Do you feel like an idiot?Should you?

sleepy

I was thinking today about all the time i spent on the ministry.
Walking down the street with my suit and briefcase ready to defend the truth.
I recalled some of the conversations i had , had.Some of the bible studies I conducted, the talks I had given the groups I had taken.
I remmebered the way I defended my faith and belief in Jehovah and the Jehovahs witness organisation.
How much I must have believed it was the truth.
I spent 3 years as an auxillary pioneer and called on many thousands of people.
Yet all along I was wrong.
Every time I defened my beliefs I was wrong.
Every talk I studied and prepeared long and hard for, I was wrong.
All the things I gave up for the truth I was wrong.

What an idiot.

simwitness

At the time, you believed it was the truth, therefore at that time, you were not an "idiot" for doing them.

An "idiot" would have continued doing those things after he was convinced that they were wrong.

LDH

Thank God we awoke, sleepy.

My poor aunts are in their 70s and after a lifetime of spouting these empty promises and doctrines, will die soon.

Of course, "millions now living will never die," and all that--but I wonder deep down inside do they resent growing old?

Lisa

Satanus

Most people, even nondubs, if they are able to honestly look back on their lives, would see much of the same type of things. The difference is that for nondubs, it is amore individual thing, stupid things they on which they wasted money, time and energy. Egotistical stuff. But for nondubs, since a lot of the stuff was fun when they did them, their regrets aren't as strong. Most of the dub stuff never was fun.

My opinions
SS

safe4kids

Every once in awhile, I'll remember a time when I defended fanatically an indefensible something or other that I believed as a JW, and I get a little embarrassed about it. But for the most part, since I was indoctrinated from birth that this was the "truth", I don't waste time thinking about what a parrot I was then.

Nowadays, I have much better things to feel like an idiot about...like losing my temper and spouting off things I don't mean, acting directly opposite of loving and kind (which are 2 principles I've claimed to hold dear), and wasting money on lottery tickets

Dana

crawdad2

what amazes me is how effective the gov body was on me.
here i was going door to door,(20yrs)......and no one could refute me!
it's not like i was hiding, believe me, i was willing to sit down and talk to ANYONE!!....... and yet i never met someone who could show me what i know "now"!........ i ran into a few ex-members, but none of them had anything worth while to tell me....... and they were usually irate.
it wasn't till i was so abused by the corruption going on, that i finally figured it out, all by myself, by realizing that jws fit the description of the pharisees, or evil slave, more than anything else......... they have bible knowledge, not love.
no wonder jesus didn't go around teaching bible knowledge, he said you will recognize them by their "love".

RunningMan

Yes, Sleepy, although I have always considered myself to be fairly smart, I feel really stupid (not to mention embarrassed), about having been a JW.

Just imagine, defending the idea that the human race began 6000 years ago, and that the world was coming to an end, any second now.

I take consolation in the fact that, in the past, the smartest people in the world believed that the earth was the center of the universe, and that the sun circled it. They weren't dumb for believing something that was wrong, they just didn't have the information. The Society has built a wall around their people, to try and prevent them from getting accurate, unbiased information. That's more than stupid, it's criminal.

But, I still have a hard time accepting that I ever swallowed this trash.

The point is, are we going to spend our lives being a product of the past, or a cause of the future?

worf

sleepy,

I understand how you feel. I think about those same things sometimes. I was an elder for 7 years and served as the public talk coordinator as wellas many other jobs in the congregation. Many times when the speaker did not show up, I gave the talk. I gave talks and substitute talks in every borough here in New York as well as Nassau and Suffolk counties. I reflect also on all the time, hours upon hours, that I spent preparing a talk whether it was a public talk or on the tms or the service(choke choke )er, uh, sales meeting, and I realize that all I was doing was promoting the stupid rules and false teachings of the most wicked organization on the planet. I feel really dumb sometimes.
But it also helps me to see that the same mind control must be prevented from continuing. The tower has got to come down. The world will be a better place without it.

Worf

sleepy

Crawdad2
"it's not like i was hiding, believe me, i was willing to sit down and talk to ANYONE!!....... and yet i never met someone who could show me what i know "now"!........ i ran into a few ex-members, but none of them had anything worth while to tell me....... and they were usually irate."

I was the same.I loved to get into good conversations with people on the doors.I even talked to apostates , yet none could show me the right information.
Only once did i come away severely shaken in my faith.that was when I talked for two hours with an archeologist.
But first thing i did was go and read a book on creation to overcome my doubts.

City Fan

There's an old school mate I've been wanting to contact for a while - basically to say sorry for the endless hours of witnessing I gave him.

After reading this thread I'm going to phone him this weekend !

Do you feel like an idiot?Should you?

Share this