Looking Back, How Did You Really Feel About "The Truth"? (page 2)

Sassy

in awe, in love? No.. But I believed because I was taught this was the truth and there was no other way but to believe.

Love_Truth

I was always, and still am, a "true believer" in the Bible.

I was only a true believer" in the WTC, however, until I was 13 or so. Then I left, got DFd, only to come back in as a beliver in the Bible, but increasingly grew at odds with how the WTC consistently and continuously expanded their dogma "outside the things written".

From that time onward, I attempted to get them to realize this, and stop their apostate practices, to no avail, obviously.

So, I feel now, as I did then, that the Bible is "the Truth", just as Jesus Christ stated in John 17:17.

minimus

Love-Truth, you are a brave man to try to get the WT to stop their "apostate practices". So...how's your disfellowshipping been?

Love_Truth

minimus,

I was involuntarily DAd by the JC approximately 3 years ago, after I had divorced my wife 18 months prior to that. I had not attended any meetings, at that point for at least a year. So, I'd been "out" for 2.5 years before they came a-gunnin' for me. Many followed me out the door, around 15 or 16 total. We now study God's word without the Apostate influence of the "society".

minimus

I can just imagine the shock when everyone left the congregation.

willyloman

Thanks to Nina for providing the template:

Yep, that was me -- a true believer. I believed it, lived it, preached it. My first doubts came when I saw [fill in appropriate event here] and they multiplied like rabbits after that.

Many of us were true believers until something, or a series of somethings, startled us out of our trance. Now when I look back at these disquieting things, I am astounded how long the list is and that it took so long to "see" it.

itsallgoodnow

always wished I was somebody else, not in a Witness family, or that my parents would just stop going. never had the courage to tell them what I thought though and beleived for a while, but didn't ever believe I fit in with them.

BluesBrother

Yes I really believed. I lived my life around the K Hall activities and neglected things that really should have been sorted out, but hey, "Armageddons around the corner, isnt it?"

I had a lot of questions as years went by, but I always believed that the Governing Body were a lot cleverer than me , so I guessed they must be right.

It took something really special to make me realise that it was all baloney . After, that I never had any doubts and just needed to find a way out and fade fast as I could

Leolaia

I was raised as a JW as well. I totally believed the doctrines about the trinity, hell, Armageddon, the overall JW doctrine as Bible-based and a modern restoration of apostolic Christianity. One big stumbling block was the doctrine about the resurrection which even at the age of 7 I knew did not make sense. So I developed my own private belief about the resurrection and the survival of the spirit (that is, not the soul) after death. Although I thought the doctrines were mostly true, I never believed in the teachings about the organization, being the faithful and discreet slave, prophesied in Revelation, etc. I always knew the organization was imperfect and deeply flawed (especially with respect to the aging, out-of-touch leadership, and the pettiness and un-Christian attitude I saw), and would make fun of it with my other Witness friends. But I thought it had honest, genuine faithful leaders, and my attitude would change when I discovered through my research how dishonest the Society had been on such matters as the increase of earthquakes, the intellectual dishonesty in the Creation book and the Trinity broshure, etc., and the release of the Revelation Climax book pretty much sealed it in my mind that the JWs did not have the truth. I never was in "love" with it, hated all the meetings, hated going in field service, hated having to be different from the other kids in school, and hating the hypocrisy that I saw. That was the time I was reading the gospels a lot and really appreciating how much the Society was like the Pharisees, and comparing Jesus saying not to judge others with the Society's teaching that the preaching work was judging the world in terms of whether they accepted the "truth". The self-righteousness and presumptuousness I saw really stung me. I was reminded of Matthew, when Jesus rejects the "workers of lawlessness" though they claimed to preach and perform works in his name.

DanTheMan

I never understood a lot of it, I understand what JW's believe now better than I did then, especially WT history, which I was very ignorant of when I was a dub. I loved the apocalypticism and the idea that I would never die. It was a stabilizing influence, can't say my mental health has been spectacular since I left.

Looking Back, How Did You Really Feel About "The Truth"?

Share this