New York–Brooklyn

Actually, as far as my purpose is concerned, there is very little to tell about this journey. Even though he was someone I had never met, I received the greatest warmth there from the relative of that friend with the shop I mentioned, who was struggling to survive by working under harsh conditions. He was waiting for me at the airport, holding a piece of paper with my name written on it. His name was Hasbi; he worked in the kitchen of a place on the road that was a motel-restaurant. He had a beautiful American wife. Later I heard that he had separated from that woman. In my opinion, that lady, like many women of our time, was not someone who would love family life. Even though Hasbi gave me the room he had stayed in at the motel where he worked while he was still single, and put me up there, he insisted—by force—on paying the room fee to the owner of the business. And yet he had gotten married but still hadn't given up that room. He and his wife were staying in another house. The rent came to about one month's salary of theirs. As far as I understood, they were putting one of their salaries toward the rent and living on the other. The man who owned the business didn't want to take money from Hasbi for the room, but I was struck with admiration and astonishment that he absolutely insisted on paying that room fee for me. In a country whose language he didn't even properly know, the generosity and hospitality this man showed while working under those hard conditions was in every respect superior to those people who boast of being very religious, constantly giving speeches about love at conventions, meetings, mosques, and churches, and who do everything in God's name.

I stayed with him for two nights and one day. When I say “with him,” the good thing was that where I stayed I was alone, and it was a motel room. I get very bored being a guest. But there I was so comfortable. The first night, when I arrived from the journey, he immediately ordered pizza. For example, when you say a pizza for four, or three, three separate pizzas don't come; rather, the diameter of that one pizza grows, like an enormous wheel. I never ate such delicious pizza, neither in Germany nor in Italy nor anywhere else. Later, when I was alone, I ate pizza in New York; it was good, but not like that one. When it was time to sleep, he took me to his room at the motel.

The first night I slept there, I didn't hear the noise of two people tearing each other apart in the rooms across from me—fighting until they were covered in blood, and shredding each other until not a single piece of furniture was left standing in the room! Whether it was sitting for eight hours on the plane, or the different air of the place, or that I felt an extreme exhaustion, I don't know. For some reason, whenever I was in those places I always suffered this fatigue and distress. In the morning the front of the door was full of police. Hasbi later took me and, showing me that room, said: “Do you see this room? It's exactly like the one you stayed in. Look, nothing is left standing. The floors and everything are covered in blood.” I asked how it happened. Two friends had gone into the room with two crates of beer. While they were drinking and chatting, a disagreement arose and they fought! They smashed the beer bottles over each other's heads. Hasbi again said to me: “These are wild, murderous people.”

During that one day I stayed in his room, toward noon, thinking I might get hungry, he had toasts made. He came running with plates full of food. There was no possibility, not even a chance, that I could eat all that food. He had brought so much his hands were sore, and immediately ran back to work. Maybe he even spent that half-hour break of his on me. Hasbi did everything I wanted. Entrusting me to a friend of his, he saw me off to where I was going. As we parted, in the dark I had put a little money in a corner of his car, where it couldn't be seen at all in the darkness. I simply couldn't stomach the thought that he had also spent the money he earned under those conditions on me. He got in the car and, just a moment later, saw that money—and how he forced it back on me, I was amazed again. How he saw it, what kind of eye he had, I am still astonished. Even supposing this man was proud and all that, and was ashamed to accept it when I offered him back the expense he had spent on me—at the very least, even upon seeing that money in the dark, he should have, like all the people I know, pretended not to see it. This one wasn't like that; he saw it and forced it back on me. This man shamed me greatly, so very greatly, with his hospitality. May God bless him and help him. What I received from the one I call a stranger, I did not receive from people I had known for years and for whom I had made many sacrifices. This Black Sea friend showed—and gladly showed—the love of neighbor that God expects of every person. Bravo again. In no way did I ever see this poor man again, nor was I of any use to him. Still, I say with hope: perhaps one day.

After I parted from him, I became a guest in the home of some Turks who lived in a place near Brooklyn. I was only going to stay the evening and leave in the morning. And that too was at their insistence. Because Hasbi had entrusted me to them. We had just begun chatting about why I had come there and so on, and while I was explaining the topic of the Quran, a tense atmosphere arose. And that was over simple matters. For example, when I said that God did not command in the Quran that we be circumcised, or that the manner of worship recited during prayer with Arabic repetitions like a parrot was a human invention, and when I wanted to show them right there in the text, they got thoroughly worked up. And yet, as a guest, I was appealing to their good manners, wanting to draw their interest to the Quran with questions like these. I knew they would get angry, but these matters seemed vital and necessary to me. As for them, I believe they were hearing this for the first time. The house is their house, and I am the stranger. I didn't know the language either, but it also seemed rude to me to leave from there at 11 at night. Besides, I had opened up about what I was explaining only because they had insisted on asking what I did. Otherwise, I had no aim of dragging anyone anywhere. But my aim, as always, is to win people for God, to encourage them to seek Him out. I stayed there that night, but just ask me about it. The one who had brought me there also vanished from the scene. And inwardly I keep thinking, “let him come so I can get away.” The only thing I wanted was to go to a hotel and pull myself together. In that unwanted place I got up at the crack of dawn. Quietly I went to the kitchen. Four or five men had rented this house together—a real bachelor laborers' house. If they told me this wasn't America but Istanbul, Tophane, I would believe it at once. Wondering whether the place these people stayed was like this while other places were different, I looked out the window. The outward appearance and curtains of all the houses were like theirs. In this richest country on earth, most advanced in military technology, what other disgraceful things I was going to see and hear. And all in that very short span of time.

Time seemed to have stopped and simply would not pass. I sat in the kitchen, waiting like that without making a sound. It was a Sunday morning, and everyone was asleep. Turks especially don't get up before 12, and it was only six—that is, the crack of dawn. One of them got up. He had to go to work on a Sunday! And he was the most decent of them. He said to me briefly: “If you turn upside down even the faith we possess, what are we supposed to hold on to around here?” After saying that, he had to go right away, and he did. Would clinging to a lie protect a person? In that country they called foreign, would plugging their ears to the truth guide them? Besides, hadn't they too, like us, become slaves to those countries because of all those absurd things they believed and did? It's only six o'clock—oh, what am I going to do! However it happened, it happened; time passed along with the doves I watched by looking out the window, and thank goodness the one who had brought me there woke up. It was eleven or so. “Please, if you're going to do me a favor, just get a taxi and give it this address,” I said. No—he absolutely had to take me himself. I kept saying don't trouble yourself and so on, but he wouldn't listen. That night he didn't stay long among us and had little knowledge of the unpleasant things that were discussed. Even if he had, they all fear one another about such topics. Just like the Witnesses or people belonging to other religions. Besides, he was someone who had nothing to do with religion and such. In my opinion, none of them was religious. They had come to America; each one was waging a terrible struggle to survive. I already knew this struggle well from my time in Germany.

At last we set off. On the road his car had some breakdown or other, and he supposedly pulled into a mechanic's for a short while. Short, but it just wouldn't end—we're waiting. The mechanic too was a Turk. I was astonished; there were Turks everywhere. I kept saying I'd manage by speaking German, but in New York knowing Turkish was more useful. From the taxi driver to the mechanic, from the restaurant owner to the waiter, there were Turks. Later, after I was on my own and had checked into a hotel, while walking the streets in New York–Manhattan, I saw a woman like one of those homeless people who sleep on the streets under bridges, showering everyone with curses in Turkish! I couldn't believe my ears. No one understood her, and no one cared. And she kept showering all of them with Turkish curses. As I waited with the pedestrians to cross the street, she walked right past us. It was obvious the woman slept in the streets. Her hair was blond. “Maybe she married an American sailor from the fleet that came to Istanbul in the '60s, and that's how she came here,” I daydreamed. Turkish girls in those days were all dying to get to America, like everyone else. When I saw that woman I said to myself: “This is exactly how a home founded solely with that intention ends up.” I likened the atmosphere of those places to Istanbul–Taksim. This, of course, was the American version.

