If you were wrong about the truth, what else?

ballistic

What effect has having a whole section of your life proved to be a falsehood had on you?
Anybody that has been a witness will understand the time, effort, comitment and money that it took to be a member. The way it dominated our lives, affected every decision we made and shaped our future.
Some have left and turned to other faiths and some (like myself) have lost all religious faith (and I make no appology for that). But what I am curious to know is, how does this make you feel with regard to other areas of your life now? Does it make you stop and think, "I was completely misled by the organisation, maybe I could also be completely wrong about this or that". It could be anything from an investment opportunity to a relationship or some thought you have on a political subject for instance.
What I suppose I'm talking about is that having known the vastness of one's own misconceptions, has it dented your confidence in knowing you truly believe this or that or does it lead you to ask more questions and take time before jumping to conclusions.
The reason I ask is that judging from some posters here (name no names) they seem to have latched onto the next thing that came along and seem just as dogmatic about their new way of life as they were with DUB one which I find almost sickening. To me it has given me the cautiousness (whether entirely good or bad) as I described above.

Englishman

Brian,

What you describe is just a stage in the mental moving-on process. As time goes by you will find that the incredible courage that you found to leave the JW's will sustain you in many other areas. As the old saying goes, it if it doesn't kill you first, then it's good for you!

Englishman.

Seeker4

It has turned me into a highly skeptical rationalist. Which means that, like yourself, I have rejected religion, and make no apologies for it.

I have carefully thought through the reasons why I accepted the Witness view and teachings for so long, and that made me quite aware of how human reasoning is affected by all sorts of outside influences.

S4

dmouse

My excuse is that I was indoctrinated into it as a child.
But, like you, I find it very difficult now to trust anything.
I find I don't always bother to check out the pros and cons of an argument since this can get confusing - both sides can give very good arguments.
So I usually go on instinct, and my instinct says - no God.

mouthy

I might be one of the "some" you were referring to. I have a real strong faith in Jesus-I am sorry it offends you or "sickens" you as you say. But I loved Jehovah as a JW.On getting the left foot of fellowship- it didnt stop me from loving God- it stopped me from believing men.I could be wrong again( I was for 25 yrs) but I am enjoying my old age now- I dont have to "work" ( service) I dont have any meetings- I can stay in my bed on Sat morning & snuggle. No works to do.I can go into my room & pray- I dont have to worry about offending others by thinking I am doing O.K. to be this way. When folks tell me I am wrong-I dont have to haggel to prove I am.I am at peace -with myself & God. try to live & let live. My friend on the line XXXXXX

sleepy

I try not to be too dogmatic anymore and to test things out more fully.
I think I am more open to ideas that are the contary of my own.

This is the way we should all be.
If youre not like that then you should be.
Look this is the truth, I just know I'm right.
If you don't listen you will DIE!

Abaddon

Well, I had a mustache for a while... bad, bad, really BAD idea...

Well, I see people taking three paths... well, one isn't really a path, as it's;

'stalled' just stuck, not really really leaving the cult, not deep inside, not having exorisised or even examined the issues that lie within as a result, just getting on with life, maybe.

Then there's the 'I still believe!', who are very proud that they haven't 'thrown the baby out with the bath water' or some-such, and still believe in things that cannot really be proved in a scientific sense, no matter how convinced some individuals may be that there is a god/goddess/ufos/conspuiracy/blah and yet more blah...

Then there's the 'superskeptics'; "you want me to believe without proof!?" If you want to convince this lot of something, well, anything, you have to be able to either have it bite them on the ass AND have the event recorded on time-coded video AND witnessed by a panel of Nobel lauriates, or have some p r e t t y g o o d s c i e n t i f i c e v i d e n c e.

I happily fall into the latter catagory. I'm a skeptical little mitrochondrial DNA-provider copulator, and am quite happy to be that way as I remain convinced that if any god I'd want to be seen with would be reasonable enough to prove they exist, and the rest can go stick their ineffable plans somewhere where it hurts, lots.

Of course, this means that I am 'bitter' and 'throwing the baby out with the bath water', et. al., blah-blah, but however true that may or may not be, it doesn't address the underlying logic (to me) of my position.

Sure, science cannot explain everything. But considering the fairly comprehensable version of reality it has provided in less than two hundred years (we're talking science, not natural philosophy here), and the utterly meaningless chaos of religious theories, none of which is suseptible to scientific proof (not that that means it doesn't exist), which still has difficulty finding a credable account of existence with a flashlight after THOUSANDS of years, I'm fine thank you.

Of course, I'm not totally a superskeptic; I firmly believe in the existence of 'what comes around goes around', and the Glastonbury Fairy, even if she's been a bit scarse of late what with scratched car doors, malfunctioning washing machines, 'fridges about to go to the great recycling depot down the road, lost wallets, oh, and redundancy... but that's what you get with creating an anthropomorphic ideation of the spirit of a musical festival; a quixotic unreliable bitch... albeit one who is really really okay with sex, drugs and rock n'roll, and where the Sunday lie-in is the only act of worship required.

But given that, I think those three groups are a useful catagorisation, as long as it's not taken too far. We stall, we carry on believing in something else, or we become skeptical. To one extent or the other.

Other characteristics are finding it very hard to accept when we are wrong (as if you are wrong, you are bad, and we can't be wrong, because then we are bad, and we even get taught to always be 'right' (to our poor sorry cultist brains if no one else's) when arguing with people on the doors.

Oh, and being deranged sexual beasts... or am I projecting here?

Love and kisses

ballistic

mouthy - you are certainly not one of the people I had in mind. I meant purely the one or two here who have gone further than joining another religion or simply keeping their faith but have returned to some belief not dis-similar to the DUB religion or even more extreme or cultish. Sickens in the sense of the Alfred Hitchcock movie where one wakes up wrapped in bandages at the end of the film and realises that the nightmare is just beginning again, and lets out a scream.
But certainly my broader point was that my life experience, has changed the way in now see the world, not just in examining other religious beliefs, but those of politics and any other subject which I find open to opinion or persuiasion.
Abadon, I had a mostache and don't know what got into me. This was AFTER I learnt how wrong one could be!!!

Flip

If you were wrong about the truth, what else?

I wasn't wrong about the 'Truth', my parents were.

Now, I’m trying to be somewhat more skeptical and less fearful of openly scrutinizing the claims of others, especially of corporations that gain financially from my allegiance.

Flip

ConnieLynn

ballistic -

Trust is a huge issue for me...trust in my own judgement for sure. When everything and everyone you have believed in turns out to be a big fat lie, I think it's natural to question every single thing and everyone going forward. If I was able to believe in the WT so much, and be so wrong, I could do it again. I question myself a lot! I am a big skeptic, so I am always looking for the flaws in ideas,religion, politics, finance etc...they are pretty easy to find too, (especially if you're looking for them).

If you were wrong about the truth, what else?

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