Extreme discouragement of looking at outside information. That's screams "We have something to hide."
-Sab
For born ins- what tipped you off it was wrong
by teela(2) 54 Replies latest jw friends
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jaguarbass
1976 gave me all the info I needed that they were full of shxt.
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thetrueone
Way before the inter-net , I could smell the corruption and lies that were being forwarded to the public
and it certainly had something to do with propagation of literature, mental slavery and complacent servitude
to pretentious disingenuous men.
In essence I found it to be an exploitation for procurement of power and wealth,
both potentially dangerous and damaging to individuals.
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talesin
I was 18, and though I had always been a studious, 'good' girl, I never really 'got' the whole Daniel thing that we wasted sooooo many years on in the Book Study -- the books seemed to contain such twisted logic (of course, now we know my little mind was absolutely kee-rekt!). And then, when I experienced the partying, hypocracy, drunkenness, bad business practices, etc. etc. etc., in my 18th year, I just came to a revelation ::
THIS IS NOT THE TRUTH.
My world was destroyed. Time for a BRAVE, NEW world!
Unfortunately, it took me about 30 years to adjust ... in that, I was a slow learner.
Living - it's called reality. AND I LOVE IT!
I never really believed in what they taught me. I just did what I was told because I wanted to be a good little girl. Once I reached an age of understanding (which for me, was 18), I completely divorced myself from the Jehovah's Witness way of being.
FREEDOM and TRUTH are what always mattered most to me. Freedom to admit that I have so much to learn, and the freedom to be okay with that.
So, in answer to your question, I guess lies and hypocracy first tipped me off, then I gradually began to see the suppression of freedom of thought, of the individual, and that became an even greater ideological gap between me and the Dubs.
For a cool modern philosopher, check out Henry Rollins , aka front man for Black Flag, and Henry Rollins Band, but has written 20+ books, and is now performing a spoken word tour across North America.
The great thing about getting older is, that you can start looking in the mirror and telling the truth about your SELF.
Enough for now.
Peace and Love to all.
"all we are saying .....
is give PEACE a chance!"
~ JL 1940-80 RIP johnny
tal
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Heaven
So I told this man to go to my car and I would take him to get something to eat buy some clothes and get a hotel for two nights, but that was all I could afford.
Wow, 70-Years! I am so glad you helped this man. I look forward to the rest of this story. And welcome to JWN!
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144001
I had "worldly" friends (the same ones I have today!) and got to see how much better they lived than I did. I had a close friend in the "truth," and after getting into a bit of minor trouble with the law, I was subjected to a visit by the elders. One of them threatened me that I was "this close" (said with fingers in my face - I was 14 at the time) to having my name announced from the platform (despite the fact that I was never baptized). The one way for me to avoid this was to stop associating with my best JW friend.
I told the elders point blank, "go ahead and announce my name. I could care less. I'm going to hang around whoever I feel like hanging around." They never announced my name. I am still very close friends with the JW friend they told me to stop being friends with, almost 30 years later.
That confrontation forced me to really look at the contents of the Kool Aid. I discovered that Kool Aid is bad for your teeth, among other things.
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Found Sheep
1 - When I was a kid the meedings were so scarry!!! they always talked about the great tridulation and armegedon!!! When I started to know Jehovah it just didn't add up
2- the lack of love
3- all the prophecy books they say so many thing forshadow the GB and the elders and never saw the proof
4 - feeling better about myself when i decided to take a few weeks off from meedings
5 - the lack of love!!! thinking they had love and then realizing they don't!!!
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pirata
For me it is purely doctrinal. I have been in (and am in) really good congregations with lots of great, sincere people who feel that they are trying to serve God. I am fine living by the moral restrictions as a lot of have good scriptural support.
For most of my life I never thought too hard about what I was taught to see if it really made any sense. One day, though, I was on wikipedia and was curious as to the entry on JWs. I read a lot of history there that I never had heard of before. Most importantly, it was backed up by quotations taken from the society's publications. As well, it cross-matched with the Proclaimers book, but did not gloss over the less glamorous aspects of the history. I thought about some of the things in our history, and I decided to "make the truth my own" and convince myself of the teachings that I had always accepted at face value all my life.
I also prayed to God to help me know if I was really in the true religion. Don't know if it's coincidence, but that very week The KM article came out strongly discouraging getting together in a group to study the Bible independent of WT publications. That didn't make much sense to me since the scriptures say that if 2 or 3 christians meet together that Jesus would be in their midst. I decided that if we REALLY have the truth, then it can stand up to outside scrutiny.
