#1. Just a few flashes of doubt about peripheral issues, such as:
- no sex/marriage for the resurrected: that's just cruel.
- On reading Awake! article saying that AIDS was a judgement from God: "I don't know how much longer I can keep teaching this shit. Oops! Did I really think that?"
Each of these doubt flashes were efficiently suppressed.
#3. But they were spread out over about ten years.
#5. How could I doubt? I actually bought into the party line on all the major doctrines and issues, because the first lesson they taught me, I learned too well -- that all outside authorities are suspect.I didn't consider leaving until I saw what a corrosive effect Keeping Integrity TM was having on my conscience - and when I first made up my mind, I phrased it this way: "This may be the true religion, but it's making ME a liar!"
gently feral