Not enough proper investigation.

JNS2

Last night there was a true story about a man who killed his wife by setting up another man, getting him to come to their house. He murdered both the wife & the other man. The police immediately thought the guy was innocent so they closed the case right away. Years later new facts came to light & the police reopened the case & he was ultimately convicted. One of the difficulties in bringing justice to this case was that the police needed to admit that they had done a poor job investigating & had acted too quickly without carefully examining all the evidence.

It reminded me of my becoming a JW. I acted too quickly without examing all the evidence & I jumped to wrong conclusions. Looking back on it now I realize that it was also very hard to admit even to myself that I was wrong. I wish I had really done the work then that may have saved me from being involved for 22 years. I was just too quick to accept everything that was spoon fed to me. I also fell into the trap of being coddled all along the way & savoring all the encouragement as I made "progress". It's all in the past now, but if I could do it over again.....!

email

I saw the story... Pretty interesting... Everything looked so obvious and clear... and then some "insignificant" piece of evidence that they had overlooked convicted him many years later.

JNS2

Hey email, thanks for adding your post! I guess starting a thread with a rhetorical question isn't the way to get much response? (LOL) Anyway, It was interesting how the police failed to investigate.

I was trying to relate that to my failure to investigate when I was studying. I may not have been so easily led down the garden path if I had really examined everything. Interestingly, there was a guy who tried hard to show me that the WTS wasn't teaching the truth. He found out I was planning to become a JW & he gave it his best effort to stop me. He went over the Alpha & Omega in Revelation trying to show how the WTS had gotten it wrong in their teaching. He brought up other things too, but the Alpha & Omega I remember. I had been warned that Satan would try to keep me from getting the truth so I guess that's what I thought was happening. I seem to remember he drove a taxi. I wish I had listened to him a little more, it may have prevented a lot of misguided years.

It does occur to me now just how much it was emphasized that people (family, friends, ANYONE) would try to discourage me from continuing to study & that it would get even more intensive when I would decide to get baptized as a JW. Satan was going to be determined that I not come into the truth (meaning becoming a JW) I guess that's how I got entangled.

Anybody have similar experiences???

onacruse

Hi JNS2, and welcome to the forum!

I wish I had listened to him a little more, it may have prevented a lot of misguided years.

Well, I spent the first 48 years of my life in the org, the last 20 of them with increasing doubts. But I have no regrets; that was then, this is now, and I have my whole future ahead of me.

Oh, and I got that little degree too, you know, the one from the College of Hard Knocks? LOL

Again, welcome.

Craig

DanTheMan

Yeah, vanity is a tough thing to overcome.

When I was a newbie j-dub, I took a job in the accounting department of a local company. Lo and behold, one of my coworkers was a rabid born-again flag-waving fundamentalist man who was working his way through Bible College so that he could become a preacher. I couldn't stand him, he was so political, he would go on and on and on about Bill & Hillary and liberals and gun rights all freakin' day long. (Kinda like some of the conservatives on this db!) When he found out about my involvement with JW's, he started bringing up stuff at every opportunity. He also started fomenting hostility towards me among my coworkers. I eventually quit the job to get away from him, he was too aggressive for me to be able to handle. Management wasn't crazy about him either, but I don't think they knew what to do with him.

That experience probably kept me in the JW's much longer than I may have stayed otherwise. I was so disgusted by this man's "Christianity", and I would think of how much I couldn't stand him and how much more Christian I thought the JW's were in comparison to these right-wing nutcase fundies like him. I'd still take JW-world over conservative-evangelical-fundie-Christian world any day. But eventually I had to start being honest with myself, to where I could say, this whole Watchtower thing is a little crazy too.

siegswife

Hi! I understand what you're saying, but when I got involved with them there weren't really many resources available to thoroughly investigate them. Adding that to the fact that they got to me when I was at a very low point in my life, I didn't stand a chance.

Some neighbors of my parents used to take the literature sometimes and once returned the favor by giving me a Dawn magazine. I looked at it and the first few paragraphs were almost verbatim some of words in the Live Forever book. Some bells went off, but I attributed it to the "evil slave". I wish I had that mag now so I could look at the copyright date...I didn't do it then. I think I was afraid of what I'd find.

