Another survey from Lee

by Lady Lee 54 Replies latest jw friends

  • got my forty homey?
    got my forty homey?

    After serving in Bethel for one year from 1987-1988, and the series of events that occurred to me there and with my famjly life I left at the age of 20. There was no widespread internet as of 1988 and I never would have read any apostate literture. However, 10 years later after reading Search of Christain Freedom by Ray Franz and reading many posts in this web site the deal was sealed for me that this is not the truth depsite 10 years of inactivity/disfellowshipping

  • Tuesday
    Tuesday

  • What year did you leave? 2000
  • How old were you when you left? 19
  • Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave? A Bit, I definetly read some sites and even communicated with people on Tishie's old board.
  • If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision? The one thing that really got me was Anton's Witness Outreach UK, his disfellowshipping hearring was awesome, and I also love Beyond Jehovah's Witnesses and the questions posed there like Do you really think a Lion was originally supposed to eat grass?
  • What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing). Just didn't feel like it was the right place for me, (see previous post) my other friends were gone what was the point of staying.
  • If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind? I had some dreams about it being "the truth" then I had a dream where Armageddon had already occured but I had survived. I met all the rest of the survivors in my area which was from my congregation and was fet up with their stupidity of just waiting on Jehovah while I wanted to get some water or something. I left the group and made my own civilization. As dumb as that sounds that dream is what made me believe I made the right choice.
  • Frannie Banannie
    Frannie Banannie

    • What year did you leave?

    1992

    • How old were you when you left?

    46

    • Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave?

    No

    • If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision?

    Just comparing scriptural content to WT-Bats' teachings and doctrines

    • What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing).

    Decided to DF *myself* because of their lack of love

    • If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind?

    Didn't think it was the "truth" per se....but still thought there was "something to" their identity as God's borg....that changed when I found xdubs & info online, beginning 1999

  • Loris
    Loris

    • What year did you leave? 2002 37 years of blind obedience.
    • How old were you when you left? 55
    • Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave? If I had not had access to the internet it is possible that I would have been upset over the Dateline expose but continue to go to meetings. I did continue to attend meetings for awhile but the more pressure from the elders to stuff it and say nothing to anyone the more I resisted. Sitting in the KH while a pompas a$$ gave a "special needs" talk about me was the end. I did not go back. I did not see a need to go where I was not wanted.
    • If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision? I would NEVER read anything that put the WT in a negative light! How dare you even suggest such a thing!!
    • What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing). The frosting on the cake was learning about the U.N. The scripture "Get out of her my people" was yelling in my ear. I wanted there to be no question in anyones mind of why I left. I sent a letter to HQ, the cong, and a few of my closest aquaintences. I told them I did not want to be known as a JW any more.
    • If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind? I did still think it was the "truth" Funny how that works. The brain does not turn loose of what it perceives as a means of survival easily. I had to read 1984, True Believer, C of C, In Search of Christian Freedom, The Age of Reason, The Bible Unearthed, The History of God and a few others that I can not remember the titles of. Most of all I have finally read the Bible with a clear head and an open mind. I have no idea what I am or what is the "Truth" I am a diest I suppose. My belief system is still in flux.

    Loris

  • dustyb
    dustyb

  • What year did you leave? 1st time 2000, 2nd time (working on leaving again)
  • How old were you when you left? 16 and 20
  • Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave? first time no, second time it helped
  • If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision? i was too stupid...sex drugs and rock and roll (i didn't have sex and i didn't do drugs, so rock and roll). the first time, i was just tired of being a kid in the society. i didn't realize it, but i lived through a generation prophecy. Now that i've read and such, i've seen that a lot of my friends fathers that were a JW were perverts and sexual beasts and dickheads. and i was thinking last nite...i think one of my old friends dads killed himself for some reason because of the WTS (not for sure, just a hunch). now i just see all the hypocrisy and everything that seems to be a model of the world. my g/f was in a judicial committee, and what they said in there done it for me, and how they made her feel, and how they still make her feel. they are heartless bastards that only expect obediance....
  • What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing). the most important reason was seeing how miserable my g/f was because she made a decision on her own to date a "worldy" guy, so they treat her like total garbage. the other things that pissed me off was everyone talking like the world is so wicked and all of the lies and deception and saying they are so great and i can go on and on and on and on and on.....
  • If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind? the first time i left i finally went back. it took a few kicks in the pants, but i went back. now i can't believe its the truth because they make an abomination of the word "truth" and redefine the word as "a bunch of lies made up to look good".
  • logansrun
    logansrun

    • What year did you leave?
    Late spring, 2002.
  • How old were you when you left?

