After leaving the JW's, why would anybody seek another religion (page 3)

ziddina

Nostalgia??

Insecurities???

Fear of death???

Desire for a close-knit community???

Lingering faith in that Johnny-come-lately Middle-Eastern Bronze-Age nomads' god????

FlyingHighNow

Some of us were not raised inside the WTBTS org. Some of us were always spiritual people. Some of us had healthy experiences with a church or religion pre-JW's.

Many of us laid low for a good long time after stopping meetings.

I stopped in 1990, going to the KH that is. I was raised going to the Episcopal Church every Sunday until the summer I was eleven. Mom stopped taking us after her divorce and subsequent move to another city and state. At 14 I had a traumatic experience that left me in an agnostic state. I have since learned that it's very normal at that age to question. I wish I had known I could call the closest Episcopal Church for a ride. It would have been a much healthier way to spend my teenaged years and it would have prevented me being hornswaggled by the JW's later on.

My mother was wacky about some things, but religion she did right. She never used God or the Bible to shame or scare us. She took us to a healthy, non-controlling church. She let us absorb the experience more spiritually and make up our own minds about things. She allowed us to go to any church we wanted to. In my agnostic years she encouraged my interest in Eastern spirituality. She bought me books about astrology and even learned to read charts herself.

Ironically, the one religion she had huge problems with was Jehovah's Witnesses. She was not happy when my sister began to study when I was 17. She was doubly upset when my sister lured me into it after our brother's death. It took months of my sister chipping away at my own beliefs to hook me into studying. They bribed me into going to meetings with them. They talked and talked about it all the time.

So I got hooked after Cory's death. I was going on 18. I studied off and on and was baptized when I was 20. At first it seemed cool. That sure didn't last. When I was 27 we moved to a congo that was particularly warped. Very bad experience. I always longed for the light ease and beauty of the church of my youth. By the time I was 30 I was used up by the JW's. I had far too much on my plate of life. I collapsed in exhaustion and stopped going completely by mid 91. I was inactive and began to let my kids live a more normal life. I was still brainwashed to a point though.

Got the internet in 99. Read some things about Ray Franz and others. I had always known I would have to read "apostate literature" if I came across any. In 2001 I read Crisis of Conscience and began talking to Ex-JW's. I lurked around JWN. I joined Women Awake in 2002. Joined here in 2003. Read a lot. Thought a lot. Returned to the Episcopal Church in 2006. It's been a very good experience for me. This church embraces you no matter what you believe or think, even if you aren't Chrisitan or are agnostic or an atheist. It is because they respect that every one of us is on our own unique, spiritual journey.

Most of us are spiritual beings and we crave a way to address and nurture this part of ourselves. It's not such a shocking move to make, to seek another religion, especially if you were not raised in JW's. Jehovah's Witnesses are one of the extreme religious disciplines. Do not judge all religions and churches by them. It will give you a very inaccurate picture.

CAMELOT

My desire to serve God and be active in his word is still true. Just because I found out that the JW's doctorines were altered to their advantage doesn't change my heart. Problem is ...where do I turn. After years of the same "Reasoning from the Scriptures" ...I haven't a clue where I will go now. I just mailed my DA letter last week. I do hope I will find answers that enrich my life not make it weighed down as it was.

Camelot

Judge Dread

I don't know.

JDW

TDaze

Ziddina pretty much nailed it. Lots of religions make you dependant on it.

What I also find interesting is that there are people who do not go far enough with their questioning. I thought it was only reasonable that if I could be wrong about one thing, I could be wrong about plenty of other related things. So I threw out everything religious, including the belief in a god. Sure it's hard, but the result is better. The Christian god does not exist. Get over it.

Really, leaving the JWs for any other religion is just trading one poison for another.

godrulz

Trading the WT cult for a love relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is not poison for poison. Leaving WT to become a Mormon would be poison for poison.

steve2

What I also find interesting is that there are people who do not go far enough with their questioning. I thought it was only reasonable that if I could be wrong about one thing, I could be wrong about plenty of other related things. So I threw out everything religious, including the belief in a god. Sure it's hard, but the result is better. The Christian god does not exist. Get over it.

Very well said. I so agree. Strength of conviction or feeling is absolutely no indicator of truth. The world teems with people absolutely and utterly convinced their "version" of "god" is correct. You can't get any more fully convinced that the willingness of some "believers" resorting to terrorism in response to their unalterable level of conviction. The Bible - especially the aptly termed Old Testament - reeks of genocidal and homicidal Jehovian rage. Little wonder it both attracts and creates nutcases by the never-ending truckload.

Losing one's faith in the watchtower is a real eye-opener to the inexpressible stupidity of handing one's life over to either an organized religion or an invisible being whose appearances and rules vary widely across time and place.

Ditch religious belief and get a life worth living.

Juan Viejo2

I am always surprised at how many former ex-JWs end up in evangelical community churches. Some of them even support and practice "shunning" of dissident members. This totally amazes me.

It's like trading white wine for red. It may look different and even taste different, but it will still make you drunk and kill you if you drink too much of it.

BRCI, and some other more prominent ex-JW groups, seem to push a more liberal Southern Baptist teaching and ethic, like Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church in Southern California. I've been to that church and I've read Warren's book, but it's still the same message that all evangelical churches push. While they really don't push their theology on stage, deferring to "feel good" music and "love your neighbor and be a good family member" sermons, when you go in for their "Bible studies," it's the same Trinitarian, Hellfire and brimstone, born-again theology most of us have realized to be the same warmed over Calvinistic crap we all tried to escape when we joined the Borg. An overweight, goateed, Hawaiian shirt wearing Bible thumper may be a more relaxed and entertaining religious leader, but he's still spouting the same fairy tales that conservative religous groups have taught for 600 years.

Is following Warren, Pat Robertson, Joel Osteen, Bob Schuller, Paul Crouch, and Benny Hinn the way to escape a religious cult. And the Mormons - I've known some very well - and they are for the most part good people, but they believe bigger fairy tales than the JWs could ever preach and their corporate structure is even more corrupt than that of the Watchtower.

When you finally escape from the cult, why in the world would you want to dive right back into another similar situation. Remember, William Miller (of the "Great Dissapointment"), the great-great grandfather of Jehovah's Witnesses - was a Baptist preacher.

JV

ziddina

Extremely well put, TDaze, Steve2 and Juan...

ziddina

Flying High Now, so sorry to hear that you got sucked into the cult because of your brother's tragic death...

Your comment,

"Most of us are spiritual beings and we crave a way to address and nurture this part of ourselves. It's not such a shocking move to make, to seek another religion, especially if you were not raised in JW's. Jehovah's Witnesses are one of the extreme religious disciplines. Do not judge all religions and churches by them. It will give you a very inaccurate picture. ..."

You made an excellent point...

I can't agree with the belief that we're spiritual beings, but I see the validity of your statement, even though my life goes in a totally different direction.

Zid

After leaving the JW's, why would anybody seek another religion

Share this