Jehovah's Witnesses!

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

I had really liked the Witnesses' meetings. In the orderly, clean, and odorless meeting halls I felt at ease. Another interesting side of it was that the people at these meetings came from mixed nations, and by Germany's standards they were people of the very lowest class. Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Arabs, even Turkish-speaking Germans—all of them together had adapted to this order and cleanliness. But in overall numbers the Turks were a small minority. And yet it was a meeting held in Turkish; for some reason the number of Turks stayed in the minority. It was the same at the Turkish conventions. In a convention hall for a thousand people, perhaps only a hundred were genuine Turks. The reason I say “genuine Turk” is this: some of the others were Turkish citizens too, but all of them had previously come from Christianity and were not ethnically Turkish anyway; Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, for example. Actually, which one of us is originally from where? The one thing I know is that we all descend from Adam and Eve. What I want to convey here is that there were very, very few people who had been Muslims and become Jehovah's Witnesses. And they did not concern me in the least. A person was precious in God's sight. Besides, having seen enough from the Germans of what it means to make distinctions between nations, we had by now come to loathe such feelings. So I think it would be no lie if I said I hate nationalism. Or rather, making distinctions and taking sides, calling the good bad and the bad good—that, to my mind, is where all the vileness lies. Among the Witnesses this seemed at first glance to be absent, but under the influence of society, even the German Witnesses had within them that sickness of looking down on foreigners with a small and contemptuous eye. Still, compared to other Germans, this was a slight influence. And that was normal too. Because in my own eyes there were plenty of things about our own society that I found absurd and disliked. There is a saying attributed to Muhammad: “I am an Arab, but the Arab is not of me”—I used to apply this to myself as well, and when I saw it in nearly every Turk's hatred of one another, I ended up keeping it hidden within me. All the Turks practically hated one another. Because they had no other option, they could not separate from one another, but it was not out of love. If we look at it through this eye, it would not be wrong to say that in fact all the peoples of the world hate one another. The things they defend and cling to are not out of any love for one another; humanity only defends and loves its own advantages and interests.

I will never forget: while I was walking around with the uncle of a friend of mine who had come from Turkey to Germany to buy machinery, he kept telling me how untrustworthy Turks were, their dishonesty, their filth. Actually, when I thought about it, most of the things he was condemning he did himself. I did not want to hurt him, of course, and when I said, “Brother, actually maybe we too, without realizing it, are making the same mistakes,” my man immediately understood what I meant, and hotly said: “I know, if the Turk is base, then I am the basest of them all”—and however much I tried to restrain myself, I had laughed a great deal at that sincere remark of his. The Turk's greatest enemy, in my view, was again the Turk. That is why no state sees us as dangerous. Let them once see a solidarity, a unity—then a different kind of hatred begins. Indeed, because there is such a unity among the Turkish religionists, the German state and all of Europe immediately took a stance against them. In such situations not only the German but all the states of the world take a stance. This holds for every nation and community that is a minority in a given place. For example, the hatred and enmity felt toward the Jews in Hitler's Germany stems from these very reasons. Perhaps the Turks' enmity toward one another was, without our realizing it, a kind of protection for us in these foreign lands. But whatever results enmity brings, it is a most disgusting thing. Since the state knows the inner truth of the matter, it does not treat that nation so badly, but this time it is society that becomes wicked and full of hatred. And the politicians say, “I can gather votes to my advantage out of such extreme feelings,” and take no measure against this enmity. And anyway, what measure could they take? Should they proclaim, “This nation is already hostile to one another, so don't you go being hostile toward them too”! Especially when the politician's greatest source of vote-gathering comes by this path! Moreover, with Merkel's coming to power all these rules broke down too, and with the policy the state launched against the Turks under the name of “integration,” we returned to the anti-Jewish hostility of the 1930s.

A story came to my mind. A country's king had people of mixed nations rounded up—for whatever reason—and as punishment thrown into a deep pit. Germans, Englishmen, Americans, Frenchmen, and among them two Turks as well. After some time the king pardoned them all and said, “Open the lid over the mouth of the pit, let them all climb out and go.” Since the pit was deep, one could only save himself by stepping on another's hand and shoulder to climb out. One by one they climbed out. At the very end, from the mouth of the pit a hand, a foot, a head would appear, and then immediately vanish again. Everyone stared in astonishment and said, “Why can't these ones manage to get out?”—whereupon someone there said: “The ones in the pit are Turks; when one wants to climb out, the other pulls him back down, that's why.” Unfortunately, as a nation we are in a situation just like this joke.

In Istanbul we used to take the ferry a lot. Those old ferries were left over from the '50s and '60s. At one point they had put a magnificent, newly restored ferry into service. And it was classic, its interior fittings and all done very beautifully. It called to mind the 1800s. I know I was captivated. But on the very second day I boarded the ferry, and it was as if bandits had passed through a war zone and entered the ferry. The seats, the cushions cut with a knife! Those polished woods gouged with iron! I cannot describe how furious and how sad I was.

In our country these enmities begin already in the upbringing at home. Again, one day, while going to school by suburban train, I saw my friend at the station, and he got into the same car. By chance there was no one else besides us. My friend was very surprised at this and, to be sure, looked from one end of the compartment to the other and said to me: “There really is no one else besides us.” And I had said, “Well, so what shall we do about it?”—when right at that moment he went flying, shouting “haaaaay!” and running, feet-first onto the seats. All the seats were covered with his dusty footprints. On the green leather they showed clearly. When I said, “What are you doing, have you gone mad?” he, taken aback by my question, answered breathlessly, “There's no one here anyway.” And he stared blankly into my face! Look at the logic! And yet he wasn't a bad kid either. At that moment I do not know why he took such delight in that kind of frenzy.

Our conscience-education is either zero or absurd, remote from all logic. In God's name, either it's: “Be quiet, don't do that, it's a sin, heretic, infidel”; or, as a reward, the houris in paradise, and as punishment, the fires of hell, the cauldrons of tar. These are our religious education. As for our famous National Education at school, it's taught as: “Button up your jacket, stand up, stand at attention when you see me, don't answer back, even if you're at your last breath, stand up when you see an old man on the bus or the train, give up your seat.” Those young, young children come out at the crack of dawn from destitution, from shanties, from holes I couldn't even call homes. Until evening they are made to work—in whosever hands they happen to be, conscientious or unconscientious—at the worst, filthiest, and heaviest jobs. The only place the poor wretch can sit and rest is those vehicles of public transport. He even runs ahead of his friends so he can grab a spot he wants and sit down. With his last strength he manages this too, and sits. And then some old codger plants himself over his head. Within that poor wretch a host of struggles begins. Should he pretend not to see, or should he play at being asleep? In the end he is defeated, cannot bear it, gets up and says, “Sit down, uncle” or “Sit down, auntie.” And the one standing over him gives such a look, as if to say, “Why did you wait so long, you wretch,” as though these seats were his by right alone. And yet when buying the ticket, both of them pay the same money. This is our understanding of respect, and the conscience-education we give those children. Yes, perhaps he gets up, but with hatred. In Europe, by contrast, the elderly are given almost no value at all. The two things they value most are small children and small dogs! Over there, if once in a million a young person gets up and gives his seat to an elderly one, that person is very grateful and gives thanks. Because they are not raised with such an obligation and conscience. So the young person's getting up and giving his seat shows only his own initiative and feelings. Because he did it with no obligation and no social pressure, the other person appreciates it greatly. They too, of course, have their own conscience-education in other matters—which I cannot understand, just as with us—where through social pressure they instill in a person a sense of obligation. Just as with us, when they bring religion and God into the matter no one dares make a peep, and people commit every kind of filth by taking refuge in those names, so with them nationalism and patriotism function in the very same way. They commit every kind of filth by hiding behind those words, and their conscience-education is received in that way too. There are, of course, many more things like this.

By the example I gave about the elderly, do I mean to be disrespectful? Absolutely not. Not once have I ever, ever heard an elderly person say to a young one who gives up his seat like that: “Bless you, my son, my child, sit down. You young ones are already worn out from morning till night.” Or, “Thank you so much, my child, thanks,” or, “Please don't get up, son; I'm already retired and I've come out just to stroll and take the air, your conditions are harder.” The only ones the young people give their seats to are those made-up ladies and girls—which they do gladly anyway—and they say: “Oh, thank you so much,” or “Merci,” and that is enough for the boy or the young man, because he is doing it gladly.

We teach respect for elders but also love for the young. Those poor wretches, though, do not see even the “L” of love. Within them, unnoticed, only a hatred grows. What would it cost that so-called elder to humble himself a little and show gratitude, and the love he does not have? Look, now comes the most interesting part of the matter. Those children grow up passing through this destitution and hardship, and a day comes when they themselves grow old too. And they do the very same things to someone else. Yet why don't you do for them the very thing you once wanted for yourself? Or why do you do to another the very thing you did not want done to you? Just because nobody else is doing it? Advance alone on the path you believe in—what would it cost? Have you never heard the saying that even if you burn, you hold up a light for those behind you? No; he too thinks of his momentary comfort. Let the vicious circle keep turning. And yet one of the two greatest commandments says: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” says God. Who does this? Matthew 22:36-40 writes as follows:

One of them, a legal expert in the Law, in order to test Jesus, asked him: "Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the Law?" Jesus answered him: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and most important commandment. And the second, which is like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor (people) as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole of the Law and the words of the prophets." In this love, is there any distinction of language, race, color, nation, native, foreigner, sex, religion, small, great, old, young, beautiful, ugly, clever, stupid, or any other kind of distinction? Give the answer yourselves.

The Witnesses had won my sympathy. These were not things that were natural in the environment we knew. But in time I would come to see other religions as well that were within the same order and cleanliness.

At the Witnesses' meetings I attended, the very subjects I had been reading about in the Holy Scriptures were being discussed. Yet outside, in daily life, no one talked about these subjects. They neither knew this book nor wanted to know it. All the thoughts of the friends around me at that time were, as it is written in the Gospel, either in their stomachs or in their shameful parts. (Philippians 3:19) They lived, as it were, for this, worked for this, gave battle for this. But these feelings exist in animals too. So then, what set us apart? If it is intelligence, we were using our intelligence for these very things. And if animals do not use intelligence, they at least have their instincts. In short, we had no superiority over the animal. On the contrary, the animals are more virtuous, more peaceable, more content than we are. Some people use this word “animal” as an insult to one another. In their own responsibilities—that is, in living in harmony with nature—the animals are far superior to us humans. As human beings, we did not fulfill our responsibility toward this earth that God gave us as a gift. On the contrary, we especially abused it. But this cannot be said of the animals. Is there any evidence to prove the opposite?

When we began attending those meetings regularly every Sunday, some of the Witnesses would come over to us at the end of the meeting. They wanted to talk with us and encourage us. As for me—since I had read the Quran but could find no bad reason against it—I would ask them questions about the Quran. Because I thought they surely knew this book and would show it to me. I spoke about this subject with Josef once or twice. But Josef had never read the Quran, and perhaps had never even seen it. For him, everything outside the Holy Scriptures was simply wrong. Although he influenced me on many subjects, I had understood that I could learn nothing from him on this one. So within the Turkish-language meetings, I thought, “These people have surely lived through the problem regarding the Quran, and so they must know it.” I had a notion within me that those places were the very source of knowledge on this subject. And yet, along with this, I had no fanatical thought or belief such as “this Quran must be true” or “it has to be true.” Nor did I have such a feeling about the Holy Scriptures. Even though I did not know either book, I had neither the prejudice that “these are very, very true” nor the contrary thought that “throw these out, they're wrong.” Least of all was I, as our Turks so often are, a supreme criterion regarding a book I had never even taken into my hand. I had begun first with the Holy Scriptures—let us say this was perhaps a coincidence—and after that the Quran. As I read and understood the Holy Scriptures, I felt sympathy and came to love them very, very much. A person cannot possess such feelings without becoming acquainted with the thing itself. The Quran, for its part, only confirms those books that came before it. God has this done according to the culture, the style—that is, the manner of expression—of an illiterate person in Arabia. This is a rule, a method God uses that holds for all the prophets. The prophets receive the revealed words from God, yes, but generally these words are in harmony with their own manner of expression. (1 Corinthians 14:26-33) For example, those first four writers in the Gospel—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, whom we call the apostles—recorded the same event in a manner that fit their own style and point of view. And God wills that it be so. Look at what the Quran writes on this subject:

We have made it (the Quran) easy in your tongue, so that they may reflect and take heed. Quran, Ad-Dukhan 44:58

As for the knowledge within the Quran not belonging to Muhammad—with each investigation I confirmed this with ever greater certainty. It is not possible for a single person to write such truths. And another interesting side of the matter is that that person, that is, Muhammad, passes away without having written anything at all. As we have said, he did not know how to read or write anyway. This entire Quran remained in the memory of those people. It is said, “The Arabs have a truly astonishing capacity for memorization.” In my view this exists not only among the Arabs but in every human being. It is enough that a person be under those conditions. For example, when I was a child there was a man I used to go to in order to exchange black-market German marks. He was illiterate. I learned of it later from my friend. In fact he was his uncle. According to what they said, he had hundreds of telephone numbers in his memory. Not just telephone numbers, but names, addresses, and many other things—this man had to commit to memory. He had no other option. His learning to read and write, that could have been his other option. For some reason he did not do that either. And yet he drove a car (without a license), bought houses, opened businesses. He was not some strange fellow either. In his own way he was quite successful. At a time when hardly everyone in Turkey owned a car, this man drove a Mercedes. The venerable Muhammad was a merchant too. Even though he could not read or write, it is certain he used his capacity for memorization. On a German television program called “Wetten dass,” I once saw a man who knew that thick two-volume telephone directory by heart. From whatever page you named someone's name, he immediately said the telephone number—a frightening thing. I was also amazed at the things people spend their talents on. What I want to convey by this is that it was quite normal for the Quran to be in the memory of Muhammad and his companions. To “complete a recitation” also means to recite the Quran by heart from beginning to end. And in Arabic, at that. Again, if I am not mistaken, the writer Aziz Nesin accomplished this feat at a very young age. I recall he was younger than six, but not exactly. Four or five—I forget. It was written in the book about his life. If a child that young can accomplish this, then for those people to hold in their minds words that are in their own language was, I think, even easier.

