what started you to doubt?

by Imbue 12 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Imbue

  I had this at Kents and there were several thoughtful and interesting replies. However, I would like to read some more.

  Actally Abaddon asked me this question and started me to thinking.......... so i wrote back this:

  I stared to study a 19 yrs old while attending uni' and dropped because of the 'Truth'. This was difficult because I came from an affluent Catholic family and was expected to at least attain a masters level. My brothers all attended Ivy Leage schools and I was in a decent art school in NY. So this didn't go over well with my family.

  While studying with the JWs I met my husband and he started to study . We wound up getting baptized then married in the same year. We've been in ten years.

  I was an atheist when I started to study. Strange how things come full circle. I still have faith in Jah. I've just lost my faith in humans; they've always disappointed me.

  I think my doubts started when our Po's son attempted suicide and he was treated by his parents and two brothers like the families dirty little secret, unworthy of their status. He has bipolar-Major depressive disorder. His parents told him and loudly proclaimed to all that their sons would all pioneer and then go
  to
  bethel after high school or they must leave her home. He was never allowed to find his own idenity and rejected the forced idenity his parents intended for him. Mind you, he was not given a way to support himself even though his father is a business executive. They don't believe in 'higher education.' His parents would have had to pay for his college. I think this had someting to do with it as well. Now he delivers pizza sometimes.

  His parents told him to DA and move out at 19, so daddy could keep his elder status. Well this young man has now been in and out of jail and the psyche ward for several years now. He's on a path of self destruction because he has the black and white mentality. Either I'm good and acceptable or I'm bad and unworthy. I was in a state of rage as I watched them damage him as a human being. They clearly scapegoated him. I sat
  in
  their living room for the book study and noticed his picture was removed after he DA'd. It was difficult to be around these people. I was a walking about in a rage over this and other things. So, I know about anger. People have been fearful of my anger. That's why I'm aware of it and even sensitive to anger. What really bothers me is when I see others being hurt. I've worked through the anger and I'm ready to move on from that place.

  Now that I think about it it was the DF and DA policies that started to make me doubt. It's so unjust and unloving.

  Crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
• 

  DakotaRed

  I think I always had a little doubt, right from the start, but didn't pay attention. Their not beliving in the trinity was my main draw to them. After studying for almost 4 years, I was being pressured ito getting baptized, so I went ahead and did. A nagging voice in the back of my head kept telling me not to, but as I said above, I didn't listen. I convinced myself they were the truth and followed their crap blindly.

  I attended my first convention in 1993, when they released the Kingdom Proclaimers book. Here, I was being taught how they took care of all and literature was available to all, "free of charge." Of course, donations were accepted. But, here it is my very first convention, as all the time during study, I was never invited. They announced the release of the book, but not to all.

  Here I am a newly baptised one, eager to fit in and do what is required, but the newest publication is being made only to those who are elders then to older ones. Us new ones would just have to wait for a couple months until the books were available. Of course, older ones could take more than one book per family while new ones went without.

  That was the first time I really took note of their hypocrisy, but it still took more time for me to get so disgusted that I fled.

  If God's Spirit is filling a Kingdom Hall, how is it that Satan can manuever the ones within that Kingdom Hall at the same time?
• 

  Nathan Natas

  In my case there were afew things:

  My mom started studying with the witnesses when I was about 7, and the first thing to go was my family - dad left and with mom at a grade school level education we lived below the poverty line, on and off on welfare. None of my talents or interests were encouraged - whatever choice I made, it was wrong - be obediant, listen to mom, don't bring shame to her. I tried to be a good kid and do what I was told. I participated in the Ministry School, went out "in service," then , when I was old enough, worked part time and began pioneering. Eventually, in my late teens, I was asked if I wanted to be a Ministerial Servant. "Yes," I replied, knowing that The Holy Spirit would see to it that my appointment would be turned down - I >KNEW< I wasn't "good enough." The appointment was approved. I was stunned, and I wrote to the Society and asked for an explanation of how the appointments were processed. My letter was ignored. As a Ministerial Servant I got to learn from elders that I had known for more than a decade how things worked in the congregation. I became aware of some of the "dirty laundry." In the late 60's we began the "countdown" to 1975. One day while out in service with my pioneer partners I asked them what they would do if one day they discovered that this was all wrong - that it wasn't the truth. The answers ran the gamut from "I'd press on regardless" to my "I'd try to regroup and live my life." As Armageddon got closer, I saw the irrational sacrifices that some in the congregation were making - and being encouraged to make. People divided their assets by the number of months remaining until "the end" and determined that they would Pioneer and live off this small allowance. The sense of urgency was great. Brothers sold profitable businesses and [roperties and began to pioneer, living off the proceeds. Lots of new people were coming to meetings. I learned that one of the promising new brothers had a problem - he liked little boys. Nothing was done. he was allowed to progress in the congregation and eventually married a sister who had a couple of small children from her previou s marriage.

