Is there any hope of you coming back to Jehovah? (page 6)

freedomlover

Left Behind -

I am so glad you have asked such a question. I am so glad you are back! I never posted on your last thread, honestly I didn't know what to say. I could feel your pain and your anger.

I am still a witness, technically. I am moving out of state in the next month and I will never go to another meeting again. I plan to fall off the face of the earth. This is the only way I know how to deal with leaving the witnesses. I too was raised a witness and my WHOLE extended family are still witnesses. All I can tell you is that I am leaving because of inaccuracies, I found in the WT's OWN publications. As you know, we are studying the Daniel book again. When we started this book again I decided to really get the prophecies down in my head this time. I wanted to strengthen my faith. Well when I dug just a little deeper in the Society's own literature, I was shocked at how things didn't add up. I was hard broken. One thing led to another and I have found myself unable to believe many teachings anymore. I was not influenced by Satan when I started researching. I was looking WITHIN the society's publications, and encyclopedias for all of my research.

I truly hope you can still love your brother and find time to really talk to him. I do understand why you feel like he has destroyed your family. He controls his actions, but YOU are responsible for yours. I truly hope you can still love your brother unconditionally. I am still learning this myself because of how I've been taught my whole life.

compassion and sympathy for your sadness - FreedomLover

woodsmanhere

As long as you equate Jehovah with the Watchtower Society your view of many things is warped and therefore innaccurate. Try to seperate the two and then listen listen to what others are saying to you.

DanTheMan

No way no how.

I smelled a rat shortly after I was baptized, but it took me quite a few years after that to figure out that I wasn't smelling it due to having a faulty nose.

I've said on other threads that it's lame to just refer somebody to a book when trying to make a point, but I really really really wish you would read Ray Franz Crisis of Conscience.

stillAwitness

Another point to realize LEFTBEHIND is that not all of us have "left" yet. I'm 22, grew up in the organization and nobody-NO internet site, no so called 'apostates' or 'bad associations' like the WT will make me believe pursued me into questioning the so-called 'truth' I did it ON MY OWN. My heart was screaming out to me that something was not right-things were just off, and I was only 17. And once I started asking the right questions (the ones the elders were not able to ansewr) suddenly I am labeled in the con. as having "independant thinking???" Well, at 22 independant sounds mighty alright with me!

The society will make you believe that everyone who has gone astray are acoholics, drunks, inactive, etc. I've pioneered every summer since I've gotten baptized, I can say comments "in my own words" like the best of them. I can write out a talk under 30 minutes. We're all one in the same.

Soledad

Leaving behind the Watchtower is not the same thing as leaving Jehovah. The Watchtower is a man made business organization, run by humans just like you and me. Human beings as we know are not infallable.

The Watchtower has made and continues to make huge errors, both in doctrine and in judgement, yet still claims to be inspired and led only by God. Tell me, when has God made mistakes? When have his true prophets been wrong? The Watchtower has been wrong many many times. You already know about the UN situation, so ok, fine, they (the WTS) needed access to their library. Why would the WTS villify an organization that they themselves are a part of, and then withdraw their membership once the information became public? What were they afraid of? This is just a small example, and by no means was the reason why I personally left. I didn't even know a quarter of the things that I know now about the WTS.

Is their anything your family could do to get you back?

Absolutely nothing. When I first left, my mother begged me to come back, just for her. She said that it wasn't important if I didn't believe anything anymore, just to go back for her. It was hard but I had to tell her no. Just think about it: isn't your family supposed to love you unconditionally? Why does a family have to be torn apart just because one member no longer believes like the rest do? Where does it say in the Bible to turn your back on your children, or parents or spouses? Is this the kind of love that God wants us to show one another? Why does the Watchtower want you to put them above your own flesh and blood?

ballistic

Oh, It's one of these threads I cant read all of, but means so much.

Sunspot

I forgot to add....two scriptures for thought...