Yes, I had said the Quran's manner of expression was fragmentary. And anyway, if God, by means of Muhammad and the Quran to which revelation was granted, was going to make certain truths heard, then in doing so why would He render invalid those writings He had earlier had His prophets record, and have an entirely different book, or an exactly identical book, written again? For this reason the Quran speaks of the old events only in the manner of a reminder, in a brief passing mention. The original is already in the Holy Scriptures—God says, “Open it, read it.” In verses 2:4, 3:3, 5:48, 5:68, 10:37 it writes as follows on this subject: (If I write the verses briefly in the form 2:4, the meaning will be the 4th verse of the 2nd sura, that is, Surah al-Baqarah. It will continue in the same sense with other verses. For example, 3:3 means the 3rd sura, Surah Al-i Imran, and its 3rd verse.)

—And We have sent down to you the Quran as truth, confirming the books sent down before it and standing as a guardian over them. Quran 5:48

—He gave you the Book as truth, confirming what came before it! Surah 3:3

—Those who believe in what is sent down to you (that is, the Quran revealed to Muhammad) and in what was sent down before you (the Holy Scriptures; the Torah, the Psalms, the Gospel) and who inwardly believe in the Hereafter as well. Surah 2:4

…Say: "If you are truthful people, bring the Torah and read it." Surah 3:93

—It cannot be said that this Quran is from anyone other than God. It only confirms what came before it and explains the Book. Surah 10:37

—Say: "O people of the Book! Unless you carry out the Torah, the Gospel, and the ordinances sent down to you from your Lord, you rest upon nothing." Surah 5:68

There are so very many verses that, rather than attempt to write them all, I recommend that you too read this book. In the whole of the Quran you will not come across even the smallest trace, the slightest doubt-casting subject against the Holy Scriptures. Rather, with great righteousness and truth, what it criticizes and takes to task are the Christian world and the Jews. And also the unbelievers and the Arab society of that time. Again, contrary to what many Muslims claim, the words "the Holy Scriptures have been altered by people, they have been corrupted" do not appear even once in that book. It does not even hint at such a thing. On the contrary, the Quran always uses those books as proof. Both against the Jews and against those who are Christians. With words like "Bring it, then, and show it from your book," or "they will find nothing else in their own books," or "Bring the Torah and read it," it awakens in us the conviction that we can trust these books very much. If God, in the Quran, in Surah ar-Rum, verses 55-56, draws attention to a prophecy belonging to a far-distant time—to the Day of Resurrection, to the unbelief of people after they are raised—then why would He not also draw attention to the earlier time, that is, to the time we live in, and warn humanity that "they will corrupt these books"? Whereas, on the contrary:

"We, yes, We, have sent down this Book. And doubtless We ourselves shall be its guardian" (Surah 15:9)—by saying this, God gives an assurance in the Quran as well. The Muslims say: "This assurance holds only for the Quran and does not include the books God had recorded through His other prophets." And yet again, this time the prophet David, in the book of the Holy Scriptures known as the Zabur, in the book of "Psalms" (meaning: divine words sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument), prophesying by God's spirit, says:

The words of the Lord are pure words; …You will keep them, O Lord; You will preserve them from this generation forever. Psalms 12:6-7 (old translation). Are the words that appear in the Quran valid for the Quran, while the word of God that appears in the Holy Scriptures is invalid for the Holy Scriptures?

When the prophet Daniel said he did not understand the words, the prophecies, that were told to him by Gabriel, the angel said to him:

And I heard, but I did not understand; and I said: My lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said: "Go, Daniel, for these words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end." Daniel 12:8-9

But you, O Daniel, keep these words secret and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall search, and knowledge shall increase. Daniel 12:4

Even though 600 years after the Daniel who wrote these words, Jesus the Messiah came, Jesus never said: "You corrupted Daniel's words in 600 years." Not only Daniel's, but the words of Moses, written more than 1,500 years before him, he also never said "you altered." And yet Jesus was one who spoke the errors and sins of people without any hesitation. Had such a thing been done, would he have kept silent and concealed those people's sin in this matter? On the contrary, Jesus always condemned the Jews on the basis of those very verses, showed them their errors. Again, if we pay attention to the words spoken to Daniel, the angel there says: "…Many shall search, and knowledge shall increase." If these books were going to be altered, then neither the searching nor these prophecies would have any meaning. If there were no truth in it at all, on what basis would these men search out the sealed, that is, hidden, words? And if God were not going to preserve these words, from where would people find the knowledge at the time of the end by means of these corrupted words? Because the prophet Daniel did not live until the time of the end. The saying "…O Daniel, keep these words secret until the time of the end" does not show that Daniel would do this work. Rather, God is indicating that these words would be preserved and that the meanings of the prophecies in certain places would remain hidden. Again in the Gospel Jesus says:

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away," in Matthew 24:35. If people are able to corrupt these words, on what basis do God and His prophet-servants make such promises?!

As I said, there are many such verses. Do not expect me to write them all. But in response to the Muslims' claim of saying “these books were altered but the Quran was not altered, because God promised,” I have written briefly. Again, as I said, if when God promises in the Quran He keeps His word, does He not keep it when He promises in the Holy Scriptures? What absurd logic this is. Would God preserve the Quran as His own word, while the Holy Scriptures are whose word that He would not preserve them? We are speaking of a book that has impartially recorded the beginning of the creature called man, who created him, that Creator's purpose regarding humanity, and moreover the thousands of years of human history. Why would God permit such a book—which encompasses hundreds, thousands of years of human history, which treats those people's experiences, whether in matters that befell them concerning their Creator or in matters that passed among themselves, which deals with humanity's and God's experiences—to be erased and destroyed? Again, God, who had recorded, so that we might take a lesson, so much counsel and admonition, the prophecies that would be fulfilled in the future, and the events that many prophets lived through—God, who had all of these written down for this purpose, saying:

"And these things happened to them as examples, and were written down as counsel for us, upon whom the ends of the ages have come" (1 Corinthians 10:11)—why would God, after that, say of such a precious book, "throw it in the garbage, or do to it whatever you wish"? Since He says this nowhere, yet if we are the ones claiming it, then surely it is that there are some mistaken thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of ours that we ought to throw in the garbage. And this is not a product of God and of the truth. Again, if we think logically, if the word of God has been corrupted—and moreover if there is no such thing as the word of God at all, because this is claimed from time to time not only by Muslims but by Christians too—then on what basis will God judge people? On what basis will He find us guilty or in the right? If I am guilty, I too would say, "I didn't know," and this would be my excuse. Would not everyone come before God with the same excuse? Would God permit it to be so? Would the God whom we call just do such a thing? If humanity, whom we call unjust, does not do this, why would God do it? Which country's laws are hidden from its citizens? Whether one reads them or not, applies them or not—these are not valid reasons. Rather, whether one has read them or not, whether one knows them or not, when a person is being judged before the law, excuses like "I didn't read those laws, and besides, people have corrupted them" not only do not save that person but are not accepted as an apology either. Because ignorance too is not always an excuse. Otherwise everyone would say it. If a person gives such value to the laws he himself has enacted, why would God give less value than us to the laws and principles He has given us? Apart from all this, God also gives man the law of conscience. Even if that community or those persons are without knowledge, the conscience they possess guides them in distinguishing good from bad. God will therefore judge those persons we call bookless and without knowledge according to their consciences. Gospel—Romans 2:14-16. And that conscience is as simple, as known and understood by everyone, as: "Why did you not do to others the things you wanted done to yourself?" Or "Why did you do to others the things you did not want done to yourself?"

Our faith must be in harmony not with the words of this one or that one, but with those books we hold in our hands and call the ones we believe in, the ones we say are “the word of God.” For us to throw the Quran in the garbage by looking at the Muslims, the Gospel by looking at those who say “I am a Christian,” the Torah by looking at the Jews—all out of ignorance—would be no wise manner of conduct at all. On the contrary, by looking at them we see how much more trustworthy these books are. For do they not hold these books in their hands and preach at the top of their lungs the things they believe? But when we take the book in their hands and look inside it, our seeing that they do not live according to those books is precisely what makes us feel even greater confidence in the words in those books.

Just think for a moment: if these people had altered the books in question, would they not have had to make the alterations to suit their own whims? For example, even though it is written in the book in their hands, “you shall love even your enemy” (Matthew 5:43-48), the First and Second World Wars generally broke out among countries that pass for Christian. Instead of applying the teaching of Jesus the Messiah, who said, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him, give him drink” (Romans 12:20), they fed and gave one another drink with the most powerful bombs! If I were to go into the details in the other religions as well, I think this book would neither be finished nor would there be ink enough to write it. Just because people hold it in their hands and say they believe in it does not make that book trustworthy or untrustworthy. I write these explanations so that, in my debates with the Witnesses, you may better understand their logic and mine.

When I first began attending the meetings, a lady came over to me. Somehow the subject got stuck on Islam again. I remember saying: “But these people don't believe in Islam.” She said, “Actually, we are Muslims,” and went on. She explained that as a matter of word meaning, “Müslüm” means “the believing,” “man” means “man,” and so “Müslü-man” means “the man who believes.” She said she would also give me a little booklet written on this subject. I had read that booklet. I understood what she meant. In fact, she too had understood what I meant, but with such duels of knowledge they wanted to avoid the truly sensitive subject. In my view, the reason they avoid this subject is that if they state their belief, they fear both losing you and the reaction of the person opposite them. At the same time they do not want to hurt him. As for me, I was determined. All I wanted was to know the truth, whatever it was. The lady said: “Let me call my husband so you can discuss these subjects with him.” The Witnesses are not lax in relations between men and women like the majority of other Christians. In fact, they expel from among them anyone who has an extramarital relationship, that is, who commits what is called adultery. No one talks with such a person anymore, sits and eats a meal with them, and so on. This belief of theirs rests on verses like:

But now I am writing you this: do not associate with anyone who, while being known as a brother, is sexually immoral, greedy, an idolater, a reviler, a drunkard, or a swindler—do not even eat with such a one. As in 1 Corinthians 5:11.

People have most often used commands like these however it suited them. Although in general people do not show one another this decency and fidelity, these are rules that every person wants applied to themselves. Who wants to be cheated on by their spouse? Or who does not want to be the only one, the first, for the spouse they marry out of love? Among us, men expect the woman they will marry to be a virgin. If she is not, then that woman is a whore or dishonorable. Or if it's a man—however many women he has slept with, as many as he wanted, brings no stain upon that man! When God said “you shall not commit adultery,” did He mean only women? There is no such absurd rule. The same moral rules apply to both sexes. When the man does it he is innocent, but when the woman does the same thing, does she become dishonorable and guilty? I do not mean to emphasize here that women, girls, are under pressure. They too, in fact, commit adultery even more than men, and possess this spirit as well. Even if the man does this because he does not want, or is not able, to rein in his feelings most of the time, the women often do it without even taking pleasure in it. Let us not even get into what even the most covered-up among them do with one another. In Europe and America, cultures have developed somewhat differently. Again, from what I have seen I would say, among the Germans more than seventy percent of women raise children without a father. The laws too push those women into this. Because to become pregnant by someone—especially by someone with money—is like the greatest jackpot for those women. That man can then never manage to get himself free of it. They make that person pay a very great price. The man is not incompatible or wicked or anything. The woman has planned it in this direction from the very beginning. And the laws—the laws of that state that says “we are civilized Christians”—assist this situation too. For the money they will get from the state, almost all of the socially poorer German girls make children as quickly as they can. And the state, saying “our lineage is dying out,” has hordes of riffraff make children and raises a new generation among people who have less than zero family training. Besides, when there is total freedom, why would those women, those girls, live under the responsibility of a marriage? Moreover, marital relations—because of the responsibility they bring—seem tedious to these people rather than giving them happiness. If a woman can earn ten lira going out to be a housemaid rather than cooking a meal in her own home, she will buy ready-made food from outside with that ten lira, but still she does not want to do anything in her own home. She is willing to work, sometimes even to be a housemaid! Because in her eyes, the people of her own home are not worthy of the work she would do there. And besides, there is no money to be earned in this housework. Working women also have their excuse—now you cannot even ask her for a glass of water, because she is working. This way one is supposedly made equal to the men! If working is such a highly superior privilege granted to these men, then why do they hate the man who doesn't work?! What absurd feelings, beliefs, and customs we humanity have. Relationships that ought to be based on love turn out, on the contrary, always to have self-interest underneath them. Who can love whom—or, after these realities, even if someone does have a genuine love for another, can he make that person believe it? Love is the word most used in these marital relationships, but it has no substance. Ninety percent of men, perhaps even more, are already slaves to their sexual drives. Even the most self-disciplined has, in this matter of women, been defeated by his body's desires. On this subject neither man nor woman is any better, or any worse, than the other. All of them are far from God's moral standards. If spiritual help is to come to us from these religions and states, then it is normal for our condition to be as it is. And God, through the prophet David, gives voice to a very bitter truth:

God looked down from the heavens upon the sons of men, to see whether there was anyone who had understanding and sought God. They had all turned back; together they had become corrupt; there was none who did good, not even one. Psalms 53:2-3, and the same thought appears in the verses of 14:2-3.