    • 25.

      Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave?

    Absolutely. But, NOT message boards. I was rather put off by ex-dub message boards. Not anymore, obviously.

  • If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision?

  • N/A

  • What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing).

    • Honestly, to pin down just one thing would be difficult. But -- the entire thought of a loving god obliterating 99.9% of humanity pretty much was the most forceful argument in favor of the exit.

    • If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind?
    By the time I left there was absolutely no doubt in my mind it wasn't the "Truth." It took me a year and a half to come to that conclusion prior to my exit, though.
  • SYN
    SYN

  • What year did you leave? 1999
  • How old were you when you left? 17
  • Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave? Nope!
  • If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision? I didn't leave because of the literature - I left because it was a terrible, terrible way of living your life, being a Witness.
  • What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing). How boring and pointless everything was, and how utterly ridiculous all of the theology was if examined in the light of logic and reason.
  • If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind? N/A.
  • CountryGuy
    CountryGuy

    I love surveys, too! Here are my answers:

  • What year did you leave? 1996

  • How old were you when you left? 24

  • Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave? Yes, but not in the way you might think. I had bought a computer and subscribed to AOL starting in 1994 and began to meet people and make friends within the gay community. In time, I learned to accept my sexuality, not reject it.

  • If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision? None. It never even occured to me to read any 'apostate' literature. Seems simple enough now, though...

  • What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing). The need to be who I was "meant" to be. I could no longer live the lie. I kept remembering the Bible verse that say that God hates a liar. If I kept pretending to be a straight man, and marry an innocent sister to perpetuate that image, was I not lying to everyone, including Jehovah?

  • If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind? Honestly, there was that nagging little voice in the back of my mind that kept telling me, "You know they're right. You know Jehovah will kill you at Armageddon. You know you should go back to the KH." That little voice would rear its head every so often in my dreams. This would be in the form of my friends begging me to come back to the "truth" before it was too late. I started researching on the internet and found this site to be most helpful. Without it I never would have learned about the UN or Vicki Boer and her treatment by the WTBS. These two issues were the ones that helped me erase my doubts. Last week I had the first of my "dreams" in several months. This time, my friends only wanted to check on me to make sure I was okay.
  • ozziepost
    ozziepost

    No, I'm not going to say how old I am!!! But.....

  • Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave? No, not a bit. I didn't even have the internet!
  • If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision? COC and ISOCF
  • What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing). Realising that I was no more than politicking at Bethel. The branch overseer said to me one day that in his opinion holy spirit had nothing to do with Bethel.
  • If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind? I left because I knew I was a christian and I knew the WTS wasn't "the troof", so I left. It cost me my family.
  • wednesday
    wednesday

    • What year did you leave? 96 I stopped attending but suffered guilt as i still believed it was the "truth"
    • How old were you when you left? early 40's
    • Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave? No, but the internet helped me see it was not the 'truth" and stop feeling like i will die at the big "A" I saw i was not alone with my sadness and grief that the WTS heaped upon me.
    • If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision?
    • none i was always faithful to the WTS and never ever looked at any other religious literature or the apostate literature. It would have been unthinkable for me to do so.The WTS themself , their on literature was what caused me to leave. They have themselves to blame for the apostates who they say fight against them. they created them
    • What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing).
    • The serious lack of love and double standards for those who sinned (some got no punishment some got the book thrown at them) Later i saw that it was not just a lack of love but they were actually heartless coldblooded people.
    • If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind?The internet, this DB and Karen Armstrongs book "the battle for God". She clearly showed that the time period the WTS came into being was the same time that many "end of the world" religions came into existense, thus CT Russel was no more inspired than the rest of them. She said that this happens often at the turn of centuries. So i saw it clear as a bell, the WTS, was just another religion and leaving now means little. No more than if i left the Baptist church.

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