How long have you been an online "apostate?"

by Faithful Witness 18 Replies latest jw friends

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  LoisLane looking for Superman

  Our first computer came home in 1986. We have had a number since, but I never looked up anything "bad" on the internet.

  After I read C of C by Ray Franz, I was out of JW's. That was 2 years 2 months ago.

  I made a major house move, got settled in and was looking up public records on Ancestry.com concerning the 1940 US Census.

  I looked up 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn Bethel.

  Finding 70 year old Rutherford there, I decided to collect all of his public records.

  And what did I find???

  I was flabbergasted to see what old "Judge" Joe Rutherford had been up to.

  Not only was he a con man, and a drunkard, but he was an adulterer, too. For many years.

  If I hadn't read Ray's book, this would have done it for me.

  I was on my own "Blues Brother's"... mission from God, to look up all the public info I could on this "worldly man" posing not just as a JW, but as President of all JW's and his JW girlfriend Bonnie Boyd Heath.

  My Nancy Drew sluething had to have an outlet. I had to let other JW's know what a phony Rutherford was!

  So I got on the Internet. I don't remember what I looked at first or what I had typed in. But soon, I settled on JWN. It had Leolaia and Blondie on it. I felt I was in the right place.

  So to answer your OP, not even 2 years. ( 1year 9 months)

  LoisLane
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  Ocean1111

  First off Bethel is no judge of apostasy, being apostate themselves. To "fall away" one has to be "in the truth" to begin with. Bethel is that situation, today's JWs are nothing like 1950s Jehovah's witnesses. One read of a 50s Watchtower will show the difference between those observing a faith, and today's Bethel that has "fallen away".

  So imo one should not allow Bethel's hubris, fiction and self-invented authority to dictate one's own self identity for those actually trying to observe the FAITH of Jesus, for "religion" as a term is not a New Testament word, it is a "faith", the one of Jesus Christ, faith in God, not himself.

  I felt Bethel was diverging even 20 years ago, but was a so-called "weak witness" so was able to drop off the radar easily. The UN NGO and other injected apostasy really started to pile up, so in time I decided to not return as I discern Bethel has "fallen away" while maintaining a profitable veneer. Many 50s witnesses would not accpet or tolerate today's Bethel, no true Christian could as well for one trying to observe the faith.

  Though people here may oppose Bethel and their lawless scandals, I do not consider any of them "apostate". Apostasy has classically, in the Bible record, originated FIRST with the leadership. That principle is well established. So Bethel's "apostate" focus is to keep JWs focused on everything else but where the apostasy actually is.

  I've been openly saying so now for about two years. I do not feel all the JW teachings are false, and I do not discard the meaning of Christ's Kingdom giving the world fair warning prior to his arrival. For those reasons it is logical Bethel was the most sought after target to subvert, because the rest of organized Christianity has been lost far longer than Bethel has. So the whole development at bethel merely affirms history indeed does repeat, those paying attention to history and former patterns plainly see Bethel meets all the criteria.

  A main trick of all subversions is to make claims of the exact opposite reality from that actually in operation, without exception. No hint of apology or compromise, a true hypocrisy must play the hyper-pious appearance and dialogue to the full in spite of overwhelmingly evidence mounting to the contrary. And accordingly it also must intensify it's lawlessness, it cannot remain static. Bethel meets all the requirements of a true corruption, and it is not finished yet. Apostasies like this also have a reaping phase in addition to the sowing phase. True we see it in the blowback stumbling and repulsion it creates in egenral, but JWs have to actually contract at some point to affirmed negative numbers in growth.

  I believe, imo, a mass stumbling event of some sort will be the climax of Bethel's spiritual downfall. It's in the calm before the storm phase now. Red flags abound.
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  Da.Furious

  My doubts about the whole organisation started in 2004- when i left bethel, then started to be curious about how things are being run. In 2008 started searching on the internet for some answers, i can say that from 3 years, i technically lost any faith in the organisation - started to hear about the peadophiles and was in a cong that a molestor was identified and the whole thing was hush-hush, and since 18 months i no more care what happens in meetings (no more influenced by WTS).

  Unfortunately my family are hardcore JWs, so for the family ties i have to pretend everything is fine although i do my best not to be involved in discussions related to the organisation since my facts are not accepted by anyone!
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  Still Totally ADD

  My awaking began in 2004. I was doing Temp work at Bethel. I could not understand why so many empty buildings. The ones that was still there was just maintaning them. There was in my eyes no use for these buildings. They was not being used for anything. That ate at me for couple of years. Then I found out I suffered with ADD all my life. So after I started treatment my mind was opening up to understanding and thinking. I started question things. I was watching a show on the history channel about archeology and showing the layers of earth that showed what took place in the past. They was able to show times of extreme weather to asteriods hitting the earth by the dust levels. One thing they brought out was there was no evidence of a global flood. It was not in the earth layers of dirt. That made me start thinking if that is true then what the Wt. taught about the flood was false and if that was false what other teachings of thiers was false. I soon talk to my wife about this and to my surprise she gave me information on this subject from the internet. She was also waking up on her own about the same time I was. Not much time went by when I started visiting this site but it did take almost 2 years of lurking before I signed up as Totally ADD. I believe that was in Jan. of 2009. I was still the PO in our congregation. It took some time but in Jan. of 2011 we was both free from the cult. The only reason I am Still Totally ADD is because my computer died and it took me about 8 months to get another one and by then I could not remember my past word or anything so I just signed up again as Still Totally ADD. That's the story. Still Totally ADD
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  Faithful Witness

  It is very interesting, that they are launching a big campaign, instructing their publishers to start promoting JW.ORG.

  Are they oblivious to the information people are going to find, when they decide to look up Jehovah's Witnesses on the internet, or is there some kind of plan being developed, that they think will discourage an internet-savvy person from digging into the truth?
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  jgnat

  Faithful Witness, I love it that Witnesses are now encouraged to check out the internet and get themselves a tablet of some sort. I think there are conflicting motives at HQ. There's of course the admonition to stay away from conflicting information and the big, bad internet, but the WTS also must remain current. I mean, these days if an organization is not in the internet it might as well be invisible.

  The WTS couldn't stop television or movies either, but they still manage to control Witnesses through behavior control. Hubby has a visceral reaction to anything Harry Potter for instance, though he manages to justify watching horror. Go figure.

  The great thing about the internet and browsing is that it is largely private, invisible.

  I think there is still a directive in the books that individual Witnesses and individual Kingdom Halls not create their own websites. This creates interesting problems. For instance, when I was looking to move to a new community, it was easy for me to find any churches within the radius of my search, but increasingly difficult to find the Kingdom Halls. It's not like I'm going to look it up in the Yellow Pages. I got fooled in to thinking the Kingdom Hall where we were moving was open and active...not. We only found out about the local situation by word of mouth.
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  Londo111

  I've been here since October 2011 after reading the Watchtower articles, "When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?" The first time I read the article, I thought it sounded plausible. But I wanted to make sure and started to google topics that were found in the articles. Like VAT 4956. Inevitably that led here. I finally joined in November, began reading Crisis of Conscience.
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  Phaedra

  Visiting places where xJWs went? Since about '97.

  Phae
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  Mum

  My daughter found H2O in 1997, after we finally got a computer. I really enjoyed posting there and reading the intelligent observations of other posters there. I actually left the borg in 1979. I'm happy this online support system exists for people leaving now. I'm sure it makes the transition to a more normal life much easier.