How Much Influence Did The Watchtower Have In Destroying Your Faith In God?

by The wanderer 40 Replies latest jw friends

  • done4good
    done4good

    I would agree with many of the above posters who cite access to information as the primary reason for my disbelief.

    That said, one of things that came out of jwism, is the mindset, that religion and spirituality, if it is healthy, MUST be absolutely true. Of course, this is false, to debateable, at best. But nevertheless, we as ex-jws are suspect to this mindset. Where as most people, can just simply accept their belief, (from whatever religious background they have), as sufficient, even if flawed, the ex-jw tends to have a much more difficult time with accepting this type of thought. Religion was always taught to be absolute truth.

    Because of this, we search for truth. Eventually, we discover, by hook or by crook, that absolute truth does not rest in religion, of any kind. I consider myself agnostic, borderlineing on atheist. In other words, if I MUST choose where I stand, I don't find any holy book definition of god, adequate. A deist's understanding of god, is so different from any holy book definition, however possible, that one could basically consider this definition of god irrelevant in real world terms. Hence, by that measure, I'm an atheist.

    j

  • OUTLAW
    OUTLAW

    Wanderer..I`m agnostic.I have no idea if God exsists or not.The WBT$ didn`t destroy my faith in God,I have none....The WBT$ did destroy my family.....WBT$ also destroyed my parents ability to make intelligent decisions..And..They`re ability to think honestly..They preached "Armageddon by 1975" for decades..At the stroke of midnight January 01,1976 they could`nt remember ever doing that.It was "WBT$ Brainwashing" on a Globel Scale..Every Jehovah`s Witness that wanted to stay loyal to the WBT$,had instant memory loss..It was a Jehovah`s Witness version of Alzhiemers.."Jehozhiemers"..LOL!!...OUTLAW

  • IsaacJS2
    IsaacJS2

    Notaness,

    I'm not really sure I understand your post. I'm tempted to interpret it as a kind of wise cracking, I.D. proponent response to my post? I'm not sure what I said to earn that sort of reply, but I wasn't trying to get anyone riled up. You post doesn't quite make sense to me since you didn't characterize the view of most atheists/secularists/scientists very accurately or fairly. It does sound a lot like the way our views are often described by hard core fundamentalists, however.

    I learned on other boards not to dig in too much with debating people on issues like this if you want to keep many friends in most forums. I'm here to make friends, not start debates. If you want to debate these issues with people who disagree, your objections so far have all been heard by atheists many times before. You needn't search very hard to find numerous replies from our side online if you are interested in hearing them. I'm not trying to offend you, but you are unlikely to win any converts this way.

    No slams against religion or religious believers was intended by my post. I may have failed to convey my ideas correctly or inoffensively (hardly the first time that I messed that up) but I meant well. I'm not so sure that you can say the same about your response. But maybe I misunderstood it. Still, I'm sorry if you took my post personally. I was just answering a question posed by this thread. I didn't mean to imply that believers are dumb or anything else insulting. I simply disagree with them. No biggy.

    No hard feelings, I hope. I will leave you guys to continue the discussion on your own.

    IsaacJ

  • dedpoet
    dedpoet

    I suppose it finally convinced me that God does not exist.

    I was an agnostic, and very close to being an atheist, when I started studying.

    I became a true believer of sorts, but always found stories like Noah's Ark very
    difficult to take as literal, and when I left the watchtower I had become the atheist
    I am now.

  • OnTheWayOut
    OnTheWayOut

    I wasn't very religious before I was recruited into the WT cult. My mother was a JW and
    I was exposed to their teachings.

    If I were raised by my parents w/o interference in my mother's life by the JW cult, I would
    have remained unreligious and been unsure about God and the future of life after death.
    That would have been fine.

    WTS destroyed my faith. Why would God allow me to reach my most vulnerable state,
    hear me cry out for guidance, then allow a cult to teach me such nonsense as gospel?
    I have some doubts about his existence. I do know that I do not want to join any
    organized religion.

    JW's ruined any chance of faith that I have- 100%

  • Anti-Christ
    Anti-Christ

    Well, I might say that the WT destroyed my faith in organised religion. I always had a problem with the way they explained things. Wen I research something in the articles and fond out a lot of what they said was mostly there personal opinion, it made me question every thing else I was raised to believe. After some research I came to the conclusion that the bible is not the word of god. For the rest I'm not sure yet. My concept of god has change a lot. So to answer your question, they were responsible for destroying my faith in the bible god. On the other hand they were responsible for my belief in the bible god to begin with, because I was raised in the JW belief.

  • oldflame
    oldflame

    None ! It only made it stronger.....

  • avidbiblereader
    avidbiblereader

    For the first two years out, I didn't care about God and thought "How could all this crap happen to me, this was suppose to be the truth?"

    Then I realize that I was taking my lack of spirituality and gross disregard for God and others out on all the wrong people, so I started my own search, reading and praying and the message of the Bible hit me.

    It was simplistic, faith in God and the sacrifice of His Son,

    I have a stronger faith and relationship with God and Christ than ever

    None in organized religion 100%

    abr

  • nvrgnbk
    nvrgnbk

    Though my faith in the existence of God is scarce or non-existent, I have never been a more spiritual person or more keenly aware of the connections certain individuals enjoy between one another. If one is open to it, life offers beautiful spiritual rewards.

    Nvr

  • avidbiblereader
    avidbiblereader

    nvrgnbk

    Though my faith in the existence of God is scarce or non-existent, I have never been a more spiritual person or more keenly aware of the connections certain individuals enjoy between one another. If one is open to it, life offers beautiful spiritual rewards.

    I once felt the same as you in the beginning but continue to feel the same towards people, I now see people as people and not judging them through self righteous eyes, condemning them to death because I feel superiour to them.

    I absolutely love people and try and think about what makes them tick, why do they act the way they do, what have they gone through in life and why they react to certain things, fun being people connected and realizing the sincerity in people and not judging them. It is a really great feeling to be people oriented and focused on people instead of religion. It is about love, humility, modesty, sincerity and nothing to do with THINKING you are right and everyone else is wrong.

    abr

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