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

by Simon 55 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  ctrwtf

  Very interesting topic, one that has given me more pause and introspection over the years than I care to admit.

  My great grandmother, and my grandmother, both deeply flawed, prideful, overbearing legends in their own minds rammed this thing down the throat of my father and mother. And of course as a fourth gen born in, the die was cast for my life. I can't disregard the fact that I followed this nonsense into my adulthood even with the nagging doubts. Can't disregard the fact that as an elder I probably bear responsibility for inflicting pain on others by way of towing the company line.

  Yes, I wonder about and have little patience for people (including family members still in) who despite knowing that its a shady cult still remain in. What I have noticed though is that while still "in" they are mostly morally bankrupt despite alll the meeting attendance and field service.

  I agree with you Simon, that I mostly feel pity for those still in. And I also feel gratitude for this board and all those that participate in it. It was and is a powerful force in helping me to abandon the cult and become a better person.
• 

  William Penwell

  My grandfather was converted soon after he came out to Canada about 100 years ago. My mom knew of the religion through her dad but never took a stand till after she was married. By the time I was born she was a baptised dub. I had no choice as I was dragged to the meetings every Sunday, so that is the only thing I knew. I had doubts at a young age as some of it made no sense. Growing up in the 60's and early 70's I was in the middle of all the 1975 hype. I think looking back I had mentally checked out and started to question the truthfulness of the cult after 1975 but I married into the cult so for the next 18 years I just put on a pretence, going a long with it although my heart was not in it. I was DF'd about 22 years ago and that even though I got re-instated, I have never considered myself as a dub. I do not blame anyone as my parents did what they thought was right. I have never being happier than I am now as I am living life each and every day to the fullest.

  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. Peace out, Mr. Flipper

  I can relate to what you are saying as this sounds so much like my experience.

  
  
  
• 

  Ding

  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.

  I agree.

  Strange they would put The Finished Mystery in your hands when they knew how much "the truth" had changed.

  And how sad that they knew what was in it and still stayed in the organization.

  I'm glad you found your way out.
  
• 

  schnell

  My mom spoke of her dad's experience as a Freemason for years, and how she once read his big blue Bible and found the name Jehovah in it. It would probably break her heart if she saw that jwfacts video.
• 

  steve2

  My 4 JW grandparents shared a lot in common, with maternal grandparents converting to Bible Students in the 1920s, paternal in the 1930s:

  • Uneducated (no high school or college),
  • struggling to raise children post-World War 1 through the Great Depression,
  • religiously nominal and naive,
  • attracted to a narrative that blamed "wicked" forces (e.g., political and religious bedfellows) for the plight of the poor and downtrodden,
  • vulnerable to promises of divine retribution against the wealthy wicked and just rewards for the humble godly of the earth
  • Lacking the ability to engage in critical thinking - except when directed against 'the churches of Christendom'
  • believing they knew all anyone ever needed to know to judge all other belief systems to be false and of Satan and theirs alone to be of God and the Truth"
  • a huge capacity for ignoring and/or overlooking their own organization's shocking history of failed predictions, mistreatment and slandering of doubters, headquarters hypocrisy (e.g., Rutherford's luxurious lifestyle during a time when rank and file Witnesses were dirt poor) and imposing itself as Jehovah's exclusive channel so that to question it was tantamount to questioning Jehovah Himself

  Idiots? Seems harsh - but sentiment aside and in retrospect several decades later, Yes!
• 

  smiddy

  I admit it , I was an IDIOT ,naive ,late teen ,unhappy where my life was heading ,looking for answers to the meaning of life and had a curiosity about the bible.

  I was vulnerable .and was sucked in, hook line and sinker.From the first I was indoctrinated JW`s were a persecuted people , so I kept my mouth shut until I could read as much as I could of WT publications.

  This was in 1959 , when it wasnt that easy to do the research that is possible today.

  Finally 33 years later the penny dropped .

