Hi all, its time I stopped lurking around here. I've been posting at JWS for just over a year, I know a few names here and it looks like there is lots of good banter going on.
I am a second generation, born-in who grew up in west-central Scotland. I pioneered in Edinburgh and later married and settled in Berwick just south of the border. I was an elder from my late twenties and was enjoying life in the borg fast lane until they went and changed the whole "generation" thing. To be honest it wasn't the change that derailed me as much as the way they treated us all like idiots over the whole thing.
I took a close look at Matt 24 etc and especially at the meaning of "parousia". Having discovered their mistake (haha) I wrote up my very respectful thoughts and posted them to London. Not sure what I was expecting but the knighthood never arrived. My fellow elders got a letter telling them to tell me to wait on jehoobah. Anyway - long story short - I sent it to Brooklyn and waited and waited and waited (still waiting)
Once the first domino falls the rest are only a matter of time. I started researching blood and other topics. Eventually I resigned as an elder and began to fade. At this point I was avoiding all "apostate" stuff and only researching the bible and wt publications. Meantime my loving in-laws, (is cursing discouraged around here?) reported me to London for a private conversation we had about why we were no longer going to meetings. I was summoned to a judicial and df'd around christmas 1996. The chairman of the committee had spent many hours talking to me about these things in previous weeks and months and had openly admitted to me that he agreed the borg were wrong on some important issues - hypocrite!
Like many ex-witnesses I naturally assumed that the core of what I had always believed must be true and so I began to investigate the church. I came to understand the fundamental difference between the WT "ransom" and the christian gospel and felt I had discovered something I had always been looking for. I began to attend a baptist church and eventually got baptised again. I was as enthusiastic and committed a christian as I suppose it is possible to be. I volunteered for Reachout Trust for a while giving talks to other churches about how to talk to dubs and helping some on a one-to-one in our region. Eventually I was giving sermons in church and when the pastor left I was part of a leadership team, preaching and leading worship.
About 8 years later I began to doubt whether god really did listen to and answer prayers. A tragedy involving a friend at church left me feeling disillusioned and wondering if I was making the same excuses for god that I had previously made for the borg. Me and god stopped speaking. On 26th December 2004 I was driving to play in a charity football match (soccer) when I heard on the car radio about the Asian tsunami. Me and god were finished.
My parents are still in the borg and to be honest that's probably best for them. We have two children, a son in the RAF and a daughter at school. I spend a lot of my time coaching football and following a host of other interests. My views on god have been taking shape constantly over the years since 96 and I would now describe myself as an atheist but I'm sure I will say more about that later.
Look forward to getting to know more of you.