Transcripts: Enjoy Life Forever!

Transcript: I gave up on Religion.
[In an empty warehouse sits Tom. He explains]
Tom: When I gave up on religion, there was such an emptiness because I really wanted to believe in God my whole life. I wanted to believe. “Where were you? You knew I was looking for you, God.” And I felt abandoned.
[A boy unwraps a gift]
My love for photography goes way back to about age six, when I got my first little Kodak Instamatic. I just thought it was a wonderful way to document the world.
[The boy takes photos in the snow]
Dad was very much a give-back-to-the-community kind of guy. My mom, her biggest quality is empathy.
[Photos, boy with parents]
So, growing up with that, I saw the best way to be helpful to people was to become a priest, because I thought that those were the best people in the best position to be the most help.
[As a young man, he studies]
When I was 18, I went to the college seminary, and that was the road to the priesthood.
[Young man Tom with suitcase in hand enters the seminary]
I left there angry because we were all going through the motions of ritual.
[He pulls off his priest collar and leaves the seminary]
There was no authenticity. After a few years, I entered a monastery in the United States as a counsellor-in-training, working with alcoholic priests.
[He sits with a troubled priest]
But again, it reinforced my disappointment with the church because here was the big secret. Here was where all the troubled priests go.
[He focuses he camera and photographs a city]
I felt that everything I had believed in had been a lie. I tried Zen Buddhism; I tried Tibetan Buddhism. I went through all of the churches, and there was nothing there. Nothing. And I said, “We’re done.”
[In a film developing room Ton turns the lights off]
By this point, I had a real edge.
[Photo in liquid]
I was a very, very angry person. I felt that the world had done me over.
[Photo done]
I noticed that was reflected in my photography. There were less and less people in the pictures and more and more buildings and objects.
[In a classroom he writes on a chalkboard]
As a psychology professor, as a counselling professor, my mission was accomplished if my students could leave that class and they had learned how to think for themselves and not just to take in what they were being sold. I had a thing about organizations lying to people.
[Shelves of books in a library]
I’d been a student of all sorts of learning, but there was always something missing.
[Text: Tom was introduced to Jehovah’s Witnesses]
Joel: When Tom asked me to study with him, I did feel intimidated because here you had a man who was a professional in the secular world; he was a teacher at college and a psychologist. So, to me, that was a challenge.
[Tom writes]
I had a big old notebook of questions, and he sat beside me. He said, “So you have some questions.” And I said, “Yep. Here we go.” “How does your organization handle child sexual abuse? “How does the money work? “What’s the check and balance? Where’s the transparency?” And what I noticed, what he always did, he answered them from Scripture. This was revolutionary in my mind because these were not just some institution’s views or some individual’s views. This was the very authority of God.
[Reads his Bible in nature with his wife]
You know, studying the Bible changed my life for the better, completely.
[At the Kingdom Hall]
I love the diversity of the congregation. I’m learning so much about how we’re all the same.
[Now at a bowling alley with friends]
I have a lot more pictures of people.
[Friends smile for a selfie. Now in his bedroom, he dresses up]
When people lose hope, they’ve lost everything.
[In the ministry]
And by studying the Bible, you learn why there is suffering and why people die. You learn that this whole world is not spiralling out of control.
[Going door to door with his wife]
Coming to have a real, personal relationship with the Supreme Sovereign of the universe gives you hope. I love what I’m still learning. I learn every day. And that’s the difference: I have confidence in what I’m learning, confidence that it’s the truth.
(Logo: Black capital letters JW.ORG inside a white box. Copyright 2015 Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania)