What "hooked" you? (page 3)

roybatty

Thanks for the replies. I think my parents (esp. my mother) have the same "classic" story. They immigrated here from Holland and when contacted by the JWs they suddenly had all of these "friends."
Ít's also more then a little ditrurbing that the WT Society knows that they have the best chance to convert people who are having problems and thus target these individuals. I seemed to me that just about every sample demonstration in the KM or the Reasoning Book focused on a negative, one that can only be solved by studying the WT's lit.
Sickening.

hybridous

Born into it...

Somehow, from somewhere, got that gut feeling that my life could not continue as a JW. I bailed before baptism at age 17. I'm not the sharpest guy around, so I often wonder what tipped me off, especially at the green age of 17. I just knew that my life couldn't go on if I gave in to the pressure and got baptized; to continue that thought, if I knew I would never get beptized, why continue the facade any longer?

I told everyone that I was done with it all....finished! And so it was...

There were/are certain distinct advantages to leaving the JW farce BEFORE....BEFORE you get baptized, and that is the advice I give to the lurkers out there.

FreeFallin

Exactly what Dantheman said, only I'm female. Sorry to copy, but Dan's statement is exactly what I was thinking of writing. Same age, too. 22 years old. What a friggin waste.

Free

Grunt

I had just got out of the Marines, went home and my mom and dad had become Witnesses. I had always read the Bible on my own and thought I knew it enough to straighten them out. I'd never heard of the trinity, believed in hell fire, and thought Christmas was strictly legit. When I had those disproven the nice people studying with me, who had moved to where the need was great and given up so much, had gained a lot of credibility with me. So I began my "research" with them guiding me and using the Witness books complete with questions at the bottom of the page. What a joke. HOW STUPID WAS I! Dumb enough to fight the woman I loved for years over it. I did remain critical of several things though, the dates for one. I never bought all the goofy dates and prophecies, 1914, 1935, and the crazy time charts in the books equating insignificant events with giant ones. Like Exodus from Egypt, Jerusalem Destroyed, Divine Rulership Assembly. Anyway, when I found an old book with the pyramids, showing Napoleon as the King of the South and Great Britain as the King of the North (I believe it was) and getting year for a step or an inche measurements from the Great Pyramid, well, that did it for me. I had already had friction over the Creative Days. I moved away and stopped attending. If I had it to do again the main thing I would never have done is let my daughter be around her witness relatives. I broke away and thought that had protected all of us, but I was wrong. It cost me my child. When I was leaving Camp Pendleton there were big signs asking for people to become cops in L.A. and to work for the the power company. Despite the problems both have had, I should probably have done one or the other and protected my children. I just didn't know.

Wren

Introduced at age five but I was hooked on it until well into my twenties. Those with a weak stomach stop here.

I was one of the ones that, starting at age nine, would kneel and pray on my bed, for Jehovah to send the witnesses to my door each of the many times we moved. I'd pray with all my heart to keep up my study, go to the Kingdom Hall and progress "in the truth". My one interested parent(Dad) attended sporadically & never became active. They always found me and I'd say thank you to God for my answered prayers. I believed that to die because I was a JW would be the greatest honor.

My Hooks:

1. Youth. Could be persuaded that secular references were wrong if WTS said so. They were the God ordained authority. No need to question.
2. Life instability. I needed so badly all the answers in a simple package.
3. Some exposure but not much knowledge of other religions. Although poor, when with my Dad, we must have had every book the WTS published back to a set of Studies in the Scriptures.
#1-#3 is ditto to many in this thread.
4. "Worldwide Brotherhood" community.
5. They had that special "truth". All others are misguided.
6. No hellfire.
7. The earthly paradise with the animals was appealling as a child.

It did not help that my Dad's side of the family were the same kind of crazy that Russell & Rutherford were, so JW's felt just like home. The stories I could tell if I posted to the excellent 'Quack' thread a couple days ago.

Everything from miracle health food cures, radium belts, nudism, greater JW spirituality through enema therapy, to large doses of paranoid conspiracy theories. Yep, you read it right, Watchtower Nirvana by way of bunghole. The other side of the family was normal except for the nudism part.

I was left home alone today. Somebody stop me.

PopeOfEruke

My mother got hooked when called on by JW's during WW2. She was an unmarried mother (living in "sin") and Dad was away in the war. They scared the shite out of her by telling her that World War 2 would lead straight into Armageddon and that her kids would die.

Nice way to work, Jehovah!. You should be very proud of your tactics and your henchmen.

She was too scared to say No and joined. Dad came home and thus started 40 years of marriage hell. He never accepted it (smart guy).

I was born into it, left when I grew up. Compuserve forums started my eyes opening.

And now I am free and a Pope of a whole Country!!! Cool!

The Pope of Eruke

What "hooked" you?