Doubts that led to your departure

JH

What event made you realize that you were serving a phony organization, and what was the turning point that made you see clear?

I didn't see clear until after I left. I guess it was more just nagging doubts. I mostly left because I hated how "God's Organization" was so completely un-loving and unchristian. But even before that, there were things in the doctrine, (I was too scared then to ask about) that just seemed weird to me. And the whole fact that NO ONE EVER talked about Russel and the fact that this organization was only a little over a hundred years old and was started by a MAN, who CLAIMED to have some new insight into the Bible. I thought JW's were just like every other religion and nothing special. The thing that really made me want to leave was the fact that they touted this specialness all the time, but I was unable to see it.

After I left, some things about doctrine, and Russel bacame even more clear.

I guess it was a leap of faith when I left that I was doing the right thing. And everyday since then has confirmed to me that I made the right choice.

Mystla

When my Ex and I seperated, no one was there to help me. No concerned Elders on the phone, no sister so-and-so stopped in to check on me, nothing. I was a regular meeting attender who dropped off the face of the earth, and no one cared. I had always thought that I was a part of a loving brotherhood who took care of it's members. Even my family didn't seem to care... I had no long-distance on my phone and they knew it, yet they didn't call at all the first month I was on my own..for the first time ever...

And it wasn't that they didn't have my number or didn't know what was going on... I had gone to the Elders for help with my "marital crisis" and they said that they couldn't do anything to help unless my husband (a brother at the time) came to them and asked for it (this was only 2 years ago...not in the dark ages!!) A week later I informed them that I was moving out and we were seperating, gave them my new number and address. The only time I ever heard from an Elder was about four months later, he called me to ask if a rumor he had heard about my Ex could be true or not.

I'm not saying that this is why I stayed away.. but it was the event that got me on the road to recovery. After that I started questioning things. I went to a district convention less than two months after the seperation, and through the whole thing I kept thinking how ridiculous things were.. and everytime they would talk about brotherly love I would have to concentrate on not making a snorting sound.

Since then I have done some research and become convinced that they do not have the truth!

This is probably a longer reply than you wanted....

Misty

czarofmischief

I think the moment that led to my first doubt was when that girl took her bra off...

Heh heh heh

CZAR

garybuss

When I sat and listened to the lying denials about the 1975 predictions, I knew I was right about them being wrong . . . . and bad.

"Brothers, If you heard it, you did not hear it here!"

I did hear it here (there) and I didn't appreciate being lied to nor the tone nor the attitude.

They are just a book publishing business tricking people into distributing their literature for free.

gb

The Way I See it http://www.freeminds.org/buss/buss.htm

Elsewhere

I always had nagging doubts about the whole concept of god in general... i just kept my mouth shut and pretended to believe. For a few years I even managed to "force" myself to believe in god... but the nagging doubts just would not go away.

Eventually I could not stand to go in field service and teach people things I did not believe myself. Then I got to the point that I could not stand the meetings anymore. My last meeting was a Thursday night meeting. The KM had a talk about leading a double life. The speaker made the mistake of saying that it would be better for someone to just leave the organization than lead a lie.

As soon as he said that, I got up and walked out never to return.

That was the best counsel I ever got from an elder.

unclebruce

doubts what doubts? lol

Would the Jehovahs Witness religion exist without doubt? The way i understand jw thinking (or what passes for thinking in that orwelian watchtower world of suedo-science and rationalised religion) doubts are ever present. From ones first tenative questions to ones most serious watchtower answers, doubts coupled to a deep ever nagging feeling that 'something just ain't right' is somehow part of the machinery of cult induced self-deception* that binds one into the loop of mindnumbing, life-wasting, soul draining watchtower servitude.

.. now if i can just find a way out of this internet trap i'll be free .. free at last!

unclebruce whose pathetic head swam in a sea of doubt induced guilt the whole time he was a witness

(*self deception - the most dangerous deception of them all)

freedom96

I became an adult, and started to chose friends based on who they were, not what religion they practiced.

I met quite a few people that led more Godly type lives than many witnesses. I thought to myself, how is it that Jehovah is going to destroy these people?

I came to the realization that God would not do that, and that everyone would be judged by who they were as a person, and that is was not up to me to decide that for everyone else.

I have faded away, and will never go back again.

ugg

mystla...I THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE SNORTED!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

for myself,,,it was the cruelity,,,,i just could not deal with it all...

greven

Elswhere:

I always had nagging doubts about the whole concept of god in general... i just kept my mouth shut and pretended to believe. For a few years I even managed to "force" myself to believe in god... but the nagging doubts just would not go away.
Eventually I could not stand to go in field service and teach people things I did not believe myself.

That is so like my situation! I felt 'evil' for not believing. My first step was to investicate some minor detail, Birthdays. I was 14 but it was clear the reasons given were conflicting and absurd at times, then I put my doubts to the background and got babtised at 18 years old. and what did I find when cleaning my room? my old notes on birthdays! I started to do what I wanted since long, to get to the bottom of things. I started to read the really old books in the cong's library (mostly rhutherford's) and saw that it was crap really, so many things were odd and plainly absurd that I took a final step: go out and meet ex-members, the dreaded apostates. O knew from the society that they used to lurk at the internet so that was were to look for them. So I wound up here and at other sites. this confirmed many of my doubts on the society. but I moved further and started to look at arguments for and against the biblie as written by God. Now I am atheist and completely content with it!!

Greven.