Yes, God says there is not even one. So then, these puffed-up ones—by what righteousness of theirs and trusting in what do they do this, without shame? Again, on what basis, without shame, can they say: “Unless you go through us, you cannot be saved”?

If morality—not only in man-woman relations but all human relations—has come to rest on deceiving one another, on tricking, on self-interest and fraud, then God's demands too have become, for people, impossible, outmoded, backward notions. In another reality, however much those people think of their own pleasures, however absurd they find God's demands, they very much enjoy having the things written there done to themselves. They do not want to do it themselves, but they not only put up no resistance to whoever does it to them—they even want it to be so. What supposedly modern woman says to her husband: “Now and then, go to other women, dear”! What man says to his wife: “Dear wife, it's good for you to have relations with other men now and then”! I am speaking of normal people. There are also people whose wives, their own daughters, make porn films before their very eyes, and they perceive this as art! The consciences of such people in this matter have been so cauterized that they have become numb, insensible. So let us not expect from those persons the feelings I mentioned a moment ago.

There are also many who, with feelings entirely opposite to this example, present themselves as though they believe in God and wrap their wives head to toe in a covering. God's command on this subject has suited them well. In fact he does it for himself, because he is jealous and cannot trust. He will not be able to tolerate being cheated on, and so he loves these laws of God's very much. Whether he actually loves God, though, is very, very doubtful. The God who wants those women to cover themselves, who is against dressing in a way that provokes sexual feelings, is also against lying, deceiving, fraud, quarrels, brute force, and ignorance. But these people's mouths are full of curses. Their eyes and hearts are scorched with lust. Like the Witnesses, they breathe hostility toward anyone not of their own. Though let me note this too: the Witnesses, alongside these people's bigotry and crudeness, sometimes remain in this matter far more civilized than them, almost like angels—that's another matter. But all their love is for who-knows-what body parts. They cannot stomach being cheated on, yet all those who have the opportunity, when they very easily take another man's wife into their bed, feel themselves all the more a man. There is nothing so fine as cheating on a woman's husband and sleeping with her. Does he think his own wife won't do the same thing? She does, but he doesn't find out. Let him keep busy covering up his own wife as much as he likes. When Europeans went off to war in the Middle Ages, they used to put locks on who-knows-what parts of their wives, and keep the key themselves! Who knows what they got up to in the bondage of these feelings. In my view, this insecurity they possess stems from the absence of love toward one another.

We did not invent these sexual feelings, this pleasure, nor did we ourselves acquire these feelings on our own. God gave these feelings and desires to humanity as a gift, for the purpose of our being happy. So that we would use them in a moral way, in a trust-inspiring way, in the way of love. I am speaking of healthy happiness; perversion and fleeting pleasures are not happiness. On the contrary, they leave lasting, harmful marks on people. And such immoral pleasures are the things God has condemned. On this subject I myself have committed much sin. To say it was out of ignorance, out of unawareness, is—pardon me—no excuse. Alongside this, to give oneself a false adornment as if one were spotlessly clean is also very disgusting.

Although the Witnesses' practices on this subject surely appear pleasant, once you get inside them, my hearing that they interfere even in the bedroom relations of husband and wife—even expelling some from among them over such matters as exactly what may and may not be done—did not fail to turn my stomach. And the funniest side of it: they expelled both husband and wife because an elder (the one who leads the believers at the meeting, who may even be quite young in age) had hung an erotic picture in his bedroom. Apparently there were images in the picture that called to mind perverse relations or something. Alongside this, I had also written that “they did not permit a woman who wanted to leave her husband because he had had anal relations with another woman to do so.” Because, since he had not had relations with the reproductive organs, it was not counted as adultery! Wow! It's a situation like the one they describe in Turkish, “what fasting is this, what cabbage pickle is that.” The Witnesses' governing body in America later changed this thinking of theirs. But the expelled were expelled and gone. And moreover, this was done with the belief that “that person we expelled because they did not obey us will never be saved again, and God will destroy them on the last day”! Through the training they had given for years, they had already shaped their members' consciences with “God will destroy them on the last day.” And these expelled people too, in the bondage of that warped training they had received for years and the false conscience they possessed, by being cut off from that community, quickly incline toward making mistakes and errors. Because from the very beginning what they were taught about what they should do is always to take orders.

The ability to govern oneself, however haltingly, exists in every normal person. And the greatest feat of these people is to take away this quality that a person has in hand. Now that person, at every step he takes from then on, asks the question, “What should I do?” And in time, the many errors those expelled people make greatly gladden that governing body of the Witnesses. They boast, saying: “Look, this is the kind of people we expel from among us.” In any case, the ones who are always guilty are those at the very bottom. They divide themselves into those from below and those from above. Has the organization made a mistake, gotten stuck in a false belief, or have the expected things failed to come to pass? Well, these ones above are never guilty! Did a woman want to leave her homosexual husband because her stomach couldn't take it, and did they expel that woman saying “no, it can't be done”?—well, always, but always, those persons are guilty. That is, those from the very bottom.

In about twenty years I neither saw nor heard them apologize. When the date they proclaimed for “the end is coming” failed to come to pass, those who lost confidence in that organization they had pinned their hopes on and abandoned it, left and went—“why did they leave?”—again they are the guilty ones! At one time it was they themselves who struggled to make those very ones at the bottom accept this false teaching, and forcibly at that. According to them, it is not the one who proclaims this lie who is guilty; the one who does not believe this lie, or who believed it and then, upon seeing it come to nothing, abandoned them—these are the real guilty ones, the ones bound for hell! Just as with the man-woman relations I mentioned a moment ago. Like the logic where adultery is a crime not when the man does it but when the woman does it. So with these ones too, whatever those at the very top do is never counted a crime, but if those at the very bottom do the same thing, they deserve death.

At one time, too, these Witnesses were against organ transplants. Can you imagine—if you give authority to these religions, they will meddle even in your kidney, your liver, your heart, and whatever else you have! To keep people faithful to these commands, they killed many people—that is, they caused their deaths. Later, if I am not mistaken, in the '80s they proclaimed freedom, saying: “This is a matter of conscience.” Look at the cleverness, the cunning. If they were to say, “We made a mistake,” then they would be forced to admit that they could be mistaken on many other subjects too. They say this in word, but in practice this truth has no function whatsoever. And in order not to take onto their own backs the burden of those people who died, they resort to a proclamation of this kind. In the sense of: “It's a matter of conscience—actually, don't do it, but if you do, you are responsible. That is, we were not mistaken in the commands we gave in the past.” This both makes them appear innocent and clean regarding what they did in the past, and makes them more tolerant. By this means they also free themselves of the debt of an apology toward those people whose deaths they caused, whom they expelled from among them. This cleverness of theirs is not divine either, but satanic. Like many things in their practices. Don't be at all surprised if they soon make such a proclamation about blood transfusions too. They did it for organ transplants and many other things; why wouldn't they do it for blood? So many such fanatics have appeared on our earth. And those members say: “Come what may, we are with you.” Do not on any account see this zeal of theirs as a special faith belonging only to them. Throughout history and in our own day, those who possess such a mindless, thoughtless, soulless, fanatical faith are not only the Jehovah's Witnesses. The world is practically overflowing with just such people, and is vomiting itself up. And those people who are expelled for reasons like these become, in great disappointment, all alone, like ownerless sheep, the prey of wolves and monsters. And yet the stumbling block that caused that person to fall was placed there by themselves. About such ones, Jesus spoke these fitting words:

It is unavoidable that there should be traps that make a person stumble into sin. But woe to the one who serves as the means of these traps! It would be better for such a one to have a millstone hung around his neck and be thrown into the sea than to make one of these little ones stumble into sin. Luke 17:1-2

When I heard these words back then, I did not care in the least. I would say, “What is the bad side of these men supposed to be—expelling from among them?” and I would think to myself: “Wow! So if being expelled from among these people is such a bad thing, how precious they must be.” And yet we had become accustomed to those extreme religionists we read about in the papers—the ones who behead their fellow travelers who don't conform to them, who tear off arms, who bury people alive, who throw bombs and so on. On this subject every religion has its evil oppression. Its forms change in proportion to its power. Alongside these, the Witnesses were, in my eyes, very refined. Their worst side was expelling from among them, apparently! Later I would see with my own eyes—even upon my own self—that it did not stop at just this much, and what psychological destruction their pressure on people wrought.

You know how you take a medicine but without reading its side effects. And, as if out of spite, that side effect breaks out in your own constitution. Yes, well—no one can know in advance in whom it will break out. But as long as its side effect does not appear, a person does not see that medicine as dangerous at all. And this was so with that first indifferent thought of mine on this subject. But this side effect—the practices in all the religions, their striving to shape people with their interests, their ignorance, their selfishness—was a side effect that had appeared not only in me but in all people. I gave the example of medicine, but in fact they give poison. As I said, I am showing the Witnesses here as just one example from among them.

The Witnesses first make you put ice between yourself and the people around you. And in doing this they are not entirely in the wrong either. Truly, as was the case with my own friends too, their thoughts were always bodily desires and material things. In part, more or less, I was no different. Such people, besides not giving you much, also take away the few good things you have. This is a problem the whole world knows. Even the worst person among people has a complaint about someone. They lament to one another, “I don't have a single good friend whom I love.” Whomever a person talks with about such matters, it is also very easy to find supporters who share the same opinion. But for the Witnesses, the distinction between good and bad is made by looking from a single angle. About everyone not of their own, they believe and make others believe: “He is dangerous, untrustworthy, and bad. If he continues like this and does not come to us, God will destroy him on the last day anyway.” Even the most experienced among them, who have been in it for years, though they do not think this way about a relative who is not a Witness and who has better qualities than themselves, will nevertheless outwardly defend that this is what they believe.

They want you to use, always in the service of that governing body, your love, obedience, faith, self-sacrifice, self-control in your relationship with God, your money, your time, your hobbies, and whatever else that is better and that you love comes to your mind. What is the most correct thing for you to do or not to do with these things you hold—again, they determine that. If a Witness were to read these words now, they would get angry and say, “how absurd.” But if they can look at events sincerely and impartially, they will also accept that it is the truth—though I have not seen such a one, or it is very rare. And such people they expel from among them anyway. In their life, in their relationship with them—how they shape their lives, their time, their pleasures, their sacrifices, their obedience, right down to what they should and should not read, to the things they can and cannot buy, even to the matter of how it will be in the bedroom in the husband-wife relationship—dominating over them, it is always this governing body that plays the role. The only difference is that someone might perhaps come forward here who rejects what I have written and says, “I do these things not for them but for God.” But when asked, “Who decides what you will do, right or wrong, for God?” if he can answer at all, the answer amounts to: “the faithful and discreet slave.” And that is the nickname of their organization in America. If he says anything else, he has lied, or that person is not a Witness. In any case they demand this condition of the person as a spoken pledge, by way of baptism, at the very moment he takes his first step. They ask two questions of the person who is to be baptized and join them. The first concerns God and faithfulness to Him, and the second condition—and this is the terrifying one—is his definitively accepting that “their governing body is God's sole organization on earth.” Anyone who does not accept it they will not baptize and will not take among them anyway. The Catholic or Protestant churches from which they came out have, more or less, baptized these people with the same questions. Yet if a person's pledge to God, being baptized, is in the form of immersion in water, this is a symbolic event expressing that he has been washed of his sins, showing that he has repented and wants to conduct the life he will live according to God's will. (Romans 6:4, Ephesians 2:12, 1 Peter 3:21) Can you imagine—at this important step the person takes in his relationship with God, they insert themselves into the process, and moreover they take a pledge from him, so that afterward—just think—how hard it becomes for him to go back on this pledge. To explain it crudely, the form of this pledge could also be interpreted as: “I repent of my sins and believe in God. I promise to keep His commandments, and to remain bound to Satan as well”!!! Believe me, the matter is exactly this cross-wired and tangled. In a pledge to be given to God, a third person, institution, organization, religion inserted into the middle here on earth means only this. Even if the third person causing this distortion were an angel, it means this. Look at what the apostle Paul writes plainly in the Gospel:

I am astonished that you are so quickly turning away from the one who called you by the grace of the Messiah, to a different gospel (good news). In reality there is no other gospel. There are, however, those who want to confuse your minds and distort the gospel of the Messiah. Whether we ourselves or an angel from heaven should declare to you a gospel contrary to the one we declared, let him be cursed! As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone declares to you a gospel contrary to the one you accepted, let him be cursed! Am I now seeking the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of the Messiah. (Galatians 1:6-10) Paul and God's true servants always strove to please God rather than men. These words are proof of it. They never regarded it as a right to insert themselves as a third person between the servant and God. This right, in fact, God gave to no one except Jesus the Messiah. Even Jesus the Messiah cannot say of someone who is faithless, wicked, and deserving of destruction: "Come what may, I will save him." That would mean his denying his own self. (Please take a look at and read the verses 2 Timothy 2:12-13; 1 Corinthians 11:3; 2 Corinthians 11:1-21; Galatians 5:1) The fact that the Jehovah's Witnesses have repeatedly changed this baptismal oath from the date of their founding until now is not in vain either. Because in the Gospel there is nowhere written, and there does not exist, a demand for a pledge or oath of this kind.

