Let's Be Honest - You or One of Your Ancestors Was an Idiot

by Simon 55 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Simon

  Why were we ever a JW? Were we mad? We must have been ...

  Well, my excuse is that I knew nothing else. I was a born in. That was the world and what I was indoctrinated to believe.

  Since I've left I have to admit I have a hard time respecting anyone who "came in to the truth". It seems like they had all the advantages of being able to research things and the benefit of a non-cult existence to measure things against and yet some people fell for it. Looking back, I think I might have thought they were idiots even when I was still in ... possibly my inner sense screaming at me. There just always seemed to be something wrong with them. Why would anyone fall for the WTS message?

  But of course they do. That's what religions and all cults are good at - recruiting people, sounding legit, making some sense, appearing to be an answer. Heck, they appear to be THE answer if you only listen to their viewpoint.

  And I thought ... I was there because someone in our family, in the past, was just like them.

  For whatever reason, who knows what was going on in their life, they were searching for answers and of course were easy pickings to some salesman only too quick to sell the promises of the WTS to them. Then years later, I was born and it became my religion of birth.

  It's harder to be quite so dismissive or judgemental when it's our own flesh and blood, someone we might have known and loved ... a parent, a grand-parent, maybe even a great-grandparent.

  They signed up for a different religion that might have been more benign at that stage and there wasn't the free access to information that there is now. I try to imagine what life was like 100 years ago, no internet, no TV, some radio, the odd newspaper with week-old events in it.

  Could something small have changed the course of your life? Perhaps a knock at the door unheard over the whistle of a kettle and a WatchTower never received, never read and never believed.

  Then who would I have been I wonder?

  We'll never know, the die is cast and when the curtain goes up we dangle like marionnettes and follow the path we're put upon until we figure out how to untie or cut the strings that bind us.

  I find myself looking back more with pity than anger. I feel sorry for whoever brought the WTS into our families life. It's unlikely they did it maliciously and they were seeking to do the best thing for their family and their children. They failed, but then how many people really succeed at that. Many manage to do the worst for their offspring so there is something to be thankful for that we are not born elsewhere.

  How about you? Are you an idiot or the offspring of past idiots?
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  dubstepped

  Could something small have changed the course of your life?

  Dad lost his job because the factory that paid very well moved away and we had to move to cheaper housing. Guess who we moved in next door to? Yep, a crazy JW family. That one move screwed our lives.

  Mom wasn't an idiot, per se, but was very damaged and prone to predators. The people next door were predators, abusing their children in every way, and predators, treating our family like garbage over the years. My mom idolized the insane mom next door who took her under her wing and taught her "the truth". Life would never be the same again.

  I found out recently that my mom had severe trauma in her own past. She is a very smart lady, but emotionally very hurt, and I think she was just looking for all of the answers to her life. JWs have an answer or some sort for everything and offer a very attractive future benefits plan, even though it's all bullshit.
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  millie210

  Wow. Very intriguing to think about.

  I was a born in who stayed longer than I should have and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wouldnt have been a convert if called on at my door.

  I am simply put, not a "joiner". So I might have been intrigued and studied even but wouldnt have "joined" without the familial pressure I felt as a teen.

  As to those in my past...I think it was a different religion way back then. Perhaps people were more ripe for the picking with the lure of a "new and better" Christian religion.
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  keyser soze

  I was a born-in myself. Of course, that doesn't excuse the many years I stayed in even when I no longer believed it was "the truth".
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  flipper

  Interesting thread, thanks for posting. I'm an offspring of " idiots " actually. I was born into the JW's also. Got out 13 years ago at age 44. Although my parents did well providing materially for the family- my dad was a legend in his own mind for years- very well known elder who reveled in being looked at in our town as the " Big Kahuna " .

  I feel that the WT uses flattery and love bombing to turn people's minds off to the doubts screaming inside. Then once a person like my dad gets " used " by the WT Society which is considered " progressing in position " in the JW organization it goes to their head and through 60 years of being in the cult he got SO invested he believed all the false promises and delusions, plus his ego was stroked turning off his mind to reality.

  I think the WT Society appeals to people who are lacking self esteem or lacking any real fulfilling accomplishments in their lives , also the JW organization actually LOOKS for people who are insecure or searching for comfort in their lives. ANY kind of comfort. Even the " illusionary paradise " which will make them forget loss of loved ones in death, going through a divorce, a broken family- anybody who is needy is very susceptible to being drawn in by a cult.

