Those raised as JWs-Do you recall the path of doubts that led you to leave?

by ithinkisee 49 Replies latest jw friends

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  loosie

  childhood doubts: Of course these were squashed by my mind thinking I just don't have enough faith

  1) Adam and Eve in the genisis account: Why was it wrong to eat from the tree of knowledge or good and bad? Isn't it a good thing to know right from wrong

  2) Why was the man who DF'd my brother for drinking too much an Alcoholic himself?

  3) since people who don't believe in the JW's, are going to die soon why do we have to stop talking to them now? We only have limited amount of time with them to talk to them now while they are still alive.

  Doubts as a teenager.

  1) why is the elders son I am dating soo horny? Why does he keep askign me to sleep with him? Doesn't he know more than I do about what Jehovah wants afterall he is an elders son?

  2) I hope the man I marry didn't read the 1980's question to the readers about oral sex.... oh I really hope he didn't agree with it if he did read it.

  Doubts as an adult:

  1) thank God the man I married didn't read the 1980's question to the readers article

  2) why does everyone at the KH believe my mother the backstabbing two faced person that she is? But she loves Jehovah

  3) Hubby gets on this website starts telling stories of personal experiences. I think maybe he is just a little bitter.

  4) I join the YMCA. Told I can't join the YMCA. I stop the YMCA. Hubby learns WTBTS joined UN. I join the YMCA again ( hey I got a 10 year membership right?)

  5) until they can apologize for over 30 yrs of crap they can bite my lily white hiney
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  ithinkisee

  Another doubt I remembered the other day:
  
  We would always read the scripture in Revelation about "a Great Crowd that no man was able to number, out of every tribe nation people and tongue.".
  
  I remember thinking SEVERAL times, "If it is a great crowd no man is able to number, then why do we have these extensive reports every year in the Jan 1 WT? Why do we obsess about attendance figures and baptism figures?"
  
  -ithinkisee
• 

  besty

  bumping for the newbies.....
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  JWdaughter

  As a pre-teen/young teen, it was the messages about charity. As I got older it was the whole spirit of how they applied the bible. It seemed inconsistent with the context of the scriptures. Whether a person believes the Bible is true or not, the WT clearly appropriates it to the detriment of any positive messages of Christ in the scriptures. The reasoning book was filled with scriptures that were ripped out of context to prove things that they were not addressing in any way shape or form.

  I didn't think we went and spread any good news. I really started looking at the message and it didn't seem to have anything to do with what the gospel was. At all.

  I'm glad I'm out!
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  artemis.design

  Hi there, I am new to this forum. Please call me Artemis or Arte as there is another Artemis on this forum (after the Renaissance female artist and Roman Goddess).

  I was bought up as a witness. Strangely, I loved school, and I loved reading and history. I was not alowed to attend RE classes which I was a bit upset about because I wanted to learn about other religions.I started to wonder what they were hiding. I read the creation/evolution book. I was like, are you telling me that we have only been around for 6000 years? Stone henge is older than that! All of my family were witnesses, but I never bought into the armageddon crap. I went along with it until I was 18 to keep my parents happy but I never got baptised.

  The witnesses I know are intelligent even dilligent people. Yet they can not see what I figured out by the time I was 12. Evidence shows that the bible is not, and probably never was ment to be, a literal interpretation of the history of the world. But they can always argue that black is white and I never seem to win a debate even when all the evidence is firmly on my side.

  Arte
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  homeschool

  seems like an interesting thread, but I've gotta go to work. BUMP.
• 

  Satanus

  Seems, the monkey wearing the bra has moved on. Good thread, though.

  S
• 

  homeschool

  For a minute, I thought you were calling me a monkey wearing a bra. Now I see there is a MONKEY WEARING A BRA. lol
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  JWoods

  Monkeys either cannot afford a bra, or they live in dis-advantaged communities where neither the bra nor the cosmetic surgery are available to them.

  I just want there to be whirled peas all over the earth so that no one will ever have to be hungry again.

  Thank you.
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  Olin Moyles Ghost

  My first doubt was as a six-year-old child. The subject was birthdays. I simply did not understand why the fact that two birthday celebrations in the Bible resulted in executions meant that I could not eat a cupcake with my class. My little mind could not make the logical leap. I never really understood why God would smite me if I ate a cupcake or signed a birthday card...and today I still don't. But I was a good little Witness and did what my parents told me to do.

  During the teenage years, I didn't have any real doubts about the JW religion being "The Truth." If anything, the struggle that all teenagers experience in toeing the moral line reinforced the idea that it must be The Truth. Otherwise, why would it be so difficult to be good...right?

  As I got older and saw more of the congregation politics, I developed a "fleshly view of the organization." But I always rationalized that the Old Testament patriarchs, Israelite kings, and even First Century Christians had lots of issues. Despite those issues, the rank and file were still expected to stay with the organization. An elder once gave the example of King Menassah who worshipped false gods and even sacrificed his children to them. That sort of reasoning kept me going--even if the elders/C.O./etc. had flaws and did bad things, they weren't as bad as Menassah, right?

  As I continued to get older, I became increasingly skeptical of some of the direction coming from the WTS. It seemed like they were "going beyond what is written." Comparatively minor issues such as vasectomies (condemned in 1999 WT article), discouraging college, and the like started to pile up. The answer to my questions was always to "wait on Jehovah" or to trust the FDS, and of course the old canard "where else are you going to go...nobody else is right."

  All of these unanswered questions finally became too much to sweep under the rug. I realized that my "answers" to these questions always hinged on an assumption that (1) the FDS was a sort of clergy class that we had to obey; and (2) the WTS leadership was appointed by Jesus to be that FDS. One day I realized that I had always simple accepted these two foundational facts as true. So, I decided to investigate those facts. The rest is history.