A zillion different things, but a big one was how history didn't marry up with Watchtower's version of 'history'. Even bigger was reading books about totalitarian regimes like North Korea, and cult survivors' memoirs.
What REALLY Convinced You To Leave/Lose Faith in JWs?
by Recovery 106 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Phizzy
I may well have posted on this Thread before, six pages !
I think that 6 pages shows that if we are actively trying to wake up JW family or friends, it is a difficult task to identify what would be the particular trigger to make these ones examine their beliefs and their Organization.
Every JW Camel seems to have a different straw that breaks its back.
What we all have in common is that we always had a certain quantity of Cognitive Dissonance, and when the "straw" was placed on our back, that was the Tipping Point.
For me it happened when I simply read Daniel Chapter 4 as though I had never read it before, and I realised that 1914 was simply nothing to do with what Daniel was talking about, and nowhere else in the Bible supported the idea of 1914 being the start of Jesus reign, or any other Biblically significant thing.
Within 10 minutes of this realisation I had decided I could no longer go Door to Door and teach a lie.
The rest is history as they say.
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Xanthippe
I agree with Phizzy I already had a certain amount of CD for many years. That aweful 607 - 1914 prophecy drove me crazy. I actually felt embarrassed explaining why my whole way of life - the 1914 generation thing - was based on four scriptures all over the Bible. Calculating 2520 days was it? and then saying you have to count a 'day for a year', I felt ridiculous because I put myself in the householder's place. I sounded like I was talking drivel. Guess what, I was!
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yadda yadda 2
Ultimately my powers of critical thinking. I just couldn't take my intelligence being so insulted any more.
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notjustyet
I always had an issue with the Bllod fractions being allowed, not that they should not be allowed, but that the WTBTS could somehow have in any way
get anything remotely having to do with fractions out of that scripture. It was clearly a "pacifier" or "salve" to many but not to me as I could see the maneuvering to try to "be all things for all people" and to slowly make a move toward allowing blood. I think it was a legal move for liability reasons.
The big kick in the teeth was hearing about the 2010 generation change. Especially the word "Evidently" being used in the explanation. I mean how can you use the word "evidently" in that explanation? See explanation "2" below, "on the basis of available evidence" Dude, if that is what the WTBTS thinks evidence is, then I AM OUT of here!!
NJY
Full Definition of EVIDENTLY
1 : in an evident manner : clearly, obviously <any style … so evidently bad or second-rate — T. S. Eliot> 2 : on the basis of available evidence <he was born…evidentlyin Texas — Robert Coughlan>
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LongHairGal
Phizzy:
When I started my "fade" in early 2001, I wasn't aware they elevated themselves over Jesus. Many JWs are not really aware of this because it is a very subtle teaching. I found this out in the years after that when I did a tremendous amount of reading.
This only added to the many straws on the proverbial camel's back. Learning of yet more ridiculous revisions to their "generation" teaching also makes me doubly glad and delighted that I am out of this nonsense.
My only regret is that I didn't leave ten years earlier.
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Bungi Bill
Not being able to live the lie / keep up the charade anymore.
After the 1975 debacle, I knew deep down, that the religion of the JWs was no different from any others - after all.
However - and I am not proud to have to admit this - I did go through several decades of denial after that. I tried to justify myself with the thought that if this one wasn't exactly perfect, then it was still head and shoulders above anything else. I desperately wanted to believe the Society's post-1975 propaganda that it was all the fault of "some" individual JWs reading more into it than the WTS actually said.
In the end, though, the discovery hit that you cannot hide your head in the sand forever - and all ostritches end up with are cold backsides!
Bill