I have a really hard time understanding the minds of people who were true blue believers as adults in one religion who go on to become true blue believers in another...

by gubberningbody 1 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  gubberningbody

  I went to a parochial school for years. I was an altar boy (unmolested, thank ME), and I did weddings, funerals and masses. I became an atheist, by the time I was in high school, got into shamanism and other occult stuff out of curiosity and then became a true blue JW.

  I'm an agnostic now and I can't even begin to imagine how that could change.

  I don't need to ask a crazy adult who molts the shell of the JW's like a hermit crab only to crawl into another shell whether that's Catholicism or any other organized religion anything unless I'm just curious what the unwashed natives are up to.

  I don't and can't "respect" that any more than I can "respect" anyone who abuses themselves in any manner.

  Now if the "convert" is a true believer, then they are lost, and I have some pity for them (and some minor envy), but if they're just a hypocrite and using the other organization to whatever end they're using it, then I can understand to a degree, but I still don't respect it, (but find the ability to deceive interesting).

  If you're in it, you should be in it all the way, and you should know how to defend it, and if you're not, then I have no clue what sort of animal you might be, but that sort of behavior isn't what I call moral.

  Just my opinion, but I feel I could let a true blue JW in my house or a true blue Catholic, but if you were NEVER a true blue JW and you went along with it only to become a true Blue Catholic later, then step up and defend it or get out of my house. Lives are at stake and there's hell to pay for the damned.

  On the other hand...If you say you were a true blue JW and now you're a true blue Catholic, how can you be sure that you won't later become a true blue rastafarian, or something else?

  You can't and if you can't be sure, then you can't be a true blue anything any more, unless you FINALLY make the truth your own and stop abdicating your moral decisions to some magical entity outside yourself. You can't have faith in anything, not even in yourself, but since you can't fully apostasize from yourself (where would you go to?), then you have to continue to interrogate yourself and decide every moment who and what you are, because in the end it's all you and there's no one else.

  No one.

  If there are entities watching this affair....
  
  What we really need to do is to totally stop reproduction as a species.
  
  Then when the watchers get pissed off because they're running out of people to mess with they'll show up and we can hit them in the heads with rocks, steal their quantum space ship and get back to behind the veil.
  
  Then we can watch THEM and see how they like it.

  <insert pronoun> <insert verb> <insert adjective> <insert noun>
• 

  man in black

  Personally, I was raised as a RC for 15 years, (altar boy, lector,,,, the whole thing)

  Then the witnesses came along and convinced my parents that the RC church was EVIL.

  So because I feel that I was weak I went along and became an active jw for 30 years.

  Meanwhile the past decade my parents slowly faded away to a certain extent,but they still stayed a part of the religion (jw)

  mainly because of the "friends" that they made.

  Well, two years ago my Mom died suddenly and the total lack of concern/care/sympathy from the "loving christian congregation"

  totally turned me off from being a witness. I was quite active over the years but this was the last straw, and I wrote my da letter shortly after her death .

  For a long time afterwards I had very strong feelings of guilt for leaving, but yet I felt guilty for being so gullible all those years.

  Slowly I started to look at God in a totally different light, and I realized that my personal relationship with him was the strongest when I was a Catholic.

  I have started to go back to mass 1 -2 times a month, but my most encouraging thing is sitting alone in church every Saturday night around midnight when they have all night adoration.

  I feel that s-l-o-w-l-y I am chipping away all the bs behavior that built up in me all those years as a witness. And ( I believe) sitting there with just God, and me is very, very humbling, sometimes I find myself actually crying (as a guy, it is not very cool or easy admitting this).

  So while I understand your position, I get the impression that you might be supressing some pent up feelings about whatever is "divine" these days. I'm not ridiculing you at all, as I remember strongly feeling this very way right after I left the witnesses.

  I don't feel that I have molted from one religion to another either, to me it feels more along the line of the prodigal son story.

  And one other important thing.

  After my Mom died my entire human awareness / being seemed to change. I find it is more important now to believe in myself, no longer allowing a person or organization to direct every move in my life. There are more days behind me than in front,,,,, the time has come to look at God in my own way I need something spiritual to believe in and to help me in life. Creating and cherishing memories with my family,live and enjoy my life in an honest way.

  In other words finally starting to actually enjoy the journey.