by ilikecheese 36 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Welcome, welcome.
"Generation" was my biggest problem. In 1995, they abandoned their old teaching and went to something very vague. It bugged me that they could just change like that- doctrinal changes driven by the calendar.
While I stayed another decade, that was the biggest thing to push at me. I never would have stayed when they changed "generation" again in 2008 to the anointed and then came up with that silly "overlap generation" teaching in 2010.
What pushed me to the breaking point was my reading of Matthew 12. Here Jesus emphasized Mercy over sacrifice.
Taking that to the next step, you can see how heartless (and a sacrifice) the blood doctrine is. They are asking people to sacrifice their lives and those of their children, whilst ignoring the spirit of the word. Life is more precious than even the law.
Another thing the Israelites were forbidden was the shewbread in the temple, it was only for the Levites. Yet David and his men were permitted to eat the shewbread when they were starving. Again, the law was set aside in the face of someone dying.
This is no different than the blood issue. Because they have steadfastly held to this cruel doctrine, they are themselves bloodguilty, as much as if they had committed the murder themselves.
Wow! Where do I begin? Well, to be specific, the thing that turned the tide for me is found in Matthew chapter 25:
41 “Then he will say, in turn, to those on his left, ‘Be on YOUR way from me, YOU who have been cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.
42 For I became hungry, but YOU gave me nothing to eat, and I got thirsty, but YOU gave me nothing to drink.
43 I was a stranger, but YOU did not receive me hospitably; naked, but YOU did not clothe me; sick and in prison, but YOU did not look after me.’
44 Then they also will answer with the words, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to you?’
45 Then he will answer them with the words, ‘Truly I say to YOU , To the extent that YOU did not do it to one of these least ones, YOU did not do it to me.’
46 And these will depart into everlasting cutting-off, but the righteous ones into everlasting life.”
I grew up in the evil empire (i.e. "The 'Truth'"). We were taught that "one of these least ones" are Jesus' earthly, spirit-annointed brothers (i.e. the remnent of the 144,000). I also grew up with a father who professed to be of the annointed.
For the last 20 years I was in the evil empire I watched my father being persecuted for professing to be of the annointed. He was even DFed for a year because of it. He even told me that others who professed to be of the annointed experienced the same and that there are Circuit Overseers who make it a hobby going around persecuting such ones.
I'm a very logical person, which does not work well in any religion. I looked at this logically. Well, logically, if Elders and C.O.'s are supposedly agents of the Governing Body, and the Governing Body is supposedly the Faithful and Discreet Slave, then the FDS is persecuting Christ's brothers. I hope everyone sees where I am going with this.
Well it was the intellectual dishonesty for me....I could no longer accept what was taught and believe the authority of the Society if they are dishonest with the facts. Two things I recall in particular. The Trinity brochure was released in 1989, and I was in college at the time and reading many of the church fathers first hand in the university library. I also started to take Greek classes. I remember how intellectually offended I felt to read how the brochure misrepresented the views of the church fathers, and then in 1990 when it was being discussed in Book Study I had to decide whether to go to the meeting and question the accuracy of the material, or just stay home and do my homework. And I decided to stay home, because I could not imagine just sitting still and hearing people regurgitate what the brochure says without pointing out what the publication is leaving out. Also earlier that year we had the Revelation book as the Book Study material, and again it was a similar situation. The whole thing was such bullcrap that it felt like I was really wasting my time going to the book study -- why am I sitting here when I have Greek homework to do? So I stopped going to the meetings (in addition to always hating them), and I didn't feel honest pushing such literature in field service, so I pretty much stopped that.
Well my exit journey started with reading both of Ray Franz' books (Crisis of Conscience and In Search of Christian Freedom). However, I have to emphasize that, the only reason I was even willing to pick up the books was that I had been out of the organization (disfellowshipped) for nearly two years. So essentially I had a good "drying out" period. Otherwise I never would've read them.
The line of reasoning that finally got me out was basically the same one Don Cameron uses in "Captives of a Concept", although I didn't read that book until much later. In short, it goes like this:
The most important doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses is that their organization was selected by Jesus in 1919 to be his "channel of communication" in fulfillment of Matthew 24:45. If this doctrine is false, then all other teachings of the Watchtower are invalid and don't even need to be considered. In order for the Watchtower to have passed Jesus' inspection and receive his approval, they had to have been teaching the "right things" at the right "time."
