R&F Rumblings

by biometrics 38 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Bobbi
    Bobbi

    @truthlover, I sent you a PM.

    Bobbi

  • biometrics
    biometrics

    I know there are quite a few who are trapped because of family ... etc. But what surprised me the most was when my brother said he knew 5 others having doubts about 1914.

    Personally I think there's a significant percentage (10-20% or more) of JW publishers who are having serious doubts about 1914 overlapping generations. And the fact they're talking about their doubts with other (non-elder) JWs.

  • tinker
    tinker

    When we left many of our closest friends tried to 'encourage' us back while at the same time admitted their own doubts and misgivings. Some came straight out and said they did not believe any of it but it was a good clean life and where else can you go. I have come to understand it is a culture and like it or not you are part of it and it's just too hard to leave. So they continue to 'go to meeting, D2D, assemblies and conventions and Shun me.

    Also there is some degree of power for the men and the women have a pecking order. You can climb the ladder and gain importance even if you are a window washer by trade. Wear a white collar even if at your secular job you are low on the totom pole.

    And it's really pretty easy to be a Jdub, I mean where can you go and get away without ever buying a Christmas or Bday gift for anyone. Everyone 'in the World' is evil and only you are worthy. It all about arrogant supremacy.

  • 144001
    144001
    Probe slowly, 144,001. Some people who've been DFd still believe it all, or at least most of it.

    I know, Ding. My sister is one of those "some people" you describe. This guy was very intelligent, despite not having gone to a university. His issue was that he grew up with parents who loved the "spare the rod" scripture so much that in today's day they would have been arrested and charged with child abuse. I have never seen anyone get it as bad as he did. His parents scared the hell out of me when I was a kid.

    My friend does know I'm out, and while I never told him why, I think he knows that part too, because I was never baptized and left in my early teen years. I will be very careful in addressing any belief issues with him.

  • lostinthought
    lostinthought

    I feel for this guy, I too was told I was ready for baptisim at 12, what does a 12 year old know? I was able to answer all the baptisim questions cause of all the indocternation I recieved from my early childhood till the age of 12, but was I ready to dedicate my life to an orginization?? Nope. Then you have the fear of leaving family and hardly any non witness friends so I over think the situation, "If I go, who whould be my support system" yes, the WT truly has a way of messing people up...

  • kurtbethel
    kurtbethel

    Since the Watchtower is a corporation, in many locations they are on very shaky legal grounds in baptising a minor and have it be legally binding.

  • Quendi
    Quendi

    This thread is most interesting and it reminds me of something Barbara Tuchman wrote in her seminal book about the first month of World War I called The Guns of August:

    “But once divinity of doctrine has been questioned there is no return to perfect faith.”

    She was talking about a German general who had begun to doubt the infallibility of the plan Germany had for a swift victory in the war's opening weeks. I remember that when I first read this, I thought about how it could apply to the WTS. I was still in the organization then, but that thought came into my mind with incredible clarity and force. I have never forgotten it and now that I'm free with no intention of returning, I believe that it is most apropos to many thinking rank-and-file Witnesses who know in their heart of hearts that this religion is completely, utterly and irremediably false!

    Quendi

  • biometrics
    biometrics

    I too was told I was ready for baptisim at 12, what does a 12 year old know? I was able to answer all the baptisim questions cause of all the indocternation I recieved from my early childhood till the age of 12, but was I ready to dedicate my life to an orginization??

    They tried that on me too, at age 14. I always got the answers wrong because I wasn't interested in getting dunked.

  • Black Sheep
    Black Sheep

    I wouldn't even let them ask me the questions.

    It wouldn't surprise me if there were many families where the whole family were just too scared to admit their doubts to each other.

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