I Should Have Known Better Simply From..... (page 2)

ambersun

A question for anyone who was a convert and not born in, did you ever have a moment where you learned something new or had an experience that made you think "um, is this such a good idea?"

Yes Mickey! The very first meeting I ever attended I was told to shun a girl not much older than myself (in her mid teens) who was struggling at the back of the KH with a tiny baby and getting no help from anyone. The man who ordered me to shun her was her own father. I found the experience very upsetting as my natural instinct was to offer friendship and assistance to the poor girl. Her crime was, of course, to have a child out of wedlock. Even her own mother was ignoring her and the baby - her own granddaughter - throughout the two hours of the meeting. Unbelievably heartless and shocking!!!

Although I was conditioned (for a while) to accept shunning as Jehovah's way of keeping the congregation clean, I never really got over that first introduction to the cruel and humiliating rule which I am sure helped prevent me from being totally brainwashed.

wasblind

" did you ever have a moment where you learned something new or had an experience that made you think "um, is this such a good idea?"

Yes, when it was suggested, to think twice about my daughter going off to college,

to drop association with her childhood friends, not to go to the prom, or join school clubs

When it was re enforced to not put emphasis on personal goals if it didn't involve the preaching work

And seeing the light literally going out from my childs smile, on top of questions I had about their ever changing doctine.

I want my child to be happy, and enjoy the things I did growing up. Who knew what was supposed to be a harmless bible study

turned into everything but harmless

Ding

Nugget makes a great point:

When we have to hide our doubts about our religion for fear of punishment...

When we have to sneak onto a website in order to read other religious points of view...

When we have to hide books or magazines because they don't agree with our religion's dogma...

.... it's time to wake up....

unshackled

When I was told that god invented rainbows only after the flood. Like the laws of light refraction didn't exist before that?

Or I wasn't allowed to watch Happy Days because those teens had boyfriends and girlfriends.

serenitynow!

When there was no logical reason for not celebrating holidays that had no pagan origins, like Thanksgiving or labor day.

gubberningbody

I wish I could say I had something that I could have clued in on.

The beards and napkin on the head thing I thought to be just the same sort of imperfection and latitude in decision-making that was evident in the Bible. Like for example the disclaimer at the end of the book of Judges which says..."at that time there was no king in Israel. What was right in his own eyes was what each person was accustomed to do.."

I was only 24 at the time, and I was searching. Now, 25 years later and with the internet, some experiences and thinking of my own I can see that no religion has effectively explained why any creator worth his salt would create anything, and if it did, why it would create this particular one rather than another.

After 25 years my wife and I both realized that the injunction "You have to make the truth your own", is not just an injunction, it is the only thing that anyone can possibly do with any sober thinking. Whatever "truth" is, and whatever moral code I can find satisfying for me as the created thing to live by, has to be mine as I simply can't know a truth that isn't mine.

The truth that I've found is that every religion that has a personal creator lets that creator live by a different moral code than his subjects, and in point of fact would condemn that creator if that creator were a human.

Under these conditions I can only imagine that it's by some mental sleight of hand that believers get pulled in to believing that they actually love this creator. You can't love someone whith whom you share no moral values and I can't see that any of these religions have anything as their creator except a pompous hypocrite.

After 25 years with this traveling carvnival show, I finally saw through the misdirection and now that I have, all I can do is to try to understand the only thing which I can ever hope to understand, which is myself.

flipper

I Should Have Known Better Simply From........ The WT society claiming that there is no marriage in the resurrection. If your mate died in this system before Armageddon - you wouldn't be allowed to welcome her back and be man & wife again. Yet we were told that Jehovah would take away any feelings in both mates so as to be able to cope with the pain of not being together. Yet we would be happy to welcome back a mate in the resurrection ? That was some of the craziest $hit I ever heard while in the witnesses ! I knew they were bat $hit crazy at that point

OnTheWayOut

Thanks all.

Also,

....when they took my birthday away and gave me the beheading stories as reasons why.

beksbks

The woman at the door who told me I should be ashamed of myself. I was 7.

wasblind

Ashamed for what beksbks ?

she was workin' on your self esteem from the get go.

I Should Have Known Better Simply From.....

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