What do you think would have happened to you if... (page 2)

Xanthippe

I left in 1989. My husband and I found CoC in the local library. We disassociated and all of our friends and my family shunned us. My husband's parents didn't shun us because his father was starting to realise it was all false and had got hold of a copy of CoC too.

It was very hard and very lonely. We got degrees and jobs eventually. After eight years we had saved enough to put a deposit on a small house where I still live with my daughter who has just graduated and is about to do her masters. She has many friends, I have two good friends and I get on well with my work colleagues.

My family still shun me but I'm used to it. Until four years ago when I came on this forum I hadn't spoken to exJWs or discussed the beliefs of the cult since leaving. We needed to move on.

Life is good, we travel around Europe, go to the theatre and enjoy life. There are birthday parties at home and at work, we can join in whatever we like. Christmastime, we have a big tree and meet up with friends in restaurants for meals. We never give the JWs a thought or their opinion of us.

Those that have exJW friends and have this forum when they leave are very lucky.

JeffT

My wife and I stopped going to all meetings in 1988, and DA'd in 1989. We spent all our free time doing research in bookstores and libraries. In late 1988 we met up with a support group of XJW's that met once a month in church about half an hour away from our house. It took some time, but we built new lives and new friends. Most of her family and all of mine were non-JW's so we had somewhere to go for company.

smiddy

I`m obviously a slow learner and was gullible.I converted in 1960 by a co-worker ,read all I could of WT literature including some old books "Jehovah" ",Vindication" and "Harp of God" and even read "30 Years a Watchtower Slave" and Marley Coles book that was supposed to be by an outsider.

I convinced my then GF to join me ,we were baptised and married in a KH within 14 months and we were held up as an example at the CA where we were baptised a couple of months before our wedding.

However I had nobody else to sound off about what I was reading and bought the line , the truth is progressive , the light is getting brighter as the day goes on.

Had the internet been around back then and would it have made a difference to me ?

I`m pretty damn sure it would have , simply because you can talk to others about your doubts ,you can hear other peoples response to your questions ,things that have always been discouraged by the WT.

However it took us 33 years before we left the religion.in1993.

Ucantnome

My leaving had nothing to do with the internet as I didn't have it or Crisis of Conscience that I read after or other ex-witnesses. I only read the bible and witness literature.

The Searcher

In all honesty, the Watchtower Library CD ROM has played the greatest part in my discovering how corrupt the WTBTS really is. The brothers who devised it should be praised!

The internet provides the icing on the cake with so many different aspects of the org's corruptions, but "out of their own mouths" the self-proclaimed & self-glorifying "faithful and discreet slave" gives an abundance of proof in the CD ROM to demonstrate that the org is anti-scriptural, anti-Christ, and apostate!

Room 215

Another branch of that early "phone tree" mentioned by Village Idiot was Ron Frye, a former Circuit Overseer from Minnesota. I recall fondly his thoughtful, well-written if rudimentary periodical "The Christian Respondent."

Phizzy

Long before the Internet, I had decided that the stuff about Rutherford and Gang fulfilling Bible prophecy was nonsense.

I wondered if 1914 was a solid doctrine.

I also questioned the WT/JW interpretation of the Book of Daniel, giving the Body of Elders a bunch of questions that they none of them were able to answer.

I still hung on in there, believing that because the Org had " god's name" on it, he must have something to do with it in preference to all the other Sects of Christendom.

For a good while I disdained the use of the Internet, not just abut religious matters, and therefore I got no confirmation of my "doubts".

I decide one day to read the Book of Daniel without JW specs on, and realised that 1914 could not be extrapolated from it unless you were barking mad. ( As probably Freddie Franz was LOL).

Then I went on the Internet and found I was far from being alone in realising the 1914 stuff was pure Hogwash.

The whole House of Cards that is WT/JW " teaching" fell to the floor, and then , here I was on good old JWD/JWN !

Without the Internet, and this estimable Site, I could quite well be hanging on in there, though I kind of think the latest Overlapping Generation and the 7 Old Farts are the FDS etc etc may have pushed me out by now.

LevelThePlayingField

So none of the posts above reflect that a person would be "all alone and with out any comfort". Instead it reflects that you would have found out about the truth about the org regardless of the internet and found freedom through friends regardless for the most part.

This is very encouraging to me. It shows me that it's the person, not the time or situation that lends that person to finding TTATT. It's a persons core that does it, am I right?

Good going friends.

stuckinarut2

Yes that's correct LevelThePlayingField!

If a person is "an honesthearted truth-seeker" and values honesty and facts rather than mistruths and propaganda, then it seems inevitable that they will find their way OUT of the society.

After all, didn't Jesus say "you will know the truth, and the TRUTH will set you free"!?

Dagney

I was involved with a nonJW in the late 70's, and we had very passionate discussions. He started studying and attending just for me. There was one day, and I remember right where I was on the freeway, where a moment of clarity came over me and I thought, "what if they are wrong?" I talked my self back from the ledge by the thought, "oh...but we have 'the brotherhood'! Nobody else has that." Now we know that is BS. I knew enough that things were messed up, the Ray Franz thing came down, the crazy Revelation book, DF'g, counting time...but I thought I could not make it in the world without my family and friends. So I carried on.

Now I know I would have been just fine. But I didn't know that then, and I thought I wasn't strong enough. Huge regret.

But the same moment of clarity led me out years later...it had nothing to do with the internet, or CoC. I just knew in my heart I didn't belong there, I didn't think like they thought, and they were full of crap. I knew all along if I had not been born in I never would have joined. I'm glad it happened that way for me because I can honestly tell anybody the apostates or the internet had nothing to do with me leaving.

There are millions that have left and gone about their lives before the information era.

What do you think would have happened to you if...

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