You know how there are certain cunning salesmen. Of them it is said: “Whatever they sell, there's a catch lurking underneath it.” This might even be a trip, for example. For instance, the catch lurking beneath a journey that looks very cheap is that the one who takes the trip is obliged to accept being included in a tour. My wife and I were buying such a travel ticket—or rather, we did buy it. Thank goodness the gentleman who sold the ticket was an Egyptian, so we were able to cancel it right away. For example, they were selling a Germany-Antalya ticket for three people for one week for 500 euros. Supposedly with everything included. There is one condition, and that is that when you get there you must, without fail, take part in a one-day tour. And this they do not say openly. It is something that happens only once you get there. You have to pay another 90 euros per person. From the one who doesn't want to go they take 89 euros! That is, you're not obliged, you're free to go or not go! But whether you go or not, you're obliged to pay this money. Look at the freedom! The ticket is actually not 500 but 770 euros. But look at how the first advertisement was! In fact, when you calculate it, it even comes out more expensive than the normal-priced trips. After we bought this ticket, in the end we noticed it by chance. The Witnesses' condition too says: “If you want to draw near to God, you must, but absolutely must, come to know me as well.” Put more plainly, this means: on the road that goes to God, you must load all of my burden onto your back too. If, despite the burden, that road really did go to God, a person would still endure it—but it doesn't go there.

This problem exists not only in our time but has existed ever since humanity has existed. Take even the smallest African tribe—even there they have their spiritual leading figure. And all his work, too, is to influence that tribe's belief, its spirit, according to his own head and his own interests. And so he rules it. They call him either a sorcerer or he has some other name. In other places their name and their label change too, of course. He becomes a Bishop, a Cardinal, a Pastor, an Imam, a Sheikh, a Priest, a Rabbi, etc. As if there were any name, any title, left. They stick labels on one another according to their level of education and culture. Among the Witnesses these titles are each in one's own language, but the meaning is more or less the same as the others'. They do not say “Pastor” (shepherd), “Cardinal” (high, at the very top), “Catholic” (universal), but they say “shepherd,” they say “elder,” they say “circuit overseer,” they say “faithful and discreet slave” (Matthew 24:45-51). And they also say “organization”—and every religion is already, in its own measure, organized. Of course, everyone will take a label according to their craft. The butcher doesn't give himself a greengrocer's label, after all. Even if he's a bad butcher, his label must still be the name of that trade.

For the sake of freeing us from the burdens of such parasites, ticks, and bloodsuckers, Jesus says this:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am mild-tempered and lowly in heart. And so your souls will find rest. For my yoke is kindly and my load is light." Matthew 11:28-30. The Witnesses, without shame, read these very verses to those who come among them and attribute them to themselves. That is, they make people believe by saying, over and over: come to us; look at what it says here in the Book; this is us, our burden is light.

But do not imagine, of course, that they make you do these things by force of arms. Just like those hustlers selling travel tickets, there is no compulsion but you are compelled. Open brute force is not permitted by the laws of our time anyway. Because there are also much larger rival religions very much like them—for example, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Judaism—with whom they are already always in a kind of war. And there is a saying, “two acrobats can't perform on one rope.” Since they have passed along the same roads, they know one another very well. Whoever has more power crushes the other. The Witnesses speak a great deal of the persecutions they have seen in other countries from the peoples and the laws belonging to the Catholic and Protestant churches. Were the Witnesses to possess the same power, I believe they would not grant even the chance of life and breath to anyone who is not of them, who opposes them. Their appearing charming and in favor of peace toward the outside stems from their not having the strength to fight. It is not out of their love, or out of applying God's commandments. That this is so is plainly proven by their practices toward one another within their ranks. Because toward one another they do have power. Whatever that power may be, they do not shrink from using it mercilessly and without any thought at all. If all their power amounts to is expelling you, cutting off your ties with those around you, then that is what they do. This physical sanction, and the spiritual sanction, is an intensive meeting-education. The education given there is to make people slaves to themselves, to their organization. Their outwardly apparent love for one another stems from their need for one another, from fear of loneliness, from being so much in the minority in the societies they live in. Their love is like the hospitality I mentioned in our country or in other countries of a similar culture. Generally it is two-faced and not from the heart. That is, it does not rest on love.

"I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you too must love one another. If you have love for one another, by this all people will know that you are my disciples," (John 13:34-35) says Jesus the Messiah. Yet apart from that first impression, once I got inside them, it was not at all hard to see how much the Witnesses' love rested on self-interest and two-facedness. If they are careful toward one another, this too is because they are afraid, but again not because they love. A large part of their time is spent only within this community. In one's relations with the persons of that tiny community, of course no one wants to be on bad terms with anyone. This situation resembles the East Germans running down the West Germans. Those from the East describe how among them there was a solidarity, a helpfulness. Even if someone came in the middle of the night, they would help one another, they say. As if this society had any other choice? The state and the circumstances pushed them into that situation. If someone had a trouble, the first person to extend a hand of aid would be his neighbor. And their calling one another good or bad is according to this measure. Whoever it may be—can you do the best by way of help?—then you are good, that means. What kind of character you have, your personality, your thoughts and beliefs, your love and your hatred are of no importance. What matters is that at that moment you're helping, that's it. And when his own throat is squeezed, this time he too will ask you for help. Their measures of calling someone good or bad depend solely on these things. This wheel keeps turning like this. This is a compulsory need of the people of poor countries, of oppressed societies. In Turkey too people help one another, help complete strangers. With the logic of "never mind, maybe one day I too will have need of him," a person can do this even for someone he does not love, even for someone he sees as an enemy. There is no love in it at all. Within his self there lies no feeling of loving that person as a fellow human like himself. The East Germans again complain, "in the West things are different," and continue their complaint. "Here if you knock on someone's door in the middle of the night, who knows how furious that person would get," they say. Say his car broke down. In the West, though, the situation is different, they say. If your car broke down, the neighbor says "call the breakdown service." Why are you waking him? "If you have no money to eat, go ask the state for social assistance. Rather than asking me for a loan, go borrow from your bank," he says. The Westerners have tied many more human needs like these to institutions, rather than to kissing hands and hems. Of course, until when they will keep doing this is a mystery too. The Easterner is helpful because he has no other choice. The Westerner, because his expectation of help is not from individuals, doesn't want to help anyone either. And this understanding of help also always carries the sense that "it must be free." And there are not few who love what's free, of course. Well, if the comparison is permissible, the Witnesses' love toward one another is exactly like this. But someone might say: "Brother, is helping bad, whatever kind it may be?" Yes, I too know that helping is good, whether willingly or unwillingly, and moreover this is a command of God's. But the thing I want to draw attention to is people's two-facedness and what the real aim is. Of course, not every person who smiles at me means he loves me—everyone knows this too. Nor can it be said that every person who helps necessarily does it out of love. Going further, let me say this: even if a person sacrifices himself unto death, this does not necessarily mean he did that thing out of love. Perhaps these words seem very absurd to you now. When I first read them, they seemed so to me too. Let me still try to explain what I mean by writing the verses related to this subject. In the Gospel, 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, it writes as follows:

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love, I am no different from a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. If I could prophesy and know all the mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I had faith enough to move mountains, but did not have love, I am nothing. If I gave away all I possess as charity, and handed over my body to be burned, but did not have love, it would be of no benefit to me at all.

I have thought about these verses a great deal. How can a person spend all he has to feed the poor and yet not have love? How can a person sacrifice his body to be burned and do this without love? And this person is a man of faith at that. He possesses such powerful faith that he can even move mountains. This person may even be a prophet, but whether or not he has love is something in his own hands—like the prophet Jonah, for example. This prophet's experience appears in the book of Jonah in the Holy Scriptures. The subject is very short and profound in meaning.

God is going to destroy a city because of its sins. And He appoints Jonah to proclaim this in that city. But Jonah does not go to the city God told him to; he boards a ship going in the completely opposite direction and practically flees. During his voyage God makes great waves. The fear of death seizes all those on the ship. Those people investigate why and from whom this thing has come upon them. So then, according to what those sailors understood from their years of experience, this situation is not a natural one. They ask Jonah too, and Jonah tells everything, and then adds: “Throw me into the sea and you will be saved,” he says. The men, growing even more afraid, this time try to row to reach land. But the waves become even more violent, and in the end they listen to what Jonah said and throw him into the sea. And the waves stop, and the sea grows calm. And God prepares a great fish, and this fish swallows Jonah. Jonah stays three days in the fish's belly. During that time he pleads with God and repents. And the fish vomits Jonah onto the land. God gives Jonah the same command again. This time Jonah goes and, proclaiming in the city, says: “Forty days more, and the city of Nineveh will be overthrown.” (Jonah 3:4) Then he goes to watch how the city will be destroyed and sets up a booth somewhere outside the city. But when the people of the city and the king hear this news, they all repent. A fast is proclaimed throughout the whole country. Let neither beast nor man eat food; let them humble themselves before God, it is said. It is proclaimed that everyone pray to God with all their might, and turn from their evil ways and from violence. “Perhaps God will change His mind and have mercy on us, and turn from His burning anger, and we will not be destroyed,” they say. God sees their repentance and that they have turned from their evil ways, and He gives up the calamity He was going to bring against that city and forgives that people. (Jonah 3:6-10)

The interesting side of the matter—and its connection to our subject of love—begins here. When Jonah sees that God has done nothing to that city, he becomes very angry. He becomes so angry and worn out that he wishes for death. He begins to rebel and to contend with God. Look, I will write Jonah's words exactly from their place:

Jonah was greatly displeased at this and became angry. He prayed to the LORD thus: "Ah, O LORD, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I tried to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a God who is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love, who relents from punishing. O LORD, please, now take my life. For it is better for me to die than to live."

Jonah 4:2-3

Did anything in Jonah's words draw your attention here? Jonah is in fact very angry and is contending with God. There is a situation so wearying to his very soul that he could die of it. That this is so is understood better not merely by reading these verses but by reading the whole of the subject—those few pages—and then Jonah's feelings become clearer. With these words Jonah is also stating why he is accusing God. Are the places I underlined evils, in Jonah's eyes? Yes, in his anger Jonah is speaking of God's being forgiving, of His having compassion, of His not becoming angry very quickly, of His abounding (boundless) love, and of His relenting from punishing. Because he knew these things, he tried to flee elsewhere without listening to God. And yet don't angry people say bad things to one another? But what is bad about these things Jonah listed? In our view, none of them, but in his own eyes Jonah sees these attributes of God as bad. He is angry, saying, “Why are you forgiving these people?” He even wants to die from anger, saying, “Why did you say you would destroy them and then not burn and destroy them?” He speaks, as it were, with hatred of God's excessive love. Because Jonah looks at that people solely from his own point of view and without feeling any love. And so their not being destroyed seems to Jonah, in a way, like time and trouble gone to waste. And besides, Jonah, being a rigid stickler for rules, cannot understand at all the love of God, who relents from destroying those wicked people. Yet he is very grieved over the destruction, again in a single day, of the gourd vine that had sprung up in one night to give him shade, though he had put no labor into it. He grieves over the gourd vine—or the castor-oil plant, as it appears in the new translation of the Holy Scriptures—not because he loved it, but because it protected him from the burning sun and would no longer give shade. (Jonah 4:10) Moreover, that Jonah was an upright and rigid stickler for rules we also understand from his behavior on the ship. By saying to those on the ship, “Throw me overboard and you'll be saved,” he does not in fact hide this truth from those people. Jonah is not a man who thinks only of himself. That he was excessively just and upright is certain, but he was poor in love. But God, too, by means of this experience Jonah went through, taught him a great many things. Otherwise Jonah would not have recorded these things. Because against Jonah's anger, God's logic of love is far superior. In response to this anger of his, God answers as follows:

And the LORD said: "You feel pity for the gourd vine, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow, that gourd which came up in a night and perished in a night; and should I not feel pity for Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals?" Jonah 4:10-11

That love has no connection with knowledge, with faith, with the rank of prophethood, is certain. So then, how can a person sacrifice himself, his life, without loving? The verse says "if you hand over your body to be burned." For whom is this an easy thing? Yes, even if a person does this thing that is so hard, it does not necessarily mean he did it out of love. So then, why does a person make such a sacrifice, and without loving? There can be many reasons. A person may do this purely for his own honor. He does it out of heroism, or because he finds it right. At that moment he saw no other way out, or his brain has been washed—that is, he has been manipulated. And besides, there are so many people who perform such acts of heroism. On this subject a story the Muslims tell came to my mind. Although this story is not written in the Quran or anything, I like it very much, and moreover it is meaningful.

