by freedom96 22 Replies latest jw friends
My lost new posting topic made me think of this question:
If the WTS was more normal, how many would have stayed?
Was it in fact the teachings that made you leave? Or more so the way they act and hurt people. If there was not a df'ing program, if there was more love shown, if the rules were not so extreme, like lets say that holidays were allowed. You could be in the military, etc. In fact, if the witnesses were like any other religion, only the beliefs were different, would you have stayed?
Maybe......................... yes.
Except that I think I would have been gone when I understood that 1914 had no basis in fact. Or when I learned that the policy on child abuse is evil. Or when I discovered that the organization had been fornicating with the [UN] wild beast.
All of which I would have been free to discover much earlier on if the organization loosened up its rules on reading 'outside' (read: 'apostate') material.
So............................maybe not!
out
Treatment of people was the main reason I've left. It's the only reason my wife left.
No, I would not have stayed. I left simply because of the false teachings. Dj
Probably. The holidays weren't an issue for me, so that wouldn't have figured in. If you didn't have to swear loyalty to all their teachings, on pain of being df'd, we would probably still be there. That is a very scary thought.
I'm in agreement with Mulan. If I didn't have to believe everything they said without question I might have stayed. And the DF'ing thing. Losing all your friends and family...Well that's just not right!!!
Diamond
I would have stayed if the cliques or master/slave attitudes didn't exist. The moment I descided to leave for good was when the PO of my new congregation looked at the low hours on my publisher's record card and told me: "Don't come over here and die on us." Goodbye!
I initially decided to DA due to my sexual orientation, but still believed everything else about the Dubz to be correct. Before I sent in my letter of DA, I read Raymond Franz's books. It was then that I knew that even if they openly accepted Gays I wouldn't stay. They would have to get rid of their cult-control methods, own-up to past mistakes, attempt to make amends for the damage caused by their past mistakes, as well as accept my being Gay. However, I believe that even after all that was accomplished, I still wouldn't come back. The experience with the JWs has left a bad taste in my mouth for [1] Christianity and [2] religion in general.
John W Wirtanen
bebe buel, once said this about a young steven tyler her then husband: ( aerosmith)
if you go to the fridge and pick up the milk carton, smell it and it smells bad YOU THROW IT OUT
so once I found about how the WTS treated people ( thank you internet) and read the lies that have been told by them. I THREW IT OUT..
it would take armagedon to clean them up before I would go back, even then I may have doubts.
I think when I first left, I was still a JW in heart. So back then, if things would have been like you said above, I might would have stayed.
In alot of ways, I always did worship God in my own way, in that I felt he wasnt always the way the WT or even the bible totally portrayed him. I could have went on and just kept my relationship with God as it had been , and put up with the local crap , as always , to the side.
But now knowing all I do about what the WT is hiding, I would be going agaisnt my conscious and feeling like I was part of the big cover up. It hasnt been easy to walk away from the WT, but I know it is the only thing I could have done to be true to the real way I feel. This has brought me some peace, that at least I am not out there misleading others.
