Thanks to Those That Went Before Us (page 3)

watson

First of all, thanks to the Internet, closely followed by Simon and this forum. I would never have had the guts to buy an "apostate" book.

Years of doubt have been justified.

Watson

Reopened Mind

OTWO,

We may not be able to make a horse drink once he has been led to water, but if someone hadn't led him there he wouldn't have had the choice to drink or not. Thanks to all of you who have led the way.

Yes, I agree with Clarity that flipper is awesome. He never disappoints me by acknowledging my posts on his threads. This shows that he cares about what others say, not just his own opinion. OTWO, I thank you for your reply also.

Reopened Mind

The Quiet One

My limited vocabulary cannot express how much that I owe to Mr.Grundy for making jwfacts.com and saving me many hours of research that I would never have had the time/motive to conduct to such a degree myself. As I've mentioned before, my initial reaction to 'apostate' views expressed on the internet was anger, and with my reasoning and logical thinking abilities thus clouded, I didn't consider any of the views to be of any worth, I thought 'you' were 'all' wicked, selfish people trying to exact revenge on those that had hurt you in the org by drawing jw's away from Jehovah. I'm sorry for that.. To cut a long story short, my many surpressed doubts all came to a head when I finally realised that I didn't even know why I believed the FDS were who they said they were, but as a born-in their word was on a par with the Bible itself. Any questions that couldn't be answered directly from the Bible, or confusing or contradictory statements in the magazines that I had trouble with were dismissed as ''well, that's what the FDS says''. After googling FDS I found the page on jwfacts, the name appealing to me as I thought it would be unbiased. Which turned out to be true as to the wording of the articles. I wasn't convinced at first by what was written there, I was still under the 'fog' of dissonance as it were, but I found I had to respect his clear and logical articles and especially the way he used watchtower quotes, if it wasn't for those I could have swept my doubts back under the rug. But a defense cannot be made when someones own words conflict and prove them to be false. The mental walls I had erected began to crumble, and the 1914and organisation articles (as well as the mind control page that made me feel as though I finally understood why I had ignored what had been staring me right in the face) proved beyond doubt that the walls were not worth rebuilding. A line that especially helped me to conquer my fear of '' where else is there?'', in the organisation article I think, was where he pointed out that Peter actually said ''To WHOM shall we go away to..'', that any hope of an afterlife of some kind was not based on belonging to a certain group. That very week an elder answered from a paragraph with the common misquote of ''WHERE shall we go..'' . And the 'beware organisation, it is unnecessary' quote from Russell himself was just a small part of the icing on a well frosted cake. I owe my mental and emotional freedom to Mr. Grundy, and I scarcely think that I could write a cheque large enough to repay him. So this will have to do. Thank you for jwfacts.. And thanks to all on jwn for keeping me going.

OnTheWayOut

Quendi, good thoughts. Another thank you to Lady Lee. Goes to show ya.

El Nunya, exactly the kind of post for this thread. Thanks for adding.

Pam's Girl, yes- also those to come.

Nickolas, I examined myself and agree that I took myself out of WTS. I figured that I would have come out no matter what. Still, it was smoother with the trailblazers. My wife won't take the true spiritual journey of examination either, yet. If/when she does, I will know how to smoothen the path.

I'll look at page 2 later.

EntirelyPossible

Excellent thread, bro.

Red Piller

Congrats Jerry from Chicago.

Twitch

Yes, nods to Simon and mods past and present, who keep this going and maintain a semblance of order. Indeed, all who've maintained an internet site relating to this.

I have to give honorable mention to Lady Lee, who was there with info at hand when I stopped and looked back at what happened. She and all who go out of their way this way have my respect and admiration.

Magwitch

Beautiful thread. I would like to thank my four siblings that all became apostates 20 years ago. They lovingly waited for me and supported me when I was ready. I never could have exited without them. Many thanks to WomenAwake, JWrecovery and JWN - it has been an interesting journey. And many thanks to my absolute favorite poster... leavingwt... His cool, kind, intelligent demeanor always speaks volumes.

OnTheWayOut

Watson, I am glad you had the guts to read apostasy on the internet.

Reopened Mind, another poster shouting out thanks to Flipper. Okay. I have always appreciated his style of answering everyone.

The Quiet One, yes. I loved jwfacts.com when I found it and used it extensively. Three cheers for Mr. Grundy.

Acknowledging EntirelyPossible and Red Pillar. Thanks for commenting/sharing.

Twitch, another nod to Lady Lee. I don't care for every last Mod here, but okay.

Magwitch, here's to family and other forums and to other posters that helped you:

james_woods

I would like to add to this list the names of Marion and Ed Dunlap.

These were the two people most directly responsible for helping me out of it.

Thanks to Those That Went Before Us

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