What Convinced you to Leave? (page 2)

Je.suis.oisif

Just Kidding......you have just written my response for me

Lauren it isn't so much why we left it's really about why your having these problems. You might be surprised to learn that it's not really your fault because you have been infected by the nonsense of the WT. It's silly stuff but poison doesn't have to be complex to harm a person.
I think the following quotes describe what and why you have been having a rough go. They are from the book The True Believer by Eric Hoffer and it is about mass movements.

Here, as elsewhere, the technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure. Mass movements are usually accused of doping their followers with hope of the future while cheating them of the enjoyment of the present. (p. 15)

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.

JeffT

I came in just after I graduated from college in 1973, during the run up to 1975. In 1988 I sat through a talk at a circuit assembly about the evils of college and how it was a waste of time because the world was about to end. At the time my two oldest children were entering their teenage years and doing well in school. I vividly remember thinking "the world has been about to end for fifteen years, doesn't it actually have to end some time?"

That thought launched a year of intense research and study, that ended with my wife and I DA'ing in March 1989. Once you start looking into it, the JW religion simply does not stand up to scrutiny.

LexIsFree

1914 teaching

Overlapping generation (which I honestly still don't really understand)

The fact that an elder can commit a sin, go three years or more without confessing, then confessing, and not have to face a judicial committee. That wouldn't happen to a R&F

Not reporting child abuse to authorities

Constant change in blood doctrine

But most of all, the conditional love. No one should ever love you only because you are doing what they say. Real love is unconditional.

ToesUp

"The fact that an elder can commit a sin, go three years or more without confessing, then confessing, and not have to face a judicial committee. That wouldn't happen to a R&F"

This is a BIG one for us. This is actually written in the Elders manual. If some knew of this, it may have a big impact. Especially ones who have been DF'd or have had family members DF'd. The double standards and hypocrisy is through the roof!

Designer Stubble

Decades of doubts pushed aside...then leading to my tipping point was the KM of September 2007 in which the Question Box showed that independent Bible study was not allowed and then the May 1, 2008 WT (page 18-22) discouraged use of translations other than the NWT.

So nearing my tipping point at the 2008 District Convention I browse the new publication "God's Love" (ironic title) that tells the readers they must shun DFed minor Children as they should Adults. I then knew I no longer wanted to be part of this organization and started a period of prayerful reading and research, which lead to my departure - fortunately my wife and kids following in my slipstream.

Witness My Fury

Research, ..... you need to do some more.

cantleave

The first thing that really shocked me was the association with the UN. After that everything collapsed like a house of cards.

I now cannot think of anything they teach which has any truth.

SecretSlaveClass

LaurenM:

An elder's son raped my sister, they DF'd her for promiscuity, immorality and slander but he was only reproved dispite the authorities charging him for sexual battery and assault. They were also all racist to the extreme degree while claiming in God's eyes we were all the same.

Lauren my question to you is:

In the time you have been a member of this forum, have you done any research on the Org - their failed prophecies, the origins of the Org being implicated with the occult, the willful misleading with lies and twisted facts? What about the Royal Comission which was and still is a topic of discussion here? If you have read all the available information surely you would realize the bOrg is a load of BS, so why the need for confirmation from others and why they left? Why would you want to go back?

I'm just speculating here, but thinking back to your post asking if there were any good wordly people because you had one bad experience with a guy, I'm wondering if this one bad experience has left you feeling confused and disillusioned? If so please reconsider. You are still so new to the reality of life outside the bOrg and not being patient and giving yourself more time to discover what freedom outside the bOrg really offers. Denying yourself this opportunity is really cheating yourself out of the chance to fully explore this freedom which awaits you. I wish you lived nearby, i would happily help you realize how phenomenally wonderful freedom outside the bOrg is. I hate the idea of good people being sucked back in to that disgusting cult and throwing their life away for an organization that doesn't care an iota about anyone. Please hang in there!

FayeDunaway

I'm thinking you feel really alienated these days, and kind of in a state of limbo. I don't know if you still live with your parents and how much control of your own life you have, but you need a friend or counsellor to talk to who is not a witness. We apparently aren't doing it for you, you need a one on one in real life. I don't know what the appeal of the elders is for you, but it sounds like you are feeling lonely and desperate and lost. Can you walk into another church and talk with the pastor there? Anything, but you need to talk to someone.

What Convinced you to Leave?