  I know , I`m a slow learner.
• 

  scratchme1010

  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.
  

  Why do you take it on the people who joined? I think that's blaming the victim of a scam for getting scammed. What's more, intelligence has absolutely nothing to do with the negative influence, the indoctrination and brainwashing that people get submitted to.

  I am a born in, and during my time there in that organization I met and still now people who are quite intelligent and decided to join. Remember, one thing is the capacity for people to think and process information, another completely different thing is how a person feels and what their needs are.

  The Wt and other cults capitalize on people's needs and feelings, not on reasoning or critical thinking. When you look at why people decide to join, their reasons have not a thing to do with knowing or being able to analyze a piece of information.
  
• 

  4thgen

  idiot

  /ˈɪdɪət/

  noun

  1. a person with severe mental retardation

  2. a foolish or senseless person

  Idiot? No. My Great-great grandmother left the Catholic religion because of the stance they took on warfare. She knew from the Bible that killing was wrong and stood up for what she knew to be right. It was challenging to stand up against the Catholics back in the early 40’s. I have to say that I admire her choice and applaud her courage. It certainly was a different world back then.

  Only through the passage of time, have we seen that the predictions are false. Today we have the internet and with a little bit of effort can pull back the curtain and see the reality of the organization. Idiots? No. Ignorant of the facts? Yes.

  As for myself, yes I think I was an idiot. It took me a few years to finally accept TTATT.
• 

  LongHairGal

  I guess I was an idiot but I was partly deceived. This was back in the days before the Internet, and the public library had no books about Witnesses.

  I was interested in end-time prophecy and got into discussions with somebody who told me about JWs. I was directed to my local hall where I started a study with the blue Truth book. I was led to believe Witnesses had no clergy class and that everybody was "equal" which attracted me since the hierarchy in the churches turned me off...I wasn't told the whole story...that came later after I was baptized and then the rude awakenings came!

  I was a disappointment to my study conductors since I refused to quit my full-time job. I ended up going to another hall because I couldn't stand the scrutiny. Initially, that went well and I made some friends. But, as time went on and more disillusionment came with seeing the hypocrisy, I stayed more on the fringes. Some people were nice; others had an artificial sweetness - like saccharine.

  Here, as with the first hall, I encountered these idiots trying to get me to quit my full-time job and pursue poverty doing housecleaning. (Why in the world would somebody quit a higher paying job to do manual labor with no benefits???)....I ignored them.

  They also pushed doing favors for older married ladies with a comfortable lifestyle! I absolutely refused to do this....(These people weren't supporting me.)....The price I paid was that I was unpopular and not invited much.

  Fast forward to the 1995 changed teaching on Generation and it was over. I "faded" a few years later....Now, I'm retired and very glad I followed my gut and held onto my career.

  I was an unusual Witness in that I refused to follow the crowd. I could not give up everything; I knew I had to support myself. If this earned Witnesses' dislike and remarks like "unspiritual", so be it.
• 

  JeffT

  I became a witness in 1973, just as I was graduating from college. I was fighting depression and a mental breakdown, and the talk of the world ending fit my view of current events (Nixon/watergate, the war in Vietnam ending badly, cold war etc). I was sucked in by a friend who had a JW mother. A year later I got married to a young woman who had been pulled in by family members.

  We both started slacking off by the late seventies, but neither of us knew about the other's doubts. We moved across the state in 1983 after I spent a year in school and found a better job (against the elders' advice). We gradually stopped almost all meeting attendance and field service, stopped everything in 1988 and DA'd in early 1989.

  Am I an idiot? I certainly was in 1973, yet I managed to pull my head together and get out before much of the information now available existed. Looking back, I have to say that the JW's did a VERY good job of love-bombing and hiding the dark side of their religion. By the time I understood how JC's and disfellowshipping worked, I was too far in to see my way out. I'm disinclined to disparage those that fall for it.