New Here! So many questions! :)

by TeenageInsider 50 Replies latest jw friends

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  Christ Alone

  TI, I don't think any of us will forget the mind numbing meetings. Occasionally there is a talk that will break the mold and have something interesting to say. But mostly it's the same tired material done over and over again.

  Something you will learn is that this is how cults work. They repeat and repeat and repeat the same things so it becomes WHO you are. They control the information that you are allowed to be exposed to. They tell you what you can and can't feel. They tell you how you must behave. The group ends up becoming "God". If you disagree with the group, you disagree with God.

  There are a few things that helped me early on. Here was a video that I watched that is NOT about the WT. It's a made for TV movie (maybe an old after school special). Watch it and see if you can see how close it is to how JWs end up acting.

  The movie opperates on the idea: Why did good german people fall for the evils of the Nazis? All Germans living during WWII were not evil people. And neither were all Nazis. How could "good" people sit idle as the Nazis took over. This is not to say that JWs are Nazis, but it shows how mind control works.

  Don't be confused and think this movie is just about the Nazis and WWII. This is about how cults work. How mind control works. And what it eventually does to people. This is a video about what a fictional cult does in reality to these students...and their teacher.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICng-KRxXJ8
• 

  BlindersOff1

  Welcome. This is a great place to vent . Make sure to explore the SEARCH function on this site

  any subject you can imagine is discussed at length . Just think 4.4 Million posts .

  Be careful who you talk to about what you learn . Once you speakout its hard to go back.

  Other great sites

  http://jwfacts.com/
  http://www.jwstruggle.com
  http://jwfiles.com/
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  Hortensia

  Hi,

  you're a smart kid. I wish I had wised up when I was that age! It took me longer to get out.

  Things to think about:

  get an education, learn a skill so you can find work, start saving money, find a way to make friends outside the org. You won't be able to stand the cult for a lot longer, so be prepared to get out on your own and be an independent person in life.
• 

  confusedteenager

  Hey welcome! I too am a young one (eighteen, baptized when I was 12) still inside the organization (regular pioneer to be exact), going through the same doubts as you are.

  This is definitely one of the best places to get some of your questions concerning the org answered. :)

  --Nancy
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  LoisLane looking for Superman

  Welcome TeenageInsider!

  Looking at your avitar and mine, we might be related...2nd cousins? LoL

  I am so happy, that at 17, you are questioning the "Beliefs" of the religion you were born and brought up in. (As an aside, that is what we tell Catholics, Buddists etc. to do. Don't just believe because it is the Family Religion. Ask questions, do research).

  There is such a wealth of knowledge, to be gleamed from this site. Possibly, some questions, you have, have been throughally researched and posted already.

  I started reading here after I first read Crisis of Conscience by Ray Franz. I also was doing research, at the same time, on Ancestry.com and to my at first utter disbelief when I looked up Rutherford, US census reports had him residing of course, at Bethel but also with his mistress at Beth Sarem, his millionaire property in San Diego. Whaaaatttttt? He's the President of the WTB&TS and even HE doesn't believe in what he preaches. Why should you?

  Thank goodness for the computer.

  Just Lois
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  sd-7

  Welcome! And what a great age to be having these thoughts! If I'd opened that door just 10 years ago, while I was still in college, man, would my life be 100% different right now, in a good way.

  I'll pass on the advice I was given by a wise man who calls himself 'kurtbethel' on here, when I first joined this site: Stay away from those melodramatic women and those whose lives are a train wreck. They will only bring you way down.

  Apart from that, keep reading, ask the basic questions that are probably already floating around in your head right now. Start on the Internet, but if you can, get to a library, too. (I'm only 30 and I already feel old-fashioned for saying that.) You'd be amazed at the academic dishonesty going on in Watchtower literature, when they quote from outside sources, I mean. (It's not every single quote, but there are some real whoppers in there.) I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't done the research myself and seen it in the library in black-and-white.

  But from the way you're talking, I have a feeling you'll be just fine. Thus, I feel no great need to give you further advice at this point, apart from kurtbethel's wise words above. Believe me, ignore them at your own deadly peril. Otherwise, try to have safe, teenage-friendly fun! See a movie. Read a comic book. Play a massive multiplayer online role-playing game. Then repeat.

  

  --sd-7
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  still thinking

  Welcome
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  whathappened

  Welcome to the forum. I enjoy your enthusiasm for learning the truth about the truth.
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  88JM

  Welcome - it's nice that I don't have to feel like the youngest member on the board!
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  DATA-DOG

  Welcome! Searching for answers is important. Just take your time. Also, as mentioned before, there isn't always an answer. That's okay too. Just think of all the trouble that many could have been spared, if persons like C.T Russel had just said " I don't know " instead of making stuff up! Just be careful at the KH. The more you know the more you will want to share what you learn, be careful who you share it with..