If only someone had kicked my a$$.. (This is post is not for theists) (page 3)

ShotWhileTryingToEscape

Disillusioned JW,

You say information from people helped you leave the JWs . But it was information after initial doubts had come to you, doubts unprompted by ass-kickers.

To quote you: At times in my life, tactful direct argumentation with clear evidence from books would have helped me discover the truth much sooner than I did.”

The relevant phrase being “ At Times in my life”

And later “The ex-JWs from a distance told the JWs they don't need to talk to them (where other JWs could see them and thus get them in trouble for talking to 'apostates'), but instead that after they get home they can secretly look up the claims for themselves in the WT's literature, with the aid of the internet.”

It sounds like you kicked your own ass/made the-truth-about-the -Truth-your-own. Not to say others did not provide any information (And good for them that they went to the trouble to make it available !) But your story suggests that you were not force fed. You already were pretty hungry when facts presented themselves.

The protesters outside of the convention didn’t crowd up on you either. They recognized JWs need privacy if they might ever explore“apostate “ info. In fact I was totally “out” before I would talk about the BS of the WBTS program with anybody else.

ActuaI I think your story is a great description of the way it happens for so many of us. Slow starts, then fast—fast and gone.

jhine

Great minds , Shot , great minds .

Jan

BluesBrother

I also think back to my youth and wonder, “ Why did those close to me ,outside the .Org, not sit me down and show me I was wrong?

I guess they did, really, the best they could, but it takes an inside knowledge of the beliefs and history to be able to refute it. All they could offer were the stock objections that I had been trained to deal with.

They did not know that the Wt had forecast the end in 1914, and in 1925 ..They did not even really grasp that we were anticipating with joy the mass genocide of the population. How could they, we never told them that.

It is true. You have to start feeling doubts inside yourself. Once you reallise that something is “off” , then you can look around. Today, thank God for the internet! It allows us to talk to other ex Witnesses and hear the arguments a doubter can relate to.

HowTheBibleWasCreated

Disillusioned JW

To answer the question put earlier yes the books topic is pretty much how the Bible was created from a minimalistic point of view of both the late 19th and recent scholarship.. The title likely will be something like "If the foundations be shaken."
As I have said I doubt if most JWs would get out just by reading the book because it will cover every chapter and section of the bible and several relevant apocryphal books. However it might instill doubts as they cannot deny the scholarly or texts from other cultures that the bible draws from
Ex. Balaam was likely historical but he lived much later and never had a talking donkey.
Another example is that right now I'm dealing with the main portion of the Book of Job and have some interesting conclusions regarding Behemoth and Apis in Egyptian mythology that will leave a believer in a literal text reeling.
However once the doubts of a JW reaches the tipping point the book is meant to fill the void of where the book came from so that the arguments that JWs use such as the Is: 40:22 verse or Daniels prophecies etc fall apart quickly.
I will devote a section at the end to why evolution is true. I will not however address the idea of an afterlife since that is beyond the scope of the book and I don't even consider it a supernatural question but a scientific one.

EdenOne

I got my a$$ kicked in here many times, and I am thankful, because, hard as it was to get repeatedly challenged on my deep seated beliefs, it finally shook the theism out of my system. (Mind you, I still don't call myself atheist; rather, agnostic and apatheist. That's just my zeitgeist). But yes, it was through some bitter catfight here that FORCED ME TO GET OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE, and question, well, everything.

I only wish it had happened many years sooner, when I could have altered the course of my life in a more significant way. But, like someone said here, I wasn't ready then. I had all my adulthood since I became autonomous to think for myself, and yet I chose daily to forfeit that ability and surrender my thinking to an evil organization. I have only myself to blame for staying stupid for so long. I was duped, yes, but It's not like I was in a window-less dungeon. I could have looked outside.

jhine

Blues , though I'm a never JW because of being on here l do know quite a lot about the real WT stuff that the average person doesn't know.

I have used that knowledge when chatting to JWs on the doorstep but it has never helped. One incident that really sticks out is when l talked about 1975 . I pointed out to the lady that the time had come and gone without anything happening . I then quoted the verse about false prophets and how the Lord didn't look kindly on them . Hence the WT was a false prophet and not in God's favour .

She literary ran from my door in tears . She just couldn't cope mentally with that accusation. She must have realised that it was correct but couldn't admit it.

I found out a few days later that she had shared the encounter with some other JW ladies , one of whom l chatted to at the school gates. She wasn't at all pleased with me and as far as l know it made no difference whatever, l just felt awful .

Jan

Disillusioned JW

ShotWhileTryingToEscape, I don't favor anyone (except maybe in dire situations, like those in a cult that will eventually order them to commit suicide) being "forced fed"; instead I am in favor of information and ideas being tactfully offered to people. Yes I had doubts years before I stopped believing in the religion. At around the age 12 I stopped believing that prayer works in post-biblical times (and I wasn't even certain if it worked in biblical times) and after that I never believed in prayer again as something that works in the modern world. I was baptized at a teenage age. When I gave prayers in the congregation from the platform, even as an MS, and especially during my last 5 years as a MS, I wondered what is the point of me giving these prayers. I gave them because it was a duty assigned to me.

The very hour after I got baptized I wondered if I made a mistake in getting baptized. That is because prior to getting baptized I heard someone in the congregation say that one will remember their baptism day all of their life as a special happy day, but I noticed that my baptism was anticlimatic. I didn't feel any different emotionally from being baptized than prior to baptism (probably largely because I had already been living as a JW since infancy) and I thus wondered why I didn't get an emotional experience. For awhile prior to getting baptized I wondered if evolution was true and for years after baptism (and off and on after that) I wondered if evolution was true. The very year I got baptized (months before getting baptized) I obtained issues of a science magazine that had information about human evolution (including famous recent hominid fossils which had been found) and of evidence for abiogenesis and the evolution of non-humans. I kept those articles for several years - longer than nearly all of my other science magazine articles up to that time. I kept them longer because I considered them the most interesting and the most important of the ones I had purchased.

I later got rid of them only because I thought I didn't need them, since the library has them and I wanted to reduce the clutter in my home. A few years after I became an atheist I bought copies (after very much searching) of the science magazines I had disposed of, and for the copies I couldn't buy affordably, I made photocopies (from the library) of the articles I liked.

Disillusioned JW

HowTheBibleWasCreated, I think it would be a good idea for your book (or some other book you might write) to not be exclusively with JWs in mind, but also for anyone else in a semi-fundamentalist Christian or fundamentalist Christian religion/sect/cult. Perhaps you did intend have it in mind for multiple groups of religious people. The book I am writing has that perspective (though it might include an appendix especially focused on JWs). For those who are in a religion/sect/cult that strongly discourages critical thinking and independent thinking, it will probably also have a section that gives a warning to them about such.

ShotWhileTryingToEscape

Hey, Disillusioned,

I appreciate that your posts nail down those elusive flashes of doubt or uneasiness that hold us open to later thought to build on.

I like to listen to Mormon Stories on YouTube while l work. I am heartened by these people delineating their own dawning realization of belief in a damaging and dishonest religious organization. These interviews by John Delin (sp?) have helped me feel at peace with my own inability to see any sooner than l did.

P.S.Here’s something along the lines of the OP that I just remembered.

Have a laugh.

https://youtu.be/SAIEIJHNFx4

Nathan Natas

Hey HowTheBibleWasCreated, I don't know if you're still interested, but if you are, I'd be happy to kick your ass now.

But you have to give me $1 first.

If only someone had kicked my a$$.. (This is post is not for theists)

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