That friend, finally realizing that I had gotten annoyed at our waiting at that mechanic's, at last hired a taxi and sent me off to go to the Witnesses' headquarters building in Brooklyn. At last I said “oh!” to myself. As soon as I arrived in front of the building and got out of the taxi, there was a car in front of the door and two people, clearly husband and wife, standing in front of the building. On a Sunday, actually, no one is supposed to be around there! The man looked as if he was going to go in, get something, and come out. And the woman was waiting at the door. Alright, I said, these people will help me now and I'm saved. My suitcase was in my hand. Wherever I go, I have to drag it along. In America, whether it's a taxi or whoever it may be, there's no custom of putting the suitcase of someone who has one in hand into the trunk. Wherever I'm going, I stuff that huge suitcase, too, into the back seat of the car. For some reason they don't put it in the trunk! They just stare. There's no room in their trunks. Once I happened to see—the inside of their trunk was a disgrace. Should I call it a hardware shop, or the attic of a slovenly person's home—that's the kind of trunk they have. I had come with the thought of staying in these parts at least four weeks. I also happened to know how to say the words “sister” and “brother” in English. I said to them: “Are you a brother, and are you a sister?” The woman said yes. But all I could manage was an expression of great pleasure, and I made it clear that I knew no English at all. They understood too that I had some difficulty involving them. Since that day was Sunday, they were going to a meeting. They had briefly stopped in front of this main building to pick up something. And the husband, with an expression as if to say “Where on earth did you spring from, man,” took me along with them and brought me to that meeting. At the meeting the woman was seized with a fluster. She was saying things, running here and there and back, but I didn't understand. She kept touching her neck and so on with her hand toward the people she was talking to, so I understood, and I went over to her and looked as if to ask what the problem was. She was looking for a tie and jacket for me! I said “No problem,” asked where the toilet was, and pointed to my suitcase—as if to say, “Everything is inside this.” She showed me the toilet. I went in and got undressed and put on the jacket, tie, dress trousers—all that the woman wanted—so she'd be satisfied! When I came out of the toilet, she gave a look, and, as if to say “ah, now it's right,” felt relieved and went and sat down somewhere in the front rows! And I never saw her again. Well, at least her mind was at ease now! A woman accustomed to seeing haltered donkeys in the barn was probably made uncomfortable by seeing one without a halter!

The meeting hall was like a train car, narrow and long; a few paunchy, hulking but seemingly docile Black men stood at the back, waiting like bouncers at discos. This man who had brought me, too, was in a serious, always-busy mood, constantly giving orders left and right. I didn't understand what he said to those Black men, but while talking with hand gestures, as if to say “keep an eye on this one,” he seated me at the very back, under the watch of these men. To everything he said they either replied with a very short word or kept nodding their heads. He himself went and sat somewhere in the very front. It must have been beside his wife; I couldn't see him from the back. A two-hour meeting, and in English at that! My neck was thinner than a hair by now—what can we do, we'll endure it, I told myself. Thank goodness the meeting ended; this man found someone on the phone who spoke German. He handed me the receiver. That man asked me: “Why did you come, what do you want?” And I said: “I came to talk with you.” But he asked, “about what?” Even though I said I couldn't explain over the phone, he insisted, “just tell me the topic, that's enough.” “I'm going to talk about the Quran,” I said. Alright, now they understood. He said, “You'll come to the headquarters building tomorrow morning at eight,” said “hand the phone back to that person,” and by now I could guess what he discussed with him. The meeting was breaking up, and these people again pinned me, with military commands, onto some poor soul whose speech I couldn't understand at all. It was obvious that man too was one of those poor souls of that place who could easily be climbed onto, and a caretaker. The poorest of the poor are always used as donkeys; this is so in Asia and in America and in Europe and in Africa. Alongside this poor soul there was also a Black woman as big as half the world whom he brought and took to the meeting. Probably either a Witness or an interested person; clearly he was bringing and taking her. As far as I recall, there was also his own wife and their twin children, about a year and a half old, in the car—did they wedge me in between them, too? Or maybe his wife came with others and we met at the house, I don't know, I've forgotten. He took the Black woman by car as far as the subway or wherever. Clearly he handles the gathering and distributing jobs too. I knew this from our own meetings as well. Whenever they spot a poor soul, they immediately come over to him and approach with, “would you bring this one too, would you take that one too.” They're always going to dump their burdens onto someone else. But he too must be a poor soul, donkey-like, who cannot say no. Because those at the very top don't want to be bothered with such trivial things!

I had grown weary of these journeys by now. Sleeplessness, unfamiliar, tiresome environments had worn me down. And now here I was, among these poor souls. Take me to a hotel, I keep saying—“no, that's not possible,” they say. What kind of hospitality is this! Does it mean, “Here you'll absolutely live the way we tell you to”? Hasbi—yes, a Hasbi—what an understanding person he was, I said to myself. I was so tired by now that all I wanted was to lie down and sleep, even if it were in a hayloft or a barn. No, I couldn't find that. In America a bed had become a very luxurious item! I would stay with these Witnesses whose home I had come to until the next morning, and after that I would meet to speak with those at the very top.

We arrived at these poor souls' home. They were saying something to me, but I didn't understand. All I said, gesturing with my hand, was that I just wanted to sleep now. Well, of course—obeying the order of the one giving directives, the poor fellow had taken me and brought me to his home; what more could he do? He had no means anyway. They didn't even have a bed to sleep in for a single person other than themselves. They had a kitchen, but they got their coffee from the restaurant downstairs! They even bought eggs already cracked into the pan, ready-made—they didn't make them themselves. I had seen this state of theirs at breakfast in the morning. That's how America was! What did any of this matter to me—I was very tired and at that moment wanted nothing but to sleep. In their two-room home there was one armchair, and their home looked as if they were about to move out entirely. He pointed with his hand to that half-armchair, and I said fine. That is, I'll curl up there and sleep, like sleeping inside a car. And they left the house. I hadn't so much slept as passed out by then. Whether it was the different air, the spring, the journey, my morale, or all of them, I don't know, but I was finished. In this two-room home—like a stork's nest, where you walk about stepping over certain things—where I didn't even know where the toilet was, while I lay passed out on the half-armchair, every now and then a crowd of people kept coming to the front of the door. They were talking loudly, shouting. “Oh dear, they must have come back with their guests, and here I am sleeping—it'll be rude, let me get up,” I say, and though I'd force myself upright saying it would be rude, no one comes, and those who were talking loudly leave, and I again topple sideways and pass out. This happened perhaps ten or twenty times like this. Each time, half-conscious like a roly-poly toy, I'd straighten up a bit on that cramped armchair, then flop back down with a thud. I don't know how many hours passed; they kept shouting in front of the door, but there was no one coming or going—no one was home. It was as if a crowd of people came and went. Just as I was beginning to come to, my eyes had opened and, still half-conscious, I was staring at a spot. I stare without moving at all. I don't know whether I'm asleep or passed out. Ah! Suddenly I saw, right before my eyes, a little mouse. It can't be, I'm imagining it, I said. It pays me no mind at all. It roams here and there right before my eyes. I only love mice in the Tom and Jerry cartoons. I slowly began to come to. The mouse was inside the kitchen, on top of the cabinets, wandering everywhere. One of the kitchen drawers was slightly open, and it was struggling to get inside it. Alright, I said, as soon as it goes in I'll shut the drawer on it, and so I wait on the alert, lying where I was. It went in, and I quickly pushed the drawer shut. But the mouse had come out from behind the drawer and gotten away. Fine—at least let it not roam about out in the open; I don't like mice at all. I don't like them because they're filthy. As a child at home we kept every kind of animal. We had even kept a whole aquarium full of the school's mice at our house. They had multiplied and become a whole swarm. Since my mother loved animals very much, thank goodness we satisfied those feelings of ours in childhood. Still, mice roaming free like that in the kitchen, in the house, turn my stomach.

