Did you feel "something is wrong here" when you studied with JW?

by Albert Einstein 7 Replies latest jw friends

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  Albert Einstein

  I started to study with JW when I was 19. My JW teacher was 30+ charismatic nice guy, comming with his wife.

  When discussing "bad associations" I disagreed on completely avoiding company of worldly colleauges and friends. The sister after several atempts to convince me got angry and told me: "Does it encourage you to serve Jehovah? If not, then you shouldnt do it! You shouldnt do anything that doesnt encourage you to serve Jehovah!!!"

  At that moment I felt this reasoning is stupid, but unfortunately I didnt break of...

  Albert
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  serenitynow!

  Yeah it is weird that you would continue to study after that. It sounds like she was retarded.
• 

  tec

  I felt a few things were wrong when my bible teacher studied with me. I never got into Jesus as the archangel Michael. I thought that was at least as presumptious as the trinity, and I always thought it got added just to answer the question of who Jesus was, after explaining that he was NOT a part of a trinity.

  When I asked how I could start getting my kids away from celebrating Easter and Christmas, one of the woman who came with my teacher said I could offer them something in exchange... like a family picnic, or presents just as a family thing. Since they taught me that the church had offered Jesus' birthday as a sort of exchange for celebrating Horus, the sun-god... I wondered why she would recommend that I do something that seemed to be something she condemned.

  In the end, I became convinced that 'new light' would be given to the annointed, and these mistakes would be cleared up.

  Fortunately, after two years of study and just a week after I said I wanted to be baptized, I had huge doubts about the teachings, did outside research and stopped studying.

  Took me a while to find comfort and truth in the love and example of Jesus- something that the WT doesn't seem to follow.

  Tec
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  looloo

  yes , i wanted out , i even said "are you telling me that if i stop studying with you me and my kids will be destroyed" she actually said "yes" a couple of years later i found out that the sister with her cringed when she said that and that she would have put it differently (lied, i presume ) she told an elder this and he told me ! (but they dont gossip ) from that day i felt trapped for another 6 years , never did get baptised though . (am i glad i smoked and found it hard to give up ) funny how i managed to give up when it was for me and not "jehovah"
• 

  Life is now

  Yes and stopped the study, only to be persuaded to start again. A lot of things didn't make sense but having someone enthusiastic about the scriptures and telling us to always check everything, we trusted and were hooked. It's hard to believe that we could have been so taken in.
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  garyneal

  Yes, a lot of things.

  I had clearly accepted the Trinity when I first studied with my (now) father-in-law back when my wife and I were dating. But I remember tap dancing around it by simply saying Jesus was the Son of God. I said nothing when he commented that 'some religions teach that Jesus is God.' I remembered thinking, "What pathetic 3 dimensional thinking these people have to try to make Jesus and God into something more like us humans."

  I did not hear about the whole Jesus is Michael the Archangel thing until my wife and I moved in together and left town. I remember thinking, "Hmmm, never heard that before but I guess it is a new take on the scriptures." Then the whole soul sleep thing and our bodies being a soul. I remember asking, "Does not the Bible say that 'absence from the body is presence with the Lord?'" The study said no but I later found out that it did.

  After that, I guess I started letting it sink in drip drip at a time until I starting believing that this religion could possibly be the only true religion.

  At first, I was considering the possibility of becoming a Jehovah's Witness. But, I figured before I do, I better research their teachings and see if they truly square with the Bible. Well, the rest is history and obviously I did not become a witness.
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  dgp

  I never really studied but I felt wrong that the person who was supposed to teach me things was twenty years younger than myself. I could have been his father, and I was supposed to learn from him?
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  WTWizard

  At the time, I found nothing seriously "wrong" with the Suffer Forever book. If only my "teacher" would have stuck with the book (and the Bible) instead of always insisting on the strictest possible interpretation of everything--throwing away my music instead of selling the bad records, playing a Michael Jackson album I already own is "supporting that apostate", zero tolerance of the holidays, being expected to be in field circus every second I possibly could, a very hard bang on the door beam instead of ringing the bell, and the like. The idiot even suggested dictated that I use a specific type of laundry soap, and would have dictated what brands and varieties of everything I use had he not had to move out of the territory.

  And, when I questioned the necessity of throwing away all worldly music, he colluded with the hounders to make sure all I would be exposed to is "We don't listen to that garbage (all worldly music); the Kingdumb Maladies are good enough". Of course, others in the congregation were highly offended by that hard line stand--I have seen many that listened to artists like Led Zeppelin, watched the Christmas specials on TV, and could sell their music without incident (all of which I would have been harshly censored for doing, because it went against "the truth as I was taught".