I Just Knew This Was the Truth as Soon as I Heard It !

by bigmouth 17 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  bigmouth

  I can't count the number of Witnesses I've heard, or experiences I've read, who say this.

  This is the basis on which they decide to join a high control religion ?

  Do you make important decisions based on gut feeling or intuition or do you spend time researching a matter first ? I've made some dumb decisions based on emotion and had to repent at my leisure.

  Actually, I was thinking about the mother with a missing child who just knows she's alive somewhere and is coming home. And then they find her body. But hope and positive thought are linked. I guess we believe things just because it feels right sometimes.

  Just musing. Any thoughts ??
• 

  ekruks

  Good illustration!

  People also often base marriage etc. on gut feelings; this is a major commitment, in a way like joining a religion because it's a big part of life.
• 

  ekruks

  or should I say, "becomes" a big part of life!
• 

  jahovahtruthtoday

  I agree 100 percent.... :-)
• 

  White Dove

  Yeah, remember "the ring of truth?"

  "They were showing me scriptures, and it had the ring of truth, so I knew it was for me."

  Blech.
• 

  MrMonroe

  It's a religion that places a huge amount on emphasis on rational belief. They like to take mysticism out of it as much as possible (except where it comes in handy, like explaining how God uses the FDS to provide new light....).

  I confess I found many of their teachings appealing because they made sense: why God wouldn't create humans with the intention that they'd die, why an intelligent creator suggests an intelligent purpose ...

  Other teachings I just learned to swallow because they were part of the package: that God has an organisation, that only 144,000 go to heaven, that a complex set of hidden clues pointed to 1914 being a pivotal year in human history etc etc. And blood and birthdays were part of that as well.

  The problem is their teaching methods, restricting information to a very narrow, predetermined course, with pre-provided answers to the questions they ask, is a very clever, and very insidious method of teaching. Indoctrination, really. You have to ACCEPT certain points before you can move on to the next step. It simply forces people to accept the whole range of teachings without room for alternative views. And that's where the mind control starts.
• 

  bigmouth

  "the ring of truth?"

  That was exactly the phrase I was thinking of.

  The 'anointed' claim to have certainty they are chosen by some in-definable feeling. Presumably millions determine what they believe based on a ring of truth.
• 

  Scully

  yes, I've heard that too.

  Usually, it means, when translated: I couldn't understand what the fark they were saying, but they were reading from the Bible so it must be true!
• 

  bigmouth

  MrMonroe - Yes, that's how I initially fell for the JW's.

  You describe something like a bundled contract for a thing or service....you can't have that without accepting this.
• 

  WTWizard

  This is a super whopper of a black eye in the Law of Attraction. I can remember thinking it was the truth because I had limited to no experience in religion, and they made it look like it was scriptural. I investigated by going to boasting sessions, eventually getting baptized, and gradually had to figure it out myself that it was packed full of lies. If you get what you think about most of the time, new recruits would genuinely be the happiest people on the earth BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THEY ARE THINKING ABOUT MOST OF THE TIME! But instead, they end up miserable and destitute.