I was born in 52, 1976 came and I knew it was a big lie. So I was freed by the organization on January 1, 1976.
Why did you "BORN IN's" leave?
by stillstuckcruz 62 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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The Finger
I could no longer join in preaching that Christ was invisibly present from 1914.
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J. Hofer
there was just too much that didn't add up, backed by weak arguments. at one point i just felt i could not go door to door telling people stuff i don't buy myself.
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Abaddon
By the age of eight I had doubts. I loved nature, and my dad bought me (adult) books about birds and the oceans, which had stuff about evolution in the. That and documentaries on TV with pythons with rudimentary limbs and Hoazins with thumbs on their wings got me to thinking.
But you know, your parents know best, eh? And it was the only world I knew.
By my mid-teens, I knew enough of evolution and geology to know the then-doctrine of 1,000 year creative days was impossible. I had made up my mind to 'do something' if the replacement for the old light blue Evolution book didn't make changes, and it did. Yes, I knew some stuff about evolution et. al., but not enough to know that macroevolution was a fact and that the Flood was a myth, so the change to creative days having no definitive length was enough.
In my late teens I actually had a good time. I was a good little Dubbie, made MS, and had the old cognitive dissonance down pat. I was literal minded enough to think everyone took stuff as seriously as I did (man, why could I not have lead a double life, lol) and that I was the only one faking my field service reports.
Fell in love with a recently reinstated woman with a baby, my parents were horrified (and in hindsight rightfully so, damn it) as I was 'meant' to take my pick of the young innocent pioneer girls (stupid stupid stupid - me, not them). I proposed to her and we got married after six months.
Two years later our first kid, we moved out of London, things were not going well, and away from my parents and the social circle I had grew up with I grew more and more discontent. After our second kid I just could not lead someone else's life anymore, stopped attending meeting and got my own apartment.
At the same time I started studying, and within six months of actual studying realised what a load of old shit the Witlesses stance on creation is. I also read entire shelves at the library (this is back in the early '90's – no Internet) and as my knowledge of comparative religions and theology grew my faith in an actual god faded (I went through the IF there is a god THEN he/she/it is a BASTARD and I won't worship them on moral grounds phase), plopping into nothingness as I understood evolutionary process more.
SO, I left as I'd always had doubts about the truthfulness of the beliefs, but buried them under cog-dis and social conditioning (fear of the consequences of disbelief) until I was so unhappy I had to leave or die.
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jookbeard
not a great deal of difference then someone who converted later in life apart from the fact of a miserable,abusive childhood, a few things never sat right doctrinally even at that young age, but thought that Jerkhoobah and my parents knew better.
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watersprout
I had a great fascination with fairies and angels even as a child. When i went into bookshops i was always drawn to the spiritual books. Although i believed in what i was being taught, i did have the whole cognitive dissonence going on... I hated the thought of people dying at Armageddon...I missed birthdays, xmas and easter. I also couldn't understand why we couldn't eat the bread and wine at the memorial and why Christ was rarely mentioned! I hated the bitching, pettiness, bullying, humilating etc that went on in the cong. If this was Gods organisation why were ''worldly'' people nicer?? Oh yeah the excuse was jehovah was allowing it for now, but these ones won't be allowed to behave like this when in the paradise!
I got baptised at 14 because i wanted to please God...Plus i knew i would be left out if i wasn't baptised *sigh*
I told my parents quite a few times growing up that i didn't want to go anymore, but they would get soo upset i kept going. There was always something tugging at me to leave. The urge to leave got stronger and stronger and i was being drawn to very ''spiritual'' things. I started practising Yoga and my SIL at the time found out and i had lecture after lecture. In the end to get her to shut up i told her i did pilates instead! That kept her quiet! Should have told her to shut her mouth, but i wasn't as trappy then as i am now! Lol.
A few years ago i met a wonderful friend who took me to Christ... Although facing that i had been involved in a cult that rejected my Lord was awful and very distressing, i am soo happy that i am out... Since then i have met many wonderful people who belong to Christ and have shown and taught me very wonderful things.
My house now reflects my ''spiritual'' personality. I have crystals, spiritual books, magazines, pendalums, buddha's, fairies, angels all over the house. You name it i have it. lol. Except anything to do with spiritism. Ain't going there ever!
Carrot used to hide anything spiritual if his parents came round. He can't now cause it's all over the house. Mind you the last time they came round, they were soo horrible to me i was ill for a week. They did believe that i had dragged Carrot out with my ''wacky'' beliefs. Carrot finally told them last week how he felt, what he believed, and that i wasn't the reason he left. They seemed ok. But we shall see.
One time when my in-lwas came round an advert came on about Yoga. My MIL went on to saty that Yoga is demonic. This uncontrollable noise left my body and Carrot glared at me. I tried to compose myself and said ''why is it demonic''. Her reply?? ''the watchtower says it is''. Thats the proof?? The watchtower says so! Its soo laughable!