At last I slowly got up. There was no one in the house, and again those crowd noises began. It turned out it was that kind of telephone they call an answering machine of the man's. As it recorded the voices of those speaking onto tape, he had hooked it up to a low-quality speaker in such a way that it could be heard from outside too. My goodness, how loud he had turned up the volume, too. I had never in my life seen such an answering machine. And such things weren't as widespread then as they are in our times. There wasn't even the thing called a cell phone yet. That's why I was surprised. Those sounds are still a nightmare I can't forget.

Toward evening they came home. Oh! It turned out we were going out to eat together. How bad it is not to know the language, yet sometimes how good. With them was another, elderly woman. She was the woman's mother. In my opinion they came from a southern country. Whether Mexico or some other country, I don't know. In my opinion the man, by his features, was of European origin. The twin children resembled each other exactly. There was no difference at all. As I said, they were probably about a year and a half old.

We all went together to a restaurant this man called very good. They make steak. Much of it isn't edible—bony, gristly; the worst meat I ever ate. It was probably bull meat or something. The man keeps asking how it is—what am I to say! When he asked so often, so frequently, I couldn't keep up the hypocrisy any longer, so I pointed to the bones on my plate to show that much of it wasn't edible, while still nodding my head, as if to say it's good, good, so as not to hurt his feelings. For that meal it was also a very expensive place. Since I felt I was being a burden to these people anyway, I had paid for all of them. I never again ate such an expensive and rip-off meal in America. Maybe that poor fellow took us to a place he had always heard about but never been able to go to, and, since I was his guest at the time, imagined in his eyes to be very famous—I can't know. Sometimes it happens to me, too. That restaurant we take a guest to as “the best,” which in our eyes we call the best place, turns out to be a disgrace. It's a place we've never been to but which looks nice from afar. Whereas the places we always go to are of much higher quality and cheaper too. Perhaps we think, since we always go to those places and have gotten bored of them, that the guest will get bored too—I can't say. Such things happen; in my opinion those people were poor but good people. When we returned home in the evening, we fell into the worry of where I would sleep. From the man's account, many people like me who came to speak at that headquarters building had all stayed with him. This time I pitied the man even more. Who knows for what reasons those visitors came, too? So it seems that, according to their quality, they palm off such people onto either him or someone else. Because I said I would talk about the Quran, I was palmed off onto these people! Most of all I felt sorry on behalf of these people whose home I was going to stay in. Whereas if they had taken me to a suitable hotel they knew of in that city, they would have done me the greatest favor they could with that. To make it short, the man set out to have me sleep on the floor, on something, in his own bedroom. Oh no, I said, don't; the man has only one room, and now I'd be in the middle of them! Downstairs he had a garage where, even standing and turning left and right, you had to be careful. Everywhere, everywhere a garage. Like the trunks of the cars I saw. You have to dig around just to stand up, and it was the end of March, of all months. “I'll sleep here,” I said. Even though he said “no, that won't do” and so on, I forced it and made it happen. With a bit of his help too, we dug around and cleared a space. “Ah!” I say, and inwardly I was also giving myself pep talks: “Compared to what the apostles of old endured, what are these things that have come upon me?” Because I had no other recourse. The man said something like “how can you sleep here” and so on, but I said “yes, yes,” and I lay down in that garage on a folding portable bed with a deep sag in the middle, in a “V” shape, on the condition that I turn neither right nor left. How I lay down and got up again, only I know. In that state, in the morning we went straight to the main building, and he got me inside, and right at that moment a traffic policeman came onto the street. Whether he had parked in the wrong place or what, so he wouldn't get a ticket he ran off with his huge belly. I never saw this man again either. After I came to Germany, I had Bernd write an English card and thanked them. No reply ever came. Behind the entrance door of his home, on the wall, there were cards pinned onto a board; maybe he pinned my card there too.

So I had at last been able to come to the place I wanted to reach. I endured all these hardships in order to reach this place, but thank goodness I made it, I thought to myself. A tall, white-haired man, and beside him a medium-height German with his single front tooth yellowed, took me into a small room. These areas were tidy and orderly, like the Witnesses' meeting halls. It was, after all, the Witnesses' headquarters building. Right at the very entrance, at the far end on the left side, a small room. These men began to ask me questions. My father's name, whether I had done military service, and if so where I did it, whether I was married, my children, and so on. They wanted my passport, and I gave it. They also asked how I had gone to Germany. All these questions took, I think, about twenty minutes. It could be, I told myself, they must do it for their own security. But whom were these people afraid of, and why? Besides, that was not a time, like now, when America was waging any kind of war on terror. Throughout all this conversation I did not, but did not at all, like that yellow-toothed German-speaking man who was talking with me. He was a conceited, foul person. After these people finished their intelligence-agency-style security questions, they said to me: “Why did you come here?” I again said, “To talk with you about the Quran.” I was just then taking out of my bag those series of writings they had published, when this yellow-toothed one said “our conversation is over” and stood up. That white-haired one—whom I later learned was Albert Schröder, a member of the Governing Body—even though his face reddened, went along with that yellow-toothed one's foulness and also stood up. As for me, I sat there looking at them, hurriedly trying to put the magazines and such into my bag. And these men stood waiting for me as if to say, alright, get lost now. Even though I said, “Please, give me half an hour so I can explain a little,” they resisted like stone, saying “no.” Yet they had wasted half an hour of their time with me on absurd questions—what would it have cost them to spare half an hour of their time for this person who had come from seven thousand kilometers away! I took my suitcase in hand and left there. Going about fifty meters from the building, I leaned against a wall and sat down on the ground, on the stone steps. Inwardly I keep thinking, “maybe their hearts will soften and they'll see me and call me.” When I sat down at the foot of those stone steps, it was coming up on nine in the morning or so. I sat like that for eight hours. I was visible from in front of that whole building. No one called me. “What am I going to do now, I came for nothing, I couldn't even talk,” I kept saying. Inwardly I kept saying: “If only they would just listen to me—whether they accept it or not, at least let them listen.” During those eight hours of waiting, with no idea what I would do or where I would go, I sat there continually praying to God within myself and talking to myself.

No matter how long I sat, there was no one who was going to come and say: “Please come, tell us whatever you want to tell, then you can go again.” Moses came to my mind. That man dealt with all the quarrels, disputes, and fights of the Israelites, with all their problems down to the smallest matter. It is a terrible thing to sit alone from morning to evening trying to solve the problems of such a stubborn, rebellious people numbering in the millions. Moses did this alone until, in Midian, Moses' father-in-law, God's priest, saw this situation and gave him advice so that he would not grow weak. (Exodus 18, the entire chapter) These people, though, with all this technology, with all these conveniences, do not have the time or let their pride permit them to speak with a person who has come thousands of kilometers just to talk—no matter who he is or what for! Where is the abundance and comfort in which they sit, in that air-conditioned “bread from hand, water from lake” kind of life, with one hand in butter and one hand in honey; and where is Moses, who had to deal in the desert, in the drought, unable to find even a shade, with that ever-rebellious people! You'll say, “Can Moses and these men even be compared?” Yes, you're right, but the reason I compare them to Moses with this simplest of examples is because of their own words. These men see themselves as so far superior to Moses. As I said, even Jesus—he too, if he did not contradict them—could only be acceptable at a level they would allow! They think like this, they behave like this, and their Governing Bodies bear such fruits, too. These men are full of a pride, arrogance, and conceit that makes them see themselves as superior to everyone. Even if a Witness calls these last sentences of mine absurd, their practices and teachings are such as to confirm what I have written. Besides, not one of them has experienced with them the experiences I have lived through, so that they would know. Only a very few of those who have come out of them, or been thrown out, know that religion a bit better. The experiences such a person has gained about them are no longer like those of someone who always says “yes”; by saying “no,” things have become very different. Take any Watchtower publication and read it. These men always praise themselves. Whereas David and his son Solomon say this:

For though the LORD is high, he sees the humble one; but the haughty one he knows only from a distance. Psalm 138:6

Let a stranger, and not your own mouth, praise you; someone else, and not your own lips. Proverbs 27:2

I have not, at the very least, come across a single “Watchtower” magazine, or by its old name “Watch Tower” magazine, in accordance with these two verses. They speak a great deal about humility. This quality they expect from others, they always want shown toward their own Governing Bodies. According to them, everyone in this world should be humble. But only toward their own Governing Bodies! Every kind of pride, arrogance, conceit, theft, wickedness, molesting of children, and so on among them—these they forgive, in a way. But they never forgive anyone who opposes that Governing Body of theirs. As I keep saying, I understand—and I do understand—those broke ones at the top; but the donkeys who bow down before them and say “climb on my back,” those I have never understood and never will be able to understand. Sometimes myself included. By coincidence these verses came to my mind.

