Anti-Jehovah's Witnesses: Most Ex-Watchtower JWs Suffer from Armageddon Phobia

On Twitter, there’s a constant stream of complaints from people who were whipped by their Watchtower-believing parents or denied the chance to attend college. You also occasionally see people expressing sadness over not being able to celebrate holidays like Christmas or birthdays, or demanding their youth back. But above all, for some reason, they’re always saying things like, “Armageddon isn’t coming. It’s because [name of Jehovah’s Witness] is wrong.”

The Watchtower didn’t create the Bible

Most of them constantly write the same complaints every day, as if the Watchtower Society of Jehovah’s Witnesses had created the Bible and God judges people based on the Watchtower’s standards. “The pronunciation of ‘Jehovah’ is wrong. Jesus isn’t Michael, so since JWs have the Messiah’s identity wrong, they aren’t Christian. They whip us and don’t give us birthday presents. Give us back our youth.” It’s along those lines.

I fully understand that they have a painful past, and while the parents who became Jehovah’s Witnesses and dragged their children along certainly bear some responsibility, the fact that they’re able to tweet about it every single day, every single second, suggests they actually have more emotional bandwidth than expected. And above all, even if the New World Translation does contain mistranslations, it is not the original text of the Bible, and it’s obvious to anyone that it has absolutely nothing to do with first-century Christianity.

Furthermore, if they point out ethical issues such as the Watchtower’s unfairness or dishonesty, you might wonder whether their own conduct and behavior are any better—but surprisingly, they aren’t. On Twitter, anti-WTS groups are constantly at odds with one another, engaging in public shaming, verbal abuse, and threats of SLAPP lawsuits. Perhaps due to their illogical thinking—which leads them to conclude that the Watchtower created the Bible—they seem unable to exercise restraint in their own words and actions.

It seems they hold offline meetups from time to time, but it’s unclear whether there are any real benefits to interacting with them. If anything goes wrong, you might get exposed, become the subject of gossip and slander, or find cliques forming—essentially, they suffer from the same issues they criticize in Jehovah’s Witnesses. That said, there do appear to be some members with extensive business networks. While I have no connection to that world, those interested in such circles could likely benefit from interacting with them—provided they carefully select their contacts and weigh the risks. However, most of them insist—repeatedly and in a threatening manner—that Jehovah doesn’t exist, the Bible is a lie, and Armageddon isn’t coming. What is this all about? 

There’s no need to worry about fictional stories

If, for them, the Bible produced by the Watchtower is just a fictional story, then one could say there’s no need to worry about it anymore. After all, does anyone tweet every second, “I’m scared of the anime or picture book version of Momotaro from Japanese folktales, where the savior Momotaro is born from a peach floating down the river and taken to slay the ogres. ' or ‘I’ll be killed by King Enma’?’ No, they wouldn’t waste their thoughts and time on a made-up story like that. In reality, these anti-Jehovah’s Witnesses unconsciously sense the realism in the Bible’s depiction of human history, sin, and salvation. To deny this, they frantically tweet things like, ‘Armageddon isn’t coming—wait, maybe it is—no, there’s no way,’ all in an effort to boost their confidence.

When I listened to some anonymous Twitter Spaces, people were saying things like, “I’m not scared even if Armageddon comes,” “Wow, it would be so much easier if I could be that confident too,” or “The Bible is a lie, so it doesn’t matter whether Jehovah exists or not.” The truth of God’s existence remains undecided among them, yet for some reason, they proceed with their conversations on the premise that they will be destroyed by God. Even as they grumble that God doesn’t exist and Armageddon won’t happen, they endlessly repeat the same stale, childish dialogue based on the assumption that Armageddon is coming. Since there’s virtually no one in the world who understands this childish mindset—one that thinks only of self-preservation—they can do nothing but band together with their kind on Twitter and reinforce their sense of solidarity.

However, even if such people—who think of nothing but self-preservation—form pseudo-romantic relationships, become cozy with one another, and band together, conflicts inevitably arise among these self-centered, emotionally immature individuals. Year after year, they get caught up in trivial scandals—constantly arguing over who’s fighting with whom—and end up going viral, completely losing sight of the bigger picture. Since these fools form their own cliques, they are effectively isolated from reasonable people, and the chance of them causing harm is virtually zero. Therefore, it’s best to keep your distance and simply watch from afar.

Of course, it’s only natural to calmly speak out against the Watchtower’s human rights violations and injustices. But when the argument jumps to “Armageddon isn’t coming,” I can’t help but sense a certain inconsistency in their thinking—a kind of dishonesty where they’re lying to themselves. The equation “The Watchtower is a lie” = “Armageddon isn’t coming and the Bible is a lie” doesn’t hold water, and just as we know Momotaro’s demon-slaying is obviously a myth, there’s really no need to point that out every single time.

