What was your first Apostasy?

by Dune 46 Replies latest jw friends

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  IMustBreakAway

  Something that always bothered me when i was younger was the statement that was constantly quoted as fact; "We currently only use less than 1% of our brain." Or less or 10% or some other nonsense. I was and still am a reader of pretty much anything i can afford to get my hands on and in all the articles and books i had read on the brain had never come across proof of that little tidbit.

  Later when i was "in the nest" my morning seat assignment was next to a member of the writing commitee. One day when we had gotten to know each other i asked him if he could look up the reference for that for me. A month or so later he handed me a slip of paper with the reference. You should have seen the guilty look in his eye. I slipped it into my pocket without looking and left for my work assignment. It was from an article by Carl Sagan. I figured ok, i can respect carl sagan but then i looked up the article and found out they he was just speculating. His words were, "Some scientists believe that we may etc..." Drove me nuts that this little piece of wittness folklore had been used as basis for fact for so long. Oh well...
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  dorayakii

  My first doubts crept up during the family study. I first started to think in 1993 at the age of 10 when we were discussing the time when Jehovah killed Uzzah for merely touching the Ark of the Covenant. I said that it seemed unfair and that i didnt understand why Jehovah had done that, the answer that my Father gave me was insufficient, but i just used double-think to blot it out from my mind... from then on, i started noticing discrepancies between scriptures and injustices on the part of Jehovah but i became an expert user of double-think.

  Around about the same time (9/10), i began to notice that i was gay, but didnt know how to articulate my feelings at the time. When i realised that my feelings were what they were going on about all the time, i entered into a long period of guilt. The guilt never really went away until i was 18. After that, i finally realised that being gay was not something to be ashamed of, it was not something that i could control, and therefore its not worthy of guilt.

  In 1999, at the age of 15, when my school first got the internet, i tried to look for the Watchtower website, but typed it in wrong. I panicked when i saw the amount of "apostate" JW websites. However, i never was confident enough to look at them. Between 15 and 18 i felt terrible pangs of guilt and my double-think-o-meter went off the scale... My "faith" was really weak at that point, so in Dec 2001, having just turned 18, i decided to get baptised to "protect" myself...

  It was the biggest mistake of my life, because in early 2002 i built up the courage to access "apostate" material on the internet. It wasthe killing blow to wipe all traces of WT belief from me. I learned about the 1975 scandal, the false 607 doctrine and the UN-NGO scandal and they all became nails in the coffin. The beginning of 2002 was a turning point for me. Even though it wasn't until late 2003 that i ceased to believe in God and the Bible, i eliminated all thoughts of "what if the WatchTower really IS the Truth?". In September 2002 i started my University degree and by the end of the year i had entered my first "serious" relationship...
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  AuldSoul

  Something that always bothered me when i was younger was the statement that was constantly quoted as fact; "We currently only use less than 1% of our brain." Or less or 10% or some other nonsense. I was and still am a reader of pretty much anything i can afford to get my hands on and in all the articles and books i had read on the brain had never come across proof of that little tidbit.

  To their credit, those who state that are probably being honest.

  AuldSoul
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  simplesally

  After I had my daughter, I knew I would risk life, limb and even my eternal life to save her or be there to protect her for as long as possible. That translated to: BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS ........ yes, I would give her one and take one myself. As parents the only way to parent is to be there to do it!!

  I didn't say anything to anyone but knew in my heart I would not follow direction if need be. It was another year before I was out.
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  AlmostAtheist

  >>I didn't say anything to anyone but knew in my heart I would not follow direction if need be. It was another year before I was out.

  Funny, I came out mentally just before our daughter was born. I didn't "break" that news to (then still JW) Gina because I didn't want to upset her while she was pregnant. Nonetheless, I had decided that if either of them needed blood while in the hospital, they were damn sure gonna get it.

  Months later, when Gina and I were both happily out of the Watchtower, I told her about that. She told me that she had secretly decided that if she or the baby needed blood, they were getting it. She didn't care what I said, they were doing it.

  My little rebellious wife! Don't you just love her? :-)

  Dave
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  Star Moore

  In the summer of 2004, we received the Keep on the Watch brochere and it stated that we had entered into the Hour of Judgement....But they never stated why, when or what or how...I was blown away. I thought JW's backed up everything they said...so it's been a rollercoaster ride out of the org..ever since then...So happy to be out!!
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  Sparkplug

  I had to think hard on this question for I was really brainwashed. But I do recall a reiend of mine cracking a joke to me.

  He said, "Decki, you know how we could make the New System come faster?"

  He then said "Kill all of the annointed."

  I laughed because he was so daring in his words, but then my mind did tick for a couple weeks on the in's and outs of of all the oddity in his simple joke. Who were thes annointed, and would it change time if they all died. Why did I find it funny, and how realistic that if all the annointed died, Armageddon would come? Why did this sound like a 'Temple of Doom' movie?

  Too bad I got frightened by my questioning thoughts and shut my thought process down. I was such a chicken...AAAAgggghhh