The Challange of Faith

by truth_be_told 41 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  caligirl

  Interesting title to the thread.

  I was raised as a witness. My parents are still very active (elder Dad and pioneer Mom) I have the utmost respect for my parents. IFor whatever reason, being a witness works for them, and that is their choice. It fills a need, a void, that they have. Thus far, they have refused to shun thier children, even though we have all made our exit from the witnesses. That is why I respect my parents. As deeply involved as they are, they still know that shunning is wrong.

  Looking back now, I can say that I had no faith then. Where is the need for faith when you are being told that you already have all the answers? Nothing that I was taught required faith. What was required was blind, unquestioning obedience. I believe that I was around 12 when it first dawned on me that what I was hearing from the platform didn't really mesh with the scriptures. I can vividly remember reading the context of a scripture and realizing that the "meaning" I had just been given had nothing to do with the actual context of the scripture being read. I don't remember the exact scripture because there were so many. All in all, I felt I was witnessing modern day pharisees.

  I walked away for good after the birth of my first child. I knew that I could not be a hypocrite and raise him in something that I did not believe in myself. I didn't leave because I wanted to go out and do bad, sinful things. I didn't leave because I was too weak to follow what I was told God was requiring of me. I left because my God given conscience told me that I could not stay there and pretend that I believed it was true just so people would continue to talk to me. I could not tell others to examine their religion under a microscope when I knew that such detailed examination of my own was not allowed. I watched witch hunts go on. I watched a family member be accused of starting their own religion and hearing that rumor spread around the circuit like a bad game of telephone, all to prevent anyone from actually TALKING to this person, even though he had never expressed his feelings to ANYONE that had not asked him.

  I guess the simplest way to put it is that I realized that I had been given the house built on sand, and I wanted the one built on the rock mass. I now have that. And the warmth and love and connection and faith that I have now cannot be adequately put into words. It leaves me nearly speechless, this feeling that I now have because I have that close personal relationship with Christ. He is my mediator, not men.
• 

  seattleniceguy

  truth_be_told,

  Welcome to the board. To reply to your original post,

  The fundmental issue that challanges every JW faith at some point are the imperfections of the WTBS, & those that take the lead sometimes make huge errors.

  These probably do challenge many JWs, but I thought you might be interested in knowing that they did not challenge me. The fundamental issue that challenged me was that I came to see that several underlying aspects of the Witness worldview are simply not true. This is especially true as relates to the JW positions on the Bible and the natural world.

  Being wrong about a few things isn't so bad, but I next discovered that Society frequently engages in deception. They lie about their history, and they quote authors to make it appear that they are saying things that they are not. By distorting the facts to support their own viewpoint, they demonstrate that they are not interested in the truth.

  Because I am very interested in science, to me, the most eggregious examples of this misrepresentation comes in the Society's treatment of evolution, which borders on absurd. Almost everything they say about evolution is just flat-out wrong. You can easily prove this by doing some basic study about what evolution actually is and what precisely the evidence is, and then re-reading the Society's books on it. I can provide you some links in that regard if you're interested.

  The long and short of it is that I am convinced that the JWs are wrong about just about everything. It was an immensely painful conclusion to come to, let me tell you, but much better to accept a painful reality and move on than to try vainly to will a fantasy to be true.

  Best wishes to you on your journey.

  SNG
• 

  nelly136

  We once had CO make us do something our body felt super uncomfortable doing, but we did it, and moved on.

  would you do this even if it meant someone else would suffer life lasting harm from the effect and it went against your very core to do so? would that be a test too?

  just trying to understand
• 

  Star Moore

  Hello truth:

  You said: You thought we left for selfish reasons. No, I don't think so. The people on this board are some of the most honest hearted and courageous people ever. They go against the grain, to stay true to God and set the right example for people, even though they had to be disfellowshipped or d'aed and shunned. I was a very zealous witness for 26 years.. I used to be exactly like you in thought. I understand the way, you are seeing things.. You mentioned Math. 24 about the Faithful and Discreet slave. I think, that Russell was a f and d slave, but no, since then, I truly believe the WT has become the 'evil slave'. The WT are rulers, not fellow christians. They are drunk with power.. The only truths they have are what they took from Russell. Well, that my story and I'm sticking to it.
• 

  kid-A

  "For those that spit venom at the GB may I kindly remind you what Jesus said in Matthew 25:40 & 45".

  The policies of your GB have led to the deaths of thousands of innocent children, the break-up and destruction of countless families and marriages. You are defending a billion dollar publishing corporation masquerading as a "religion". You are defending a mind-controlling cult that tells you what to think, how to act, how to dress and has implanted a pre-programmed response for any factual piece of information that goes against the "teachings" of your watchtower corporation.

  Anyone who has any knowledge of the bible is aware of the warnings about "false prophets". Your spiritual founder, CT Russell was a liar, charlatan and false prophet who dabbled in occutic pyramidology to derive his multiple dates for the end of the world.

  I agree with you however. We dont need to "spit venom" at the GB. Their vile actions, lies, deceptions and false predictions (1914,1925, 1975, etc etc), murder of children and protection of child molesters already identifies them for what they and their "religion" truly represents: a collective history of lies and delusions that appeals to the naive, desperate and feeble minded.
• 

  jgnat

  Welcome, truth_be_told. I was never a JW, I am just a regular Christian. I would like to vouch for leolaia's statement,

  Your post reflects the mind of someone deeply imbedded within a religion they believe wholeheartedly to be the "truth", and could well have been written by a Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic, or anyone else in "Christendom" who professes to have witnessed the Holy Spirit work wonders in their flock, who know many clergymen and ministers who are nice guys, human and normal, who acknowledges problems in their own religious organizations, but believe that regardless of whatever flaws can be found in their churches, Jesus still leads them and uses them to accomplish his divine work.