As I’ve written extensively before, it is certain that the Watchtower is not the only group that will be saved, and their predicted Armageddon will not come; however, to take that a step further and claim that there will be neither Christ’s second coming nor judgment cannot be considered a logical conclusion. Even if the Watchtower’s Bible contains fraudulent mistranslations, the New Common Translation and the New Revised Version are on the same level, and it’s not as if Protestants automatically become entirely orthodox just because the Watchtower is malicious. As for the reliability of “hidden history,” original manuscripts, and apocryphal texts, each person must research them and judge their consistency for themselves. In this regard, the anti-Watchtower stance—“Armageddon won’t come. The Watchtower is lying. Biblical standards are unnecessary. We should accept death; since death exists, we should enjoy the present to the fullest”—is merely a personal belief and cannot be imposed on others.

Another interesting point is that while I see quite a few comments about “accepting death,” this is something that applies to 100% of humanity; it’s not a principle that former Jehovah’s Witnesses alone struggle with. Since life and death are universal laws, people in the general public live their lives accepting that they will die someday without even being conscious of it. If anti-JWs understand this and choose not to believe in “eternal life in Paradise,” that is simply a standard, common-sense view held by the general public. Therefore, there is no need to tweet that they were “brainwashed with fear of Armageddon.” We see quite a few tweets like this, but the reality is that anti-Jehovah’s Witnesses may harbor just as much greed as active Jehovah’s Witnesses—clinging to the idol of eternal life because they “cannot accept death.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses are brainwashed to believe that death is a state of unconsciousness and that no one, no matter how wicked, faces judgment after death. In reality, this view is exactly the same as the general public’s way of thinking; there is nothing to gain, but also nothing to lose. Therefore, one might argue that there is little seriousness or urgency to the situation where people tweet exaggeratedly about having been “brainwashed with Armageddon fear.” Even if the Watchtower’s bogus Armageddon were to strike and everyone outside the Watchtower were to be annihilated without question, according to Watchtower doctrine, they would not be resurrected to face judgment as Protestants claim. This is simply the universal, common understanding of death, so there should be no need to worry about it. In reality, however, the wicked will inevitably be resurrected and suffer torments commensurate with their evil state of mind. From the perspective of Jehovah’s Witnesses, since there isn’t even a Second Coming of Christ, they likely wouldn’t view it as having “instilled a fear-based ideology,” but rather as “the Bible is a made-up story, just like Momotaro, so it doesn’t cause trauma.”

But the reason they feel compelled to tweet every single day that “Armageddon isn’t coming” or “We were abused by having fear of Armageddon instilled in us” is, I believe, because they subconsciously sense the raw, visceral reality of human history as depicted in the Bible—from sin to salvation—which is too intense for them to face directly. This has led to a phobia of Armageddon, manifesting in the behavior described above. After all, if there is no resurrection or judgment beyond death, they should simply forget about the Bible and Armageddon—which they dismiss as fairy tales—and “accept death,” living honestly and sincerely with the same view of life and death as ordinary people.

The ruins are proof of what once was

The world today is in a state of disarray, isn’t it? The Earth, as it was created, is blessed with vast natural landscapes, and every single stone is said to be a remnant of nature or a fossil of a living creature from the past. Thanks to modern technology, it’s now possible to simulate these conditions. I’ve written about this in previous articles, so feel free to click on the tags and give them a read. ➡Eden, ➡ Stone

Therefore, anyone can see that the modern world, filled with collapsed civilizations, is not its original form. If the present exists, then there must have been an original form in the past. The Bible states that the present world is a false world ruled by the devil, and it offers hope that it will eventually be restored at the Second Coming of Christ. The current state of this false and collapsed world serves as proof that there once existed a true world that was not in ruins.

Therefore, the conclusion drawn by anti-JWs and former Jehovah’s Witnesses—who mock, ridicule, and scorn those who place faith in that hope—that “there is no paradise” is, after all, merely a personal opinion based on personal grudges and preconceptions; it is difficult to call it a rational conclusion derived from objective verification. Rather, it is a wishful thinking steeped in self-interest and self-deception, stemming from a desire to reject the Bible’s moral standards and selectively choose information that suits one’s own convenience. It could also be described as the trembling of evil spirits or fallen angels arising from a fear of Armageddon—a fear born of the fact that, surprisingly, one unconsciously adheres to the Bible on a subconscious level.