Do not put your trust in rulers (in nobles) nor in the son of earthling man, who cannot bring salvation. Psalm 146:3

Fear of man lays a snare, but the one trusting in the LORD will be protected. Proverbs 29:25

With these words God does not intend to make people appear as enemies to one another. On the other hand, He is opposed to the honor and majesty that should be given only to Himself being given to people, and to their being obeyed and exalted in this way. For some reason people are always very prone to these situations.

Even if I had waited there not eight but eighty hours, it would have been of no use. I was very tired. An idea came to my mind. I had been constantly thinking anyway, so as not to leave without speaking with these men. And I was constantly imploring God to help me. A few days later these people were to gather to commemorate the day of Jesus' death. I had found a bit more courage to speak with that white-haired one, Albert Schröder, who was on the Governing Body. I needed to know which meeting hall in New York he would be at that day. And I wanted to try my luck there again. Because he too had been afraid of that filthy fellow beside him and had fallen into hypocrisy. Even though I didn't know his language, that old man's face reddening at the attitude this filthy one displayed was a good sign for me. I got up again and went to that building. I asked which meeting hall he would go to that day. They told me, and I got the address too. Thinking, “now let me get in a car, go to the hotel, and relax until that day,” I got into a taxi. The taxi driver man was Black. I told him I was looking for a hotel. In fact, since I knew that staying in a hotel for a whole month would be very expensive for me, wait, let me ask this taxi driver—maybe I could stay in his home for money, I thought, and I asked. It took forever to get it across, but he understood. He kept stopping and phoning home, but he couldn't reach his wife. He would surely have to ask her about this too. But if Schröder also wouldn't listen to me, or if my business here were finished even after he listened, then I would go back to Germany. Staying a month there would be very expensive for me. Since the taxi driver couldn't reach his wife anyway to get permission, I said: “Take me to a hotel, we'll talk on the phone again.” At the same time I kept saying maybe I could go back within a week too. The taxi driver said, “for a week it's not worth it.” “But I can only know that two days from now,” I said, and I told him to phone me. For the hotel, I tried to explain that it shouldn't be too expensive but also shouldn't be a disgraceful place. This man too was a good person. He searched quite a bit and asked around, and finally found a place at 89 dollars a night. That price didn't even include food or breakfast. There were places at five dollars a night, but such places! The hotel's manager was an elderly man who knew German. He too took great interest in me. For some reason he even gave me his home telephone number. That the manager of such a luxury hotel in a place like Manhattan showed me such warmth made me feel at home in that hotel. As I said, I would always receive kindness from people who probably don't know God and feel no need to advertise Him.

I can't tell you how I relaxed when I entered the room. I took a shower and lay down. I kept waking, seeing nightmares, and falling asleep again. Since I set off I had not phoned home at all. How was I to phone. I never like phoning from the places I go to. Because everyone gets upset, I know. I only phone if I myself find an opportunity. And in a foreign, unfamiliar country, that opportunity almost never presents itself. Besides, in those days there were no cell phones, internet cafés, and such like there are now. When I entered the room I immediately phoned home. I'm hoping we'll talk joyfully on the phone; my wife, though, keeps crying her eyes out as if accusing me: “Why didn't you ever call,” not even hearing me. I listened to this crying session too for two or three minutes. After calming and consoling her, I hung up the phone and went to sleep! Whereas when I left home I had said over and over, “I won't be able to call, don't worry.” One trait of my wife is that no matter what you say, she still behaves, thinks, and waits according to the expectation, the fantasy in her head! When I lay down it was around six in the evening; I slept three hours or so. Actually I was just about to fall asleep, but I hadn't eaten anything all day. I was subsisting on that bull meat of which I couldn't eat even half a slice the day before. Nothing had passed my lips for about thirty hours. Neither food nor drink. Before that, too, I had been with the Turks and again hadn't eaten anything. I had money, so I was at ease on that score. A few days' hunger like that wouldn't do anything to me. But in very long hunger my stomach would burn badly. I didn't want to spend the whole night like that either. Well, is it easy—I had come to see God's men!

I got up, dressed, and went outside. I don't know where to go. But the hotel was right in the middle of Manhattan. Whichever way I turn I'll surely find somewhere like a restaurant, I said, looking left and right. Just as I was waiting right there on the sidewalk, to my right two short young women were talking to each other in Turkish. This is surely my imagination, I said. I approached them; it wasn't imagination—they really were Turks. I asked them: “Do you know somewhere to eat?” And they said: “We're looking too.” We started looking together. We found a restaurant that was self-service. You take your own food onto a tray and pay for it at the register. While talking with the girl, I said, “which dishes would you recommend—you know better since you live here.” Wouldn't the waiter behind the counter say in Turkish, “eat these”! He too was a Turk. Later I even became friends with that fellow. Those women I saw on the street were mother and daughter. The mother had come from Turkey to visit her daughter. And the daughter had come to New York saying she'd look after children, or something. People from Adana, and well-off. Only, the poor woman had a great wound. As we ate at the restaurant she cried the whole time and told me about it. She had very recently lost her son at a very young age in a traffic accident—and a horrific traffic accident at that. His car had slammed at high speed into the back of a tractor carrying sharp, long stakes. All those stakes had gone right through him. She both cried and told the story. And I, as far as my tongue would allow, wanted to give her hope. I spoke of God's hope of resurrecting the dead. I said that with this life everything does not end, that God did not create us humans to perish forever, and so on. At first she listened with interest and all, but when the meal was over, and perhaps when she heard that I too was married, they suddenly changed. Or maybe they were wary of me and of the resurrection topics I mentioned, I don't know.

Then that Turkish waiter fellow came over to me, we talked, and we immediately made plans to meet. He too was another poor soul. He had grown up in Berlin, in Germany. Then his parents had made a permanent return to Turkey. He too had graduated from a hotel-management college in Istanbul. He had fallen in love with a girl, but the girl married someone else, someone rich. He had taken this very hard and become bitter. Determined by hook or by crook not to stay in Turkey, he had found work on a foreign passenger ship. Whenever the ship docked in New York, he and a friend of the same mind were going to run off. And they did run off. Even under the harshest conditions, thanks to the education he had received, he had been able to look after himself there. This one too did something I didn't like at all. He always paid for the taxi we took when we went out, in a way that made it impossible to refuse. At that time my heart ached so much. I had already set aside a certain amount of money for this journey, but these people were under very hard conditions. Should one take money from them, or be a burden to them? Later I took his address, and we corresponded. He had a few small requests once or twice, and while I was in Germany I mailed them to him. I always spoke to him of God's hope for us humankind. Both in the letters and while I was there. But these people, one day comes and they get bored of these conversations. When I returned to Germany I had said to him, “I'll send you a Turkish Holy Bible,” and I did send it. Later the letters stopped, we no longer corresponded, he didn't write. What amazed me was encountering such people in a land I never expected. Whereas people are generally very stingy, self-interested and such, where on earth had these ones sprung up before me! And all these people were living under very hard conditions. May God protect such people. I don't say it just because they treated me well; they treated everyone that way. In my opinion this was a trait of theirs. Throughout this whole journey of mine—where are the people I wanted to talk to, to meet with, and where are these poor souls! Which of them, in your opinion, is pleasing God? In my opinion the ones who are human, of course. Jesus Christ gave a very beautiful example about love of neighbor—that is, love of fellow man. And every Christian knows this story Jesus Christ told as “the good Samaritan.” If you like, open up and read this passage, verses 10:25-37, found in the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament. Again, as I said, I saw the love spoken of in these verses—true friendship and love—not from those who constantly teach those verses, but from those who never even mention the names of those things, who don't know them; unfortunately, that's the truth. Again Napoleon Bonaparte came to my mind. He had said, “Everyone fights for the thing he himself lacks.” Probably these religionists teach the things they themselves lack, and boast of those things they don't possess. Jesus Christ gave one more very clear indication about the traits of the people he chose as his own. And that was that these would have neither their teachings nor their knowledge. Those who stand on his side—that is, those acceptable to God—he described in this way:

I am giving you a new commandment: love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also love one another.

By this all will know that you are my disciples—if you have love among yourselves." John 13:35

So this was the measure. The Witnesses were supposedly so full of love for one another! This was something I did not much see in my nearly twenty years of experience. Their embracing of one another at conventions and meetings, which most of the time is formality and false, is something everyone does. It is a fact that the members of any club, those who ride the same brand of motorcycle, those who belong to the same party and support the same football team, also show one another a closeness in that stadium—indeed, more and more generously. Well, if these people, according to the Witnesses, are idolaters, and they possess such good traits, then what superiority do the Witnesses themselves have over these people? They supposedly leave the stadiums clean at conventions! If the others make them dirty, well, that's the cleaning staff's job anyway, they clean it. Is this the difference? Besides, since they rent the stadium cheaply, they take the cleaning of it upon themselves, so they're obliged to leave it clean. That is, again material interests are at play. If the trait is helping one another, don't those who don't know or recognize God help one another even more? Again, if they hug and kiss, stop by any ordinary train station or airport any day and observe those people meeting—they too may be at each other's throats, but when they see each other, don't they hug? You decide, after reading this book, who has and who doesn't have love of neighbor—that is, love of fellow man. I did not see it among the Witnesses. More precisely, I have not seen natural, true love in any person who says he is “religious.” I don't say there is none; I say I haven't seen it. Again, staying on the topic of the Witnesses, anyone who says he sees it is either a hypocrite or blind. As I said, I'm not talking about the natural shows everyone puts on toward one another; I'm talking about true love. Otherwise the Pope of the Catholic Church would have to be declared the most loving man. As for those Witnesses who work in other countries as missionaries—their quarrels and incompatibilities with one another in the very places they live, their stealing of each other's belongings in the houses they share—Raymond Franz, a Governing Body member who came out of them, writes about this openly in his book. The people Raymond Franz, who was sent on assignment to those places to solve such problems, mentions—saying that overcoming these was impossible—are the very Witnesses themselves, who preach paradise and say “no one but us will be saved”! These people, who in their sermons tell others, “In paradise there will be no keys on the doors,” were, while living together, protecting even the cabinets in their rooms from one another with padlocks.

I had very good days at that hotel where I stayed. Is there anything as beautiful as freedom? Freedom is one of the most beautiful feelings God placed within us. Even though Satan and mankind strive to abuse this feeling too, God placed this beautiful feeling within people in such a way that its existence will be preserved unto eternity.

The Holy Bible speaks of a woman. When the prophet Elisha would pass by chance from where this woman lived, this woman would insist he eat a meal at her home. Whenever the prophet passed this way—and sometimes a year would go by without his passing—this woman would every time invite the prophet Elisha and his attendant to eat a meal at her home. One day this woman said to her husband: "I know that this man who is always passing by us is a holy man of God. Come, let us make a little upper-chamber room on the wall, so that whenever he comes to us he may stay there." (2 Kings 4:8-37) About this woman the Holy Bible says: "She was a prominent woman" (2 Kings 4:8). By this God wants to convey how valuable that woman was. The woman was hospitable and understanding. She had a separate room made for the prophet so he could truly be comfortable. So the feeling of needing a separate place in order to be comfortable is in every person. And yet, wasn't even inviting him to her home a very great thing? Wouldn't that have been enough? Couldn't she also have thought, "And besides, when will he ever come again?" Was it worth all this trouble? And it's certain, too, that this woman was not seeking her own honor in the things she did. Some people do it, but they also stand and watch, waiting to be praised. It's certain this woman was not such a person. In the kindness she did, she was someone who sought not her own benefit and comfort but, just as it should be, that of the other person. Her aim was not to gather people around her out of boredom or in order to gossip. This too is one of the short but very beautiful topics of the Holy Bible, to be read in one breath. I recommend you read it.

While writing these things, another event I experienced many years ago came to my mind. I was around twenty. We had gone to Cyprus by car and had spent until not a penny was left in our pockets. We didn't even have money left to buy gasoline for our car, so we became guests of some people we didn't know at all in Mersin. I never saw such a thing again either. They laid out for us such a spread—everything was there on that floor spread. We began to eat, but there was no one around us. In fact I looked for salt and couldn't find it, so I waited and waited for someone to come, but no one came. It turned out they had prepared the meal for us and left. Where they had gone, I don't know. Maybe they had gone over to another house next door. But they had done this solely so we would be comfortable. And they even gave us money and sent us off. The man had a large family. His profession was taxi driving. We took his brother with us, too, and went to Istanbul. Actually we had first met that brother. While waiting for the ship in Mersin we had stopped by a mechanic's, and he was working there. A few days after coming to Istanbul, we paid this poor man's money, bought the ticket for the brother who was with us and such, and put him on the bus. That kid didn't take this money back to his older brother. He was a bit of a liar. According to his account, there was a lot of snow in Ankara so the bus couldn't go, he was forced to stay in a hotel in Ankara for days, and the money ran out! I felt so sorry for this older brother who had shown us this humanity. And I was a student in those days too. I didn't have much money to give this poor man once more. Since this scoundrel had surely told his older brother some other story, I later wrote a letter too. I never got any reply either. What could the poor man say—spit up and it hits the mustache, spit down and it hits the beard. What he did was a foolishness of that kid's. But even after so many years have passed, I can't forget his older brother. Such people do the kindness they do without expecting any return at all. Because it's right, because they're human. Most of all, these people are like this because, even with a minimum, tiny bit of knowledge, they love God and love people.

People with these traits are, in the eyes of the Witnesses, idolaters and people who will never be saved. It just came to my mind—that night, too, they had given us their best bedroom, an enormous bedroom, and spotlessly clean. With me were also a woman three years older than me, and the friend whose older sister we had taken to Cyprus. It was the year 1980. It could be 1981 too. I wish I could meet those people again. I still cannot forget this love, this gratitude I felt inside. And perhaps I never will forget it. Just think of the kindness this man did us. Whereas if a religionist had been in their place, he would have thought like this: “They surely had money when they went off on holiday; who knows what dogged and vagrant things they did that it came to this—well, now let them suffer the penalty.” And he would have been right to think so, too. In fact, the friend with me, saying “the fish has sunk, might as well go all the way,” had put all our last money into cartons of Marlboro cigarettes. We had spent until we had no money left for bread. These people, though, helped us without thinking or expecting anything. The religionist even keeps track of the bread he gives—how you eat it, which part of the stomach it goes to, and where you're going to excrete it. These types of religionists I speak of practically take X-rays, in their minds, of a person's stomach for the morsel they've fed. If you've eaten his bread and then do something he doesn't like, he reaches in his arm and takes that bread back out of your stomach. These are the differences between those who know God and those who don't. Believe it or not, I write what I have experienced, what I have seen, the events of history, the sacred writings. There's a saying, “let him who has a wound flinch”—this is the answer I want to give to my readers who don't want to believe. There are, it seems, also very hospitable and generous religionists because of their cultures. They too, after feeding and giving to drink and handing over money, put bombs all over him and say: “Go blow yourself up along with those bombs in such-and-such a place, and God will put you in paradise, too.” All these are the ones serving God! As I keep saying, I am terrified of people who begin with “in the name of God.” What does it mean—are people who believe in God always like this? I too believe in God, but I can't find anything in myself to boast about. As for these religions, forget boasting—they even claim to hold the sole authority to sell the ticket to paradise!