"Do not put your trust in nobles, nor in the son of man to whom NO salvation belongs" Psalm 146:3

Jesus said to him, "! am the way, the truth and the Life. NO ONE comes to the Father except through me" John 14:6

Seemingly simple and often-used scriptures, correct? But their power is only for those who undersand them and for those who don't see "their salvation" only through the leadership and membership of the WTS. They stand on their own without any emphasis by or about the WTS added on.

Annie

Pistoff

Left behind, I can sense the emotional hurt you are going through. The only comfort I can offer is a brief version of my own story.

I went through a brutal time in the early 90's, with lying scheming elders and the most corrupt CO on the planet. I was on the wrong side of the struggle, the losing one but the correct one, and tho not df'd I was stymied in any further progress. An elder lied to me outright about a matter concerning my suicidally depressed son; this broke me in half.

I know that people lie and are just people, but I was raised to believe the the elders spoke for Jah in the congregation.

Three times in the 90's I tried to rebuild my faith; each time it got worse. I tried reading old WT's and Awakes, something that used to give me pleasure and a sense of continuity. That make it harder, as doctrinal changes from then to now jumped out at me.

I then tried just reading the Bible; this was even more alarming, as each time I reread the book of Acts it startled me that Paul caved in to the Jewish elders, and went along with what we would consider to be babylonish practice.

By the time of the sex abuse headlines, I still thought it was the truth; I went online to help my nephew who was freaking out over the scandal.

That was the end of it; I found out, after hundreds of hours of research, that they were hiding a horribly scandalous and criminal policy about child sex abuse.

The stopper for me: The same men who thought up this policy and would not change it, are the same ones writing the doctrines. Think about that: if your child was sexually abused, and the perp did not confess, you would be told that to discuss it with anyone else would be slander. Previous to all the bad press, that included the police. HOW could you go back to the hall after that?

That is how I ended up here; I was right in there with you in hating apostates, and feeling that if you came back for your family, that was corrupt. Now I see that I only believed that because I was molded to think it. How can I shun someone who was baptized at 11, or younger, who discovers that this is not for him or her?

Please stay here, and try to understand us. We will do the same for you.

P

lisaBObeesa

I was raised a JW, but I put off getting dunked because I didn't believe many things, like the 144,000 teaching. I left the man-made org as soon as I turned 18.

I know he "researched" on the internet but it had to be more than that.

Why does it have to be more than that?

When I got a little older, I was considering if I should go back to the org. I had had a child, and wanted to be sure I was doing the right thing.

So I went to the public library (back in the days before most people had internet), and spent an afternoon researching several things.

I checked into all kinds of things. For example, worldly people say the JWs have 'their own Bible.'

I still believed, as I had been taught, that the NWT was just like all other Bibles, that nothing was changed, that it was just made 'easier to read.' Now I wanted to be sure.

It took me less than an hour, looking in NON-apostate literature and about 30 different Bibles, to find out much to my shock, that the NWT is changed in several places and is a biased translation. Now I know this is a fact because of my research.

Then I had to do some research on the Blood Transfusion teachings...is it really Biblical? It did not take more than an afternoon of research to find that the blood transfusion ban is WRONG. I now know for a fact it is wrong.

Then I looked into 1914, then the 144,000 teaching... Wrong, and wrong again!!

My sister can't believe that it is 'just research' that keep me from being a JW.

Just research?!

*****************************************

So, no. There is no way I would ever go back to being a JW because:

#1) They are WRONG about the most important stuff

#2) because they teach people to SHUN their own family if they don't believe

#3) hundreds and hundreds of people DIE because of a incorrect blood teaching.

Low-Key Lysmith

I would rather have a frozen bath towel drug through my urethra than EVER set foot in another Kingdom Hall. My JW years were the absolute worst of my life. It has taken 14 years to rebuild myself and undo the damage. People who shun others for no other reason than a difference of opinion are evil, PERIOD. No thanks, you can have it.

Tell your brother I said "congratulations", oh wait, you don't talk to him anymore.

-Breck

Is there any hope of you coming back to Jehovah?

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