When did you realize that Witnesses weren't much better than anyone else?

by JH 19 Replies latest jw friends

  • steve2
    steve2

    I was about 16 years old when it began to dawn on me that the witnesses were habitually not practising what they preached. I expected more of them because they made such high claims about "having" the truth and receiving guidance from Jehovah's sole channel of communication.

    Years later, I read something written by an ex-JW:

    "The witnesses spend a lot of time talking about "Christian love" but precious little time practising it." That truly disturbed me because I knew from my own observations that it was true.

  • FairMind
    FairMind

    It didn’t take too long, maybe a year or so after baptism. There are a lot good and decent people who are JWs and some hypocrites as well and this is true of people in general.

  • luna2
    luna2

    It took me years. I worked for witnesses and saw some of these people's hypocrasy in action, but I figured that I was too new or too dumb or too judgmental. As time went on, I could see that there were many others who would talk about loving the brotherhood, but their actions were obviously dictated by pure self interest. Hmmmm

    Then my parents hired a brother (thankfully not by my recommendation) to do some construction work for them. This brother and his crew did a good job on the majority of the work, but didn't complete everything they paid him for. He also had a charge account at their hardware store which he never paid. Hmmmm, again....and also extremely embarrassing for me because weren't Jah's people supposed to be extra super duper moral, honest and full of integrity? The, by now, worn out excuse that "some" JWs just aren't as spiritual as they could be was ringing pretty hollow. After a few more little incidents with the good "friends" at the KH, I no longer believed the crapola that JWs were more anything than anybody else in the world. In fact, taken as a group, they often seem worse, maybe because they're always bragging about how fab they are.

  • XBEHERE
    XBEHERE

    I've known that for a long time but just never did anything about the realization until now. I have known witnesses throughout my life who cheated on their spouses, stole, were alcoholics, took drugs, etc... no more or less then the "normal" population does these things.

  • AK - Jeff
    AK - Jeff

    During the 'doubting years' that lead up to our finally 'seeing the Truth about the Truth', I began to realize that the one component that was missing was the one Jesus stated would be obvious "love among themselves".

    During that time period, there was a middle aged Baptist minister who used to clean the library near our home, and do the yardwork. I noticed that everytime I saw him he was kind, polite, and genuine as we spoke. He never tried to 'preach' at me, and I only knew he was a minister at all because I had asked him about his work and so forth.

    During that same time, I kept making comparison with how nice and loving to others this guy seemed, and how mean spirited the elders and others in the congregation were. It was a big part of my starting to peel off the layers of witness hypocricy and lack of true love. I think that incident and other things like it, gave us the courage to look at the organization clearly.

    Cognitive dissonance was setting in I guess.

    Jeff

  • JH
    JH
    Don't you mean ANY better than anyone else?

    Yeah, but it's too late to edit

  • Undecided
    Undecided

    When I took an honest look at myself back in the 70s. I was just better at covering it up. I was good and bad like most other people.

    Ken P.

  • R6Laser
    R6Laser

    I never thought they were better than anybody else or even being close to perfect.

  • GetBusyLiving
    GetBusyLiving

    When I realized there is no such thing as being "better" than anyone else.

    GBL

  • jo7
    jo7

    when my husband kept introducing me to jw's in the hopes I would want to be one, thats when I realized besides going to meetings three times a week they all did the same things as everyone else! They get drunk, they have sex, they have potty mouths ( just like me), they do everything we do....they just try to hide it.

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