by oompa 33 Replies latest jw friends
And wouldn't it matter a lot if one had been raised in it - never knowing anything else and being leary of all 'Christendom'... It would be much harder for them to separate the only religion they ever knew from real truth. Just a thought.
I'm glad I wasn't raised in it. At least I had family support - those who never wanted me to be a JW in the first place. It must be tremendously hard for those with family 'in' to truly break free from the WT propaganda and mind set.
Watkins
A distinction should be made between (1) those who are DF'd for "wrongdoing" and (2) those who disagree with doctrines and recognize that the GB/FDS is not what they claim to be.
As other commenters have pointed out, there are LOTS of DF'd Witnesses who still believe that it's "the Truth" and for whatever reason they have not taken the steps to get reinstated. I truly pity these poor souls. Sounds like the worst of both worlds to me.
For this reason, I think it is worthwhile to take opportunities to share the truth about The Truth to DF'd folks when possible. Don't assume that DF'd witnesses are "apostates" like you. In fact, some of them may be more firm in their WT faith than most JWs--rejection does funny things to people.
But I seriously doubt that many JWs who actually study the WT's doctrines and figure out that they are bogus ever go back. Sure, some may go back to fake it for their family/friends, but I wager that almost 0% actually go back to believing the stuff. I'm sure it has happened, but it has to be rare.
How could any of us here ever actually believe it again????
Answer : If I had a rather large lobotomy
Even if Jesus was to appear right in front of me I and say something I would never be involved with the JWS ever again.
Lets face it folks those men in Brooklyn structured a kingdom around themselves for themselves and once the fear and ignorance
starts to eroded as it has of late then the people can see clearly what has happened there and those walls of that kingdom are going
to collapse completely.
Interesting question answered I see by those that will never go back and now let me one who is currently over a very long time slowly going back.
God! in a wor is why we go back! look at some of the alternatives.
1/ Become a reborn Atheist that enjoys fully everything they want from life but knows that it is a one shot deal.
2/ Join another Christian faith that believes in a 3 headed God and what a ceasar decided we should believe 1700 years ago (options For One God are very limiting and tend to be shadows of Jw faith).
3/ Become a Christian faith of one person /leader/acolyte fully deciding what the bible is and means building from scratch what I shall and shan't believe hoping I am blessed with more holy spirit than other men like the leaders of other religions.
4/ Join a Religion of some other group but this may mean learning a whole new book of holy writings and meet new leaders that show me what is the right path now.
4/ Become a bitter ex-witness that defines my new life by hating what I one loved! and do demonstrations outside of Kh's halls at memorial time or call myself a shady superhero character name and spend hours of my life making videos for youtube.
5/ Just be an agnostic live my life as best I can put God on the backburner, just living a good life according to my own thoughts and hoping that that will be enough.
You cannot change that this is really about God and not some men.
The human condition leads us to hope for more than what would be our apparent lot of 3 score years and 10.
And we all search for the 'truth' of what is out there!
I choose Jw because I believe in the bible and they have the closest thing to bible honesty I can find about Jehovah and his actual son Jesus, about nephesh about paradise about hope etc, I have doubts in some things as some will know from old posts, these haven't changed but if I joined another christian faith I would have many many more doubts that I couldn't relate even to the bible
I think a major factor is whether or not people cease to believe in the Watchtower myth. This would be the total sum of the Watchtowers generic and idealistic rhetoric that is exposes about itself. Key points include (but are not limited to)
- It is possible for the the Bible to "interpret itself"
- Modern Jehovah's Witnesses let the Bible speak for itself and do not impose their own ideas on the Bible (those who study the organization realize that most teachings are the result events in Watchtower history, not unbiased Bible study!)
- all other religions are completely corrupt, there is nowhere else they can go
- This history of the Watchtower organization shows that God is using them (e.g. organizational growth, preaching work, anecdotal stories about how great Jws are, ect)
The general mythos taught in Watchtower literature paints a very idealistic and naive picture of a world wide organization, guided by god and objective and fair in its biblical interpretations. As long as people continue to believe these myths to any degree they will possibly return to the WTS. Only after they have given up on the myths can they truly move on.
NO!!!!
NEVER!!!
The chances of me going back is about the same as me getting a sex change, moving to Mars, and having alien children.
How could I ever believe it again? Burn my brain completely out on really hard drugs to the point I am nearly brain-dead. Even then, I couldn't do it.
I would never, ever, ever believe it again. And I've been taught to never say never too.
A return, is to believe that they truly are blessed by God, NEVER.
They would therefore dismiss all the evidence that has bean published to the contrary.
2 Peter 2 v 22, the dog returns to it’s own vomit.
KT
I went back and believed it. But I had never fully stopped believing it was "the Truth" (TM). After I read "Crisis of Conscience" and "Combatting Cult Mind Control" though I knew I could never believe it again.
choose Jw because I believe in the bible and they have the closest thing to bible honesty I can find about Jehovah and his actual son Jesus, about nephesh about paradise about hope etc, I have doubts in some things as some will know from old posts, these haven't changed but if I joined another christian faith I would have many many more doubts that I couldn't relate even to the bible
Umm, EVEN IF, and I emphasize IF, the JWs were right on those few items you named they fail in two major regards. They do not show love which Jesus said would be the identifying mark of his people. And they elevate the leadership of their org to the role of Christ. With that said...they have the identification of Jesus wrong, they have created their own Jehovah who can only work thru their org, they are one-sided and wrong about nephesh, inaccurate about their version of 'paradise earth'...etc. So much for them basing everything squarely on the word of God.
