When You Were Devout, What Was The Most..

by Englishman 32 Replies latest jw friends

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  Englishman

  When you were a devout witness, what were the teachings that you couldn’t accept, even though you believed most of the rest?

  Here’s mine:

  1. We know the Bible is true, it proves itself true. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

  How that proves that the Bible is true is quite beyond me.

  2. ” And YOU, fathers, do not be irritating YOUR children, but go on bringing them up in the discipline and mental-regulating of Jehovah.

  So far, so good. Except that the WT used to state that some parents didn’t take their children to meetings, nor on the door to door work, thereby irritating them.

  Stretching things a bit there, eh?

  3.Jehovah’s witnesses are the happiest people on Earth.

  This was the funniest thing I ever heard from a person who was watching conventioneers leaving a football ground at the end of an assembly: ”You can tell that the home team lost, just look at the fan’s miserable faces!

  I’m sure that there must be dozens of beliefs that most of us found hard to swallow even when we were devout dubbies, those are just the first 3 that came to my mind.

  Englishman.

  
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  flower

  The hardest thing for me to believe was the whole paradise thing. I just couldnt fathom living forever or the whole earth being a paradise. it raises too many questions that we were told not to worry about or think about.

  I also couldnt accept their reasoning as to why Jehovah was sitting back and letting Satan rule the world.

  flower
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  WildTurkey

  1.I never could understand why, we could not even look at apostate literature, what could be in it that would make fall out of the "truth" the only thing it could be that would make me leave is the truth.
  2.All worldly people were bad.
  Oral sex.
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  Mulan

  1. While I was pioneering, in the early 90's, I began to question the teaching that only JW's would survive Armageddon.

  2. I couldn't get the sacrifice of not only Isaac by Abraham, but Jesus. Why?? It still makes no sense to me.

  3. When my son was disfellowshipped at 17, for smoking, I knew it was wrong. I sobbed all night, in my husband's arms, with him trying to tell me it was the right thing. In my heart, I knew it was very bad.

  4. I never had to face this personally, but I did wonder what I would have done, if any of my children needed blood. I worshipped my kids, and I think I would have done anything to save them. We lost my brother's wife because of "no blood", and it always seemed so wrong, after that. (1976)

  Marilyn (aka Mulan)
  "No one can take advantage of you, without your permission." Ann Landers
  
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  LDH

  I am sorry to say the Kult assimilated me at birth. I swallowed hook, line, and sinker.

  Lisa
  Once burned, Twice learned Class
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  Kep

  The fact that Jeh would not let you be tested beyond what you could bear.
  Some would die coz of their faith, others wouldn't. Why ??
  Also, coz of this I was shit scared to have kids in this system, thinking that satan would harm them to turn me away.
  I remember reading about persecutors holding a kid over a bridge to get the parents to co-operate.
  Yet Jeh allowed these things to happen as a test on his servant ??
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  Dutchie

  The only thing is the book of Revelation that was literal was the number 144,000. Never could understand that.

  
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  Francois

  The concept of God adored by the witnesses. I couldn't see all that much difference between the Big Jah and Chemosh. He was a primitive god for a primitive people at a primitive time. It is appalling that Jehovah continues to be the Judeo-Christian god.

  The Jehovah concept is a murderous egotist. The barbarous idea of appeasing this angry God, of propitiating this offended Lord, of winning the favor of Deity through sacrifices and penance and even by the shedding of blood, represents a religion wholly puerile and primitive, a philosophy unworthy of an enlightened age of science and truth. Such beliefs are utterly repulsive to the God of the universes, IMHO. It is an affront to God to believe, hold, or teach that innocent blood must be shed in order to win his favor or to divert the fictitious divine wrath.

  The Hebrews believed that "without the shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin." They had not found deliverance from the old and pagan idea that the Gods could not be appeased except by the sight of blood, though Moses did make a distinct advance when he forbade human sacrifices and substituted therefor, in the primitive minds of his savage Bedouin followers, the Hebrews, the ceremonial sacrifice of animals.

  The bestowal of the carpenter, in my opinion, was as a much-needed teacher, sent to uplift the human understanding of the Father. We could never have gotten it, apparently, on our own; thus, it was inescapable, and it was not made necessary for the purpose of winning the favor of God.

  What a travesty upon the infinite character of God! this teaching that his fatherly heart in all its austere coldness and hardness was so untouched by the misfortunes and sorrows of his creatures that his tender mercies were not forthcoming until he saw his blameless Son bleeding and dying upon the cross of Calvary!

  And this is the God of the JWs. They can have Him.

  (I was also put off by the application of every shred of prophecy to themselves, no matter how tortured the logic required to do so. And a bunch of other stuff. But I've said what really bothers me.)

  Francois
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  ISP

  The Cedar Point Conventions in Ohio and the trumpet blasts in Revelation etc. were hard to swallow/indigestible.

  ISP
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  rodnico

  That I had to "wait" on Jehovah for a mate.