by minimus 47 Replies latest jw friends
I stopped waiting in 1975, while I hadn't bought into it, I realized that it was all a cruel game with the WTS. When I found out about the 1925 fiasco...well, I realized it was a pattern. I decided there was no reason to put your life on hold. Soon, near, very soon, very near, on the threshold....
Blondie
As a witness I firmly believed that the end was close and in 1963 when our family were converted I was just 12 but still believed that armeggadon was going to be real soon. When I was baptized in August of 1967, I felt that 1975 was a true and honest prophecy. AS the years passed since then I started to get doubts in my heart but still remained in the organization until the end of 1999. I was so fed up with every bloody thing going on in the organization and then the congregation. I could no longer believe that Armeggadon was not coming in my day so with the way I felt I thought Jehovah doesn't want a half hearted Christian so I thought that it was better to leave and live the way I wanted to and no longer believed that I stood a chance even if armeggadon was coming.
I knew in my heart that for years and years I longed for my life to be as I wanted it to be as when I was younger. I believed in God and Christ but not in the way J W believe and so with my new found strengh to get out I bit the bullet and ended a 28 year marriage and walked out of the organization. I haven't looked back since and I have never regretted for one minute the choice I made.
The only terrible part of leaving is that your family is no longer with you. They do well at brainwashing people to believe we are corrupt and will be a menace to our families. In all the years as a JW I believed that disfellowshipping was awlful and shunning was terrible, but that is what was proper in the eyes of the organization so I believed it. Deep down I began feeling that disfellowshipping was cruel and terrible and was a controling factor by the Governing Body. I think that this is the most notorious teaching in the Jehovah's Witness Org.
Orangefatcat
it thought the end was 1-10 years away for about 10 years. then i said where the fugg is the fuggin end ,bra!?! since then i thought the end was when freinds ended. -gotcha!!!! hahahahahaaha aha a ahahah the end.....-right!
I was so certain that I wouldn't see the year 2000
I was TOTALLY indoctrinated in 1975,and for those of you who know me I was desperately sick with chronic ulcerative colitis.I NEEDED the new system that I was promised.
The evil cruel bastards strung me along post 1975 for 4 years more with the concept of 'how long it took Adam to name the animals before he mated with Eve'
The anguish and the agony of having to renounce the lifelong convictions of my heart.All my dreams dashed a cruel hoak in the name of God.It truly is a surreal horror.
My beloved baby sister was born 1975 surely,she would not have to start grade school in this system.
The Watchtower is run by psychopaths Burn In Hell you Bastards
The WT. loves to say that only those "serving for a date" got disappointed.
The WT. loves to say that only those "serving for a date" got disappointed.
I remember Sydlik saying that at an assembly and it pissed me off to no end! I said to my wife..."they are the ones who made the date"! Gumby
I remember looking at a Kingdom Ministry once when I was probably not older than my preteens and it had the number of memorial takers as somewhere around 3000. When I first read it I didn't realized that was just the number for the US. I thought it was the total partakers for the whole world and I compared it with the number I had seen on a few years before of 9000. Given that the end was supposed to come before all the annointed were gone that was when I specifically felt the end was very close. I thought that number was dropping very rapidly. Then my mom pointed out that the number was just for the US.
My parents thought I'd never make it out of high school when I was born. Other than the short moment I spoke about above, I never had a specific feeling that the end would be here now. I thought that it was entirely possible that I would never graduate high school or college and I though it was highly unlikely that I would die of old age, but other than what I mentioned above, I never had a firm "It'll be here before _____." thought in my mind.
I know alot of Witnesses who may not say it out loud, but they don't believe that they'll live to see The End. Therefore, why kill yourself in Service, meetings, etc.?
Until a few months ago, I was an elder in the congregation and saw plenty of evidence that this is so. The "sense of urgency" had completely evaporated and the funny thing was, not only were the "friends" not talking about it, the elders themselves refused to accept it. The CO came thru last year and at his Fri nite elder meeting asked us why the meeting attendance was so sparse. He went around the room to each elder, seeking an opinion. All he got was platitudes. Not one of us had the guts to say what we really felt: That the rank and file don't think the end is coming any time soon and they're learning to pace themselves. But, of course, that's exactly what was going on.
Felt? I believed whole-heartedly the end would have come and gone years ago.
I remember as a kid expecting to wake up any day and see lions in the street, (we lived in the inner-city area of a very large industrial town). I was chastened for suggesting that the end was coming by counting the years to 1975. "Oh no," I was told "it could come much sooner."
Hence, I didn't think I'd graduate high school. By 1976 I sort of knew the 1975 date was hoakey (I could do a little math) and started college. I wasn't certain I'd get married, didn't think the system would survive to 1990 and couldn't believe the end would exceed 2000 as by then the generation would be too old. I married and my son was born in 1988. He's working (part-time) and will be attending college in 2 years time. I believed most of the WTS stuff until 1995 when the generation was determined to be as current as Napoleon's generation. A great-grandfather and a grandfather fought in WW1, I never knew either. All my grandparents (the 1914 generation) are dead. My mom and dad are in their late 60's, mid 70's respectively and my dad was too young to be a soldier in WW2. WW1 history is about as current as Napoleon's, and there aren't many left of the 1939/41 generation either. Sad really, it took me 30 years to figure out the Watchtower lies.
3rd
