against God, they gave him the name Devil or Satan,” he said, and he showed still other proofs demonstrating the existence of Satan. For example, the first two pages of the book of Job in the Holy Scriptures speak of a dialogue between Satan and God that took place before the angels. There a case that Satan raised is dealt with. That case is this: “that every person, or every person under suffering and oppression, would curse God if he had no benefit from serving Him.” As proof, permission is granted for Job to be tested. And God wins the case. These events took place around 1600 B.C. What befell Job is still a very great source of encouragement to us in bearing up under sufferings. Since we still speak of the sufferings he endured even in our time, this means that God did not permit Satan to test Job in vain.

All that was recounted was a great revolution in my soul and mind. When I said, “But I do not believe in Satan,” Josef again said something very sensible. “The better we know our enemy, the more prepared, careful, and watchful we are so as not to be defeated. But not accepting even the existence of our enemy, however weak he may be, causes him to defeat us all the more easily. Your not believing in Satan is precisely what Satan most wants. Because whatever he makes you do, you will think you did it yourself. Naturally, since you do not believe in his existence…” Whether the words I have written here were exactly, word for word, like this, I do not know, but since this teaching is the teaching of the Witnesses you can research it and find it in their publications. But it was true. As for me, it was as if a very great burden had been lifted from me. Even though the voices did not completely disappear, I not only no longer paid attention to those voices, I had also learned where they came from. I was reading the Holy Scriptures almost every day anyway. I was finding the proofs of this truth that had been explained to me in that very book too. As I read, I would come to possess even more knowledge about this Satan in the future.

Some people say, “There is no such thing as Satan; this is only humans’ tall tale. He is a made-up creature onto which they want to cast off their own evils.” Yes, in truth a person is responsible for his own deeds. Whoever it may be, he cannot escape by casting it onto someone else. But a bad friend also leads a person into crime very easily. In the courts, this and similar cases have been seen many times. Even though they committed the same crime, the judge does not give them all the same punishment. The greatest punishment is given to the one who incited the crime, the one who led it. See what God also says on this matter:

Do not be misled. Bad associations spoil useful habits. 1 Corinthians 15:33

Is it not truly so? Once again, Josef had asked me a question: “Who governs this world?” And I, after thinking briefly, had said, “God.” And he said: “Then God governs very badly.” Yes, but this is the fault of us humans, I said. Yes, it was also the fault of humans, but not only of humans; there was also a power causing all this filth.

In my youth I had read almost every book of Aziz Nesin. In a novel called Tatlı Betüş, the heroine of the novel, a woman named Betüş, would say: “Ah! If only I could find the source of this filth.” Yes, according to the novel, the woman had risen from the lowest place, from being a servant girl, to become the mistress of prime ministers and presidents. Both at home and abroad. Although the woman was in fact filled with a desire for revenge, whenever she thought she had truly found the person on whom she wished to take revenge, she saw that he too was, in a way, helpless like herself, at times full of love and having foolish sides, and that alongside his good qualities he too, like every person, had his evil ones. Moreover, while evil was being done to those people, they too were doing evil to others. In short, it was not a single person who had brought the whole world to this state. That is why the woman said, “Ah! If only I could find the source of the filth.” And at that time I too had said to myself, “the woman is actually right—where might the source of the filth be?” Surely it was not only that woman, the heroine of the novel, but the author Aziz Nesin himself who did not know this source, or did not want to know it.

The Holy Scriptures and the Quran give the full answer to these questions. They are the most reliable sources humankind possesses on earth, making known God’s purpose concerning the earth and mankind, and events past and future. Moreover, they also explain the source of this filth that dominates the earth. These books are like the instruction manual for something. Through these books, God has given to mankind, in the form of a message, the answers to countless questions such as how we should live in the world, how we can overcome problems, and what our expectations should or should not be.