While in New York, a day before, I went by taxi to the address where the meeting of that white-haired man, the Governing Body member with whom I wanted to meet once more with a last hope, was to be held, so that I could learn its location and distance. Then I returned by subway to the hotel where I was staying. This subway matter of New York had greatly pleased me. All day, wherever you go, one dollar. And those street names were very nice. Most of the streets were numbered; making a mistake was almost impossible. Even at the stops you get off according to those numbers. They had set up a transit system that even someone with a little bit of wits could learn in three to five minutes. And even someone who knew no language at all could easily manage it. In Paris too they made the subway system on this principle, but it's still not as easy as New York's. In Europe, searching for streets that are named like a first-and-last name is death. These people, by giving numbers like this to a large part of that huge city, made it easy to find the streets.

At last the day that was to be my final hope arrived. The significance of that day, because of the Messiah's death, was truly very meaningful for all of mankind. I dealt with the meaning of this day toward the end of the book, under the topic "The Last Supper."

Despite New York's traffic, I was able to get to that meeting on time. As soon as I entered, my eyes searched for Albert Schröder and found him. I went straight over to him, and he recognized me. He asked me in German: “How are you?” He himself was of German descent, but had been born and raised in America. Although he understood a bit when German was spoken, he couldn't speak it himself. I had taken this man to be about 65 years old. When I returned to Germany, while talking with Bernd, he recognized him from the magazines and told me: “He must be over eighty.” I didn't believe it and said, “the one I saw was perhaps his son.” Then, when he found his picture in a magazine and showed it to me, I said, “Ah! This was the man.” And he said: “This isn't a father or son or anything—it's the man himself.” He really was someone who, as a person over eighty, had stayed very fit. If he's still alive, he must be a hundred now. In answer to his question, I said I was “well” and thanked him, and again, as if imploring, I got straight to the point and said, “Please listen to me for half an hour, and then let me go again as I came. Let me not have come in vain from thousands of kilometers away.” He understood and said, “come tomorrow at such-and-such an hour.” Thanking him very, very much, I also begged him please not to bring that translator again. Just looking at my face, and a bit surprised, he nodded his head as if to say, alright. Throughout that meeting I was very joyful. The next day too I went right at the hour he said. This time there was a different translator beside him. He was German, and being an architect, he was there to work in certain roles. You know how they say “a sweet person”—well, this one was such a person. Where was that other filthy one, and where was this man! Both of them had the same culture, believed the same things, came from the same country. The difference, though, was as far apart as the South Pole and the North Pole. Albert Schröder took us to his room upstairs. We went up to his room by elevator. As I walked behind him, something caught my attention: on Albert's feet were closed-toe house slippers. I was surprised, but then I thought, this man stays here as if it's his home. In fact “as if” is too much—this was his home anyway. We entered his office, and another situation that surprised me caught my attention. I couldn't be one hundred percent sure, but from the window of that office he could have seen me where I sat for eight hours. In my opinion he did see me. I was ashamed to get up and look out his window toward the front. Besides, it wasn't really important. He sat at his desk, and on the shelves behind him, as full as the whole wall, there were books. That architect and I sat side by side across from him. I got straight to the point. I took out those critiques I wrote about the Quran in earlier chapters. They themselves had written these series of writings anyway, and I began to explain. Since from the very beginning he kept indicating that he didn't have much time, I was going to take up the most important topics. I knew that these people had no knowledge of the Quran anyway. Their knowledge amounted to no more than a fraud declaring himself a prophet. In short, to them the Quran was a book coming from Satan and the jinn. Granted, when one looks at the Muslim world, a person can hardly think anything else. When one looks at the Christian world with the same eye, a person can't think good things either.

I spoke briefly and to the point for about fifteen minutes. With the translator's translating and Albert Schröder's answers, which in turn were translated back to me, this conversation of ours lasted a total of 35-40 minutes or so. The summary of the topic I wanted to convey was this. “Whoever wrote these series of writings, without knowing it, is critiquing not only the Quran but the Holy Bible too,” I said. He looked at my face in bewilderment, as if to say what does this mean, and I continued: “If, according to the writings here, the Quran cannot be the word of God, then, looked at with the same principle and logic, the Holy Bible too cannot be the word of God,” I said. I immediately gave a few examples. About how Muhammad is compared with Moses, about the traits sought and expected for being a prophet, and so on—which I won't write again and bore you with. In short, I explained, giving verses, about just a few of the things I wrote above regarding this series of writings. It was all a fifteen-minute thing. You imagine what I could explain. He listened to my whole talk, and I fell silent. He answered me like this: when he said, “We don't claim that the person who wrote this writing wouldn't make mistakes”—and when I looked at his face this time as if to say, what does this even mean—he said, “But we only correct the errors regarding the Holy Bible.” This answer was final; imploring against this thought and decision would be no use, I thought. “There are hundreds of millions of people who say they believe in this book,” I said. Shouldn't those people be helped? He said “there are so many religions”—by which did he mean to say to me, “which one of them are we supposed to help?”

Actually, Albert either hadn't understood the situation or didn't want to understand it. The ones in need of help, first and foremost, were themselves. The thing that needed correcting, first of all, should have been themselves. Had I gone with the same mindset as theirs and said to him, “You are wrong, we are right,” then he wouldn't have listened to me at all anyway. He was so certain of his own rightness that he couldn't even consider anything else—that's all there is to it. The translator beside me was such a decent person, yet this time Albert was constantly speaking to him in a harsh and scolding way. Astonishing—beside that other filthy one, Albert was like a cat that had spilled milk, while beside this decent man he was like a lion! What kind of thing this humanity is. It is always full of contradictions. In my opinion it was this man who deserved honor, respect, and love. He may surely do certain things wrongly. He may even not be as zealous as those filthy ones. That too may be, but he is human. In a distress and trouble, people can only hope for help from ones like these. The same cannot be said of the others. The things called love, mercy, and understanding do not even exist in the vocabulary of that type of person we call filthy.

In my opinion it was a comfortable and good conversation. At the very least my conscience was at ease now. And I didn't believe, at that moment, that I would do anything more than this. Besides, I sought not my own will but, with my whole heart, whatever God's will was. To what degree was it of use? I don't know—maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. But these people don't really have an excuse to say “we didn't know.”

Later, when we parted from Albert, downstairs in the lobby that architect sat with me a bit longer. Because he too had understood our conversation and what I meant by my words. Do you know what he said? “You speak in such a way that a person can't answer, but this doesn't show that you're right. There are certain kinds of logic that astound a person but aren't true,” he said, and I asked, “I didn't quite understand—could you explain a bit more clearly?” He gave an example: “Is God omnipotent—that is, is everything possible for God?” he said. “Yes,” I said. “In that case, can God create a stone so big that He can't move it?” he asked. At first I didn't quite get it; it seemed like a word game to me. I asked again, and after I understood, I was seized with laughter. It was a very interesting question. However you answer it, the result was belittling to God. According to this logic, God could not be omnipotent. The question was so cleverly and deceptively put that this was why it had made me laugh. The architect was comparing me with this logic. Again, according to this logic, anyone who spoke the truth too could be silenced. Actually, this view aims to destroy all measures other than what a person himself believes. Then, along the way, I thought about the things we had discussed. The architect too had swallowed this logic, so that he had become a donkey to it. One must accept that these people could have enough such bait to fool even an architect. The question is asked in such a way that God's power and omnipotence were being measured by comparison with human logic. For a person to be able to answer such a question, he first needs to know God and His power. Whereas we cannot fully know even our own strength, our children's abilities, what the wife beside our bosom is and what she is capable of—how can we fit all of God's power into a measure?