So I started to research. Although I confirmed that there are JW teachings that I feel are solidly grounded in the Bible, I was rather disturbed to find many official teachings that conflict with the scriptures, history, and science:
- The "Global" flood of Noah
- Dissallowance of blood transfusions
- Allowing fractions that come from disallowed blood
- Dead witnesses because the spirit-directed organization incorrectly disallowed organ transplants
- Jesus is Michael
- 607/1914
- That I am dooming people to death if I talk to them about the Kingdom but they don't believe me
- The spirit-directed governing body deciding important scriptural matters by means of a vote
- Double standards in regards to freedom of religion
- Meaning of the "other flock" and "last days" (in conflict with what the 1st C. Christians understood them to be)
- Not allowing scriptural discussion different from official teachings. Testing the "inspired expressions" does not apply to the "Faithful Slave".
- Putting down other christian groups for failed predictions, but calling own failed predictions "eager expectation"
- Requiring us to accept the latest "scriptural refinements" as truth whether or not they make sense. Overuse of the word "evidently" (evidently means "well it's evident that we were wrong, so let's change our understanding to fit the evidence")
- The generation changes, destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah flip-flops (Why does the spirit keep changing what is "true", unless of course it's perfect men taking their best guess based on what they know at the time)
- That the generation, anointed and faithful changes were all clearly made necessary to circumstances showing that the previous understandings were incorrect (as opposed to spirit guided "new light")
- The annointed as the mediator between the "other sheep" and the mediator Jesus Christ
- That the entire book of Revelation is symbolic expect for the number of the 144,000 (Plus there were more than 144,000 Christian martrys in the 1st C).
- That the Bible's reference to Abraham, Issac, and Jacob in heaven doesn't really mean they're in heaven.
- Pinatas and wedding rings are okay because even though they have false religious backgrounds they're not viewed as such today, but toasting is bad because "maybe" it has false religious background
- Shunning of disfellowshipped ones (Similar to how the Scribes and pharisees treated other Jews as "amharets". Why do the interpretation of Paul's words take precedence over Jesus teaching to treat a brother who has left as a tax collector and a harlot. Jesus ate with the tax collectors and harlots and try to bring into the christian fold?)
- Not allowing bestiality and homosexuality as ground for divorce for a long time (spirit-directed?)
- Dictating sex policies between married individuals with no scriptural backing
- Not providing references for quotes in publications (when I started to look up the individuals or articles quoted, I saw why. They were from "false religious" sources, or the quotes were taken out of context)
- Calculating when the end would arrive even though Jesus said that no one knows the day or hour but the Father
- That we serve God out of love, but almost every single public talk ends with "If you want to live forever on earth then you need to do this"
- Non-biblical definitions of faith/spirituality (X hours of field service, meetings, commenting, preparing for meetings, etc)
The list continues to grow... During this whole time I honestly wanted to discover that the JW teachings are really the truth, but I just cannot come to that conclusion.
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agonus
For me, it wasn't anything from the "outside". It was all stuff I found out INTERNALLY - i.e. disturbing WT doctrine, policies, etc. that I was NOT informed of before baptism (that DAs are to be treated as DFed and shunned completely was the biggest "small print" I was never fortunate enough to have been informed of) - again, from THEIR material, not "apostate" stuff. The more I researched the WT's material the less sense it made, the more contradictory it became, and the more secretive things seemed (case in point, the ridiculous CD-ROM "agreement" which seems utterly paranoid compared to some business NDAs - have you ever actually read the license agreement?), the "Public" and "Kool-Aid" WTs, the list goes on and on. But that's the great irony. The most damaging stuff to the organization ain't "apostate propaganda" - it's their own propaganda.
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A.Fenderson
Philosophy and anthropology classes really got my brain open to new ideas and to really examining my existing beliefs (not the blatantly disingenuous lip-service the JWs give to the idea of testing out your faith). At the time, the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn also really made a large impact on me, especially the interpretation of the Cane & Abel story as a metaphor for a pivotal moment in human (pre)history.
Brocephus: The Revelation book... realized it was all made up stuff.
Yeah, but as I recall there were some pretty sweet-ass pics in there. Plus, once you realize it was all a drug trip (amanita muscaria or somesuch), it kinda makes you want to trip balls yourself, at least once--or maybe that's just me.