How long were you...

Honesty

in the truth before you found out it isn't?

zeroday

In 28 years had serious doubts the last 5 years DA'ed myself 4 years ago...

I was in 4 1/2 years, then became inactive because something was wrong, either with me or them.......it just didn' t work anymore. My situation changed, and they didn't care, so I didn't care either.....which was additional proof that sometihng was wrong.....lol

brunnhilde

From birth to age 36. I've been out less than two years.

brunn

Robert7

10 years, although I've slacked a lot of them, and had strong lingering doubts about the last 2 years.

R.Crusoe

Too long! Even when you know it is wrong they have you in their prison!

They employ a three fold feeling/thinking/deceiving rule on you!

1)Human feeling is deemed selfish and treachorous!

But human feeling should be harnessed into unconditional love for their Managing Directors!

2)What you learn should inform your relationship with their Managing Directors about how you are thinking!

But you must only learn what their Managing directors validate as worth thinking about!

3)Your feeling and thinking is under everlasting attack by Satans timeless skills of deception.

So when you feel you are being deceived by them it is actually you being deceived by Satan!

free2think

Until i was 25, although i had had lots of doubts along the way. Towards the end they just got stronger and stronger, then with a little help from someone else a light went on in my head and i realised it wasn't the truth and i decided to stop going.

garybuss

Good topic. Thanks for posting it!

I was raised by undereducated and extremely superstitious parents who happened to be Witnesses. I was inculcated with Witness dogma instilled as my core beliefs from a child.

I had two equal and opposite opinions.

Number one: I didn't like being a Witness. I didn't like meetings, assemblies, dressing up in a suit on weekends, missing sleep, and I HATED service. A had a few Witness friends but the adult Witness people and many of my Witness peers I disliked. I hated being forced into constant contact with people I really didn't like and never would have associated with them apart from the Watch Tower Publishing Corporation sponsored activities.

Number two: I believed the Witnesses to be "right". I didn't believe the Witnesses to be "true" because teachings, policies, and requirements for approved behaviors were constantly in change. But I believed the Witnesses to be "right". In my inner mind, to please god was to be a compliant Jehovah's Witness.

That changed like a 220 volt shock in 1974 when I was 30 years old. Now . . . I didn't like being a Witness, AND I didn't believe them to be "right". My time had ended.

shamus100

Gary,

And it's nice to see you again too. Lots of familiar faces in the last few minutes. Everything you said to me when I was first coming out came true. I've never forgotten you.

In for 8 years, or thereabouts.

yknot

34 years...had issues (I was a reformist longing for the Berean period that briefly followed 1975) but never was 'encouraged' to read/know history before 1975. With the Sept 07 KM the floodgates opened, reading Russell, Rutherford, and Clayton Woodworth. Know one could read that period and really still believe the FDS is real. Whatever good intentions might have been have long been replaced with greed, entitlement and complacency.