We are talking about one who has an eye on the energy inside all atomic nuclei, and in every place we do not know and do not see—the creator of all these. Even if God did make a stone that big, that stone, down to all its molecules and atoms, already carries the existence of God's energy. If it is again God Himself who directs all the movements, living things, and growth inside that stone, can we comprehend these things? It is again He who creates and rules over not only the things above the earth but the things beneath the earth as well. Beside these, what is the whole earth, what are all space and the universe? The one who creates them all is God; He who creates cold glaciers, freezes water harder than the sharpest rock, melts the most solid substance—iron, bronze—and turns it into liquid, who creates the sun; who sees them down to their parts smaller than atoms, and who programs these too—again it is He. We say these things with our mouths—do we comprehend them? Can we create a living creature like a mosquito, so very small? Now humans and other creatures are supposedly made with genes. Making something that already exists is like grafting a tree. Those of you who know how a tree is grafted will surely understand. For example, if we consider a red rose and a white rose, placing a piece taken from one into the other is something even an illiterate farmer does with his left hand. And a white rose beginning to emerge on the same branch alongside that red rose is not the miracle of the person who does it, but the miracle of God, who created it in that way. Everything we have done up to now, we do only by making use of the things God created. That is, we try to make something out of existing things, but we do not create.

We must also dwell on the words “to create” and “to make.” For example, we very often use the term “creative person.” Actually we do this out of habit. It would be more correct to say “productive.” By this we want to emphasize how talented that person is. In reality, creating is a trait belonging only to God. Because to create is to bring into being something that did not exist at all. For instance, God speaks in the Holy Bible of making man from earth. He explains this by distinguishing between the words “to make” and “to create.” These verses, found in Genesis 2:3 and Genesis 1:26, for some reason use the word “let us create” in the New Translation of the Turkish Holy Bible—a word outside all the other translations—which is not correct. It's fine; this is just a detailed piece of information, don't be alarmed, it's not a life-or-death matter. In translation work, such errors have always been made, and God permitted this too. But saying “God's words have been changed, don't believe any of them” is one thing; saying “research these and find the correct one” is quite another. I don't want to confuse you by dwelling on words, but I do want to help you distinguish certain things.

Later, by saying that God gave of His spirit and breathed the breath of life into Adam's nostrils, He means that He created him. By saying God made man from earth, it is expressed that man's raw material is found in the earth. Something exists, and man is made from it—that is, from existing things. Of course, the one who previously created that existing thing is again God. While bringing into being from something that exists is called making, bringing into being something that did not exist at all is called creating. I came to this understanding from all the sacred books.

A scientist, claiming that man is made up of 20 amino acids, thought that in the experiments he did over the course of his whole life he succeeded only with four of them. I believe that even if all 20 of these substances obtained were found, in later times even a human could be made. But how will life be given? Where will the source of energy to keep that human alive come from? Who will give that human a spirit? Not everything happens with the heart's pump! In a Psalm (the Zabur) it is written thus:

If you conceal your face, they are disturbed. If you take away their spirit, they die and return to their dust. If you send out your spirit, they are created; and you make the face of the ground new. Psalm 104:29-30

So the making of a human being comes about from the spirit God gives. As for the making of a human—it means bringing into being from existing things. For example, a table is made from wood. One doesn't say “I created a table,” but “I made” it. Because the wood, the raw material of the table, already exists. That table was made by giving shape to an existing thing. In the Sacred Books, what is made from nothing, without any of these, is called creating, and this too is a trait belonging only to God. Just as God gives this trait to whom He wills, He can also take it back. It is certain that on earth there exist the compounds and mixtures that can bring a human into being. As proof of this there are also a few verses.

For example, in the days of Noah, the creatures in the sky whom the book speaks of as sons of God. These, seeing that the daughters of men were beautiful, took—or made—human bodies for themselves according to their pleasure. In this matter God cannot have helped those angels, because this was not in accordance with God's will. Besides, why would He help them in something He Himself opposed? (Genesis 6:1-4—In this matter the Turkish new translation gave a footnote to the 4th verse. This time, too, the new translation was rendered in a more clearly understandable way compared to the old translation. In that footnote too, it accepts that these could be angels.)

Well, how did the angels take these human bodies?

The angels were beside God when man was being made. They saw this and knew it. In this way they made a human too.

Well, how did they set that body in motion and give it life?

Angels are spirit creatures anyway. We read continually in the Gospels that it is not at all hard for them to enter, with their spirits, into the bodies of living humans and animals. (Luke 8:26-39 and 11:14-16) An angel who can enter the body of a living human can also enter the body of a non-living human and give life to that body with its spirit. In this case the angel is not creating that human, but making it, because everything it uses and brings into being already exists on earth.

The spirit in a human is dependent on his own body. In angels, though, there is no such problem. It is certain that, by their creation, angels are very different from us and powerful too. Some want to interpret the verse in the book of Genesis 6:1-2, where it says “sons of God,” as meaning humans. Yes, God said to humans too, “you are sons of the LORD your God.” (Deuteronomy 14:1; Romans 8:14) By these verses being acceptable to God is meant. Otherwise it should not be inferred that God is the bodily father of all of them. As for the angels marrying the daughters of men, that, on the contrary, was a behavior not acceptable to God. Therefore the phrase “sons of God” in this verse does not mean that. They were angels in the literal sense, not humans. They do not have bodily fathers like we do. Nor do they have the possibility of marrying one another and reproducing like humans. (Matthew 22:29-30) They were created directly by God. That they disobeyed and became sinners is another matter. Because both Genesis 6:1-4 and 2 Peter 2:4-5 speak of these disobedient angels in Noah's time. It emphasizes that they sinned with these things. In fact, it is so certain that they sinned—otherwise, when Noah entered the ark, wouldn't these angels who had taken human bodies have had to be on that ark too? Instead, with the coming of the flood, they abandoned those bodies and returned again to their spirit life in the heavens. The Witnesses too hold a similar teaching on this matter.

I opened up this whole topic on account of the question that architect asked. “Can God create a stone bigger than Himself?” Or, if we multiply this illogical logic: “Can God destroy Himself?” Like the giant inside the bottle in the story of Aladdin. That giant can get inside the bottle, but when the bottle is corked he can't get out! These are human logics, fairy tales. We cannot fit God and His abilities, as in the examples given, into a limited bit of knowledge in our own heads. Omnipotent—that is, everything being possible for Him—also does not mean that God can do everything. For example, God never denies Himself, or the word He has given. Then one cannot immediately say, “Aha! So God is not omnipotent.” Or God cannot lie. If He wanted to, couldn't He? Well, that would be like denying Himself. For example, in the verse Titus 1:2 in the New Testament it is written thus:

God, who cannot lie, promised from long ago…

Does this verse prove to us that God is not Omnipotent? By saying He couldn't do such a thing, is God's quality of being Omnipotent lost? On the contrary—but what we understand from the words “Omnipotent,” that is what is important. Saying He is capable of everything, that there is nothing impossible for Him, does not also mean God being a God who would abandon His own principles and rightness and commit suicide upon Himself.

That architect too wanted to emphasize that this saying was absurd anyway. At the same time, with the example he gave, he was implying that I too was talking nonsense about the Quran. According to the Witnesses, every thought and belief that opposes them is absurd anyway. Because they were left with no answer to my proofs from the words of God, he branded me like this. By this he perhaps expressed, without even knowing it, that a person is closed to all thought and logic and, as I said, means to say “there can be no rightness other than one's own belief.” Isn't this mentality, this logic, a proof of how fanatical people can be? Because the aim lying beneath this logic is exactly that. The ones playing word games with that series of writings were actually themselves. You know the saying “the clever thief overpowers the homeowner”—well, this architect's thinking too was like that in my view. When, with the example he gave, they should have been accusing themselves, they tried to accuse me or the Quran. Why—it's very simple: because to them the Quran can never be the word of God!

