What woke you up? (page 5)

B4Right

I was separated from my wife, dis-associated and moving out. Because of what my wife and I was going thru at the time--I called a fellow elder to keep an eye on my sons and at least please say hello to them when he see them at the meeting--he was VERY mean and rude, told me that it's not his job to look after my kids and that I should have thought of this ahead of disassociating myself. I said all I ask is that you say hello to them for encouragement- he hung up on me!

what love- my fellow elder who I served with for 9 years! This action caused me to stay away for a few years in mental pain- how could this be Gods organization what happen to the things we learned in elders school!!!

i somehow discovered this website and it has helped me get over my anguish and give me the slap in the mental face to WAKE-UP!!!

OverlappingGeneralizations

My awakening started at the first televised annual meeting. This was the first time I saw the governing body. I was expecting seriousness, even an air of strictness that would top the biggest ball-buster circuit overseer. But instead, I saw them goofing around, laughing, etc. While I was entertained, I lost a little respect for them. It just didn't seem very dignified for a group supposedly one notch below Jesus.

Then came the JW TV. Even more terrible representation by the GB. Will somebody give Morris a f'n haircut!? That poof on the back of his head drives me nuts! All the terrible teleprompter reading, forced gestures, etc. C'mon, If I was the school overseer, I would pull them aside and tell them they need "a little more preparation" LOL.

Then came the branch meeting. The famous tight-pants speech. And calling yoga pants "spanx" (which is something totally different!). I thought, wow, this is divinely inspired speech? Jehovah God himself wanted millions of witnesses to hear THIS? We worked so hard, bought so much equipment locally, the whole witness world is tied in to watch his hideous haircut tell us THIS?!?! Then he went on to bash young men who aren't appointed, vacations that aren't to bethel, etc. What a JOKE. There were sisters literally worried about the spanx they were wearing at that very meeting. I felt sorry for them. "No, no, I know that's what he SAID, but that's not what he MEANT". Sigh. Should I have to explain and correct God's spokesperson?

Oh man. I left that day like a six-year old having seen a headless Mickey Mouse on a smoke break.

I mean, some doctrinal things confused me all along, but I honestly threw that on God, and thought he would sort it out for me one day. But how can I trust the waters of truth when they come out of crusty old pipes like that?

I am still on the road to awakening, but I've seen behind the curtain from several angles. And I keep looking, hoping to see evidence that I'm wrong. But I think it's too late. My JW bubble has popped. When left to only my poor literacy skills, I thought I didn't understand things because I am kinda dumb. But now that I see God's supposed chosen ones on TV- I am pretty sure they are dumber than I am.

JustVisting

Stumbled on to E-Watchman and found out about the UN/NGO association; that shattered my whole image of WT. Later found this forum which further confirmed my doubts.

Giordano

At age 16 a friend loaned me a copy of The True Believer by Eric Hoffer who was a plain spoken social philosopher. In this book he mentioned the many things that extreme religions and political movements shared in common. It read in part like a critique of the Society though he never mentioned the WTBTS at all.

I stayed in until age 23 but I never could shake off the stuff Hoffer showed me. My growing distaste for the Society led me out. Here are a couple of passages:

The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude. No doctrine however profound and sublime will be effective unless it is presented as the embodiment of the one and only truth. It must be the one word from which all things are and all things speak. (p. 80)

(p. 32) Not only does a mass movement depict the present as mean and miserable - it deliberately makes it so. It fashions a pattern of individual existence that is dour, hard, repressive and dull. It decries pleasures and comforts and extols the rigorous life. It views ordinary enjoyment as trivial or even discreditable, and represents the pursuit of personal happiness as immoral.

An active mass movement rejects the present and centers it's interest on the future. It is from this attitude that it derives it's strength, for it can proceed recklessly with the present- with the health, wealth and lives of it's followers. But it must act as if it has already read the book of the future to the last word. Its doctrine is proclaimed as a key to that book.

krejames

The beginning for me was when my Bible study asked me about Judicial Committees and what they were for. I showed him James 5:13-15, which was the standard scripture we used to explain the role of the JD (at least that I was aware of). My Bible Study simply said "but that's talking about healing someone from literal sickness". I knew he was correct and then I started finding other similarly twisted scriptural interpretations.