  At about this time I received aan unexpected invitation to take a job far away from where I was living. I took it. Unconscioously I knew I had to. In my new location I remained inactive for months, then one spring I decided I ought to go to the Memorial. I went to the local congregation and attended. Throughout the meeting I felt empty. After the Memorial I sat in my car and made a decision. "I'm never going back."

  - Nathan Natas, UADNA
  (Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America)
• 

  DanTheMan

  How could I list them all? The weird and uninspiring Memorial. The endless "are you doing all that you can/are you using every opportunity/are you living up to your dedication" at meetings and especially at the boring, stupid conventions. The misery of the friends. The endless going-on about fornication, adultery, homosexuality (can we talk about something else, brother sexualmorals?) The screwed-up kids who grow up as dubs. I think a story on a TV news program about a little boy who was cured of sickle-cell disease by a transfusion of umbilical cord blood was the clincher. I thought "how could that be wrong in God's eyes?" I could go on and on.
• 

  LB

  I had the blinders on for while. What really got me started to doubt was when a very horrible man was appointed as a MS. I showed up with two regular pioneers to talk to the elders about this guy. I mean he was doing things that could have gotten him DFed and we were trying to just encourage the guy into sticking around the 'truth'. Well the elders shined us on of course, they had made up their mind about him.

  So much for holy spirit.

  That got me looking around, at the hypocrits, the way people talked about each other behind their backs. All of it added up and I knew I wasn't anyplace that had God's spirit backing it.

  
  Never Squat With Yer Spurs On
• 

  D8TA

  Contradictions in the WT articles started my doubt. So I did what the Society asked: "Investigate" and I did. Noticing the Contradictions lead me to Omissions. Omissions in quotes, articles, and WTBTS history. Omissions led to fear, fear led to hate, and hate led to suffering.(whoops, sorry, watching The Phantom Menace while typing this--please disregard). *Cough* Ahem...anywayz...It was the published material itself of the WTBTS that led me to doubt.

  D8TA
• 

  cellomould

  I received an interesting fortune cookie a little more than a year ago: "Your doubts will soon be relieved".

  And then I moved from the doubting phase to the understanding and accepting phase very quickly...

  ...I knew that there was no 'Jehovah' in 'Jehovah's Organization' when I realized it was all about social acceptance. No one really cared about the truth, only the semblance of 'Truth'.

  And to answer the original question, much of my major doubting started when I began to suspect that a male JW friend had feelings for me. At the time I was engaged to be married and contemplating the nature of my own premarital 'sins'. Anyhow, the entire situation seemed so unfair and conventional wisdom was getting me nowhere.

  So I kicked the habit of relying on conventional wisdom in the pseudo-progressive JW style.

  cellomould

  

  "In other words, your God is the warden of a prison where the only prisoner is your God." Jose Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
• 

  Preston

  Well...to put it bluntly, I just wasn't happy, and I found a correlation between my "career" as a JW, and my unhappiness. Even when I realized I was downrigth miserable, I made it my aim to stay in the organization, since I felt it was "the truth", and that the religious instruction was the reason to stay. Still, the longer I stayed I could only think of the contradicitions that were prevalent, and how incompatible "the truth" was to my life, and the lives of others. Yes, there were other people like myself who were not happy with the truth. Likewise, I felt I was experiencing an identity crisis where I didn't know who I was. I was living the ultimate reality of self denial. I didn't do anything for myself, including giving time for myself to grow mentally, emotionally, and yes, spiritually. How can anyone say that one can grow spiritually in the congregation, when it's the same material over and over again. Yes, I know, repetition is the mother of retention, but sometimes too much, it too much. I didn't feel challenged enough.

  I listed several reasons why I left. I can't really give one big reason, becuase there's sooooo much that's wrong with being a Dub. When the elders grilled me over my "coming out" to them, that was the big clincher, but really it was a slow progression of things I realized.
• 

  Imbue

  There are many reasons why an individual leaves. This one incident is what I think was the beginning of my doubting phase. I have many more stories to tell as well.

  What do you think was the beginning of this phase for you?

  Crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
• 

  TheStar

  Dakota Red,

  Your account sounds very similar to mine. I had doubts from the begining. I studied out of the knowledge book. It convinced me that the Org. was the only Org. directed by God... After that none of my doubts mattered, I felt as long as I was in God's only organization on the earth, my doubts were only a the result of my sinful mind, so I was able to bury them deep into the far corners of my mind. I did it for 6 years... struggling as a single person trying to work 2 jobs and attend all the meetings, service etc etc... miserably wearing myself out trying to do it all because I wanted Jehovah to love me and be proud of me. It bothers me to no end, that when I had my bible study and before I got baptized no one presented the real issues to me, they didn't lay everything out on the table so that I could make an informed decision, they only brainwashed me into believing it was the only organization directed by God. I didn't even realize all the flip flops the org. had made in the past regarding so many things like organ transplants, vaccinations and the such. I didn't know that when Russell started the religion, blood transfusion were acceptable then it was changed to only partial blood to finally no blood after Russell died... and here we are again with only parts of blood that can be used and others not. Had I know this and other issues, I may have been able to spare myself a lot of pain and misery. They don't play fair.