In Muhammad's time the Muslims were at war with their enemies. During the war, the very brave and daring conduct of one of them drew his comrades' attention. This man, with drawn sword, from atop a horse, from a camel's back, plunging in and out from the enemy's rear, seemed to defy death. In the verses that came at that time too, people were being urged not to cowardice but to fight in order to defend themselves. Again, if we read from the Quran, God does not speak very well of the many who were afraid and turned back. Anyway, the Muslims win the war, and some approach that man who had shown such courage and praise his courage rooted in faith, his zeal, his efforts. They pay him compliments like, “If there weren't people like you, what would we have done?” And he answers as follows: “I know nothing of that; do you see that date-palm grove? Well, that is me,” he says. And continuing, when he says, “If we had lost this war, my date grove would have been gone,” all those who had been praising him there stand frozen.

I do not know whether this story really happened. But its underlying meaning draws attention not to what people do but to what they do it for. In old Turkish this is called “saik,” and its meaning is “the disposition of the heart.” What kind of heart-disposition a person does a thing with is called his saik. So then, that man's saik—his showing courage against those striving to destroy the Muslims—was not because he loved the Muslim or Islam; he loves his date grove, his own interests. For that man it might be a date grove; for another it might be other things.

A short time after I got in among the Witnesses, Bernd asked me to help him wallpaper the walls of his house. “Of course I'll come,” I said, and I went. I was around 24 at the time. While we were working together, I asked Bernd a question. “Bernd, do you love me?” I said. Now that I think about it, it means that back then I had become aware of something. I had become aware, since I asked such a question. The things these people did seemed very precious in my eyes. Love, the love that comes from the heart, appears differently in everyone. Sometimes this is very hard to understand. Especially in a person who knows the Holy Scriptures, it is even harder to understand. That is why I asked this question openly. There was surely a doubt within me, which is why I had asked. Bernd gave a very clear and plain answer. “I cannot love you, because you are not my brother,” he said. That is, I was not a Jehovah's Witness. Frankly, I had not expected such an open and blunt answer either! But he said the thing that came from his heart. Years later, when we spoke about this matter, he defended himself by saying, “we had been given such a teaching.” In my view, in him too there was the excuse of laying the responsibility for the love that was not within them onto the training they had received. Because to rein in a love that exists is a very hard thing. Indeed it is sometimes impossible. A person cannot ask this question of just anyone. This was told to me by a classmate. “Just as everyone flees from such questions, talking about these things takes courage,” he had said. I was very happy about our togetherness with the Witnesses. Perhaps 6 or 8 months or so had passed since we met. Yes, we had had our debates, whether about the Quran or about other subjects, but within the bounds of decency and with respect. And besides, I had come to love them very much. On the first night I met them, I had given them my suits that I never wore and that had become too small for me. In that moment expecting nothing at all. Whatever I had, I wanted to share it with them. Let this not be understood in the sense of gushing sentimentality. As people of a Mediterranean country, we love very quickly and quarrel very quickly too. I always tried not to be that way. I always strove to avoid being one who loves people with a momentary feeling and hates them with a momentary feeling. In short, I was continuing our togetherness with them with these feelings. And besides, weren't these people coming and preaching to me in order to save my life? Would this be possible without love? So it turns out it is possible. All these door-to-door preaching activities of theirs, doing so-and-so many hours a month, their zeal, their efforts, their toiling—all of it may rest on anything, but it did not rest on the love of people. But my love did not depend on Bernd's loving me. Neighborhood children ask one another: “Do you love me?” If the other child says “no,” then he too says, “well, I don't love you either.” If he had said “yes,” grinning, this time he would again say “me too.” That is, whatever the other one says, he says exactly “me too.” But true love is not something that depends on whether the other one loves or not. And besides, is there any such thing as a condition for love? Look at what John says on this subject:

In this is love: it is not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atonement for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we too ought to love one another. No one has ever at any time seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:10

The Witnesses want to understand this word "one another" as meaning only those of their own. Although their thoughts on this subject are confused too, at bottom their practice is exactly like the words Bernd said to me. Let us see whether Jesus the Messiah left such an example. While nailed to the cross, without even excluding those around him who hated him:

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing," he says in Luke 23:34.

I have often used these words and feelings about the Witnesses from time to time: “My God, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” I am not a loving, good person either, but I also cannot solve the meaning of hating for no reason. Even if I feel nothing toward someone who is good to me—even if that situation troubles me—rather than wounding that person's love, it is better for me to never see that person at all. Since I cannot overcome my own feelings, why should that person be wounded on account of my weakness? Many years later, when we talked about this matter, Bernd this time said, “Astonishing—how could I have said such a thing?”

I had said, “Bernd is a very calm, decent person who puts everyone at ease.” That is why I had also written that everyone loves him and is comfortable around him. He never goes after anyone, never picks at his wound, never steps on his tail, and so on. I heard everyone who knew Bernd speak well of him. Everyone loves Bernd, but did Bernd love everyone? In my view this too is still one of his greatest deficiencies. And perhaps this act of loving is, for him too, one of God's hardest commands. Not only for Bernd, but for me, for all of us, for all humanity, it is so. But all the problems, too, stem from this. Especially some people—Bernd included—no matter what you do for years, no matter how much you love them, no matter how good and generous you are toward them, they never love, never can love. The training they received and so on cannot, in my view, be an excuse. In the Holy Scriptures it speaks of the friendly love between David and Jonathan, the son of King Saul. Despite the very great age difference between them, and despite the enmity of Jonathan's father Saul toward David, the writing says: “Jonathan loved David very much, and David loved Jonathan.” (1 Samuel 18:1-4; 19:1-7; 20:17 and 41-42; 2 Samuel 1:11-12) In love there is in fact no excuse; only hatred finds excuses.

There are people I have known who do not believe in God at all. These people actively engage in many sacrifices. Aid organizations, gatherings, people's problems, the struggle against hunger, help for people living in Africa, and so on. In short, a host of social activities. And yet that person says he believes in nothing. With death, everything will be over for him. That is, he does not do what he does as a command of God's or anything. When such people are paid attention to, it is also plainly seen that they do all these things not out of love for people. All their motives are to seek their own honor in people's eyes and, most of all, to feel a satisfaction with themselves. For example, in middle school and high school we had many rich women teachers. The teacher's salaries they received would not have been enough even just for the makeup they had done. But still they worked. These people were not at all the type to love their students. Nor can I say they loved working, but that they hated sitting idle at home was certain. Not working at all, or living with the label of housewife, greatly diminished them. Nor can we regard the sacrifices of people with intense social activities as a rule based on love. And besides, being constantly praised and honored pleases them very much too. These people whose photos we see posed and posed in the newspapers, with the checks they hold in their hands at donations made to charities—in my view they don't necessarily do this out of love. Nor should this mean they hate everyone. Just because a person feels no love does not mean he must immediately possess its very opposite, hatred.

Alongside this, even if that person's love existed at the start, if he is not careful he will already lose this feeling very quickly. Because these tasks are organized in such a way that it is like a worker on an assembly line every day continually gathering, or bringing together, the same things. However much love he has, the organized situation he is in takes that love within the person and destroys it, makes it monotonous. When a person comes face to face with the same things every day continually, in time he will surely lose that first sensitivity. Especially if, as “the self-sacrificing ones,” these things must continually be done by certain particular people, all of this will one day become a burden to them, unbearable.

A situation similar to what I have written befalls Moses. The Israel of that time is estimated to have been around six million at the least. There are 600,000 soldiers ready for war alone. These have their families who cannot go to war, their children, their sisters, their mothers, their grandfathers, their grandmothers. And moreover the families of that time were large. We say this number, by estimate, was at least 3 to 6 million. Moses was in charge of bringing all these people out of slavery in Egypt. And Moses is also the only man to bring a solution to all their troubles, their quarrels, and every kind of problem in the wilderness. Look at what Moses says to God after a while, unable to bear it any longer; let us read it from its place:

"I cannot carry this people alone; I cannot bear all this burden. If you are going to deal with me like this, if I have found favor in your eyes, please kill me at once, so that I do not have to see my own ruin." (Numbers 11:14-15), he says.

Moses becomes aware of a danger, and that is the danger of the love within him being destroyed. Because Moses is not, in character, one who would lord it over others, who would crush them. Far from lording it over those people, on the contrary he had made himself, as it were, a slave, a servant to them. At each foolishness of the Israelites, at their errors, when some evil befalls them, his heart burns. When God becomes angry at Israel and wants to destroy them, Moses always intervenes and, with very logical reasons, practically struggles to save that people from God. And God acts according to his words. That Moses was such a person God of course knew too, but so that we too might know it, and that it might serve as an example, God has it recorded. Otherwise, the meaning “people rule God” should not be drawn from these events. For Moses, that nation's problems, its troubles, become a burden impossible to carry any longer. And yet, had Moses wanted to, could he not have loaded himself onto the backs of that people? That he was not of a character to do this we understand anyway when we read all those records. He would have died, but still he would not have done such a thing.

Just think of this man. Back then there were no computers, telephones, radios, fast cars, airplanes, and so on as there are now. There wasn't even paper. This man we call Moses concerns himself one by one with the troubles of all these people. Every day, for forty years. When I think of how, even though the richest religious institutions of today possess computers, telephones, electronic mail, the ability to fly in a single day to countries across continents, air-conditioned cars, and so on, they still make excuses about helping one another...! They do not want to listen to one another's troubles, do not even want just to listen. The cases and troubles that the people of that time brought before Moses sometimes seem so unimportant to us. For example: the matter of “how the girls in a family who have no brothers at all will share the inheritance if they marry.” Moses himself does not know the answer to this either; he asks God. And God answers, and this answer becomes law. Do either God or Moses scold those people, saying “why do you come with such a matter”? No, He tries to understand each one, one by one. These are sacrifices that seem impossible for us today. These things I have written are, of course, examples utterly at odds with those hustlers who proclaim themselves prophets, who say, “We are the only channel God established on earth; unless you go through us, you cannot be saved.” If you wish, you can open and read the verses related to this subject from their place. Exodus 18:13-25, 32:30-33.

Moreover, when God wants to destroy that nation, we see Moses' true love and his concern for that people even more. At that time God's offer to Moses is exactly this:

I have seen this people; behold, it is a stiff-necked (stubborn) people; let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the heavens; and I will make of you a mightier and greater nation than they. Deuteronomy 9:13-14.

Think of the honor God gave Moses. In whatever era, would not even the person we think is the very best say, in the face of these words of God's, “You know best, my God; let your will be done”? But no—what does Moses do? He goes up the mountain, fasts forty days and forty nights, prostrates himself before God, and then recounts these events again in his own words to Israel like this:

"Because of all the sin you had committed by doing what was evil in the LORD's sight, provoking him to anger, I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I had the first time; I ate no bread and drank no water. For I was afraid before the fierce fury of the LORD's anger against you, that He might destroy you. But the LORD listened to me this time as well," he says, in Deuteronomy 9:18-19.

What did Moses say, that God listened to him? Let us read Moses' words again from their place:

From the day I knew you, you have continually rebelled against the LORD. "Because the LORD had said He would destroy you, I fell down before Him forty days and forty nights. I pleaded thus with the LORD: 'O Sovereign LORD, do not destroy your people, your own inheritance, whom you redeemed by your great might and brought out of Egypt with your mighty hand. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not regard the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness, their sin. Otherwise the people of the country from which you brought us out will say, "Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land He promised, and because He hated them, He brought them out to destroy them in the wilderness." Yet they are your own people and your inheritance, whom you brought out with your great power and your mighty hand.'" Deuteronomy 9:24-29

This is what true love is. Of such a one we say, “he was doing it out of love.” And these things he did did not go to waste either. Moses did not, in the end, offer himself up as a sacrifice and burn in the fire, but he showed his love in an active way. A person literally burning is of benefit neither to himself nor to others. As we read in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 when beginning this subject of love, the fact that the one who sacrifices his body to be burned has no love will bring him no benefit at all. In fact, in our time these self-immolations became a fashion for a while. Who and what such displays benefited, or benefit, is another matter. When we think about these events, think about them deeply, we understand better why God's apostle described love the way he did. Whatever we do, at the very least our relationship with God should not be superficial. For show, out of fear of society, for self-interest, and whatever else may come to mind—if in the end what we do does not rest on love, it will bring that person no benefit at all. The Witnesses, to fill their hours and hand in a report; the other, to collect money for the mosque, thinking a bit will be left over for himself too; and some, to spread their own fringes even wider—the things they do! Why, there's no shortage of them in the world. But love is in none of them. I do not mean individual persons; I want to emphasize what has generally come out, for humanity, from the fruits of these religions all over our earth.

