GROWING UP AS AN EIGHTIES WITNESS (page 2)

RunningMan

I remember somebody saying that we may not know what the great tribulation was until it's over.

That doesn't sound particularly like either "great" or a "tribulation" to me. It sounds more like everyday life.

I was a kid in the 70s. I remember being upset that the system wouldn't go long enough for me to get my driver's license and own a cool car. Childish, yes. But no more so than believing that world was going to end.

After 1975 came and went and my parents stayed steadfast in their faith(darn it all), the emphasis on Armageddon coming anytime was still heavy. The emphasis shifted on the generation of 1914 not dying off before the end. I remember either an Awake or WT with the cover of a bunch of older people and the title saying something like, "1914, the generation that will not die". Well, I got news for ya, that generation is gone. There may be a few of em still hanging on but for all intense purposes, the generation of 1914 has died off.

Aztec

"That doesn't sound particularly like either "great" or a "tribulation" to me. It sounds more like everyday life."

True but, viewed through the eyes of a child it's enormous! I spent most of the 80's hoarding "bad" music and feeling guilty for it. No wonder I was such a nutjob when I left at 19.

I miss those skinny ties.

~Aztec

Mulan

I miss those skinny ties.

Don't worry, I am pretty sure they will be back someday.

observador

The whole 1914 generation thing haunted me for years even after I left. When I found freeminds.org and discovered that they changed that stupid prophecy, I was pissed right off. I was lied to for YEARS. It was a belief that I adopted and didn't lose until I read that November Watchtower. I was robbed of a childhood because of a lie.

The "1914 generation" change was so well worded that quite a few JWs didn't even realize that something had changed. My wife only found that out when we left 2 years ago.

I, on the other hand, realized it but thought that the WTBTS was being too circumspect. After all, I thought, there still were some of that generation alive.

Overtime, I concluded that they were right: it had all been a great load of crap all the time.

I remember either an Awake or WT with the cover of a bunch of older people and the title saying something like, "1914, the generation that will not die".

There you go:

talesin

hey, josephus!

Yes, I felt the same way growing up in the 60s/70s. I don't think it's stupid - it's how you were taught to feel, and as a child, you couldn't reason any differently.

That you figured it out is a testament to how smart you are!

Here's a link to a poem that describes how it felt to me (not mine, I just felt it said a lot).

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/54351/1.ashx

talesin

GentlyFeral

garybuss,

they could not undo the message I was getting at home and in my associating with the Witness people.

Although I was not raised a Witness, I had to cast back many years to remember a time when I did not believe the world would end.

First time I ran across an end-of-the-world prediction was at age 11 or 12, I think. I was reading a Tintin book, the one about the asteroid, when an eccentric astronomer predicts "the end of the world!" will result when the asteroid crashes.

And I remember thinking: "That's silly."

Seven or eight years later I was a jaydub and expecting the world to end any day.

I'm in my forties now. I've been a worldling again for another eight years and I'm still half-convinced the human race will destroy itself, soon, from sheer cussedness.

How the hell do I get rid of this thing?

GentlyFeral

undercover

Observador:

That's it! That's the magazine cover I remember. Thanks for the scan.

Edited to wonder aloud: I wonder how many of those people on the cover are still alive?

garybuss

GentlyFeral, You wrote:

I'm in my forties now. I've been a worldling again for another eight years and I'm still half-convinced the human race will destroy itself, soon, from sheer cussedness.

How the hell do I get rid of this thing?

I am not sure how you change your outlook. Some people have had terrible living experiences and need some assurance there is justice somewhere. Some have an underlying anxiety. Some have mild delusions. I think some like living with a chronic feeling of impending doom. Many prefer the pain of the present over the unknown of the future after change. Change is too scary for them.

For me it took an inside out overhauling. I had flawed core beliefs. I was living my life and making life changing decisions based on assumptions that I had never challenged. Assumptions like the reality of theism, the reliability of sacred writings, the belief that important people to me (like my parents) would never reject me. Those were all wrong and all the decisions I made using those assumptions netted me something other than I had hoped for.

I sat down and made a list of all my beliefs and under each one I listed if it was based on fact or on an assumption. I challenged all my core beliefs I could list. This took me some time and resulted in my reading a couple hundred books and talking with sages hundreds of hours.

In the end it is like I have gone from DOS to Windows XP in my mind. I have a whole new operating system and I am a true skeptic now. GaryB

mouthy

My heart aches reading all your stories. Before my Melanie died-she told me the same stories how when she was in bed at night she would be so afraid "the end was coming THAT night" .It makes me cringe to think I put this on my kids. Remember the 8 days assemblies Gary??? I was to poor to rent a hotel- as most did. I had to take my "bible studies" & kids & sleep in tents, sometimes in the pouring rain...We are sure remnants of a mind altering group....I guess it is good for" lurkers"to be reminded how faithful we truly were to a false prophet...And they dare to say now "They were not REALLY Jehovahs Witnesses!!!!!!

GROWING UP AS AN EIGHTIES WITNESS

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