how many non born ins ever attended a church?

sowhatnow

im curious, how many people on here had belonged to another church, or have enough knowlege of one

to have thought the kingdom hall was a better option?

the wt articles often in the past, critisized other churches as being full of false christains, I have one from 1955 that rips on the roman catholic church.

not that they are free of guilt, but, I thought, gee, how many of these critisizers ever went to a small church to make that judgment?

why would i believe that not having any experiences myself?

i had a jw freind who made a comment once as we were driving past a church, I commented on how pretty all thier flowers were, and she said

'oh thats an apostate church'. i laughed and said to her "well i bet those people who go there dont think so,

and I bet they believe in Jesus just as much as we do, and surely they have good qualities that God appreciates.

churches are not full of fake christains , there are good people in all faiths."

I thought wow, what an outlook to have on the very people she was supposed to preach to.

not sure what she took from that.

the wt org, particularly critisizes the catholic religion a

whole lot back in the early days. evidentally becasue it was the largest one at the time.

but really, who has been in one long enough to know if they are all as the wt society say's is ' wrong' ?

how many on here have had a positive exp with another organization?

Honesty

I have.

AFTER I left the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Before that, I only knew about churches and church people from what I read in the cult's books and magazines.

The Watchtower lied.

I was never a baptized witness, but I do have plenty of experience with other churches and the kh's to form an opinion. And hands down, every other church I have ever attended is so much better than kingdom hall/jw worship.

I was raised attending Christian churches. The youth groups were amazing. We raised money to feed the poor, went on missions trips to help build schools, supported missionairies, at one point I was part of a traveling play that raised money for a missions trip. I didn't get judged if I went to another denomination such as baptist or methodist, not even when I started going to kh was I judged. There was fun, community, love, support, and true charity.

All groups of people will have people with issues, or more eccentric, or crazy, or....whatever. But I feel so bad for those who think church is a place of sin and false worship because of the lies told from the tower.

Bungi Bill

I wouldn't have claimed to be a regular church attender, but certainly used to go along to the odd Sunday church service (both Anglican and Presbyterian). Prior to that, my mother used to make sure us children went to the local Sunday School - which, for her was easy enough to enforce, given that she was one of the teachers!

However, I could never quite see the point of it all. Then, in the mid-1960s, my grandmother became a JW. Unfortunately (looking back on it now) what the JWs said seemed to have relevance. Between that and their bible written in modern English (at a time when the mainstream churches were still using the King James version, with its Archaic English), I got myself snared!

Bill.

cofty

There are some good people in many churches.

The bottom line is the same though. Being part of the group comes with a price in terms of intellectual freedom.

Every church is somewhere on the cult spectrum.

LisaRose

I attended church up until I converted to the JWs at 13. My church experience was OK, but I bought all the Watchtower dogma that they were filled with hypocrites and were evil, false religion. Since I left I have attended some services at my husband's family church, United Church of Christ. It was a very positive experience, so much more warm and loving than the JWs and no particular doctrine. I thought about joining, but decided it made no sense since I am an Atheist, lol.

blondie

father: non-jw

mother: weak jw

I attended Catholic churches, baptist, lutheran, non-denominational, Mormon groups) Mormons were the most interesting, a movie of the Mormom cosmos. Mostly churches of my dad's friends and my mother took us with him rather than make him mad. I was the only one to go toa Mormon church. I loved the special Christmas services.

Each one had at least one weird teaching I could never believe though. I was the best bible educated one in the baptist sunday school. During boring meetings I actually read the bible and wrote down questions to research. Such as why did a perfect human talk to a snake...as an imperfect child I knew that was stupid.