I have not seen even a millionth of the qualities of Moses written above in the Witnesses' governing body. Not toward me, but toward one another. And moreover they see Moses as someone small and unimportant. According to them, the one supposedly worthy of the greatest value is Jesus. Let us say they are correct and in the right. Jesus truly was a flawless, sinless one. Consider the things told about Moses, and if Moses was such a one, then consider what kind of one Jesus the Messiah was. And after that, compare it while considering these swindlers saying of themselves: “Unless you go through us, you cannot be saved; we are the only channel God uses”!

In those Awake! magazines of theirs, the experiences that have happened to the Witnesses are also written. It speaks of how they stayed alive in the difficult situations that befell them, and so on. Generally, in these experiences I have read, I have always seen not a helping hand extended to them by one of their own, but always those persons' own efforts. And most especially, of that governing body I have neither seen nor heard any benefit at all, at all. They issue law upon law, but only look at the matter of who is to be expelled from among them. And those at the bottom are busy with every kind of service, printing what is written in the printing houses. Their greatest benefit to one another is these magazines they print. In fact, on the contrary, I have seen, lived, read, and heard that the teachings in those magazines, rather than any active benefit, only cause harm—yes, cause harm, and lay upon people's backs, with commands that push those people to death, burdens impossible to carry. At one time, a fawning letter that they first wrote with two-facedness to a madman like Hitler—which no Witness knows about—and then a second letter that drove that madman so wild as to make him take special aim against the Witnesses, went from these people's governing body, from America. “Look how greatly manly our governing body was toward Hitler”—and shamelessly they still read a copy of this second letter at their conventions. Back then, in America with their own backs safe, they supposedly played the man. The aim was not to help those living there; with the letters they wrote, they only sought their own interest, whim, and pride. And yet the things that befell the Witnesses in the Germany of that time—those who died, who were tortured, who became for nothing the target of the whole people's hatred—these they still publish as exciting experiences. This is not only the mistake in Hitler's Germany; right up to our own time, over the years, similar terrible fruits were borne in the situation in Malawi too. They have no love, so as to fear making mistakes. In upcoming subjects, on account of my wife, I will also publish the letter we sent to the Witnesses' governing body related to this matter. In that letter, quoting also from the book of Raymond Franz—who served them for more than 40 years and rose all the way to the governing body, and whom they then expelled from among them—I will try to give more space to these subjects.

The Witnesses, expending great effort, preach door to door. Distributing magazines, brochures, little booklets, they arrange family gatherings to draw people to themselves. All their thoughts, efforts, and energies are to preach and gather people to their own meetings, and in the end to have them be baptized so as to make them members of their own. As for their tired and unwilling ones, they have a single aim: to preach and fill hours. Whether the person opposite listens or not, whether he comes or not, he still goes preaching door to door. In fact, when the hours he scheduled for that day are about to end, if the person at the door he knocks on listens to him and starts asking questions, he says to himself, “damn.” As soon as possible he tries to make an appointment and get going. The organization is not at all fond of these types either. The organization's aim is to draw fresh forces inside by way of baptism. Because, as I mentioned above, with the words far from God's will that they take from people's mouths at baptism, they try in a way to gain mastery over those people's souls. Those people have now become just like leavened dough, and moreover have now reached a state ready to be baked. From then on they use them however they like, again and again. Do not see these as things that exist only in our time. Even if the technology and the time have changed, humanity's makeup has not changed. In Jesus' time too there were such religions and sects. Against such zealous, two-faced people, Jesus says very fine, fitting words:

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees (a religious sect among the Jews of that time), hypocrites! You shut the door of the Kingdom of the heavens in people's faces; you yourselves do not go in, nor do you let in those who want to go in! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You travel over seas and continents to make a single convert to your religion. And when he becomes a convert, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." Matthew 23:13-15

After that, lording it over those persons is easy too. Is not the pledge given at baptism open and clear? For that person to go back on this pledge, something truly great must happen. Generally, most of those expelled from among them are expelled over adultery. Every year you hear that, well, 300,000 people had their ties cut off; ninety percent of this had committed adultery. These figures were like this at the beginning of the 1990s; now it has perhaps doubled. After that come theft and other petty crimes. And there are very few who apostatize. The meaning of apostasy is being within them and then opposing them, no longer accepting some of their practices and things they say. Those who criticize what they do, ask questions, take them to task—these are the most dangerous. That thief, that scoundrel, that adulterer—all of them, it doesn't take a year or two before they come back to the same congregation, the same meeting. You look and they've become a brother, as if fallen from the sky! And there is also, again among these Witnesses, a good deal of the sexual violation of young children. No one hears of these, knows of them, talks of them; even thinking of such a thing is a great sin. They do not want such things even to cross their members' minds. Because they are charged with protecting them! But nevertheless, from among them every year 300,000-400,000 have confessed and, saying it openly, done such things. Those who don't say it, who do it in secret, are in my view far more than two or three times this number. Unless it is stated openly, if this situation has not also caught the eye of the curious sleuths among them, they don't even want to know. Because they boast of these ratios. “Look how low the crime rates are among us.” Otherwise, if they reached the numbers of the ratios of those Catholics, those Protestants, at whom they cast stones, what would they do! The consciences of these crime-committers I mentioned bring all of them back again one day. And they open their arms to these ones. But those apostates neither committed adultery nor stole nor violated a little child nor committed any other shameful crime. Their greatest crime was asking questions and striving to show the errors of these people. These never came back, and they never took these ones back. In this book of mine I will give only a few examples I know best. Among these, the closest examples to me are Bernd and my own wife. Bernd, I must confess, I pushed from behind. They expelled him from among them because he said, “Why do you say God does not always see the future?” In this book I have already published his letter and our lady's letter just as they are. But our lady, for some reason, they simply cannot expel, and they don't answer either! You will read about it later on. There are tens of thousands like these. Raymond Franz too they expelled because “why did he eat a meal with his employer who had apostatized”! The real reasons are surely something else. And the real reasons, as I said, are not bowing down to these people. Beginning to say no longer “yes” but at last “no.”

I learned the things I have written very, very many years later. And moreover, even though I never, ever bowed down to them. While I was inside them, I too would have applied many of the absurdities they do, believing them to be God's command. That I got to see and understand, until recent times, many of their dirty laundry, I regard as a gift from God. The Witnesses behave with extreme caution toward those not of their own, and place a terrifying wall of secrecy in between. That is why seeing and understanding their inner face takes time. As I said, there is a terrifying secrecy about the workings of this governing body. I liken them to the mafia. The things these people do are not, and cannot be, the things men of God would do. The thing I cannot understand is how truly stupid, lazy, and naive we humans can be. We are stupid—we don't know what we're doing; we are lazy—we don't investigate; we are naive—we just believe. Or rather, we want to believe. Even when we cannot believe, we force ourselves to believe. In order not to have these traits, I struggled hard and strove eagerly to investigate. Perhaps for everything else, yes, but in the matter of God, I kept away from swallowing every morsel just like that, without investigating. Still, I do not think I was one hundred percent successful.

People take on such great risks—and moreover, sometimes for nothing, they make life poison for themselves. While they are together with friends, with persons they neither love nor even know, because another man beside them harassed some other man's wife, or because that other one beside them picked an unjust fight with someone else, they have defended him even though inwardly they did not think he was right. If the situation escalates, they die and they kill too. They go to prison, to the grave. Sometimes they are crippled for life. This whole notion stems from the loyalty of “whatever the one beside me does, I won't abandon him.” Even though the one beside him is one hundred percent in the wrong and ill-mannered, what has the person proven, as it were, by defending him? Is this what righteousness, loyalty, manliness is? Alongside this, as in the example I gave, if you talk with a person who is ready, without a thought, to ruin his life over all these things—if you speak to him about God to encourage him, explain to him, say “read,” say “investigate”—he simply will not believe. He is scared to death of making a mistake. Not merely because he doesn't believe, doesn't find it right; to believe things that are true seems to him like a betrayal of his own religion. These religions, as I used in the comparison, are just like a bad friend. While people die for nothing over the wrongness of friends, religions, states, leaders, politicians they do not even love; for the sake of righteousness, of eternal life, for some reason they behave very cautiously, splitting hairs, not even willing to lift a finger!

The Witnesses, going door to door, want to tell people the things they supposedly believe and, by this means, to open their eyes. They strive to prove how wrong and evil the fruits religions have borne. On the subjects they raise about those religions, they are also right most of the time. Those bloods spilled underground in wars throughout history, those societies that have suffered bitter agony for the sake of religion—they try to explain how, like a spiritual narcotic, opium, heroin, all this has taken people under its influence. There are people they have visited like this for years. When they talk among themselves about them, they speak while shaking their heads meaninglessly, “how is it that he still doesn't come out of that religion,” and they say they can't understand them at all. And they themselves—well, what are they themselves like? They cling to that governing body, perhaps in a more incomprehensible way, more mindlessly, with a more fanatical stubbornness, than the members of all the other religions. At least the others listen from time to time, even if only occasionally, to another belief; these ones don't even deign to do such things. These people who say to others, “Take these, take our books, our publications, read them, work on them, underline them,” out of one tiny picture of another religion, or of a book that seems as if it might be against their own religion, shrink even from taking it into their hands. When the same thing is done to these people who go door to door correcting everyone, they not only never listen to the person opposite but show him no tolerance at all. And sometimes, when in a preaching they knock on the door of a fanatical person who has their own mindset, those persons chase them off, set their dogs on them from behind, and scold them right through the windows. And they, for their part, recount such ones at their conventions, saying: “How wicked this world's humanity is.”

Of course, this should not mean at all that they listen to nothing. They listen to plenty of absurd, nonsensical things and persons. What I mean is that they are scared to death of those who know them, who are logical, who speak on subjects effective enough to reach the heart. For them this is a great danger. Why do they not understand or cannot accept it when other people do the very thing they themselves do every day?

Do not, on any account, understand these words of mine again as holding true for absolutely all of them. That there are, even if very, very few, valuable people among these too is a fact. But this is the case throughout the whole world. The reason I speak of these people is neither to make them very, very good nor very, very bad. I want to explain that the “we are utterly different” belief in the education they give is not true and cannot be true. Living under one flag, one community, one religion, one administration does not automatically make all those people the same. Just because a person entered that religion, came to you, he is not necessarily like you, after all. Are all the people who use things of the same brand of the same character? It is only in these advertisements that they strive to show it so, that's all. It is never the truth either. Armies, the military, nationalism, religions, or whatever else there is that is organized, defends this logic. It says: “If someone is inside us, he is of us, he should think like us, believe like us, take pleasure like us, etc.” It is not at all true. They too know it is not true, but their aim is indoctrination. I call this the mold logic. Mao's requiring everyone in China to wear the same clothing comes out of this logic too, not merely out of poverty. According to them, however, these are equality, justice, and all that jabber. In reality, so that he can put everyone into a mold he desires, so that governing and keeping them under control is easy. And all this too is not because they are equal or just or anything. Rather, it is so that, in line with their advantages and interests, they can far more easily gain mastery over those people and lord it over them more easily and comfortably. Again, this should not mean that everything Mao did was wrong. Had Mao not existed, the Englishman, the American, the European would by now have torn China to shreds, would have destroyed that nation with opium and every kind of degradation.

The Witnesses meet three times a week. Twice for two hours and once for one hour. Alongside this, they have conventions three times a year, each lasting at least two days. The district conventions generally last three days. In the old days they even used to hold conventions lasting a week, ten days. Since there are no meeting halls in every village, the nearest hall you have to go to is half an hour or an hour away. And of course you don't go exactly on time; you go ten or fifteen minutes early too. And once the meeting is over, you don't flee at once, that would be improper. Again at least another fifteen minutes to half an hour of conversation, and the return home. What with putting on a tie, a jacket, a skirt, a blouse, getting dressed up and so on, altogether it means that for just that one day, such a meeting takes five hours. These are general figures. It can even be much more. It also depends on which country they are in. I have spoken of the setup in Germany.