You're right about the importance of investigating. I'm sure the advent of the internet and sites like this one have helped to dissuade many a would be JW. Let's hope anyway.

JNS2

onacruse: Your post really hit home. I was in 22 years & out now about 1 year (inactive & only the Memorial last year) but really only out about 3 weeks. (meaning I'm now resolved that I REALLY am out) You mentioned you have a bright future & I can certainly relate to that, but you were in 48 years so the remaining time is a) reduced & b) a downhill ride. (I started later than you so a) & b) also apply to me.) I mean if you are like me, every day something else might be starting to wear out.....knee, eyes, etc. It's a rare day that I wake up & say, HEY, I really feel great, nothing is bothering me. I don't mean to sound negative, & I think you & I both have TONS of good years ahead, but I spent maybe my BEST years as a good JW with my head buried in the sand. Yeah, my degree is in the school of hard knocks & I am not going to dwell on regrets, but it seems like you & I both frittered away a LOT of good years???

dantheman: The guy that tried to "save" me from becoming a JW was also a RABID fundie. He was so obnoxiously sure about everything that I just refused to listen to him. Plus, as I mentioned, I was programmed in advance to disregard anything negative in my headlong progress into the "TRUTH". He may have had just the opposite effect, as your experience shows, of keeping me in the organization longer. You made a good point, it is a rude awakening to finally realize after many years that the JWs are crazy TOO!

siegswife: You make a good point. Years ago there was no internet, no place like this to speed up the scales being removed from naive eyes. If anybody reads these threads & REALLY thinks about them (& sifts through the ones that may be a little unfair) then the veil or scales get RIPPED off in a hurry. I still think back to my experience & feel I was totally gullible by not looking into everything more before getting sucked in. There was no internet, but still with some effort I should have taken the time to be sure of what I was doing. I too was vulnerable & at a low point in my life. My girlfriend & her daughter (we had raised together from her birth) had moved out & I was alone & lonely. That's when they (JWs) showed up. I guess I was a sitting duck, or as you put it, I didn't stand a chance. You reminded me of just how uncomfortable it used to make me when out in service & I would offer some literature & the householder took mine & I refused theirs. What an awkward thing. Essentially it was saying: my literature is true lifesaving valuable information & yours is garbage. Wow, what arrogance! I couldn't agree with you more, a site like this is SO valuable in helping people wake up & smell the roses. No wonder the WTS is so adamant about not looking at sites like this on the internet. I hope the snowball is just starting to get rolling!!!

onacruse

JNS, the adage "hindsight is always 20/20" comes to mind. But also, that "second-guessing is a waste of time." For example, what if I'd chosen to drop the org and pursue my career in theoretical physics? I'd envisioned being part of a wonderful world of open-minded unpretentious dialogue. Instead, I would have discovered that the scientific community can be (usually is?) just as exclusionary and judgmental as the org. I might very well have dumped years of my life into that career only to be similarly disillusioned.

So, I really don't feel that I frittered away a lot of years. I've learned a lot, and now I can share a lot. And I do wake up almost every day feeling really great. I strongly subscribe to the philosophy "Life is not what happens to you, life is what you make it."

However, the body is a little worse for the wear.

Craig

jgnat

I am with onacruse that regrets are a waste of time....and energy, at our advanced age. I made tons of mistakes, but I would not go back and change a thing. If I had not become pregnant as a teenager, my son would not be here. Being a parent forced me to grow up. That was a very good thing. I am grounded, I know who I am, and I know where I want to go. The irony of being part of God's creation is we get smart about the same time our bodies start to show wear and tear.

JNS2

Hey Onacruse & Jgnat, I'm with you both all the way! I feel incredibly fortunate in so many ways, I don't take any kind of medicine for anything & I wake up every day feeling (relatively) great too, other than the "worse for wear thing". And I don't really regret any of the twists & turns of my life, including the JW part of it. It's just interesting to consider what might have happened if it didn't go the way it did. You might be right, things might have turned for the worse. I suppose that is one thing it's impossible to really know. Just interesting.

Anyone else speculate whether their life would have been better or worse if the JW experience had never happened???

Not enough proper investigation.

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