your personal favourite books that freed you from the JW's (page 3)

sweet pea

JK - would that be the Director of the United Nations Information Centre?

The Bible got me out. I read a lot of books later, but that one did it. Books I loved later were Ray Franz's. But then, I really like a big fat book and he is good at that. Lots of documentation, well reasoned and without vitriol.

nelly136

the borg santioned book by Marley Cole, can't remember what its called, bit early in the day

Fadeout

CoC- I didn't know the story or the issues involved so it made a big impact.

ISOCF- Yes it's slower but has really good analysis of the techniques used, it reflected a lot of my personal thoughts that I hadn't yet fleshed out into explanations.

1984- For obvious reasons. The parallels are scary. I think if every JW read just this book, you'd have several thousand new ex-dubs.

Eyes Open

Genesis, various authors
Daniel, various authors
Revelation, John

Asimov's Guide to the Bible: The Old and New Testaments, Isaac Asimov
101 Myths of the Bible: How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History, Gary Greenberg

How to Read the Bible: History, Prophecy, Literature - Why Modern Readers Need to Know the Difference, and What It Means for Faith Today, Steven L. McKenzie

The Bible with Sources Revealed, Richard Elliott Friedman
The Hidden Book of the Bible, Richard Elliott Friedman

Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Hermeneia: a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible), John Joseph Collins
Daniel: With an Introduction to Apocalyptic Literature (Forms of the Old Testament Literature), John Joseph Collins

The Apocalypse (New Testament Message; A Biblical-Theological Commentary), Adela Yarbro Collins
The Theology of the Book of Revelation (New Testament Theology), Richard Bauckham

Black Sheep

The Bible.

Reading the Bible within the constraints of correct grammar and context has freed me from the JWs, and Christianity in general.

Helpful books after this were:

Crisis of Concience

Captive Hearts, Captive Minds

Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships

SWATLAND, SUSAN AND ANNE Escape from the Moonies

Have You Seen My Mother. by. Bryan Lee McGlothin

Cheers

Chris

sass_my_frass

The collected works of George Orwell did it for me. Every one of his main characters finally gives in. I didn't want to be one of them.

Morgana

What really started me thinking independently was:

Arthur Schopenhauer: Prize Essay on the Freedom of the Will (ISBN: 0521577667)

In this little book (142 pages), Schopenhauer really gets to the point. With rigor and clarity he helped me to ask serious questions (and to understand why it is much more important to become able to ask the right questions than to find quick and easy answers).

Much later, I began to seriously study the Bible (or more precisely, the Torah) in a traditional-liberal (Jewish) way but with a sceptical mind, which was an eye-opener for me, too, and seems to bring me slowly back from my atheist phase that was the logical consequence of my JW involvement to some new kind of religiosity and appreciation.

From my "atheist library", two really good books that I have read and found enlightening deserve to be mentioned:
God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist, by Victor J Stenger (ISBN: 1591026520); and
Atheism: The Case Against God, by George H. Smith (ISBN: 087975124X)

WTWizard

I ordered some books from Kevin Trudeau, and subscribed to his newsletter. One day, I got a super fat version of his newsletter. Turns out that he enclosed a booklet from Nouveau Tech, and I ordered the three big fat books that expounded on it. I read those books, and it hit me like a ton of bricks that genuine morals were so basic that I did not need a washtowel or asleep, or a Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger, to explain them to me. It helped me realize that going in field circus was bad for self (wasted time and resources) and society (aggravations, ruined lives). Which was enough to make me totally blow off the cult.

Funny thing, I ordered those books only because the Washtowel Slaveholder was so down on them. I had received a similar offer a year before, but threw it out in deference to the Washtowel Slaveholdery. And Jehovah's "reward" for my doing so was enough to make me vow that, if I ever got another one, I would send in for it. Which I went ahead and did.

Yes, Crisis of Conscience was helpful too. It helped me to see, for sure, that the Governing Body was anything but appointed by holy spirit. There were arguments, a 2/3 majority needed to change anything, and too much in the way of controling people. Putting everything together, I realized that the witlesses did not have the truth. And the apostate web sites added to the light. In all, it is enough "new light" to make the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger's "new light" look like a match on the sun.

wha happened?

I can't point to a book that did it for me. Just individual tidbits of info on the web and looking up old articles and books from the WT. So if anything, I would have to say that the WT's own literature helped to free me.

your personal favourite books that freed you from the JW's