From escaped fundie to skeptic

rebel8

This was discussed on another forum and I thought it was really similar to what we went through.

Lillith26

This story is so sad but very common in most religions.

I only ever took my children to the KH a couple of times- they hated it, happy healthy children dont like sitting still and being quiet, and I understand that so the majority of the time I left them at home with my husband. I remember getting into a debate about it with an elder's wife- she practicaly told me that I was a bad mother and did not know how to train my children "children need disapline and your not doing them any favours by leaving them at home" she said... I just smiled and brought all 3 of my kids to the next meeting, I sat and bottle feed one during the talk while my eldest two sat and played with lego on the floor. We would have stayed for the rest of the meeting only when the musical interlude started my then 2yr old stood up on his seat with his hands over his ears and proceeded to shout "turn it off mummy" when the singing started. LOLOLOL I love my son, it was our last visit to the hall. I used the "my kids are sick" excuse a few times over the next few weeks before I left my studies permanently (mabey I should have taken my son's advice sooner LOL).

Instead of going to churchy thingys and services, we just have fun family time playing in the yard, watching movies together, and they are currently helping me build a cubby house... Leaving religion behind has made my family life happier than the pretty pictures in the WT!

AK - Jeff

Boy, did this paragraph sound familiar!

Some of my earliest memories of my childhood include children’s song lyrics about god’s might and wrath. Lyrics like, “The lord he thought he’d make a man with a little bit of mud and a little bit of sand”. Or a song about Noah’s ark with these words, “The animals come in two by two, the Rhinoceros and the Kangaroo, said the Ant to the Elephant “Quit your Shovin”, it’s rainin’, I believe.” The message was fed to us from an early age, packaged to catch our interest. But, I also recall a storybook with a stark image of the ark setting sail as frantic, half-clothed women clawed against the side of the ship, lifting their squirming infants in supplication towards the impassive man of god on deck.

I can see the artwork on the Watchtower literature that made the same point this fundy bunch want to make.

Thanx Reb for posting that.

Jeff

AK - Jeff

And this sounds familiar:

Many Sunday sermons were spent poring over the nuances of Old Testament stories where Yahweh had brought his people to the point of despair then delivered their enemies into their hands with some violent, miraculous intervention. While it was clear that god was unyielding toward his enemies, it was equally clear that he seemed quite willing and even eager to violently strike down his appointed ones at the slightest provocation.

AK - Jeff

Anyone who claimed to be a believer, but didn’t subscribe to my father’s interpretation of the scriptures, was quickly declared to be excluded from god’s grace for any number of flaws in their doctrine. For example, the Lord’s Supper was to be performed with unleavened bread and wine only. If you used grape juice, you were going to hell. If the loaf wasn’t a single loaf, unleavened, broken by hand, you were guilty of desecrating the body of Christ. If you had ever divorced, had sex outside marriage, married a divorced person, felt empathy for a gay person -- or simply crossed Fred -- you were the enemy.

We didn't dare cross Fred either - but it was a different tyrant that the one mentioned here.

Jeff

AK - Jeff

Rebel - as I read this, I could not help the uncontrollable sensation that I am the man in the mirror. Even as I write this, I am nearly trembling with the idea that this fellow is just ahead of me, that this guys' road, might be the road I am journeying. I am not sure, as the roadmap is a little faded and washed by the tears of the one trying to read it in semi-darkness.

I am both troubled and comforted in that. I press ahead, but know not where.

Again - thanx for posting.

Jeff

poppers

Wow - that's quite a story.

AllTimeJeff

As I dove into that project, she came home one day with a book entitled The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Reading it I was struck once again by how these arguments resonated in me. For years, all these thoughts and ideas had been floating around in my head, battling with the demons of my past, but they were disorganized and incomplete, locked in a stalemate between my past and my present. In Dawkins’ book, these thoughts and ideas finally coalesced and took form, and I was able to move forward.

The End of Faith by Sam Harris & God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens soon followed.

Ah yes, the unholy trinity of Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens. God is not more powerful then these it seems...

What an eerie article to read.... Very familiar

rebel8

Rebel - as I read this, I could not help the uncontrollable sensation that I am the man in the mirror.

Me too, except he's on the path behind me. It's better ahead--keep going!

I wish I had those books to read...would have saved me the trouble of having to figure it out for myself.

From escaped fundie to skeptic

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