  I remember as a former JW I'd hear others say out in field service about a return visit using this expression " they were searching for something, looking for the truth " .
  

  So of course the WT Society is right there to offer their scam of imaginary " eternal Life " and imaginary " you'll never die or be sick again " - and people just eat this shit up- I swear. So I think that's what happened to my dad and mom . Now in their early 90's and late 80's they are too invested with my older adult siblings still in the JW cult- they feel they can't leave. And like you I look at my folks situation with pity. Like all of us- they will die eventually , sooner than later - and they were promised they'd never die. One reason I'm constantly calling the WT Society a criminal organization that uses people's lives up, then spits them out and just moves on as a corporate monster. Pretty disturbing. Mind control is powerful. As well as false promises. Lots of JW's and other cults alive and well due to these facts
  
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  schnell

  I was a born in. My step-grandmother (yes, I have one of those) has a story that when I was a toddler, I said how I loved Jehovah and "He's my father's God."

  Looking back, it's easy to psychoanalyze and see that at some level of consciousness, my impression of God WAS my biological father, this woman's step-son.

  But my dad? He was raised around the truth and had "anointed" heritage on his mother's side. (The story goes that the territory in Paris, Texas was fostered by my great grandmother and her father. It's a nice story.) Dad's father was a convert who allegedly killed a cop at some point and ran to California from Iowa. He was a drunkard, and there was an occasion when my dad and uncle beat the shit out of him after he quite LITERALLY beat my grandmother until she crapped the bed. Dad went off into the Navy, and the story goes that he read the Truth book in one night on the USS Perkins. When he first met my mom, his high school girlfriend had broken up with him. Mom has her own story.

  So what was my dad's impression of God? Maybe it was the father he didn't have.

  He could have just waited and not married my mom. I wouldn't have been born, but he could have just been a bit more skeptical. Regardless, I'm here, and you could say that I, a brand spanking new apostate, owe my very life to the Watchtower.

  *shudder*
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  OUTLAW

  How about you? Are you an idiot or the offspring of past idiots?.....Simon

  The offspring of past idiots..

  I got out ASAP..

  I taught my children how to spot Idiots..

  .................................
  

  
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  Ding

  When I looked back years later, I realized how naive I had been.

  That said, the WT propaganda techniques were very persuasive.

  And it wasn't always easy to research the WT.

  I'm talking about pre-1975 debacle, pre-Ray Franz upheaval, pre-internet.
  

  People would tell me, "Don't get involved with them. It's a cult."

  We all know how WT bashing played into the WT's hands -- "persecuted for the truth."
  

  When I asked for specifics, all critics would say were things like, "They don't believe in the Trinity. They won't take blood transfusions..."

  I already knew that, but when I sincerely asked those critics to refute the WT on such doctrinal points, very few even tried.

  No one I talked to knew anything about the false prophecies or the doctrinal flip flops.

  There wasn't ready access to old WT literature and even if there had been, how would you have known what to look for?
  

  
  
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  Village Idiot

  How about you? Are you an idiot or the offspring of past idiots?

  
  

  I'd be honored to be your ancestor.

  Seriously, I have the innocence of youth to hide behind. I had an overwhelming curiosity about the Bible at age 13. It only took a small leaflet placed in my door to get the ball rolling.

  As for there being only print media back in yesteryear, there were plenty of books and tracts written about the subject but you needed to have balls to go to a Christian bookstore to even glance at "apostate" literature.

  After getting into the witnesses I developed a desire to collect the old books and literature. Unfortunately, I could not afford them. If I did I probably would have bailed out sooner and not lasted 8 years in that infernal swamp. I had an odd experience once with a 3rd generation witness and her husband when they showed me the book The Finished Mystery that had been passed on through the years within the family. Holding it in my hands I decided to open it and read some of it. To my bewilderment they both started yelling and gesticulating at me saying "No, no! It's different!". I remember just catching a glimpse of it. Something about Behemoth and railroad trains. How odd that they would hand me a book to admire and yet go ballistic when I did what any normal human being would do and open it.
  

  Overall, it was my curiosity that got me into the JWs and my curiosity that got me kicked out. I'm not hard on myself for that but I do remain bitter over that crucial moment in time when the best years of my life were taken away from me.
  
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  Village Idiot

  OUTLAW,