Being honest with yourself, could you have reasonably adjusted your attitude and continued on as a JW? (page 6)

jwfacts

Being honest with yourself, could you reasonably adjust your attitude and become a Mormon, or Scientolgist, or Moonie, or Branch Davidian? Cults generally provide good friendships and may even have solid teachings. But there is no way I could ever join a cult just for the friends and good times.

EmptyInside

Something,I've been struggling with myself of late. But, I equate it to being in an unhappy relationship. A person knows the relationship is pretty much over,but they stay in it,because that's all they know and it's comfortable. Plus,they're afraid to start again,it's fear of the unknown. In the relationship,they pretty much know what to expect. It's the same with staying a Witness,even though,it's never going to be the same ,once a person has awakened to the fact,it's just not the "truth".

villabolo

Being honest with yourself, could you have reasonably adjusted your attitude and continued on as a JW?

A lobotomy would have helped.

Villabolo

Bungi Bill

That is the same as asking me if I was prepared to continue to try and defend the indefensible:

- I broke with them when I was no longer prepared to forever live in their fantasy land.

As regards a JW congregation doubling up as a de-facto social club, its membership fees proved very costly!

Quoting Stevenson, in his 1975 - Year of Doom? "No religious group would demand as much from its members, in return for so little."

Bill.

highdose

MLE i think what you maybe assuming here is that that JW's are this nice bunch of people who just happened to have got a few things wrong.

But this is not the case, all those nice people at your hall... if you ever expressed your own identity, thoughts etc, they would drop you like a hot potato. And underneath all that "niceness" there is a dark undercurrent filled with lies, pedofilles and misery. Its all a sham every bit of it.

I have no doubt that if i went back to the KH now i would be well and truly love bombed. Right up until they felt they had me safely "back in" then they just wouldn't care anymore. I would also start to find out all the bad things and people within the congo and i'd have to learn to ignore them.

Thats before you even got me started on the massive gaping holes in their doctrine! Theres no way i could sit there in a meeting and not end up speaking out. I'm sorry to say they would proberly end by throwing me out of the hall physicaly.

...feel the love babe... feel it

Lozhasleft

Great thread MLE and some really thought provoking posts.

Its all about trust for me. I really trusted the governing body, the congregation elders, the COs and DOs, the literature, the whole caboosh. I really believed that there was genuine love for God and that noone intentionally wanted to hurt/control/damage anyone else.

Now that the trust is broken and I know what goes on in elders meetings, the GB voting, the double standards, the hypocrisy, the favouritism, the cruelty, the child abuse, etc etc. I could never trust it or them again. Never.

Loz x

The Finger

No I don't think so.

In the last 20 years of being a JW I was twice told I was acting as an apostate. Once from the CO from the platform and another time from the Body of Elders. When I met with two Elders for the last time to discuss various points they said no I was not an apostate and no further action would be taken. I left though not because of the Elders that continued to shun me or their wives who had supposedly no knowledge of my problems but would not even say hello to me. Or that my "friends" declined all invitations to my house and had nothing to do with me. I left because I could no longer support the views of the Watchtower.

For many years I felt sure that being one of Jehovah's Witnesses was the right thing to do however difficult it was in or out of the congregation and sometimes it felt worse in. I am not so sure of most of things now, having found out how different you can feel about something you believed was the truth. I think Ray Franz in one of his books mentions Romans 14:23" ...Indeed everything that is not out of faith is sin." I could no longer have faith in the things I believed as a JW and can no longer preach their message. Instantly I am no longer a publisher and if I explain why I become marked at least.

Having had the initial problem with the "sign of the son of man" I soon found I had problems with the view of Christ, his being an angel, worship and obesiance. Two groups of christians some of which reject the bread and the wine annually and publicly, a baptism which I am not happy with. Blood transfusions. Etc. There were always things that bothered me whilst I remained a witness, 1975, the elder arrangement etc. but I could still hold to the basic beliefs.

To adjust my view as much as in one way I would like to. I can't.

cyberjesus

I would volunteer to become an undercover agent. Be an elder for a while.. because now things are different.

wobble

It was being honest with myself that made me walk away almost three years ago now. My conscience would not allow me to stay.

I knew that I would lose lifelong friends, people I had grown up with, seen their romances flourish, seen them marry, seen their children born and then grow up and marry in turn. I risked losing my family totally too. (Not my wife and children though, but at the time I did not know what my wife's reaction would be, my sons were already out, for good.)

I still could not remain in the cult despite the personal cost.

I do not see how anybody who is truly honest with themselves can do so, unless it is for a time until loved ones are extricated, but that must be finite, if it doesn't work after a period you must walk, or you are not being honest with yourself.

Broken Promises

I’m still scratching my head wondering what “attitude” I had when I left.

Do you mean the desire to serve God “in spirit and truth”? To be honest with myself, and not pretend to believe things that I didn’t believe?

I didn’t leave because I wanted to be rebellious, or to commit immorality or any of the other things that WTS tells you as the reasons why people leave the Borg.

The whole “truth” was a LIE!! Examination of the org and its doctrines proved that they were wrong. How could I teach such lies to strangers at the doors and still be able to look at myself in the mirror?

Miz, you haven’t really looked at the Borg thoroughly enough. You are like an abused wife who still goes back to her violent husband (“he works hard to pay the bills, and he gives me flowers after we have an argument”) – you cannot accept that you are being hurt by the very organisation which promised to look after you.

So what if the people in your cong are “nice”? So are people in many churches around the world. Have you ever been a member of another church? No? Well then, how do you know your cong is any better than any church in Christendom?

As others have said, it’s a conditional friendship. Try telling your fellow bros and sisters that you post on an apostate board. Try telling them that you don’t agree with everything the Borg teaches? Try missing the meetings and f/s for a few months in a row. Then come back and tell us how loving the bros are.

Miz, not all apostates are angry and bitter. I don’t think I am. Hurt – yes. Skeptical – yes.

But I am also informed, and I value honesty. Which is why I left. Honesty is important to me – is it important to you?

Being honest with yourself, could you have reasonably adjusted your attitude and continued on as a JW?

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