The statement that ONLY Jehovah's Witnesses are teaching the truth is an extraordinary claim. Such a claim would require extraordinary evidence. I firmly believed that ONLY Jehovah's Witnesses are teaching the truth, and thus in general, only Jehovah's Witnesses would be saved at Armageddon. In my self-confidence, I had failed to consider sobering truths:
• There are over 10,000 religions in the world.
• When given a pen and paper, I could not identify the correct names of even 50 religions.
• I couldn't explain the complete belief system of any other religion in the world, other than Jehovah's Witnesses.
• For the thousands of religions of which I knew nothing about, not even it's name - how could I possibly classify that religion as false?
• The idea of a "one and only true religion" was suggested to me by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, not the Bible.
• Other groups that teach their religion is the only church which teaches "the truth" include the following: Mormons, Worldwide Church of God, Unification Church, and many others. Members of these other groups are taught to detest all other religions. Members are taught that all other religions are false, and under the control of Satan. These members are taught that God will only save their church.
• I was proclaiming other religions as promoters of lies and false prophecies, when in fact my own religion had likely promoted more false prophecies than any other church in the world. Every time a prophecy was created by Watchtower Society leaders, it was printed in millions of books, and Witnesses spent over a billion hours each year distributing these books and teaching these false prophecies.
• I believed that other religions were blood guilty for teaching lies and false doctrines. I had failed to consider how God views my religion, which had aggressively spread more false information than any other religion, insisting that people must accept it or else be destroyed by God.
• I was forbidden by the organization to read literature produced by any other religion. How could I ever accurately know what other religions taught? Many of the senior members who write the Watchtower magazine have been Jehovah's Witnesses their entire lives, thus they have never read other religious literature either. Therefore, there is no possible way that they can know the truth of whether other religions teach truth or lies.
• If other churches speak things that aren't true, I classified them as "Babylon the Great", false prophets, disgusting and blood guilty organizations, and deserving of God's wrath. When my religion spoke false prophecies and spread false information, I was supposed to consider it to be acceptable. It was simply "over eagerness" on the part of some brothers, or it was considered "old light".
Eventually, I had to admit that I was completely ignorant on the subject of religion. The only thing I knew about religion was information that I obtained from the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. And their stance was, and still is: "All other religions are false, and ours is the only true one". One thing that really helped me was when I discovered Deuteronomy 18: 21-22:
"And in case you should say in your heart: “How shall we know the word that Jehovah has not spoken?” When the prophet speaks in the name of Jehovah and the word does not occur or come true, that is the word that Jehovah did not speak. With presumptuousness the prophet spoke it. You must not get frightened at him.’"
I was delighted to find out that all those false prophecies I had spread to others had NOTHING to do with God. I was simply promoting the literature of a large religious organization based in Brooklyn. If God was behind this religion, all the prophecies and predictions would have been fulfilled, exactly as predicted. If God was not behind it, then all the prophecies would fail.
What does the evidence show? All the prophecies have failed.
