amen
je pense, donc, je suis
What first made you doubt?
by Simon 35 Replies latest jw friends
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Grunt
Reading some old literature and realizing they had based dates on the pyramids, and a bunch of other really goofy stuff. I was at a relatives home and the room I was in had a bookcase full of the old stuff. I stayed up all night looking through it and it changed my attitude towards the society. Later, I found out that they were saying that Christ wasn't the mediator for all men, at that point I became active against them.
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thinkers wife
I have to go totally with what Blondie and RHW so well said.
John 13:35 stuck out in my mind. The literature always touted this scripture as an identifying mark of true believers. If you can't base your opinion on the people (men are imperfect) what would that leave you to base it on?
My mother has tried to sway me on this one, but I see no other way.
After that, I began to see the doctrinal problems and the damaging policies (ie Mexico vs Rowanda).
There just was no other way to view it IMO.
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Francois
I knew there was something, but couldn't remember since it was so long ago. Then, BINGO!, it hit me.
A long time ago, the Catholic Church changed its rules about eating meat on Friday. I think I was in high school at the time. Well. The Jay-Dubs got up on their soap-boxes about that big time. In every publication. From the platform. In the door-to-door work. They designed a field service presentation around it. They had a friggin' field day over that change in policy.
But even then, at 16 years of age, I knew about teachings of their own they had changed. And I knew others were comimg as well.
And I remember thinking how hypocritical it all struck me. Of course from today's perspective, given all the changes the Borg has made in the years since then, forty to be exact, it's no longer a thing of astonishment.
Changes in teaching back then weren't refered to as "new light" as it is now....
Oh hell! Why bother? We've had the goods on the bastards for years. Or as my Cubana wife says, "why beat a dead horse to the ground?"
Francois
Where it is a duty to worship the Sun you can be sure that a study of the laws of heat is a crime.
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Mommie Dark
Hi Simon: I didn't do the poll because I fall into the 'none of the above' category. Well, actions of elders had a lot to do with my eye-opeing, but it was a combo of things happening over a period of a couple of years that forced me to get out for my own sanity.
I saw ignorant and horribly venal men run roughshod over their flock, using threat of disfellowshipping to cow and silence honest well-deserved criticism of their actions. I saw politicking of the most egregious sort replace shepherding, and the Society's response was to cover it over and kick sand on the mound and instruct the r&f to pretend the hasty burial was in fact a housecleaning. And of course we were told it was just the imperfection of men, and not to blame the org for fostering such men (and keeping them as elders).
A lengthy illness gave me the time and perspective I needed to ponder that situation and its aftermaths; it also gave me a good lesson in how Jdubs treat their sick and needy spiritual sibs. During my illness one of the above elders tried to get my cleaning jobs for his pioneer crew. I wasn't the only single mom he did this to either...our employers were the ones who informed us that this twit was calling them trying to smarm us out of our livelihood. I never received one iota of help or encouragement, not even a phone inquiry regarding my circumstances. I did however get a couple of calls asking if I had a field service report to turn in! As if I should be out preaching while recovering from a systemic viral infection that incapacitated me!
When the 'donation arrangement' was announced, I KNEW in my heart it was some kind of scam. I recall telling my brother, as he gushed over how WONDERFUL it was and how it MUST be proof of Armageddon's imminence, that it looked to me like the perfect scam for the Society to get paid TWICE for each publication (and WAS he peeved at me for saying that! ): and lo, it came to pass just that way! Contribution expected from r&f dub on receipt of literature, and donation solicited at door to be contributed also. It was no shock at all, years later, to read the legal facts online, see the brief of amicus curiae & see WT listed right there with Unification Church & Swaggarrt ministries... it was sweet confirmation that my bullshit detector was spang-on after all!
I didn't get all the damning facts until I'd been out for years. I knew it was a cult before I found the corroborative evidence online, I knew that the smug arrogance typical of JWs was Brooklyn-bred and could not possibly be Godly by any stretch of imagination, but I had precious little 'proof'. I followed my heart, and it led me right out of the org and into the scary realm of personal ethical responsibility. It wasn't until years later that I found the ex-JW community online and learned that I was not alone in my conclusions, and that there was proof that my observations & conclusions were not delusional, but purely factual.
