Honestly, Did Jehovah's Witnesses Do Anything POSITIVE For You?

minimus

I was raised as a Witness and am very thankful that I am out. Having said that, I think my upbringing produced positive qualities in me. Do you believe that anything positive came from your being a Witness?

Sabin

Can I think about it?

Village Idiot

They taught me how to spot BS.

Finkelstein

Yes, it helped me define what is hypocrisy, corruption and a pretentious self righteous persona, where people are self focused unto themselves and show a posture of apathy in the process.

JWS in my opinion shouldn't be trusted.

Grey Goose

Forbidden to smoke. Suppose that was a positive.

Forbidden to heavy drink. Again, positive really.

I am empathetic and kind. But then again, maybe that's just the way I'm programmed. I was taught the same things as every other JW, and these good qualities didn't rub off on a lot of them. They probably would have been arse holes even if they weren't a JW.

I think being a "still in" but mentally "out" JW, has helped me develop more positive qualities than I ever did as a full believer.

Go figure.

Beth Sarim

I observed some of the most self-righteous personalities.

I learned by JWs actions that being a good citizen is really where it is at when it comes to following Christ.

Had it not been for JWs, I probably would have never observed that. Observing some of the most puffed-up and overinflated egos imaginable in Dub land.

rip van winkle

Taught me to be patient.

I was patient with liars, hypocrites, false dates, imperfection, etc.☑

dubstepped

I have a very addictive personality. I think that had I not been petrified of the results of even trying drugs and such I could have very well ended up strung out somewhere. I didn't allow myself to even be curious, and the arrogance programmed into me made me avoid certain things from my high horse. That actually probably was a protection for me. I probably could have gone off the rails on a few things but I had too much to lose. So there was at least an effective deterrent, for me. That's really about it for the positives. Most other qualities I have I would have had anyway. They did plenty of damage, but in this one small way I do think they saved me from myself. Of course, it was intense fear that did the saving, and that had its own horrible consequences in life.

Giordano

From 13 to 23 I was a JW from age 23 to age present........ I relearned how to live in this world and become a good law abiding, neighbor and family man both immediate and extended.

Being a JW is like being a Scientologist, A Mormon or a devout Catholic.

There is nothing to learn in the company of such. Unless you enjoy the taste of bull crap.

Brock Talon

Yes. I have a chapter in my book Escape from Paradise called "Good things can come in small minded packages". The premise of the chapter was to explain all the meetings we did and how they helped me in the end. The one that actually was useful was the ministry school and learning how to be a public speaker. I think I started that school at 8 years old and it had a positive effect on me.

By the time I was older and went to college I was able to do effective public communication even though I took more courses on public speaking and even joined Toastmasters. I was always kind of ahead of my classmates in those courses because I was a JW and we all just did public speaking as a matter of course.

The hard lessons I learned from that "ministry school" has paid off for me even up to today. I do public speaking now for my work and I thank in part the JWs for that skill. Yes, I realize I could have learned it from some other place in some other way, but still, I learned it from the JWs.

The other related meeting was the Service Meeting which in part helped me to learn how to overcome objections, create "pitches", practice what you are going to say to "sell" someone, etc.. These are basic sales skills that also proved to be useful to me later in my life, especially at work. I suppose if I didn't need those skills in my job now, I wouldn't notice this, but the fact of the matter for me is I do need them.

So, I do give those elders credit where it's due because good things CAN come in small minded packages.

Honestly, Did Jehovah's Witnesses Do Anything POSITIVE For You?

Share this