Londo111
But it was an uphill battle just to start investigating.
Oh yes, it was like climbing Mt. Everest in you underwear.
Did an EX-JW wake you up to TTATT or did you put the effort to wake up yourself?
by John Aquila 112 Replies latest jw experiences
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John Aquila
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Magwitch
Being married to a hypocritical elder for 20 years did it for me. It was a slow process, but once I saw that the elder arrangement had absolutely nothing to do with holy spirit, everything else quickly followed.....The snowball effect. -
Simon
I'd always had doubts about the behaviour of many JWs and the local congregation but never even considered that I could walk away from it.
A work colleague referred me to some information in a very non-confrontational / challenging way. Literally, he made a claim about JWs thinking they "knew the star that Jehovah lives on" when we saw some in a mall on a business trip (asleep on deckchairs next to literature on a table - cart witnessing before it's time). I told him that I was a JW and he later apologized but gave me a reference to why he thought that was the case - an old Watchtower or Awake.
Of course I looked it up to prove him wrong and bam, it was true. Once the first domino falls you start noting more and more things. I read a lot and of course the quotes from the creation book were all out of context or cut short to give misleading impressions. The more you looked, the more you found coverups and deceit.
When it got to the point of the elders trying to "answer" my questions the response was basically "shut up - or else" and that then convinced my wife that I was right.
I had walked past apostates waving banners many times at assemblies and they were totally unconvincing and reinforced the belief that 'we' were right and 'we' were special. It may work for a small number of people but I don't think it helps many - aggressive in-you-face disruptive tactics are more for the benefit of the person doing them than anyone watching IMO.
If we want to reach people and convince them, we can't set ourselves up as their enemy. Even if they do wake up later, are they likely to feel that we are approachable and likely to be helpful or supportive?
Ultimately, I think people need to wake themselves up. Yes, something triggers it or many straws break the camels back and it builds up but people need to realize for themselves what the truth is. We're dealing with irrational religious belief - you can provide facts but you can't convince someone, only they can do that and it's easier to accept information given with kind words than aggression.
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dubstepped
I don't think it gives us ideas on how to help people wake up, but instead if it is up to us to wake up on our own like I did and many others, it shows that we can't help more often than not. It has to be time for most people go make any change in life. They have to individually get to those circumstances. For me, it took years to be ready as the cult held me down for so long I had to get healthy in many ways to even see how unhealthy the cult was. Had people tried to get me to leave earlier I would have just dug my heels in deeper and it would have delayed my freedom. Life and time have a way of taking us down a path to escape if we're open minded. You can't force that.
The thing that helped me was to get new perspectives on things through books on non-religious subjects. Lots of self-help and psychological books really helped. I didn't know what I didn't know.
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gma-tired2
It was Elders in action that pushed me to get out. I was so shocked by their attitudes and knew I no longer be a Jehovah Witness. That was 25 years ago. I stumbled on to JWN 3 years and I then awoke to TTATT. -
John Aquila
Simon
I had walked past apostates waving banners many times at assemblies and they were totally unconvincing and reinforced the belief that 'we' were right and 'we' were special.t I don't think it helps many - aggressive in-you-face disruptive tactics are more for the benefit of the person doing them than anyone watching IMO.Totally agree, and I'm having to change my approach and bite my tongue many times.
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Syme
I woke up by reading about evolution. By seeing the solid evidence for evolution, the next logical step was the realization that WT doctrine (Adam --> Jesus as ransom equal to Adam --> eternal life due to ransom) was fundamentally wrong.
Reading of Ray Franz and ex-JWs on the Internet came later.
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freemindfade
My journey had to start on my own doubt and cracks in cognitive dissonance, but I have to say reading stories of ones like cedars really got me moving faster to a full wake up. I know some have certain feelings about the guy, and I do too now sometimes, but his story was still meaningful and powerful to read. The more similar stories made me personally start to feel less like such an "apostate" and just someone who was stuck in a cult. -
John Aquila
KateWild 32 minutes ago
Cedars woke me up. He bumped his site on Google some how and I clicked on it by mistake.....Wow Kate, that like hitting the lottery by mistake.
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Stealth
On my own. Reading my sons world history book on the crapper, I noticed it said the fall of Babylon was in 586/587 instead of 607 as always thought. Did some internet searches on the topic that led me to some apostate info. I was determine not to read that so, I researched this period using non-apostate books from the university library.
That lead me to the H2O discussion forum. There I learned of Ray Franz book. Went back to the University library every day on my lunch break to read C of C because I was to paranoid to check it out. It took me about two months to read it 30 minutes at a time back in the corner of the library with another book in front of it, in case a JW happened to walk up and see me. It was all over after that.
Saw many people over the years at conventions with signs and never gave it a second look. Ironically it was things that were said from the convention platform that drove me away and the lack of love shown during one the worst crisis in my life.