After that it was a long process of looking at various bible translations, the interlinear etc about homosexuality and so on, then the JW Facts site - earthquake stats was a biggie for me, because I remembered having to tell people on the doors that there had been more earthquakes since 1914 than in all the time before that....

Dagney

When the "generation" change happened in 1995, I knew it was all BS and they were just making everything up...no special knowledge. I continued attending, but focused on reading the context of quoted scriptures I heard at the meeting. That led me to more and more frustration since conservatively 50-70% of the scriptures I now saw were misapplied. During a WT study in 2001, I just felt I didn't belong there anymore after listening to multiple comments given in prideful arrogance of their own spirituality. Never went back.

It's been a weird trip. Can't believe I believed that shite.

StarTrekAngel

Many issues were dormant inside of me in my case. Had some moments or flashes of awakening. I remember vividly when a co-worker challenged my knowledge of the org. He knew more about it than I did, despite never being a JW. On top of that, he was not regarded by many as being a centered person. He was related to the owner of the company and behaved as someone who was untouchable but from his attitude, he seemed like a not-so smart person. He challenged the whole 1975 thing and me, being the nice newbie JW that I was, tried to pull out the "new light" card. A few months after that, a KM article posed the question "Did JWs really falsely predicted the end in 1975?". I was thrilled. Jehovah was finally going to put this question to rest. I excitedly expected that session. Only to find out the entire article dismissed the issue and instead, encouraged people to concentrate on the positive works made by JWs. Totally evaded the answer.

That was the beginning of the end for me, now in retrospect. It took many years, but here I am finally. I even got baptized after that, not knowing what I was really getting into.

Sofia Lose

1995 generation "new light". I decided it was nothing more than making bs up as they go along. Mentally, I have been out ever since.

SL

Phizzy

Read Daniel Chapter 4 without JWSpecs on, realised the fulfillment was right there in the Chapter, and then realised straight away that 1914 was bollocks.

The rest of their House of Cards "theology" fell apart about 10 seconds later.

No 1914 = no 1919 "choosing" = the FDS/GB are self-appointed charlatans.

OnTheWayOut

I was exposed to JW's by my mother, who joined for the end of the world in 1975. She was DF'ed when it didn't happen, then went back without me. I joined as an adult after a difficult mental breakdown which accompanied substance abuse, and my mother sent God and Jehovah's Witnesses into my life to save me.

I was a fully immersed member, climbed the ladder quickly. I went from baptism in mid-1988 to elder in mid-1994. That's almost unheard of. It wasn't just so much a statement about my full participation. It was also a feather in the cap of the elder/pioneer who brought me into the JW's. So he fought hard in the back room to get me appointed.

Right away, I saw all the nepotism and double standards. Becoming an elder really helped wake me up.

The initial trigger was 1995’s change in the definition of “this generation.” It very much bothered me that such a hardcore teaching could be changed in a simple Q&A from a study article. I started researching stuff, but only within Watchtowers and a few scholars and clergy. The doctrinal change made me seek a career instead of an ordinary job, because I was sure I would grow old and die "in this system of things." I stopped preventing my wife from going to college, also.

As time went by, I was further bothered by more double standards- elders being allowed to remain elders if their "secret sins" were more than a few years old and nobody knew about them. Further favoritism for connected people bothered me, and seeing a few unloving treatments of members who had no connections was awful. I remained, but kept my eyes and ears open. In 2005, I finally asked myself why I wouldn’t just simply google “Jehovah’s Witnesses.” So I did, I followed wherever it took me. The most helpful information came from freeminds.org and jwfacts.com.

It was short work from there. I knew nothing of Ray Franz or the United Nations, and the depth of information available on the roots of JW's with past date settings and changes, Rutherford changing all the Russell stuff.

In 2006, I resigned as an elder and faded out completely by spring of 2007.

What woke you up?

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