by stuckinarut2 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
So recently, several over-righteous ones in the cong were discussing "how amazing it felt when they got baptised"
Statements like "how awesome did it feel as you got raised back out of the water?!"
Or the classic "I felt so close to jehovah as I came out of the pool"!
They asked me the same questions..."how did you feel."
My response..."wet" (said with a smile on my face)
The looks I got were priceless!!
Surely this sort of emotive stuff gives proof of the cult-like mentality witnesses have!?!
I felt insecure and confused... I had expected to feel something like a happy feeling, a proof of 'Jah' accepting me... but there was just this great blank in my mind! I thought I had to at least pray while being dunked, but there was no time for that. So before I knew it I was already on my way out of the water and felt like I needed more time to make the occasion more real. But no time, it was al going pretty hastily and there was still a line of other young people who wanted to get in the tub...
The rest of my JW-life I felt like I blew it, that my baptism wasn't good enough, like I did something wrong. I didn't even pray and it felt like I made a mistake somehow because of that. By the way, I was 17 at the time.
Oh and to make things worse: my parents gave me a new bible on the occasion, with 1 Kor. 13:4-7 written by my father on the first page (front cover)... about LOVE... They were the most unloving parents one can imagine. A couple of years ago I burned that bible in a firepit, which felt really good (at least it gave more warmth than my parents ever did!)
Disappointed, if I really think back.
Nothing happened.
( unless you include this as the lead-in to 25 years of disaster )
I Guess i felt like I completed a task. It was something that i needed to do because thats what we did. also i was only 14 at the time, so i was also feeling really guilty about masturbating and watching porn.
Wet
I felt on display.
There were quite a few pervy bro's looking forward to seeing me in a wet t-shirt.
How do I know?--a girl just knows.
I felt relief. I thought the GT might start before I was able to get baptised.
Wet. I was really hoping to feel something, as I got baptized in order to receive more holy spirit to help me fight temptation, but instead I felt nothing.
I think on some level I knew it was the wrong thing to do... The guy who gave the talk didn't say Amen at the end of his prayer so I was immediately joking that it was invalid.
Those sorts of leading questions are a pretty powerful way for the cult to reinforce the indoctrination - humans have been designed by evolution to succumb to social pressure, so when a leading question is asked moist will say what is expected of them, especially if others have just answered the same question "correctly" for themselves. After a while we convince ourselves that the lies we tell to fit in are really true.
Throughout the whole thing I felt like I had been pressured into doing something I didn't want to do.
I got dunked, but I didn't feel any differently. Maybe a sigh of relief that I finally did what they wanted and they'd get off my back. Then perhaps I felt a bit rebellious. That night I stayed at a hotel with my brother and another friend. We all got a little drunk and all made out with some worldly girls down the hall in another room.
I'm sure part of that was just being 16 or 17. Part of it, now that I think of it in retrospect, is that I was probably acting out for doing something I didn't want to do. That I wasn't going to let them win and get everything they wanted. I was going to do something to F it up.
Felt guilty the next morning. Like that must have been Satan attacking me because now I was part of the true religion.
