What convinced you? (page 4)

seek2find

In my earlier post in this thread I forgot to mention the most convincing thing to me was reading Hebrews chapter 11 and realizing that it was saying that the faithful men of old was looking forward to life in heaven and not on a paradise earth as we had been taught. In all the other Bibles I compared the end of verse 13 says that they "were aliens and pilgrims on the earth". Or something like that. When read in context and meditated on I think it's pretty clear that they were going to heaven. seek2find

independent_tre

Of course, I had doubts like so many others and those doubts became firm convictions that the WTS was not God's sole channel. But I had dabbled with pretending to believe and still go to meetings ( for the sake of keeping up appearances). I think the one that sent me over the edge was finding out that they teach that Jesus is NOT the mediator for all of mankind. All while I was investigating their history on my own, I continued studying the Bible and reading the book of Romans in a different bible, really made an impact on me. ANY organization that teaches that a relationship with God or Jesus must come through an 'organization' as an intervener is clearly teaching falsehood.

LeslieV

The utter enjoyment JW's feel when someone is down and out, and their feeling of superiority over anyone that does not believe like them. It is despicable. The fact that they love the idea that millions will die by God's hand, and they then can take over "worldly" peoples assests.

Leslie

Farkel

:As far as doctrine goes, what finally convinced you that this isn't the truth?

I really cannot precisely remember, but I think it was their explanation of Genesis through Revelation. Plus a WHOLE BUNCH of stuff that wasn't even in Genesis through Revelation that they claimed was Bible Based(tm) and somewhere to be found in Genesis through Revelation, even though it was nowhere to be found in Genesis through Revelation.

Yep. That did it for me.

Farkel

BabaYaga

Vinny, thank you for your post from http://www.whysanity.net/monos/matrix3.html by Kitty Pride... that was amazing.

In answer to the original question, I was convinced because I knew that disfellowshipping and shunning was not making a loving god happy. Ironic, no? That in fully disapproving of the shunning practice, I left and brought the shunning upon myself.

halcyon

Sept '98 (I think) WT study article on "Do Not Put A Fence Around The Law."

The article bashed the Pharisees for things like making God's name unspeakable just in case someone was going to take it in vain, etc. It was basically all about how true religion doesn't need to put up "fences" in order to keep its members pure.

And I sat there with my jaw on the floor, thinking about ALLLLLL the "fences" that the WT puts up. "Don't even allow something to LOOK improper! Even if you're not sinning, don't get anywhere even close to looking like you're anywhere in the vicinity of sin, or you will face sanctions."

Can someone post that article? It's really hard to explain ...

What convinced you?