And besides, they are expected to preach as much as possible. That is, they aim to draw people to their meetings, going door to door with the Holy Scriptures in hand. In the old days each of those called pioneers had to do this work at least 90 hours a month. Again, let there be no misunderstanding—none of them is under compulsion! In our time, no one—except in a very few exceptional countries—is obliged to become a member of a religion under compulsion, as is imagined. Some of the reasons that push the Witnesses to do these things are either their own environment, or the ceaseless conscience-education they receive, expectations, the eagerness to label, fleeing from other responsibilities, or fear. Still, these can only be some of the reasons. And all of these they present to the person under the name of “God wants it this way.” With this conscience developed in a person in a very short time, the person is now expected also to go preaching door to door, and to gather fruit. And the fruit is drawing new customers by preaching. I say customers, because the organization knows very well that everyone newly arrived behaves more generously in dropping money in the box. It cannot be denied that money too is the greatest problem of every institution, organization, and state established in the world. And the money collected is of two kinds among the Witnesses. One box for that meeting or convention hall, and the other box for the one belonging directly to the governing body in America. I never, ever dropped money into that box going to America. Because the expenses of those meeting halls and so on are always met by the poor wretches within them. They cannot get a single penny from that governing body in America. Or, until they do, their bellies probably burst. They even hit them over the head, saying, “Why can't you cover your own expenses for your needs?” But all the buildings, the properties bought, are always provided, materially and morally, by the means of those poor wretches. In their construction they work for free, with the power of faith. Not even a single outside foreign worker is hired. And the ownership of all those buildings belongs to the governing body in America. Even though this situation changes on paper according to the laws and order of each country, the one who always has the real say is that governing body. Just think—these people are now entering among the giant property owners in New York. What becomes of these monies is explained to no one. Even within them, those who know exactly what happens are only a countable few. The figures of asset-wealth they proclaimed at some past time in their reports are very laughable. They do the valuation so cunningly. For example, is a building's sale value a million? They show its value as a hundred thousand. And they aren't lying either, because that building costs them this money. With the feeling of “you are serving God,” in all the work they have always made their own members work for free. But all they spend is the money for materials. The architect, the engineer, the worker—all of these are of their own. Of course the cost of the work then comes out terribly low. This way they save both on tax and on many things. But when that thing is sold, no one hears of it. Because then the place shown as worth a hundred thousand goes for a million. The monies they collect from those people they manage as their heads see fit. In recent years, like everyone, they too lost a lot of money on the stock exchange. Who knows how many millions with their dollars. Let's not get too tangled up. Alongside these, they expel from among them a widowed, destitute woman because “why do you work at the cleaning job at the military barracks?” Because, according to them, the military and soldiering are Satan's work. As for themselves, hoping for gain, they have made very large investments on the stock exchange in the same place as firms that make war materiel. Like everyone, they too lose from time to time. But to that widow, the earning of money urgently needed only for her livelihood, her survival by doing cleaning work, is shown as forbidden because it comes from defense, from the military. About such ones, Jesus the Messiah's saying:

"Yes, they bind up heavy and hard-to-carry burdens and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger," (Matthew 23:4)—is it not very fitting?

The people they least love, like Hitler, are the old, the sick, the troubled—in short, whatever the reason, people who cannot go preaching. Even if, unlike Hitler, they cannot kill and burn these people, they do not much love them and do not set aside time for them. Again, as I said, I am not speaking of individual persons. What I have recounted is the policy of the governing body that dominates over them. Their wanting to encourage, in their magazines, “let us visit the elderly” and so on, is a pose. Why? Because they have laid such a burden on their members' backs that for that person to also visit an elderly, needy one—of whatever kind—demands a terribly great sacrifice. What did we say a moment ago—you do the calculation. Going to meetings twice a week, from five to ten hours, including dressing, undressing, and special preparation at home. This makes about 40 hours a month. Again, each week what they call the one-hour book study (research) takes two, two and a half hours. This makes 8-10 hours a month. And, excluding preparations, let's say at worst preaching takes 5-10 hours a month. Those who do these five, ten hours are the unwilling elderly. The young, so that their chances in marriage will be greater too, choose the pioneering that is 90 hours a month. Now it has become 70 hours; in my time, as I said, it was 90 hours. Let's do a rough calculation: 90 + 40 + 10 = 140 hours. This is the time a pioneer spends monthly for preaching and worship. And again, this counting of hours does not begin from the moment that pioneer steps out his own front door. He must count his hours only once he begins ringing the doorbells of the houses he goes to! At the conventions they get very angry at those who add up and record their preaching hours together with long car journeys. For the worst of them—that is, the one who is not a pioneer—together with the meetings and preaching, this work takes 55-60 hours of his time a month. Within this time there is not yet included the conventions, the service meetings, his working on that magazine like studying a lesson at home for the Sunday magazine study, his underlining the important places in order to give answers, and so on. That is, these preparations are not included in this time. And besides, at those meetings of theirs they have their preaching schools. In turn, each one is to give a talk of at least five minutes on the stage. I haven't yet calculated these preparations. I know people who give their whole day, or every free moment throughout a whole week, in order to give a five-minute talk. Alongside all this, these people must also work at a job and secure their livelihood. If their mother and father are Witnesses and have money too, those children remain pioneers for long years out of longing for the aid that will come from mother and father. Because that mother and father boast among one another by this means: “Look at what kind of children we raised.” And once they've found an open door in the place they go to, now their greatest profit is what they eat and drink there for free. And this too is a thing left to the mercy and generosity of the host.

People sometimes resemble vermin. That is, they are masters at adapting according to the harshness of conditions. They go to the homes of the generous people they know according to a weekly plan. Two generous-family visits are not made on the same day. Because after leaving that place where he has filled his belly, there is no room left in his stomach to eat a meal somewhere else, so as to go! For this reason he apportions his plans in an orderly way, so that his belly is filled the whole week without strain. And with these, he means to save nearly more than 80 percent of the food expenses. These things I've recounted are like this in Turkish circles. The Germans won't give one another even a glass of tap water. Who knows what other methods they've developed in those circles too. Whether good or bad—lazy—a large part of the Witnesses' time passes like this.

Under these conditions, who can any longer go visiting those elderly, those in need? And besides, if this needy one we mentioned is again a Witness like themselves. That is, he will not be able to show this visit in his report as “I preached” either. They call those not of their own “worldly,” and if he isn't going to write a report for such a one, he doesn't even stop by at all. Except for the well-larded doors! And “report” means the explanations, on paper, that every Witness is obliged to hand in once a month, about the hours he did related to preaching throughout that month, the magazines and books he distributed. Again, when I say “obliged,” always understand this thing like this: there's a saying in Turkish, “either you herd this camel or you leave this land,” and by this the Witnesses too are, frankly, saying “either you do what we want or you leave us.” This appears in the form of all kinds, all sorts, of pressures. And moreover these are pressures that seem sweet. Do not expect them necessarily to resort to brute force and so on. For example, did you miss a meeting once? Right away, by phone, or at the next meeting, they ask. “What's the matter? Did something happen?” Supposedly they do all this because they are curious, because they love one another. And no one wants to lie either. And besides, doesn't this person want to serve God? In about 20 years I have neither seen nor heard a Witness who, to this question, says, “Well, I just didn't feel like coming that day.” If even a Witness we don't know had said it, it would be heard—I haven't heard it. Such an answer is a great impropriety. Still, if someone does such a thing, then his heart-disposition is questioned, his reasons are investigated, and if necessary he is visited at home. If they see in that person an unwillingness they won't like, then everyone's attitude toward him changes in an instant. If necessary he is sent flying out of their midst with a kick, so that he doesn't become leaven for the others—this is God's nation, is it easy to belong to it?!! All these things I've recounted are known too by those decrepit hundred-ish-year-olds who govern in the governing body. However much they have made visiting the elderly into such a hard thing, to the many woman and man fellow-believers who give 24-hour service to those decrepit ones in that governing body, the right to enter paradise will be granted as a gift! They don't have to go preaching either. Because the work they do is more precious and sacred than anything!

They possess a terrifying intelligence-gathering network. For example, let me tell it with a bit of exaggeration: if a Witness in Africa slapped his wife, this would be heard and talked about among many Witnesses in Europe. They're scared to death of gossip too!!! My believing in the Quran and how ardently I defended it—nearly all the Witnesses who attend the Turkish-language meetings throughout Europe have heard of it. These religionists have so many interesting sides that recounting them would never end. Yes, I said religionists—I didn't say only the Witnesses. The Witnesses, as I said, are only an example. They are all more or less the same. These situations change in proportion to each one's power, force, cleverness, culture, and means of enforcement. All of this is always done, and made to be done, in God's name. As they come to mind, I will again recount their interesting sides later on.

By what I've recounted above, I want to emphasize this. When a person enters into such an intensive religion, that person has almost no private life left at all. There's no time left for one to exist. Yes, perhaps people can have plenty of free time—well, this too is what that governing body wants. What does that governing body not want! Your blood, your soul, all your time, from your relations with the wife in your bosom to what job you can or cannot work at. From the person's organs to his freedom of mind, thought, and belief; from his soul, to his stepping, his speaking, to his hair, his beard, the clothes he'll wear. The clothing of the person who is to give a talk must, of necessity, be a suit; there is a rule for each thing. That person can now think of nothing else. And all the education they receive is: “We are the most correct; the end is coming soon and God will destroy everyone except us; so go and preach this to everyone.” Waking and sleeping, they keep turning the person around always in this circle. Like a mill-horse! Everything in this world is bad. The only refuge is themselves. God, by means of His spirit, is giving them His commands one by one and on time. These are His sole chosen organization on earth. Always in the direction of the same aim, keep multiplying these talks. They have a 1,400-page Holy Scriptures in their hands—is there no subject? All the good qualities written in that book are in them; all the bad things belong to those religions, people, worldly ones not of them!

If three or five people a person runs into in separate places on the street say, “Where is your head, I don't see it,” even if that person believes none of them, once he gets home he will surely look in the mirror. He'll feel for his head with his hand once on the way. I'm not saying it so you'll laugh; this is human psychology. In the old days, in the time before communism, in China they used to torture the communists. Of course they carried out psychological tortures too. For example, they performed experiments on people they had sentenced to death. To carry out the execution, they take the man from his cell. How the man who is going to die feels—well, you imagine that. They seat this man in a chair and bind his hands, feet, and eyes. The officials around him draw a line each on the man's wrists with the back of the knife—that is, the unsharp side—as if cutting his wrists. Then they skillfully trickle warm water down from his wrists. And this they do so it will give the sensation of blood flowing from his cut wrists. And the officials carrying out this torture finish that person off completely with words like: “What a lot of blood flowed! Hasn't he died yet? I'd say he's got a minute left at most.” And he, unable to bear this situation, his heart stops and he dies. And yet nothing of him is bleeding, nothing of him has been cut, but he thinks so. And this can kill him. With the persons opposite influencing him with things like “how much blood he's lost,” the person is thoroughly drawn into that situation. And he too, not because his blood has actually run out but with the effect fear gives him of “my blood has run out, I have to die,” his heart cannot bear it and, stopping, he dies. As with every knowledge, they again use the knowledge in the world of psychology to people's harm. To manipulate people—that is, to change their thoughts and minds by influencing them in every way—they expend great efforts. The religions of economically more advanced countries use, as it were, devilish psychological methods of influence upon people. The religions of ignorant societies content themselves with brute force. Brute force is in fact less dangerous than the others. Those who resort to brute force are unable to influence those persons' souls anyway. But those who systematically apply spiritual, psychological pressure completely win those persons over. And moreover without even feeling any need to use force. Just as in the example of the sun and the storm. Yet both are a great power. As I said, these methods are things no man of God would do, would resort to. Because if God wished, influencing people would be so easy—but He does this in a very different way. He always leaves people and angels free in deciding.

On this subject too there are many examples. For instance, as in God's relationship with Pharaoh, the Egyptian king of Moses' time. Many people either misunderstand these verses or don't understand them, can't make sense of them. I will write this example to show God's manner of pressure upon people. My aim is to emphasize how far we humans are from God. We are so foreign to the methods He wants from us and applies Himself that I want to explain this.

God appoints Moses to save the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. These events take place around 1500 B.C. The Egypt of that time is also a world power. That is, there is none stronger than it. Moses, with his elder brother Aaron, is to go with the staff in his hand to the king of this country and say, “Set the people of Israel free.” And is that man going to say “all right” right away? Of course not; indeed, by this means, with many miraculous plagues, God wants to make that king submit. These are many physical sanctions. The rivers become blood and the Egyptians are left without water. Frogs overrun everywhere. Locusts harm the whole country. Hail falls and causes much loss of property and life. Gnats appear, and everywhere in the country, and the people, suffer agony from itching. Deep darkness covers Egypt for three days and three nights. And in the last plague that makes the king submit, God's striking of the firstborn in Egypt occurs. Among them Pharaoh's son dies too. But while each of these plagues is unfolding, the king of Egypt says to Moses: “All right, I'll set Israel free; plead with your God so this plague leaves me.” And Moses pleads with God, and the plague leaves. But Pharaoh does not keep his word each time and goes back on it. Then another plague comes. Look, the verses that cause his going back write exactly as follows:

…As the LORD had said, Pharaoh's heart hardened and he did not listen to them. Exodus 8:19

…and this time too Pharaoh hardened his heart, and did not let the people go. Exodus 8:32

But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart as the LORD had said, and did not listen to them. Exodus 8:15

Now comes the interesting verse:

And the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart; he did not listen to them, as the LORD had said to Moses. Exodus 9:12

…But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go. Exodus 10:20

In some events Pharaoh's stubbornness is in question, while in some events God hardens Pharaoh's heart! When I first read these verses I was astonished. If God wants Israel to be set free, then why does He afterward harden Pharaoh's heart? I knew that for God everything was possible. Since that was so, I would think to myself, shouldn't He soften that king's heart rather than harden it? For a long time, of course, I did not understand what this meant. The Witnesses didn't know either. I have prayed to God a great deal to give me understanding and wisdom. And I believe that He always gave it, even though I did not deserve it. This change the person himself comes to know and understand, if that person does not become ungrateful, of course. As John says:

…and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments…And by this we know that He abides in us: by the spirit He gave us. 1 John 3:22 and 24b.