Sorry for rambling.
Peace
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Black Sheep
I never really joined.
I never really left.
I had enough distrust not to get baptized, but too much conditioning to ask the right questions. I just turned the brain off and waited for decades for WT god to kill me.
In the end my Dad said to me that I had better hurry up and get in now because the generation of 1914 was getting pretty old so Armageddon can't be far away. I clicked at last, and let him have it. When he left I Googled Jehovah's Witnesses false prophets . Dad's favorite doctrine was so old that even the WT had canceled it seven years earlier. He lost his moral high ground and never got it back. Since that day he has defended his religious leaders and doctrines with lies, half truth, misleading statements, character assassination and avoidance. If there is a devil, he sold his soul to it to defend the Watchtower.
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cantleave
Here's my complete story - long but gives you the details of how a born in, stayed in 42 years and made it to elder, eventually woke up.
http://www.thebroadroad.com/forum/?action=goto&index=1#topic/Why-I-left-the-JW-s-after-42-Years.htm
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TotallyADD
I never could understand why I was forced to do something I did not want to do. Field service, meetings, giving talks and not being able to like anybody outside the JW world. My parents were extreme in their cult minded thinking. No sports, no outside friends, no unbelieving relatives and us against the world thinking. This allowed very bad people into my life who did unspeakable things to me. This actually numb me and beat me down to were I felt this was the truth and their was no were else to go. Got married to young, raised two children, and thought if I became a elder I could change things I thought were wrong in JW world. Boy was I wrong. Depression kick in even harder and finally I went outside JW world and got help. After that my eye's and mind were open. The fiction of the flood was the first. Then the GB replacing Jesus as the head of the congregation with themselves. Big one the child abuse. In my family and extended family along I know of 6 pedophiles who have cause extreme damage. And finally the lack of love and understanding within JW world. Many just don't get it. It took me 53 years to wakeup. I was a hard nut to crack. If I can do it, please don't give up hope on your loved ones that you are trying to convince to get out. Being a Born-in into a cult really sucks. Only those who have experience it can fully understand what it is like. Totally ADD
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miseryloveselders
I'm still very much in, but as far as my heart goes, I'm pretty much gone. My reasons for this is the lack of love towards nonJWs. There's always this Us vs. Everyone Else mentality that disturbs me. Within that mentality, there's an underlying bloodlust that the WT encourages through their literature and JW meetings. They really cannot wait until everyone excluding them is destroyed. When Jesus' disciples were anticipating the end of that system of things, it was understandable. The Jewish religious leaders made life difficult on Christians, not to mention the Roman occupation. You can liken it to Iraqis under Saddam, and then later US Infidels occupying their land. As far as JWs being persecuted, with the exception of Russia and some other oddball totalitarian countries, JWs are not getting persecuted. Particulary here in the States, JWs are a nonfactor in people's lives. As a born-in, to have been taught my whole life that all nonJWs are wicked and going to be destroyed very very very soon, only to discover otherwise as I got older, was a tremendous credibility killer for the WT.
Another thing is the repetative cycle of formalities peculiar to JWs. These incessant meetings, neverending field service in apathetic communities, the neverending references to the Faithful and Discreet Slave, literature that can arguably be labled propaganda which continually seeks to elicit emotions out of the reader which are simply not present. It's like enough with the exclamation points already. I guess to ball of that up in a nutshell, I'd say faith cannot be regimented. Faith and the works behind it have to come from the heart, however this religion seeks to motivate or one might say manipulate works, through fear and ostracism. Once a person dispels the fear portion of it all, such as losing Jehovah's favor and possibly being destroyed in the near future, they've got one more obstacle to deal with. Which is, the almost certainty of losing their family and loved ones via disfellowshipping, disassociating, or even marking. I can only imagine how many JWs have contemplated, or have successfuly committed suicide because of trying to live up to some unscriptural measurement, but realizing that they simply cannot. Lord knows I've been suicidal at times. This religion just isn't healthy.
One last thing I feel needs mentioned, is the class distinctions found within the WT. A perfect example is this 30 hour Auxilliary Pioneer initiative for this month only. The word pioneer is not in the Bible, nor is there any word with a meaning that can be stretched to match up to the word pioneer as we use it today. Fact of it all is, we don't know how many hours Paul, or Jesus spent in the ministry. Yet, the WT will encourage people to live up to some imaginary bar of 50 hours, or 70 hours, or for the month of April 2011........30 hours. Consider how that sounds. If you signed up for the 30 hour initiative this month, they're going to read your name off from the platform, and announce that you're an auxilliary pioneer for the month of April 2011. Now next month if you decide you're going to get another 30 hours in the ministry, well thats fine and dandy, but you're not going to get your name read from the platform. You were only special last month. Its arbitrary nonsense like that has really left a bad taste in my mouth in recent years.