Right now it is as if I can hear the voices of so many people who will oppose this idea. But when all those who oppose it are asked, “what is better and truer?”, they begin to explain by plunging into philosophy. They go on and on with stories of evolution from Darwin, from the ape to the human, of how the cell went from being a single one to becoming like this, and so forth. How do they know the history of a single cell, how it multiplied, who created that cell? On this matter too they make Darwin answer. This man called Darwin was an ordinary researcher; he has valuable findings, but also many errors. Alone in the mountains, on the islands, in the forests, by himself, with his observations—yes, with only what he saw with his eyes—he puts forth a thesis. Back then, this man even had to dive into the sea with the naked eye. The means available at that time were only that much. This thesis is not like today, where, with the help of present-day laboratories that dazzle the eye with such great technology, the genes that make a human from a human are researched. He looks at nature with his eyes; how he can look and push aside the truth of God and say merely that we came from a cell, from explosions—that I can understand; but the point I cannot understand is a man putting forth a thesis from his observations, and the whole world going wild over it and snatching it up—that is what my mind cannot grasp! Alongside this, there are also those who say that even Darwin himself did not make such a claim. Well, that may be. Everyone, like Darwin or anyone else, is free to speak, and it should be so. And whatever Darwin says after those experiences of his, let him say it. But its being greeted and welcomed as though it were a great glad tiding for humanity, its being accepted in schools and throughout the whole world as though it were a real teaching—this simply will not enter my thick head! (In the U.S.A. and some countries, teaching this in schools is forbidden.) It is like the teaching of old that the world was a flat plate on the back of a tortoise or on the horns of an ox. And the most curious part is that even those who pass for religious, those who believe in God, began to teach this theory of Darwin. Those who strive to fit the truth of Adam and Eve to Darwin’s theory are not few either. But I must also point out that if there had been no Darwins, if everyone had simply sat back and said, “this is true and there is no truth other than this,” first, there would be no freedom, and second, we who are called humans would never have been able to develop. Even if this development often came onto the stage in the form of evil, can we not say that we also learned much from the evils? If it were not so, God would not permit evil. And I have also learned this: a person saying “only what I say, or only what suits my head, is true” means nothing but throwing humanity into a dungeon, imprisoning it. It may be that I do not accept Darwin’s theory, but that does not mean everything this man says is wrong for me. It is such despotic lawmakers, those who have made a hobby of ruling over people, those who argue that everything except themselves is wrong—and who not only argue but even wage war, commit torture—who have brought about the world we possess today. When one looks at history, humans have been doing the same things for thousands of years. Our thick heads refuse to grasp it, we cannot see the truth, we do not want to see it, and most importantly, they do not show it to us.

For all these reasons, one must also salute Darwin. The man did research. At the very least, I too know what it is to do research. Who can say, “only my research is an absolute truth”? All of us have at some point seen how the thing we thought most true was, much later, sometimes so wrong or worthless, or not such a marvelous piece of knowledge, view, invention, or belief after all. If a person cannot even use ten percent of human intelligence, then there is still ninety percent of empty space. God has given no one the right to put these abilities of a person into the freezer, into deep-shock freezers. As for us, we will see that in religions, in science, and in the relations of nations with God, the very opposite is the case. Those called men of science have devoured one another out of jealousy. They have entered into mutual rivalry, saying, “whose word is true.” As for the religionists, they have been even more terrible. The war of the men of science with one another pales to nothing beside them. As for states and kings, they have seen religion as a very fine source for making fools of people, and they have collaborated with them accordingly. Where the power of that state made collaboration with the religionists impossible, it destroyed the religionist too. As in the case of the big fish and the little fish, the big one swallowed the small one. And the one bigger than it swallowed it too. And it was not only fish that did this, but humans! And when, by doing these things, humanity thought itself very mighty, intelligent, and capable, it in fact proved only that they were fish-brained.

I must make these explanations. Otherwise it would be difficult for me to explain to you my case, the disputes, the arguments, and the subject dealt with in this book. Because the principle is the same; the topics may change. Those will only be details.

