"When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies" Jefferson airplane
Until that is you find websites like this! I want to say a big thank you to all of you for everything I've learned here, as well as jwfacts, jwsurvey, Coc, Isocf etc.
I'm a born in and I spent more than two decades of my adult life in full time 'service' for the (b)org. I can't say too much about myself yet because I know for a fact there are jdubs watching this site purely to try and 'out' apostates.
It was cruel treatment of too many good people I knew at the hands of the (b)org that started to awaken me, I went through a difficult period and asked a few genuine questions, stepped down from being an eldub, and then found myself on the end of the same cruel treatment. Once I stopped putting all the blame on elders and examined the system that trained elders it all fell into place (Coc was invaluableat that point along with a book called ' the kingdom that never came' by joseph wilting, available on jwfacts) The up side is their cruelty has helped me quicken my exit and is waking up some of my family and even close friends, I have others that would undoubtedly shun me so getting df'd is not a good idea for now, maybe I'll feel different about that in the future, who knows? It's been an incredible journey so far.
Big rant ahead so please feel free to skip to the end!
These are the reasons for my exit...
It's my opinion that everyone should have the right to believe whatever they want as long as their beliefs are not harmful to others, this is why the wtbt$ as we know it needs to be brought down. From the moment a born in like me is conceived in the womb his or her life is at risk from the parents blind beliefs about blood, every friendship a jw child develops outside the cong is limited or forbidden altogether by rules the child has not yet agreed to follow, and every friendship inside the cong is threatened by the possibility of organizationally mandated shunning required at any given moment. By the time a jw child reaches adult life if they haven't been coerced into baptism already the prospect of not doing so at that point can be extremely bleak for them. The (b)org is undoubtedly guilty of neglect when it comes to the sexual abuse of children but when it comes to emotional abuse the (k)GB are guilty of far more than neglect, they are literally promoting the abuse.
Shunning destroys family's and friendships and given that hundreds (maybe more than a thousand?) jw's are shunned every week goverments around the world need to be more aware of the cruel policies of jw's. This week's WT is a joke and given my views on the matter I thought this a good time to introduce myself. There has been so much in the media about bullying at school/workplace/online in recent years so more needs to be said about WT's bullying.
I could go on about the ever changing doctrines and utterly illogical beliefs, the money grabbing and non-transparent nature of the (b)org but that's enough for now, I love reading your posts, cofty's logic (some seriously helpful stuff dude), blondie's amazing back catalogue of WT nonsense, outlaw's comedy and many many more, I'll be happy if I can contribute anything half as good, every day is an emotional roller coaster at the moment so I'll post when I can.
Keep up the good work people!