by SpannerintheWorks 43 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Is it just my imagination, or are a disproportionate of JWs ex-Catholic?
Were YOU a Catholic before a JW?
Why did you feel that the JW religion was "better" than the "Catholic" one?
What was it that "clicked" and made you feel that the JWs really had the "Truth"?
Spanner
My best friend is a former Catholic, who married a "bad" JW boy (40 years ago), who decided 2 years later to get serious about his JW religion. She went along with it, and said it wasn't difficult to make the transition to being a JW. In many ways she knows she is still a Catholic deep inside, too.
She said to me once, while I was still a JW that the "only difference between confessing to the priest and confessing to the elders, is that when you confess to a priest, it really is confidential." I thought that was so funny.
My parents became dubs when I was 4, so I don't have any first hand knowledge.
The JWs target other Christian groups for members. Catholics are the largest group. Ergo, more Catholics become JWs than people from any other group. Also, many Catholics tend to have larger families and JWs target family members.
Blondie (no statistician)
Yes, what Blondie said is true.
It is simply, this, Catholics are the largest denimination in the world, so naturally, the percentage of converted catholics are the highest.
BTW,
Baptist are the largest denomination in America, so I would expect a high percentage of them in the ranks too.
Sorry for the double post.
Little which,
To follow your argument through, we would have to say that as many Hindus become JWs. Do you make sense now?
Spanner
Don't forget us clowns....
I repeat: why so many ex-Catholic
Spanner
Well my two cents would be, if you look back say 25-30 years ago, the cahtolic religion and the jw's resembled each other quite a bit. If you were catholic you were excommunicated for just about the same thing as jw's besides the blood issue. You were kicked out if you, got divorced, got pregnant before you were married. The two religions resemble each other so the draw was there at the time. But now I couldn't teel ya.My two cents.
I started studying with jw's in 1968. The old Truth book was written intentionally for Catholics. They were targeted - even the woman who studied with me told me this.
Why? During that time, a lot of Catholics were rebelling against the church. Up until the early 60's - the church was tight with their flock. If a woman died in childbirth - after her 8th baby........well, it was God's plan. yada yada.
Also, we were the hippie generation........we were "dropping out" of everything.
Also, the jw's were looked up as an "anti-establishment group" ......and this same group of young people bought into that idea. Remember the college riots, the race riots, the anti-Viet Nam riots? Yep. our generation. It would seem we were rioting against anybody/anything, eh?
Also, VietNam was going on - and our friends were being killed. We didn't understand war at all - we just knew so many of us were being drafted off to jungles.
If memory serves me - that time period was the biggest influx of Catholics into the WT.
waiting - former catholic
ps: Also, the Catholic Church is a high-control group. So are JW's. Just like when we marry - we *tend* to go back into what we know.....whether we know it or not. "tend" is an important word, btw.