What Zero said resonates with me: "No one certain thing. It was an accrual of issues over several years, both doctrinal and policy, which seemed to get worse with time 'waiting on Jehovah'. Probably what it boiled down to was the emphasis of organization over scripture while denying it."
Honesthearted people can only pretend feces is necessary food for a limited time before becoming terminally heartsick. Most of us here got sick of the stench of all that rotten crap, and got sick of waiting on Jehovah to clean out the privy and cultivate some actual nourishment for the r&f.
The real truth may frighten those still in thrall to the cult, but it's infinitely preferable to be outside that Tower with the hard cold facts, and in the fresh air of common sense and real ethical decency, than to be trapped inside in the darkness being spoonfed spiritual diarrhea.
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Undecided
Hi Simon,
You should have included Crisis of Conscience as a choice.
Interesting post.
Ken P.
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rollercoaster
I started finding it very difficult to go to the meetings, I hated it. I was tired of the repetition in the lessons, and the fake smiles from the Bros., and Sis., There was just of feeling of "this isn't right" and would actually be very irritable while getting ready to go to the meetings, and exhausted after the meeting. What a waste of my time!!! I began to feel like I was failing my daughter by dragging her to the meetings and not allowing her to do all the fun stuff of regular society kids. The elders would "encourage" me by making me feel like I was not carrying my full load of the witness work. There's so much more that I could add to it, but bottom line is the phoney crap and all the lies made me leave. And I am so glad I did!!!(:D)
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rollercoaster
Hey...my smilie didn't work!!!! Can't figure out what I did wrong....
Oh Well...RC
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Francois
This is an important addendum, at least to me.
Yes, the about face with the Catholic's stand on meat on Friday and the JW crowing about it was the thing that first tapped me on the shoulder.
The thing that really got me going was a JW publication; the JW apologia, "Jehoavh's Witnesses in the Divine Purpose." That's what really did it for me.
If you've got a copy, take a look at it, especially if it's the original version.
In there, for instance, is the story of how Russell - whom they attempt to make look like some kinda later day Moses - stayed up past his bedtime, furiously studying scripture "heedless of the hour." Shit, which one of us hasn't done that fooling around on the Internet, or watching a late movies, or toking up with a girl/boyfriend with hopes of getting lucky later?
"Heedless of the hour" my ass. You'd think the bastard was about to part the Red Sea or something.
Then, speaking of Rutherford, Da Judge, the account is given of how he went around challenging any, all, several, and joint religious leaders to debate him about the scriptures and how they all chickened out, "proving" that theirs was a "false" religion. The nub of this one is that the pamphlets challenging these guys to debate, that I think the judge had tossed out of airplanes over cities, were said to be in fulfillment of some scripture or other about how the words of the prophet were like "tongues of fire" burning all those in opposition. Pamphlets mind you! Fucking pieces of paper tossed out of an airplane window are "tongues of fire" no less.
Reading this book and seeing how the society applied each and every little tidbit of scripture to their "anti-typical" fulfillment in the JWs and in Russell and Rutherford struck me as a HOOT on the one hand, and as just about the most arrogant damn thing I'd ever seen on the other. Pamphlets raining out of an airplane fulfills scripture about tongues of fire.
And of course they went on and on and on about the miracle wheat, and Rutherford's pedophillia (probably why the JWs are so tolerant of the bastards now), and the radio station, and Beth Sarim. Now that one was rich. Beth Sarim. Build for "olden worthies" to live in when they were presently resurrected; but Rutherford, selfless guy that he was, lived in it while waiting for Moses and that crowd to show up, the better to keep it warm for them.
Anyway, I remember how that one phrase, "heedless of the hour" so offended me, and was so blown out of proportion and how it never left my mind. Heedless of the hour. What a joke. Then the entire rest of that JW apologia. It was an open invitation to laugh in the face of the JWs.
I just wish I'd started laughing sooner. Because I waited, I covered myself with thousands of wounds by staying in the borg too long. And now it's too late to ever recover from all the damage they've done.
End of addendum.
Francois
Where it is a duty to worship the Sun you can be sure that a study of the laws of heat is a crime.
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Jim Lad
For me that a principal should be true big or small: If elders locally can't see through crap by some divine intervention than how can I expect Jesus really is the head of the congregation when I've seen so much wrong within it for years, answer = no divine intervention, God is not with this people. Then I bought Christian Freedom by R Franz and that was that.