Anyway, after I stopped going to meetings I still believed it was the truth. After about 7 years of non attendance I decided to establish for myself whether it was the truth or not, and if it was after my study was complete, I would make my own dedication (rather than a dedication forced upon me by my parents) to Jehovah and return. So I started reading the Bible alone scripture by scripture and cross referncing the scriptures out of their books to interprete the Bible verse by verse. I had big problems by the end of Genesis.I needed more material and became obsessed with old witness books and magazines, and someone gave me the Watchtower set between july 1879 and December 1916. I spent the next X number of years reading them page by page, putting the whole horror show together piece by piece.Reading it all, in sequence, the pattern and cause of interpretational shift was quite clear. Game over.
What Was The 1st Thing That Made You Question?
by minimus 102 Replies latest jw friends
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twinkletoes
For many years I had made allowances for imperfections, and always assuming that the problems were on a local level, but the real eye-opener was the UN involvement, I just could not believe it - and of course that led on to discovering all the other scandals.
Thanks mainly to this site and the comments from all who post on here.
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minimus
Wow, Refiners!!! You certainly examined the Scriptures to see whether these things were so. That's a great example!
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RandomTask
Does anybody here know of a good site that presents a case by case argument against the witness doctrine? I'm looking for a good site for research.
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Kaethra
While I did not realize it at the time, I began questioning the bible before I began questioning the Watchtower. It was when I started reading the bible on my own that I began having real doubts that I tried desperately to resolve using the society's publications. I had so many questions for which there was simply no satisfactory answer. Nearly every damn verse of the "Hebrew Scriptures" had me shaking my 12 year-old head, thinking 'this just doesn't make sense'. But like a good little dubbie, I stuffed my doubts away and "left it on Jehovah" for years.
The one thing that I could not manage to stuff away was the teaching that all non-jws were worthy of an imminent, horrible destruction by our all-loving Heavenly Father. I tried to stuff it away. I tried to rationalize it. I tried not to think about it; but in the end it was that teaching that led to my exodus from the borg.
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refiners fire
Mini. I was working a very slack night job thru those days and probably spent 9 out of my 12 hours at work swotting thru Watchtower volumes. Course, I wasnt up with the internet at that time and did the research the long way from hard copy volumes. Actually i kept reading the volumes long after I knew it wasnt the "truth" because i became obsessed with The Watchtowers predictive history and doctrine shifting. It was fascinating stuff. For years i had dozens of volumes of Russell and Rutherford Watchtowers and books, but i got rid of them eventually. All Ive got now are some bare bones. 400 or so pages of Historic Watchtower articles from the 1880s thru 1929 relating to predictive shifting, the abandoning of Russellism and The Faithfull and Discreet Slave collective/ individual/ collective again. And Russells major works which Ive also read thoroughly in times past.
Ive also got a very extensive collection of material from many cults other than the Witnesses.
Edited by - refiners fire on 9 November 2002 22:44:39
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minimus
Refiners, you should post some of your research. I'd be interested to see what you've been able to expose.
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nelly1
when i saw the elders in my hall treating me and others like S*** nothing like the personality of jesus and the PO would get up and give talks on the platform then soon as he got off his personality would change, the haughtyness of another elder who treats ppl like they r not good enough to be in the hall, extreme lack of the love jesus taught and no erring on the side of mercy, what happened to mercy???? u all read ezekiel 34 it describes what Jehovah wil do to these ppl when he is ready to act... I have a clear concience i did my best i tried my best, but to them i wasnt wanted and i stopped going to meetings and they cancelled my magazines immediately like they were glad i left bunches of ass holes, they will get theirs for all they do.
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KGB
Well first I am not a newbie I got a virus and had to change everything.
My story has to start at the beginning, in January of 1997 I suffered an Anyuerism in my brain. I almost lost my life. I got scared and felt the need to get closer to God in case I was to die. My Mother being a JW knew of my plan and was sure to be there with her gospel of the "truth" ? They made things to sound very comforting with there words of a perfect paradise. I fell for it. Although I was never Baptized I was considered to be a Unbaptized member of there org. I studied hard as I was desparately searching for that inner peace with my soul, and they knew my situation with my health and they played on it and used it to get me in. So they convinced me that it was the "truth" ?
I was just a couple of weeks from being Baptized and I was out in service one afternoon with the Elder that was studying with me. He asked me, what are some of the things your looking forward to as a member of the "truth" ?... The first thing I said was to finally be able to find and have and keep a wife as I had, had so many failed relationships in my past. His reply was " because your on disability you would not be classified as a proper husband to a sister because you could not support her properly" Let me tell you I was totally flabergasted when he said this to me. I thought to myself well I can count more than I have fingers and toes the amount of families in just our kingdom hall where the wife worked and supported the family because of disabled husbands. Then in the very same day he says to me while we wereout knocking on doors that aperson can only gain Gods Spirit by doing just so. Well that was it for me, after telling me these two thingsI wenthome that night and I prayed and I told God that I had been fooled before (I was a Mormon in the early 70`s) and I toldhim in my prayer I was not going to stand to be fooled again or I might aswell be dead....Folks you would not guess where he led me >>. Right here to Freeminds<< Thank you Randy for all that you have done for me... Well thats my story ! and I`m stick`in to it.
I want to take the time to thank each of you also, I don`t post much but I do read a lot of your post. May the Lord walk with each of you.... So the moral of this story ? Don`t tell me I`m worthless or I`ll kick your ASS ~~~~~~
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Pleasuredome
great post KGB.
the first thing that made me question was the general attitude of people. most just seemed to be people who had an inability to think for themselves. then i read about the UN and that just blew it all apart for me. mind you, i was always suspicious of the GB, so i was going to find out all the crap thats gone off sooner or later.