A person may not be able to answer the other party right on the spot. He may even have insufficient knowledge on the matter. My aim in this too was anyway to arouse their curiosity about their errors. But no matter what is said, to oppose all thought and idea—even the proofs from those books they say they believe in—and to say: “No matter how much you prove it, you can't be right,” is, in my opinion, never an answer. Or to say, brazenly: “We only correct the errors we've made regarding the Holy Bible,” is, in my opinion, more of a shamelessness. If there is an error, especially if it also brings a stain on God's name, this must surely be corrected. One cannot get off the hook by saying, “Are we bringing a stain on God's name just because we don't believe in the Quran?” As I've said from the start, these people, if there is a truth there, by disparaging it are actually disparaging not the Quran but the very Holy Bible they hold in their hands. At the very least, if they are bringing a stain onto the thing they say they believe in, what is this but bringing a stain onto God's name? And in a way for which they will have no excuse.

I want to return again to the logic related to the word game that architect spoke of. If people are expected to be of this logic, then with what face and logic can those Jehovah's Witnesses, who go door to door with the Holy Bible in hand, say to those people: “Look, because of what is written here, our way is right”? No matter what he says to the other party, no matter how hard he tries to convince them, can't that person too, like the architect did, say: “The fact that I can't answer you doesn't prove that you're right”!

Whereas: research, seek answers, inquire, say “I don't know,” but don't shove that person away with the back of your hand without listening. People with such logic listen neither to Moses nor to Jesus nor to Muhammad. And therefore they don't listen to God either. Why was Jesus preaching? Why was he asking those thought-provoking questions? Why did he lay their injustices bare and accuse those who did these things? But those who did not want to believe in Jesus and in God's prophets too had a logic just like that architect's. “You speak with a logic that can't be answered, but this doesn't prove that you're right. Is God omnipotent or not? If He is Omnipotent, can He make a stone He can't move? You too resemble people of this mindset—that's all there is to it. Our topic is closed.” How easy, isn't it?! With this answer you stop every mouth. All religions, shamelessly and believing in this logic, want to say “no one but us is right and can be right—indeed, no one even has the right to be.”

And what if everyone starts thinking like that architect? Then whom can the Witnesses draw to themselves? This religion, which expects a spirit of research, understanding, common sense, and objectivity from everyone, seeks this from people by going door to door, but never shows it itself. With what face do they knock on people's doors? And on top of that they try to make people believe in them—shamelessly, with what face?! For such ones, look what Jesus says again:

"Stop judging others so that you may not be judged; for with whatever judgment you judge others, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure out, they will measure out to you. Why, then, do you look at the straw in your brother's eye but do not notice the rafter (beam) in your own eye?

How can you say to your brother, 'Allow me to extract the straw from your eye,' when look! a rafter (beam) is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First extract the rafter (beam) from your own eye, and then you will see clearly how to extract the straw from your brother's eye." Matt 7:1-5

So this became the central idea of my America journey. Don't think that I abandoned those people and immediately distanced myself from them. Again, as I said, I am so thick-headed that until they finally drove me off and marked those who spoke with me—indeed, until they threw those people out from among themselves for having spoken with me—I did not think a single bad thing about them. But I never accepted their absurdities either. Despite this being so, even I, who didn't say yes to everything of theirs, in time realized that I had become captive to some of their absurd teachings.

Deceiving people and using them is not at all a nice thing. Such events arouse hatred in people. I personally—and I must say thank goodness—did not hate any of them. This does not mean I accept, or view with tolerance, their ugly traits, practices, hypocrisies, and the things they do to so many people or cause after crawling into their blood. I hate these traits of theirs. Even my own child has traits that I hate. But this, again, does not mean that I personally hate him. I don't love that ugly side of his, I disparage it, but I love him and I praise his good sides too. I don't think, either, that everyone will think—more precisely, believe—like me. And it's a good thing too. Otherwise all people would be the same, like robots, and how boring the earth would be. I learned from God, from His prophets, from the Messiah, that one should believe like this, giving such freedom. That's why I want to emphasize that these people are playing with fire. It is not good to treat people as such fools, dolts, and donkeys. I personally would never wish to be in their place. Woe to them! (Luke 10:10-14)

Do not think, from the things I've written, that only this religion's beliefs and views about the Quran were wrong. I chose that one topic, which is the most important. These people, while making everyone else listen to them and showing everyone else as wrong, cannot tolerate even the tiniest criticism made against themselves. It cost me my life just to discuss a fifteen-minute thought with them—imagine the rest. Well, if the Witnesses are like this, how are the others? In my opinion they are all this disgraceful.

A fairly long time passed after these events. About nine years. I would still see Bernd now and then. As I said, I have striven to show many absurdities not only about the Quran but also from their teachings about the book they believe in. I did this by talking with every Witness I saw around me too. These people kept distancing themselves from me more and more.

One day in our chat, Bernd had said: “What do you think should be done?” He didn't believe it; he never accepted that these people could be stone-headed fanatics as I described. And I said: “Do you at least believe that God always sees the future?” Because the Witnesses have absurd, confused, and comical teachings about God seeing the future.

In this seeing of the future, they liken God to a radio or television channel. They give an elastic sort of example: He sees it if He wants to, He doesn't if He doesn't want to. Because they can't prove this teaching according to the Holy Bible, they've chosen such an elastic teaching. If they say He doesn't see it, that won't do, because there are plenty of examples proving the opposite. If they say He does see it, then this time the absurdity of their own teaching comes out. In my opinion, again out of their ignorance, out of the corruption of their hearts, and with their “we know everything” pride and conceit, they spread such an absurd teaching. I had talked a lot with Bernd on this matter. Even though he couldn't say it openly, he had come to believe that God always sees the future. And in that chat of ours, I emphasized, for example, that he could write a letter about this matter. Besides, wasn't this his duty? If a person has been together for years with, and believed in, these people, then if they have an error, shouldn't he help them? Bernd latched onto this idea that had come up by chance. “I'll write it,” he said. Bernd is a bit slow in doing a thing. More precisely, he's like everyone else. While he's quick in matters that bring money and things he'll take pleasure in, in things he doesn't much like, or in risky matters, he's very slow. Time passed, and I kept asking, “What happened, did you write the letter?” Finally a short letter was written together with me. I still warned him: “Look, Bernd, after you send this letter, these men will throw you out from among them. Your father-in-law, your mother-in-law, your wife, and however many Witnesses are around you—it'll all become a problem for you,” I kept warning him. He laughed and said: “For one thing, at the meetings I'm the elder, and the reply to this letter will come to me.” I said, “If, upon this letter, they want to throw you out, whether the reply comes to you or to someone else, it still won't change.” He didn't believe these words of mine. These words seemed to him as if I were joking. He didn't think a single negative thing about the organization he was in. “Would a person be thrown out for such a thing?” he'd say, laughing. And so he sent the letter. In a very short time they removed him from the office of elder. Had he not gotten scared and pulled back, he would have been thrown out then and there. He said yes to their rules and conditions, so he dragged the matter out a bit with that, but they removed him from the office of elder immediately. I am publishing below this letter he sent to the Witnesses' Governing Bodies. About five years after he was removed from eldership, because this letter was published on the internet page I set up, at “http://mesias.de”, under the title “A Letter,” this time they threw him out completely from among them. I am publishing the letter below, taking it just as it was on those internet pages. This person, who had been a Jehovah's Witness for nearly forty years and had spent about 15 of them serving as a pioneer and giving service to these people, because he said “God always sees the future,” became, according to them, a son of death. True—in the eyes of those people he died, but in the eyes of God he lives. I used to think that Bernd, with this thing he did, had at that time taken his first steps on the road leading to salvation. But he too, unfortunately, chose not the road to salvation but, like everyone who comes out from among them, the road of this world, of its pleasures, of pursuing the desires he had secretly longed for and been unable to fulfill for years.

The letter that caused Bernd to be thrown out at that time is below; the decision, again, is yours—every person's own. With these things I've written, again you decide what kind of fruits this religion I've spoken of bears.