I've been studying JW for 6 months. Please help..

by fb130 59 Replies latest jw friends

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  kitsune

  Welcome to the board! I can echo what many have all ready said and what they have said is true. I know from experience. I was born and raised a 4th generation JW. I was baptized young and when I was a teenager I started to find things that didn't jive, I had to keep it to myself. When I was finally ready to leave (meaning that I lost ALL contact with ALL of my family as they are ALL JW's), and went to the elders with my doubts (I wish fading had been an option) I was told that I wasn't praying hard enough, that the only truth I could find was in the WT pubs, and that something must be wrong with my life because Jehovah would answer my questions if I was doing the right things.

  I was single too, but the warm and friendly "friends" quickly stopped inviting me to get-togethers and to meals after the meetings the second they saw me go into the room with the elders, even though they had no idea what the nature of the conversation was.

  The elders told me that I should still attend meetings and service, even if I didn't believe, because it was not a daughter's duty to hurt her parents. Every time I talked to them they used emotional blackmail to try and make me change my mind. I still left and have had very little to no contact with any of my family, well over 40 cousins, my sister and parents and all of my grandparents, and more than 15 aunts and uncles (BIG Italian family); all because I found their lies and questioned their doctrines.

  RUN do not walk away from this study. Once you get baptized, you sign your freedom and your life away and you may never ever get it back.
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  sweetstuff

  Welcome to the board. As many other's have posted, I'm going to caution you to really think thru the decisions you next make. Not only have the posters highlighted some of the fallacies of the WTS doctrines and associations, they've pointed out how you will be treated once you are "in". And as someone born in myself, I can attest to the fact that its all true. I've seen people come in, who were sincere and really believed they had found "the truth". Once they became baptized members of the congregation and no longer studies, slowly with time, they began to see the real picture of what being part of the congregation was all about. Politics and social standing abound.

  Not the mention the fact that you will be counselled and discouraged from associating with any non witness family members, friends. You'll be EXPECTED to give these relationships up and if you dont', you'll be treated with gossip and sideways judgements. How witness families appear on the outside and how they really are, are two very different things. If you value freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of thought, I suggest you carefully review and research this "religion" before getting in any deeper. After all, as the saying goes..you attract more flies with honey than vinegar.
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  burningbridges

  My best advice to you and I can not stress this enough is to put off the baptism. Once you are baptised into this you can never ever leave without scarring and ruiiing your life for eternity. joined at nineteen, I was my only family member. I was in for nine years before I got the courage to leave. It only took me two years to figure out it was not the "truth" but took me years to get the courage to not be "shunned" bythe disfellowshipping arrangement. Eventually, I just said I'd rather live hated than live a lie. So now I'm shunned. The watchtower ruined my life. I WANTED it to be true so badly that I turned a blind eye to things that should have been so obviuous (like the fact that they say Jesus returned invisibly in 1914, ehen christs return should be seen by everyone, and scripture warms us agsinst anyone who says that christ has arrived as a false prohet) I wanted to chande my life, and they a had good things to say, I justified any doubts I had, The problem is, once your "in" you are a freaking robot. Once I had a dount on something and elders came to my door with pamphelts and printouts accusing me of being an apostate a day later when I aksed THEM for help on my doubt (you CAN NOT HAVE DOUBTS, YOU MUST ALL BELIVE THE SAME AND HAVE COMPLETE ZOMBIE FAITH) Just put off the baptism ok, theres no undoing that....

  burningbridges
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  WTWizard

  This forum is a relatively open discussion forum about the religion. Bear in mind that, since most of the reality in that religion is negative, if all you are going to do is defend it, people can and will pounce on the posts. However, if you have something good to say about the religion (even in the midst of mostly negative comments), then feel free to add that.

  As for me, I would highly recommend visiting other sites before going any farther. This one is good because people here have been affected by the religion in some way, whether directly or not. Here, we are free to post what bothered us about the religion, and make comments that would have you in the back room if made at the Kingdumb Hells.

  Some other sites to visit include Freeminds (where you will find other accounts of the damage this religion does), and be sure to check up the Net Soup (most of which takes you back here). I also recommend Six Screens of the Watchtower (that is great if you have doubts of the origins of the religion and the stability of the doctrines, because they compare originals with reprints and point out logical fallacies). Silentlambs explores one of the biggest problems in the religion--yes, they do harbor pedophiles and silence the victims. Beyond Jehovah's Witnesses has a link to other sites and forums, plus advice on how to quit the religion (as with smoking, the best time to quit is before you are fully involved). And Watchtower Information Service has topics for discussion, plus you can comment (and see for yourself the damage they do).

  I highly recommend looking up on a search engine as many sites as you need to see the real truth. If you continue without doing that, you will soon find yourself in a stagnation trap wondering where the excitement went.
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  burningbridges

  can anyone put a link to the cross thread to use as a good example of how scandalous they are? I don't know how? The one from a few day a go where they intentailly misapplied and misquoted out of a book to make it LOOK like a professional refrence said Christ was impaled on a stake when it actaully said the opposite...
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  garybuss

  Hi fb130,
  
  If you want to expose yourself to misery and disrespect, I believe you couldn't have picked a better group to join than Jehovah's Witnesses.
  
  
• 

  changeling

  Welcome!

  You want some help? Stop studying with JW's.

  changeling :)
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  poppers

  Welcome to the board. Research, and don't confine your research to Watchtower publications. If you get baptized that luxury will come at the cost of being disfellowshipped if they find out. Once baptized you'll be put into an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual straight jacket that you will find hard to remove. Your world will shrink to the size of ever changing Watchtower doctrine while they try to convince you it's what the Bible dictates. In short, your life will no longer be yours to live as you see fit but will be theirs to manipulate in every manner. Intellectual, emotional, and spiritual freedom will then be a thing of the past, but they will convince you that it is only them that offer these things and everyone else in the world is deluded.
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  White Dove

  Welcome!

  Be very careful with this religion because it matches up on most of the clues that it's a cult.

  Please read Steve Hassan's book Combatting Cult Mind Control.

  High control religions aren't good for anyone. They strip people of their right and ability to think for themselves.

  You might want to ask your study person: What happened to "Millions now living will never die?"
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  burningbridges

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/162991/3015286/post.ashx#3015286

  ok figured it out.... please check this out, it really shows a good example of the crap they pull.....