Once you've established this, you simply have to examine what was being taught by the organization at the time when Jesus supposedly made his inspection (1914-1919) and ask yourself, "Does it makes sense that Jesus would have selected them based on these teachings?"
If you make this examination, what you'll find is virtually everything that was taught during that time period is now considered to be "old light," which is a fancy way of saying FALSE. So ask yourself, if the majority of the Witnesses' teachings were false and later had to be altered, how can you say that Jesus was pleased with them and gave his approval? In addition, it was about that time that "The Finished Mystery" was published, which is chock full of nonsensical, downright hilarious scriptural interpretations that, if made public today, would cause the organization no end of embarrassment.
Yes it's true....for all the "apostate" information I was reading, the final nail in the coffin, the moment when it finally dawned on me that this was not God's organization, came from reading the organization's own literature.
Also the doctrinal changes are a big one. The easiest one to point out is their interpretation of Romans 13:1, the superior authorities. In Russell's time, they correctly interpreted it as referring to earthly governments. Rutherford comes along and says "Oh no that's a teaching of evil Christendom; the superior authorities are really Jehovah God and his Christ." And then after Rutherford's death it gets changed back to the original (and correct) interpretation. This is a case where the whole "Oh but the light gets brighter!" line of reasoning totally falls apart.
"But the path of the righteous ones is like the bright light that gets cappriciously switched on and off by a group of senile men in Brooklyn, until you die of old age with unfulfilled hopes." Proverbs 4:18 (NWT)
Wow! Leavingwt, that is the best, fairest, testimony I have heard! It's excellent! Thank you for sharing that.
The point of view that helped push me out is the belief that they are directed by The Holy Spirit. Say what? I memorized the fruits of the spirit. Sometimes I would recite them and try to fit into them what I was seeing and hearing and it would't fit. Lots and lots of times, it just wouldn't fit.
Since the JWs are wrong about everything, for the most part, there indeed are too many reasons to list. You just scratched the surface. Here are many other issues you can raise with him.
http://www.144000.110mb.com/directory/jehovahs_witnesses_directory_beliefs.html
You can nail the coffin shut with Jerusalem's alleged destruction in 607, their occult roots, the 144,000 issue whereby heaven has been closed off to mankind, their multiple salvation plans, and the Trinity doctrine, which is perfectly reasonable to have faith in.
The change to the generation teaching in 1995 did it for me, only it took years later for me to see that this religion is a sham. If you were a witness for any length of time BEFORE this change, you would have never believed that this doctrine was going to change (i.e. the generation of 1914 would not pass off the earthly seen before the end comes). When they went on to change it again and again after the 1995 change, I already faded, but I still couldn't believe that they would proceed to change the generation teaching twice after 1995! This proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God's Holy Spirit was directing them - after all, the Holy Spirit cannot be wrong about doctrine and Bible understanding.
I'm also interested to see that there have been many exJWs who were VERY bothered by that 1995 change, as evidenced by the posts to this topic. Indeed, we were taught (as printed every two weeks in the Awake) that this was "God's promise". Well, now I know that this organization is run simply by man. Not only are they imperfect, the leaders are dilusional to think that God is using ONLY THEM! What a bunch of crap. At the time (1995), there was no easy way to see what our JW peers were really thinking about this change - with the internet, any JW can now see what their peers are thinking about many controversial JW subjects and it can be done anonymously!
Lastly, I would not have anything to do with this JW person. Even if he remains a JW and he's okay with you not being one, there will be problems in the future - the "religion" of JWs will see to that. Like they say, there are many fish in the sea, stop fishing in the sea of this religion. Also, if you are thinking of learning more about this religion, don't be fooled into thinking that you should ONLY read WTS publications. You should also research as much as possible from critical sources, as it seems you are already doing. Good for you!
I personally believe the 1995 change effected many one-time very loyal JWs. Of course, once the child molestation mis-handling/cover-up and UN NGO membership/involvement broke, these issues added weight to JW's decisions to fade or outright leave this man-made religion! So many one-time very loyal JWs could now see that this religion is NOT who they say they are!
607. Once you get rid of 607, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.
Also, the thought that billions of people who have never heard of Jehovah or turned down the JW comic books at the door are going to be judged as wicked and destroyed (including millions of children).