While reading the Holy Scriptures, I kept saying it finishes very quickly. But the thinness of its paper and the smallness of the writing had deceived me. In fact, it would have been more correct for me to say, I wish it would never end. When I was working, I would come home from work, eat, go straight to bed, and from where I lay I would continue reading the Holy Scriptures. Until I fell asleep, which depended on how tired I was.

I worked at a physically heavy job. The place where I worked had once gone bankrupt, and I had worked there every summer vacation until it went bankrupt. In my student years this workplace had been of great benefit to me. Even if the money I earned working there during the summer vacations was not enough for the whole winter, it could still cover many of my needs, even things that could be called luxuries. I had first started that job at fourteen years old. When I reached the age of 21, it had declared bankruptcy. Then, when they started up again as a small family enterprise, they had hired only a woman who had worked there for years and me. That is, just two workers, and the other three were the owners of the firm. One of their sons was my age. We worked together. While working, at one point I asked him whether he knew the Witnesses. “Oh no! Did they come to you too?” he said. “Yes, but why?” I asked. “Whatever you do, don’t let them into your house or anything,” he said. “Why, what do they do? Are they thieves, murderers, or what?” I said hesitantly. But what could I lose? “No, but once they start coming, they keep coming forever,” he said. His grandmother had believed them too, and had even waited for the world to end in 1974-75. But no end or anything came. Since she, like many others, had been disappointed on this matter, she never wanted to see them again. Of course, while telling this, he was both emphasizing that his grandmother had been deceived and that those religions carried fraudulent and empty beliefs. If that was the whole risk, it was not important to me.

I am telling these things here simply, writing them like this, but back then I was as if living in a world veiled with fog. I had no experience, no knowledge. At those ages a person cannot foresee what things do to a person, how, and what kind of traces they can leave. Work, eat, drink, sleep; work, eat, drink, sleep. Then get up again, work, eat, drink, sleep—and on top of that, a world of debt. According to my calculations at that time, these debts, if we never ran a deficit, would only finish 6 years later. And that was according to my calculation! Actually, 25 years have passed in between, and my debts still have not finished! Never mind—it would be a lie if I said a person gets used to it; I never, ever liked it, nor could I get used to debt. But I took on debt very easily. In a life like this, I likened myself a little to animals. But when I looked at the other countries of the world, they were full of hunger, misery, and want. And I was better off than they were. Was I perhaps ungrateful? Was it ingratitude to think this way? There were people whose entire lives passed like this, with work and home, eating and sleeping. In fact, I used to say about the Germans, “these people live only to work; they do not work in order to live.” But this was the face they showed to us and to one another, as I later understood. Yes, they were not irresponsible and lazy like our society. For example, being a prostitute was not so shameful, but sleeping was very shameful to them! While they were rushing about hurriedly, saying they had no time at all, some of them would go off to a hobby, to a place where liquor is drunk for hours, or to sleep. If you go to their homes unannounced, they will hardly even open the door when the bell rings outside of certain hours—that too is a matter of culture. In reality, though, like every human, they were lazy people who hated working. But outwardly they have the sickness of always giving the impression of working. With our nation it is exactly the opposite. In their eyes it is as if there is nothing as shameful as working. We had friends, and we would go to visit their workplaces. If someone was working, when we said, “Wow! Are you working?”, they would give answers like, “no, dear, just puttering around,” and would take pride in saying that they were actually doing nothing. Whereas, even though he was working, he would claim not to be working; as if only workers work, he had set up such an arrangement that he has the air of doing nothing at all. It is as if by earning money through working he is being diminished, and the skill lies in earning money without working! When they gather together, they go on and on recounting—sometimes even lying—where they drank rakı, which woman they slept with, the meals they ate. The women of the European are of this mindset too. If she works, she works without letting her husband so much as sniff a penny. They always prefer more to take. As for the Germans, once they gather together, they start talking about their work. They go on and on about how they work, what job they do, technical subjects. Theirs too is sometimes even a lie, but their topics are that different. Of course, their most common topic is running down foreigners. On this matter they encounter no opposition. In that moment they are all in unity and brotherhood. And yet, even if these brothers have known one another for forty years, they have not even drunk a single coffee in one another’s homes! The worst of all is, as a foreigner—especially as a Turk—to converse with a German you have just met. You can never have a normal conversation with them. They start explaining that “they actually love foreigners, that they have no bad relations with anyone, that it is not you but the other foreigners who are not so good.” The same line to every foreigner: “Not you, but the other Turks...” As if there is no other topic. Their first question, too, if you happen to meet on the road, in the elevator, wherever, and you smile, is immediately: “Where do you come from?” You understand what they mean, but out of mischief I would say the name of the village where we lived. If he was persistent: “Nooo, I meant which country do you come from,” he would say, and when I told him, his face would sour like this. However much he holds himself back, he gives himself away. Then he pulls himself together and starts explaining again. He has neighbors on the back street, and they are Turks too! Is there any place without Turks? They have even gone to the Eskimos and are doing fishing. A friend of mine who worked on a passenger ship, whom I met while in America, had told me this. So the fact that Turks are everywhere is nothing new. He goes on again, “I have even been to Turkey,” he says. The conversation only goes in this direction. As I say, it is as if there is no other topic in the world. Or perhaps they really cannot find another topic. What is there for them to talk about with us? There is only one topic, and that is that you will recite your identity card. And when they see one another, not a peep is heard. It is as if refrigerators have gathered together. From then on, it depends on their star signs. If they are deep-freezers, not even a knife can pry their mouths open.

