What Made You Decide To Finally Leave The Organization? (page 3)

moreconfusedthanever

My waking was a slow process. The lack of love in the congregation and then always being told "it's not Jehovah doing it to you so don't punish him by taking away your worship."

I told my mother years ago that Jehovah is not at the kingdom hall. He couldn't be.

The new bible bothered me, the change in the blood stance, the overlapping generation.

Having children and explaining what we believe to them and it sounding ridiculous to me was what made me finally decide never to return. I didn't want my children to grow up in the life of fear and solitude like I did.

days of future passed

I was raised in "The Truth" from 5 years onward. My life was full of depression over a God that seemed to find only flaws in me. But because I was told that this was "The Truth" I pretty much lived in the mental cage the WT constructed. Believing that they would never lie (anointed) I just trudged dejectedly in life.

I saw the Dateline program - it was disturbing. I called my BIL who was an elder. He said "you don't think Holy Spirit would allow that do you?" Of course not I thought. But I didn't forget it. A bookstudy elder said that it was ok to not tell the truth under persecution - as in lie. That bothered me, doesn't god hate liars?

I lived with my younger sister for many years and put up with her unkind remarks and put downs because I wanted to help her. It was only at the end, did I find that she counted on me believing she was always telling the truth. She also stole money from me too. I had to force her to pay me back.

Her bad example helped out, when my older sister called and explained about a pedophile that had moved into their congregation and how it was covered over. Combined with the dateline program, the encouragement to lie and my JW sister being a jerk, I thought if my sister could do that to me, why not an organization?

Still, you have to find evidence that it just isn't ignorance or weakness on the part of the leaders. That is when I really read the bible and compared it to the literature. That is when I knew that they knew they were wrong. Not a mistake but purposeful lying and manipulation. Gone.

redpilltwice

Cumulative from 2012 (Candace Conti) to the final nail in the coffin, the ARC 2015.

"Overlapping generation" and "type/anti-type" WT studies were also VERY "helpful".

Sabendar

My mom kept finding my porn stashes.Sometimes she'd take my magazines and replace them with literature. One time I hid all my magazines in the trunk of her car underneath a spare tire. Of course she got a flat tire while out with a group for field service. A brother changed her tire and found my stash... He would later get DF'd for cheating on his wife.

I also had a fondness for streaking and running around naked. One night I got a little to brazen and got caught and arrested for indecent exposure... There was a local newspaper that kinda mentioned that. Elders got a hold of the newspaper and confronted my mom, then they confronted me. Charges were dropped but I got public reproof for that stunt.

Meanwhile I was dating this beautiful Irish girl. I knew I was a freak so I had one rule. Never fuck with a sister. Me and my worldly gf had lots and lots of sex. Then one day my conscious moved me and I turned myself into the elders. Private reproof, and I dumped my gf. She FREAKED. Spam calls, crying, she seriously lost her mind. Meanwhile I was really missing the sex (and I had some feelings for her)

Long story short. I didn't want to be that guy jerkin the elders around, putting my mom through ups and downs. I'd been a model Witness, baptized at 14, giving talks, taking groups out in field service. Mom regular pioneering, all the while no father in the home...

By about 17 I was just out of control. One day my mom and I were on our way to an assembly. She was driving. We got to a red light and I just opened the car door got out and ran... Eventually I moved to another town, got a place with a few random guys who shared my taste for partying and women and started my fade...

cha ching

One thing.... 607!

Even though they changed the whole idea of "generation" in 95, I was always thinking to myself "How do they know?" They Bible says 'nobody knows the day or the hour'... and so, I waited or them to realize they should 'stop guessing.' I was going to wait for Jehovah to show them up.