  Nothing you have said is any more justification than I have heard from any other dedicated man (or woman) of God. I can testify that the fruit of the spirit is alive and well outside the Kingdom Halls of our world. Not that there aren't loyal and dedicated people like you within. All I'm saying is that your faith is not exclusive.
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  Van Gogh

  Welcome to the board truth_be_told I want to commend you for the way you take your Christian responsibility in defending your – no doubt – sincere conviction and faith. Like many of us here on JWD, I – until a year ago - held the same view on the “truth” as you do. Despite the fact that I, in the end, learnt to loathe the organization with all my heart and soul, I was convinced about the God-given credentials of the WTS. As a third generation witness with both sets of grandparents JW, I grew up with all the heartfelt sentiments and stories of an emerging group of politically neutral Christians in the wake of a war-torn Europe who took an uncompromising stand for God against war; many of whom were willing to die for not saluting Hitler, to be lynched, beaten, tortured and ultimately shot in debilitating circumstances. As I have stated before here on this board, my mother was arrested during the war, while a pioneer my granddad harbored later died in a German concentration camp. I will never be able to forget that. Despite the fact that my parents (both pioneered for many years; my dad a PO) imo perished under the pressures and the heavy load of a system they could not live up to, I could only put their demise down to human failure – both theirs and that of the organization. I chalked these things up to imperfection and moved on, no matter how devastating it was.
  My mother died at the operating table shouting to please not give her blood, thus in fact sacrificing her life twice. But this was to be seen as sign of true faith, and interpreted by me as something in which a true Christian could not err. She was rewarded by being denied a Christian burial. Whichever “ the imperfections of the WTBS, & those that take the lead”, who “sometimes make huge errors” and the many wrongs committed by the WTS – to me they ultimately were of no consequence. I remember my dad recounting with regret how he and his conscientious objecting buddies were digging holes in the snowy ground when the brass from Brooklyn arrived proclaiming how they were to be disfellowshipped for not opting instead for years in a prison cell. Huh? They all took it in their stride though, and humbly they soldiered on in the service of Jehovah. In my many years in congregations, from the subdued perspective of a lowly publisher I have heard many bad things (also good things) about those that take the lead. I have seen fighting and bickering elders all my life. In the end I got caught up in elder infighting and church politics. When I questioned the particular injustice I was simply unofficially marked.

  It made me resentful and bitter, but for me it didn’t change one bit what the “truth” was, my perspective was changed because of flaws in men, not Jehovah. To me this was a test, no different than what Job faced; those that Jehovah had appointed to take the lead in the past had failings too, so I thought. To me it wasn’t decisive that there was no love. I thought using Jehovah’s name was decisive and that they were not trinitarians; the test and sign of love was that JW’s refused military service and did not kill each other. But then I learnt the truth about 607BCE and the supposed FD&S year 1919; how Russel used inch-measurements from pyramid passageways to back up 1914. Did you know that Jesus never used God’s supposed name? The NT has inserted “Jehovah” into the NT based upon Middle Age Hebrew NT translations using JHWH. However, the NWT suddenly uses “Jesus” where these same translations use JHWH. I realized the GB had never been faithful, nor discreet.

  Like SNG, I became convinced that the JWs were wrong about just about everything. It was an immensely painful conclusion to come to, let me tell you, but much better to accept a painful reality and move on than to try vainly to will a fantasy to be true. The only credit the WTS has ever had were the countless sincere, selfless R&F JW’s who slaved in search of peace and paradise, despite the GB. I salute them and hope their sacrifices and godliness were not in vain after all.
  VG
• 

  dorayakii

  You can 't survive as a JW if you can't chalk these things up to imperfection and move on, no matter how devasting they might be.

  Well, you can't survive as a Catholic if you don't chalk their faults up to imperfection and move on either. The problem is that it is simply not ethical to put the malhandling of paedophilia, or the false 607 doctrine, or the Watchtower's "prostitution" with the UN, or the unnecessary and damaging blood doctrine, all down to "human imperfection".

  Don't try to give me a sop story about how the percentage of correct doctrines that the Watchtower teaches in comparison with the Catholic Church emancipates the Watchtower from culpability. No matter how many "true-teachings" are taught, this does not in any way excuse that type of behaviour: Two wrongs don't make a right and the publishers should not be expected to "do as I say, not as I do"...

  ...don't tell me that the only real Christian love is to be found among JWs... loving people are found in other Churches and among atheists.... and there are some really horrible individuals in the WT Organisation, as well as in the "world"... that arguement doesn't hold water either...

  ...and please don't tell me that the Catholic Church and the Watchtower Organisation are fundamentally different, or to be viewed differently. This is a kind of double standard, when these things are commited by the Catholics, they are denounced as the evil harlot of Babylon from whom we should "get out". However, when the Watchtower commits these things, we are expected to call it "human imperfection" and move on. This is hypocrisy and I'm afraid it is just not on.
• 

  Van Gogh

  truth_be_told,
  
  Because of my discoveries, I was recently disowned by a once prominent, now ex-elder, 22 years my senior, who I considered to be my spiritual mentor. He shares your view. I defended him to my detriment when he was ousted.
  Ultimately he simply judges and remains silent. Walks away from reality.
  Will you ultimately not confront the real issues you were presented with here by me and the other posters?
  
  Will you only simply judge us as well and walk away?
  Please comment. You are not on the platform here.
  
  VG
• 

  jgnat

  Van Gogh, for heartfelt sincerity and passion, your post is wonderful. I am wowed.