This may be a rare thing on this board, don't know, because this is my first post, but I was raised JW and officially 'checked out', in my own mind, at 14 or so, because it just didn't make sense that God would destroy so many good people who are wholeheartedly trying their best to please him and worship him in truth. I actually did not pray or give God a passing thought for 12 years or so because the God I had been raised to know was no one I wanted to worship. But here in the past year something brought me around to him. I think it may have been reading Anne Rice's 'Christ the Lord' (great book, by the way), But anyway, I ended up rediscovering faith and was actually baptized in a mainstream Christian church last November.
At first, my JW dad was happy I was reinterested in religion. But then, he wanted to study and debate on certain bible topics. He did this under the guise of 'being open to new ideas'. Well, it went nowhere fast. As many of you probably know, they have an answer for every bible question. And they don't think much as to whether or not they make sense, just that they have an answer is enough for them
Well we had to end those debates, because they were pointless. Then I find out my dad is telling my 9 year old daughter than our religion is run by the devil, and she starts having nightmares. I called him and kindly asked him to please not teach my daughter such things. PLEASE respect me as a parent. He says as long as he is alive he will tell his grandaughter the truth of the bible as he sees it. Then he brings up some bullshit from 10 years before for NO particular reason.
The bullshit was that when I was 16, I stayed the night at one of my "worldly" friends houses. This is something I've done several times before over the years, although this may have been the first time I'd stayed with this girl. Anyway, she had a sneaky pedophile stepfather that I didn't know about, and he raped me. I told and he was arrested. After getting home from the hospital the next day, my dad tells me that this never would have happened if I'd had Jehovah's protection, but it was because I was hanging out with worldly people that this happened.
Well I went nuts and said I was moving out, going to live with my aunt, and he would never, ever talk to me about Jehovah again or make me go to a meeting. I stayed with my aunt for just over a month, when my mom called and begged me to come home. She said they would not make me go to meetings anymore, she just missed me terribly and hated my dad for what he had done. So I came home and we didn't talk about what happened after that.
So he brings this up when I am telling him not to talk to my daughter and tell her our religion is run by the devil. He says, "It's just as I told you back when you were raped - I still think that wouldn't have happened if you had been close to God".
Well I called him every name in the book, I'm afraid. I can't believe he said this again. I think he did it just to hurt me.
I am so glad every day that I am out of that stupid, distorted religion. I feel so bad for JWs because they think they are really doing the right thing. They don't even know how brainwashed they are and how wrong they are. I am afraid for all my relatives who are JW because they are not giving Jesus the proper honor he deserves.
So anyway, that's my story. There's a lot more than went on in those 14 years or so, but I could write a book about all the dysfunctional things I've witnessed being associated with this religion.
And yes, I'm proud to be an apostate. Basically, I renounce my previous beliefs. And I'm glad.