Our people, on the other hand, suddenly warm up and immediately get familiar. I thought about these things too. These men were perhaps once like this as well. That is, like us, but they saw that it did not work. They withdrew from one another entirely. It is not nice to clash with anyone either. He merely returns your greeting, and that is that. Such are our relations on a narrow street where I have lived for 21 years. Even if you lived there for 50 years, it would still always stay the same. But the information they have about you stops your mind. People I have never known, whom I thought I had never seen, know me and recognize me by heart. What I do, what I am or am not occupied with. This means that news, gossip, and broadcasting are working powerfully! Some do not even give a greeting. As for the easterners, they stare straight into your face like that. Even if you greet them, they do not respond, but continue to stare straight into your face. I have seen this at cockfights—those preparing to attack, staring and staring at one another. As I said, there are very few valuable people, but this is so in every society. Humanity, unfortunately, has now become like this.

When I went to Turkey for a job, I asked the youngsters on a tourist boat which country the best tourists came from. But they started explaining from the very opposite end. The worst ones were the local tourists. Especially those coming from Istanbul, who were conceited and had gaudy airs. The Russians were both ill-mannered and filthy. They would throw their garbage into the middle of the sea. He did not spare their women a word—they were all whores! The Arabs would come to eat their meals in pajamas. He went on counting off the Poles and so on, and again in the end he said the best were the Germans—except for those coming from the east—and the English. And I had the same experience. Along with being very self-interested, the Germans were generally well-mannered and did not behave crudely. Our best experiences at the workplace we set up too would be with the German customers. I will never forget: in the early 1990s, while driving to Turkey, we had waited at the Romanian border for something like 26 hours, and while waiting in that filth and want, a suffocation like death came over me. There was no toilet, no water, nothing to meet a person’s most natural needs. I had talked with a German truck driver waiting in the line on the opposite side, and I would not have been as glad to see my own mother’s son. From my 3-to-5-minute conversation with him, it was as if my morale had been restored. That he was German or whatever did not concern me in the least. The man’s truck was clean, and he himself was clean. In that filth and want, however he had managed it, he had shaved, and with a spotless jerry can he was even washing his face on the roadside. These were the things that drew me to that man. When a friend and I first met, I had begun to befriend him just because he was clean. And yet he was not a good, trustworthy person. Never mind—he was clean. That cleanliness and fastidiousness of his covered over many of his bad qualities for me.

Do not, by any means, read what I have written as “strict rules and everyone is like this.” These are only my impressions, the negative and positive sides of these cultures that I have seen and lived through. Surely there are also many people who are outside this generalization.