Yes, let us come to why God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Actually, what does God's hardening a person's heart mean?

First let us consider Pharaoh's feelings toward those plagues. Surely at the start he was merely angry against these plagues. This man was someone accustomed to fighting and to winning those wars. He had an enemy of flesh and blood before him. He knew what he had to do, how he had to fight. But now the person he sees as his enemy is God, and in this situation his hands are tied. He summons his sorcerers; if Moses turned a staff into a snake, he wants them to do it too. And they do it. Up to a certain limit; after that they too cannot do it and accept that in this matter there is the finger of God. (Exodus 8:19)

In the face of those miraculous plagues God performed, no human can stay cool-headed; he is afraid. And moreover these are things that have never happened anywhere in the world at any time. Pharaoh too, at times, according to the severity of the plague, was afraid, and his very soul was greatly distressed. Not every time. Because sometimes this hardness of his heart was of his own, while sometimes God hardened his heart. Let us not put all these verses in the same vessel. Let us understand it exactly as it is written. For example, if it writes so for that event, then it is so; and if it writes something else for the other event, then it is in another way. That is, the meaning of every sentence written is different. If in a few places it appears that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, let us not understand that God hardened his heart in all the events. Wherever, whenever, it is written, only then does God harden his heart.

By this, God is showing that He is against something. God does not want the decision Pharaoh made through his heart softening out of fear, and so He takes the fear within him away. The decision he makes under the effect of fear is not precious in God's eyes. But decisions taken with free will, coming from the heart, without any pressure, because they are right and when he has understood his error—these are precious in God's eyes. That in the face of those miracles and plagues every person, whoever he may be, would fall into terror, God too knows very well. That person saying “yes,” making such a decision, out of fear and pressure is very natural, but not genuine. His making that decision with his free will, without the pressure of fear, coming from the heart, is a true decision. God attaches great importance to this. And so He takes away the fear within him. And this too, in his case, appears in the book as “God hardened his heart.” Indeed, what led Pharaoh in the end all the way to destruction was his ever-stubborn, arrogant, egotistical, despotic, self-satisfied spirit.

In another example, after the Israelites came out of Egypt, God Himself speaks with so many people at once. God says all those commands known as the Ten Commandments in such a way that the whole of the people of Israel can hear. Because they heard God's words aloud, all those people are afraid enough to die.

...and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. They said to Moses: You speak with us and we will listen; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

And Moses said to the people: Do not fear, for God has come to test you, and so that the fear of Him may be before you, that you do not sin. Exodus 20:19-20

This people, who voiced such fears to Moses, in a very short time—and moreover in less than 40 days—would make a golden calf and worship it as God! How could these people, with whom God Himself spoke, do such a thing? To us it seems impossible while we read it, but let us not forget, we too are the same. It is only because when we read it in the book we can look at the whole of the events that it seems impossible to us. We cannot understand those people. If, when we look impartially, we come face to face with a similar such event and situation, we will see that we too resemble those people. The thing that caused them to do such a folly, such an unreasonable thing, happened with that fear leaving their hearts. And that fear within them left because of their corruption, because they felt no love and appreciation for God. After that, whatever that person's character was, that is exactly what he immediately became again. Like Pharaoh. When the fear was taken away—that is, when his heart hardened—that is when Pharaoh showed his real character. There's a saying, “they made a gypsy a leader, and the first thing he did was hang his father.” Let it not be understood that by this saying I'm running down the gypsies or anything; this has become a proverb. Its meaning is to show the heart-disposition that comes to light with the sudden elevation of someone unworthy. What lies within every person, even he himself does not know. The things he possesses either suppress this more or bring it out more.

The fear of God is a gift God gives. A person cannot possess this on his own. Only if God wishes, then God gives this fear to that person as a gift. In the Holy Scriptures the prophet who appears as Isaiah—or, by his name in the new translation, Yeşaya—gives voice to this subject very beautifully, by way of prayer to God:

For you are our Father; even though Abraham does not know us, and Israel (that is, he means his ancestor Jacob) does not recognize us, yet, O LORD, you are our Father; from of old your name is our Redeemer. O LORD, why do you make us stray from your ways, and why do you harden our hearts so that we do not fear you? Return, for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your inheritance. Isaiah 63:16-17

The prophet Isaiah knew very well the value of fear—the fear that would be felt at the spoiling of a good relationship between God and His servant. And he pleads with God to give this fear. This prayer also gives us information about God's personality at the same time. Even though people, by staying far from this fear, go astray, God does not give to those He is not pleased with this fear that ought to be felt toward Him. In a person this fear may exist. As long as he is in a good relationship with God, he can feel this fear too. But once this is obtained, there is no rule that it will now remain in that person forever. Whenever a person moves away from God, that fear too will leave him. As has been said, this is only a gift. And a gift God does not give by force to one who doesn't want it. In how many people, do you suppose, does this fear exist? The fear of God that is striven to be given to us is only a punishing, destroying, blinding, laming, crippling fear based on physical violence. And most of all, it is the ones who have the say in those religions who themselves try to frighten people with these things. And the things they frighten with, they themselves do and attribute to God. And this too every member of that religion who wants to know, knows.

Actually, the fear of God should be like the feelings you have toward a person you love very much and at the same time respect. It should be like a fear felt at hurting him, at angering him needlessly and thereby losing him, at the spoiling of that relationship for whatever reason. Let us not look for violence beneath every fear. A person is afraid of the wife, the husband, he loves very much. This fear is felt not because it stems from violence, but because it stems from the anxiety of the relationship spoiling. A person is even afraid of his tiny child. His often doing whatever he can so as not to grieve the child is for this reason. Otherwise, neither the wife nor the child is going to beat that person, cripple him, blind him. The fears in the example I gave are felt not because of violence, but because of love, of peace, of the spoiling of good relationships. This is the very kind of fear God seeks and values—it must rest on love and respect like this. The prophet Isaiah too pleads with God to feel this fear and to possess it.

I must make one more explanation. When I say fear, there are various kinds of this too. There is a fear that gives that person bitter agony. This fear is not at all edifying. In the fear we receive from God, however, rather than suffering agony, one dreads the spoiling of one's good relationship with God. And so that he does not commit a wrong, this fear becomes a protection for him too. For example, people are afraid of heights. This fear is a healthy fear; it protects that person. Little children do not have such feelings. If you leave a child of a year and a half, he'll even go and jump off a cliff. And while jumping, he'll even laugh. Because such fears have not yet developed in him. And this of course harms that child. That is why care is taken that there always be a watcher behind children. In short, the thing I want to convey is that not every fear is bad; on the contrary, the kind of fears we call healthy protect us, and the fear God gives is like this too. Above all, if this is a gift, a person ought to take pleasure in this gift. Because a thing that gives me pain is not a gift. Or at least I would not regard it as a good gift. The prophet Nehemiah gives voice to this in his prayer to God in this way:

"O Lord, I beg you, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this servant of yours and to the prayer of your servants who take delight in fearing your name." Nehemiah 1:11

So then, a person ought to take pleasure in this fear. It cannot be said that everyone will take pleasure in this fear. Many people see these feelings as tedious, like bondage. And God of course will not give them this gift by force. The fear of God is a gift only for those who know its value, who want it—not for everyone. Just as we fear the spoiling of our relationships with the persons we very much enjoy being together with, and this fear does not disturb us but, on the contrary, we take pleasure in it and take steps to make our relationships even more solid—this too is so. When you say the fear of God, people are astonished. Because religions and religionists have always practiced bigotry* with these words and used them to crush people and to keep them under pressure in line with their own aims and interests, a repugnance toward these words has now collected in people. That is why, when the fear of God is spoken of, people move away from this feeling with hatred. (*bigot: one who is blindly attached to a belief and thinks of nothing but it)

Alongside this we said that not every fear is beneficial. There are also people who are afraid to do what is right. Instead of speaking the truth, his telling a lie because he is afraid. This too is not a healthy fear that God is pleased with. Around the time the Gospel was written, Jesus' followers were treated very badly. They were killed, tortured, and so on. They too were afraid, but they overcame their fear and did not deny and abandon what was right. Even if God surely took no pleasure in the sufferings they endured, He was surely very pleased with the love-based faith they showed and their devotion to Himself. In fact, God hates the cowardice of not doing what is right. In Revelation, the very last book of the Gospel, it writes as follows about such cowards:

The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowards and the faithless, the abominable, the murderers, the adulterers, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all the liars, their portion is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death. Revelation 21:7-8

Can you imagine—in God's sight cowardice is exactly like sorcery, idolatry, murder, adultery. But this was a kind of fear we call unhealthy. Whatever the reason, the fear felt toward speaking the truth, toward doing what is right—this is very disgusting. We understand people who are under great pain and torture, but selling out the truth and shrinking from doing what is right is most often for values and interests worth practically zero.

Pharaoh's fear too was not a healthy fear. Because of the fear he felt from those plagues that befell him, he submitted to God. Although this was right, in God's sight it was not acceptable. Because this was not a decision that came from his heart, from within him. Indeed, when God took this fear away from him, Pharaoh became, as it were, a lion against God. And the thing God did here is to enable the person's real face to come out. It is not, as many people understand it, in the sense of “God gives the person an even harder heart so that he opposes God.” As if taking the goodness within a good person and putting evil in its place! God never does such a thing and would never stoop to it. The most important thing He wants is for His creatures, with their free will, to love Him, believe, and, obeying, be happy. Whoever wants to walk in God's ways should know that it will be acceptable if he does this with his free and untrammeled will, loving God. The tyrannies, pressures, and enforcements we have grown accustomed to seeing from religions are not God's method but only that of people.

Those who lead in religion are scared to death of the freedom of the ignorant people they call “those from the very bottom.” The Witnesses' governing body speaks of these members as “the rabble.” (It is written in Raymond Franz's book.) For those governing religious men, in the Middle Ages the people were at times worth even less than a pig. Because, according to them, the pig fills their belly. If they have no advantage from that people, then the pig is, in their view, more valuable for this reason. What I always strive to convey with these subjects is to show the value God gives to love and to free will. Along with all the evils, God's permitting even Satan depends on whether man will use these two qualities. These are the things the world—and consequently Satan—always strives to take from our hands: free will and love. Because God is the one who most wants us to use these two qualities of ours in drawing near to Him. And religions are the ones who most strive to blunt and to destroy these feelings of ours. They show this effort without ever tiring, without slackening. Whenever we give up and lose heart against these efforts, forces, and enforcements of theirs, that is when it means we have lost. These people, coming in God's name, by demanding from us things that are actually hostile to God, are in a way seeking our harm. That they do the same things themselves does not mean those things are right. In fact, if we look at it, none of those who sit at the very top and rain down commands generally do themselves the things they say. For example, the members of the Witnesses' governing body mostly go neither to preaching, nor to book study, nor to the meetings. And if they do, very, very rarely, they attend meetings to gather over certain matters. Their preaching door to door is countable on the fingers. That this is so, Raymond Franz again writes in his book. Raymond Franz, whose mother and father were Witnesses, lived giving active service to the Witnesses for 40 years. He began to say no to some things and they expelled him from among them in a rush. In short, Franz used his free will, his qualities of the love he felt for God and for the truths—his whole crime is this. He did not say “amen” to everything they said. He used a word people least love: he said “No.” The same things befall us too, and God had His prophets say that even worse things would come. The prophecies also speak of how, as we approach the last days, evils will increase even more, and people who feel love for God will be tormented greatly. But let us always take courage from these words. God, after Moses died, encourages Joshua, whom He appointed, like this:

"Be strong and be courageous; for you shall divide as an inheritance to this people the land I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, to be careful to act according to all the law my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. This book of the law (the Law) shall not depart from your mouth, and you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will be successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and be courageous; do not be dismayed; for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:6-9

With these encouraging words God gives us assurance, says He will always be with us. If we walk in His ways, keep His commandments. But if we fear and lose heart, whoever the one opposite us may be, before doing what is right, then let us not put out of our minds these words God said to the prophet Jeremiah:

"…And you, gird up your loins, arise, and speak to them everything I command you; do not be dismayed before them, or I will dismay you before them." Jeremiah 1:17

Who were the ones the prophet Jeremiah was not to lose heart before, not to fear? The priests, the religious leaders, the king, the rulers, and his own people. Against Jeremiah too the greatest reaction would come from the religious ones and the rulers. The religious ones who say they serve God have, unfortunately, always been the enemies of God's prophets. If you don't believe it, open and read the Holy Scriptures. The prophets' words about the last days fit our present time too very well. All these hardships may truly befall us while we are alive. Showing this faith and this love is not easy, but it is not impossible either. And besides, we have no other choice. It is also essential that we compel ourselves, willingly and joyfully, to live according to these words God said to His servants Joshua and Jeremiah. That is, of course, if we want to be saved and to be truly happy.