But when I went to a convention (2010? 2011?) and heard about an article that would be coming out to explain this whole thing, I called the Society, talked to a "bro" who said "we really love our brothers, they work so hard" (they do this to distract you, and make you feel bad for asking) and then I finally got it out of him there would be an article on 607 that year (2011)

When my husband & I did the math, read the article, found out that there were business tablets with dates and names of kings on every single page.... that was it. The Society had lied and tried to confuse you by putting in all those bogus questions (could it have been? do we really know? maybe there was another king they didn't write down?, what about the crack in the stone? maybe the weather was bad that night, and they couldn't see the stars) I really, really knew they lied. And they lied bad.

I cried, I could not believe what they did. I saw the light. I saw the pattern in everything they did. Propagandists, confusion-ists, liars.

607, dead and gone!

"Where you will you go?" Somewhere they are not lying.

Dagney

cha ching

1995 generation change was the "come to Jesus" moment for me. It was confirmation for so many niggles through the years that they were just making everything up as they went along...totally winging it.

During a Sunday meeting in 2001, I felt like I was on the outside looking in on the comments in the WT study. All of a sudden I felt like I didn't belong there, I didn't agree with what they were saying, I didn't want to teach what they were saying etc. I left and never went back.

The generation, counting of hours/measurement of spirituality, DF'ing, crazy year calculations that are supposed to mean something but mean nothing, dishonest out of context use of verses and third party quotes were the issues at the top of my list. One day I just said "I'm done."

LongHairGal

DAGNEY:

The 1995 Generation teaching was what did it for me as well.

I remember being in the hall and feeling like I got punched in the stomach. I knew in my gut it was over..it took a while but I planned my "fade"...just waiting for the right moment. I also felt I couldn't go around preaching any of this stuff to people. The list against the religion was long:..the lack of love and judgmental attitudes; gossip; teachings that made no sense; ignorant and intrusive elders; bad attitudes towards women and responsible working people, etc. etc.

Even though somebody said to me that they still thought Jehovah was using this religion, I couldn't see how I could possibly continue there. The whole thing is too abusive and an insult to my intelligence. And, if anybody wants to believe that a God that gave us a brain expects us to check our brains at the door, well let them....Before I stopped going I really stayed on the fringes. I truly could not stand it. After starting my "fade" in 2001, I may have attended a special meeting or two and the memorial for several years...couldn't wait to run out the damn door.

From what I read on here about how the religion has changed over the last decade or so - there is no way I'd be there..especially with all the crazy people and the bullshit about asking for money.

cha ching

Hey Dagney!

That is how I feel now, when I see those JW.BORG videos, like I am on the outside looking in, it is crazy! I wish I would have "seen it" in 95!

stan livedeath

i was 23 --married--with our first kid on the way. i thought long and hard about the blood issue---and knew it was wrong. i would never stand in the way of any kid of mine getting a t'f if it was necessary.

the more i thought about it--the more i realised i never believed in god--or any of the watchtower crap. armageddon was only 4 years away! ( this was 1971) resurrection is just bullshit.

i had already given up door knocking, i hated attending the meetings.

one day i was scheduled to do the public talk--some scripted rubbish about a wide mouthed cooking pot --FFS.

my eyesight blurred as i read it--i felt sick at the thought of standing there delivering the talk. then i snapped---phoned the overseer ( ex branch servant or summat ) went to see him--blurted the lot out--and that was the end of it.

OrphanCrow

What made me leave?

A whole bunch of things

For one thing, I started reading at a really young age and I would use a dictionary a lot. I found out the meaning of the word "hypocrite" and when I looked around me at the KH, that is what I saw. What I saw was not what I was told it was.

And Armageddon was coming in four years - it was 1971 and I figured I had a LOT of living to get in before Jehovah killed me in 1975 for not wanting to hang out with those horribly hypocritical people I knew from the KH. I decided I would rather die at Armageddon than be a JW

It would take many years more before I was able to de-program. I bought James Penton's book in 1987 and that is when I finally realized that I might live a little longer than what the WT had told me I would

What Made You Decide To Finally Leave The Organization?

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