by jwfacts 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Years ago there was no net..I'd have been goen 15 years earler if there had had been the net.
I believe the Internet will cause many JW's to rethink their faith in the WTS. The internet also reason I stopped trusting them. The sexual abuse stories does not help their image at all.
I find in talking to fellow witnesses that peoples' devotion & loyalty to the Org is still very strong & few will talk openly about any doubts or issues. --No kidding? Do you think maybe the reason few will talk openly is because of the gestapo nature of the society? What happens to those who actually question anything? Those who seek truth even at the expense of a man made organization. They are immediatly branded as apostate and the org holds their families hostage.
The way they d'f ppl puts evn minor things like smoking or celebrating Xmas on the same level as fornication because the punshment they dish out is the same for all of these transgressions. According to them they all lead to eternal death. Very strange.
Sex is a way of relieving emotional stress that an unloving JW environment readily produces.
The local elders had questions about my 'moral standards' when I first expressed doubts that the WTBTS had been honest with the 'Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses'. When those tactics failed, the question of loyalty to the organization became a paramount issue with several of the more brainwashed and aggressive elders. One of the P.O.'s sons was announced as no longer being one of Jehovah's Witnesses a few months ago and the rumour mill went into high gear that he had been DF'd. I believe this was an attempt by the BOE to create the impression that he had engaged in immorality instead of his discovering that the Watchtower Society is an evil God dishonoring cult.
When I faded from the "trut" my bible teacher kept asking me if I doubts or did stop believing. It's like he knew that my reason for falling away was doctrinal. He never questioned my morality. Perhaps he is aware that others are falling away because of "apostasy" and not morality. Many Jehovah Witneses become members of another religion so immorality always can't be the answer.
doz
dozy,
Some of us in Scotland choose not to pinpoint where we are. Many, like meat pie, who once posted here do not do so any more. They have got on with their lives. There are other Scottish apostates like Anne Sanderson ("Fearless Love") and ?(forget name) Campbell who have written books about their experiences but are not Internet active.
A few years ago there was a quite a stir in the Glasgow area at a prominent elder who left over stuff he read on the Internet. Then there are those who left the congregation in Stevenston over the paedophile case down there.
I know in my own congregation that many of those who have faded do not believe in it any more, but simply choose to keep a low profile and have a quiet life. One time some of us counted the children who grew up in XXXXXXXXXXXXXX over the past 30 years. Out of 25 children there are one or two who are still active.
And where do you get this figure for there being 14 000 Witnesses in Scotland? It used to be that we would get 10 000 at the Perth convention. But nowadays it is more like 8 000. I know some sit in cars and go to Tesco, but even so, many of those that go to the convention are not even publishers anyway. I don't think there is anything like near 14 000 Witnesses in Scotland. There are 5 circuits in Scotland, with about 18 congregations in each. A generous estimate would put the average number of publishers at 70 in each. 70 times 90 = fewer than 7 000 publishers. That sounds about right to me.
SBF - sorry , I confused the capacity of the Perth stadium with the number of witnesses - you are right in saying there about 7 - 8K witnesses here. My main point is that the number of "genuine apostates" is far lower than the number who leave the truth for other reasons , rather than disagreeing fundamentally with doctrines or procedures. As another poster stated , many may have apostate views but are DF for immorality - probably because once a person starts disagreeing with the WTS on doctrinal grounds , then the prohibitions on adultery and other moral constraints start to weaken as well.
It also seems to be often the case that after a person leaves , they begin reading the usual websites to justify their departure or out of curiosity.
Essentially the "old guard" remains & it is basically the same faces every year at the assemblies. Anne Sanderson is fairly widely known in witness circles & a few other prominent apostates as well (although I don't know of the elder in Glasgow you refer to).
