I often wonder that same thing myself. The only answer I can come up with is that my experience living that lifestyle was so depressing, I knew that if God wanted us to live like this, then I didn't want to worship God. So on some level, I believed it, but I didn't care.
How can you be raised in the 'truth' and not be one
by Satanus 40 Replies latest jw friends
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Dismembered
My kids believed it, but as they got older now see the total hypocrasy of it all. They abhor it.
Dismembered
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LuckyNun
when i was about four years old, I was sitting looking out the window during a Sunday meeting. The brother giving the talk said that we were the one true religion and that every other religion was wrong, even though they also used the Bible to prove they were right. I remember thinking to myself, "What if we're wrong, too?" How can anyone really say they're the right religion? That was it for me. The next thirteen years were loooong and full of grief, but I escaped eventually.
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lisaBObeesa
I was raised JW by two true believer parents. And as a very young child I pretty much believed it, I guess the way other kids believe in Santa. I didn't understand it all but I thought as I got older I would.
As a small child, my dad like to teach me games of logic like Master Mind and he liked to argue. He liked to teach me how to think. I guess this is where he went wrong if he wanted me to be a JW!
By the time I was 12, I knew there was big problems with the religion. How could EVERYONE else in the whole entire world be 100% wrong? For thousands of years faithful religious people have dedicated their lives to study of the Bible and NONE of them came up with the 144,000 thing except Russel? Hummmm. So many more problems and questions... I would have been called and apostate if I had talked about my thoughts at 12.
By the time I was 16, I was 100% sure I was not going to be a JW and they were not God's One True Religion.
I waited in agony for a few more years and left home the second I turned 18 and was free.
When I was 19 or so, I decided I had better do a little research just be sure the JWs were not actually right! LOL! This was pre-internet, so I had to go to this place full of books called a LIBRARY. It took me about 2 hours and it blew me away. I thought I was going to find WT errors. Instead I found WT lies. It was as simple as doing research on the NWT. I was shocked by how angry I was at my discovery!
How Ironic that the person who taught me how to think and taught me logic is still a true believer JW.
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ljwtiamb
I got in at a very early age and totally believed everything.
However, I had to prove how serious I was to an unbelieving father, so I studied everything that the WTS printed. Before I was a teenager, I could explain so much stuff because I would do nothing but read the Aid book.
Plus, this was during the early seventies and everthing they said was being fulfilled in the news: wars andnuclear threat, political corruption (watergate), pollution, them bad russians, etc. They just had to be right, the 'end' was so, so near. I was so sure that I would never grow up and have kids of my own. In fact, everyone in my congregation told me that I would never make it to high school in this system.
Even my own family was living proof. My parents just could not get along, constant fighting, eventual divorce. Now that I look back on it, the only thing they really fought about was JW stuff. What a bunch of dumba$$es we were! My dad tried to tell us to get an education, but we just knew that satan was using him to keep us from getting everlasting life.
Frankly, the so called 'bad' JW kids are not fairing much better, but I still wonder how much further along I would be in life, had I not been so devoted.
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LittleToe
I suspect that some of it is the luck of the draw.
They get a few friends who accept them, and tempt them to the dark-side, and before you know it they're enjoying a double-life and drifting out.Lucky b*ggers!
I was a true believer... -
Balsam
I knew one young man from the time he was about 5 years old said he would never be a JW. They would ask him why but would only say I don't want too it is stupid, and he never varied all the time he grew into an adult. His parents were active off and on. Well he was forced to go to meetings till he was about 13, and he caused trouble in door to door so the parents took turns going out some one could take him home. He had a younger brother too, but he didn't respond the way the older boy did. He would go and make friends, and cooperate. Now both boys are out. Well by the timethe older boy was 18 he got a job and moved out with friends. He is grown and married now, but his parents are still active. Don't know if they have contact with him or not since I left. He hated the JW religion, though he never said why. Basically it seemed he felt all religion was stupid.
My sons were active when they were younger, but then began to resisted it all as teens around 14 or so. I have three sons.
Just because a person is raised in a religion does not mean they naturally have an appreciation for it. Nearly 3/4 of JW raised kids leave it by the time they are 20 years old.
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itsallgoodnow
I remember not believing it when I was really young. Wondering how they could really be sure they were the faithful and discreet slave, thinking their explanations were really a big stretch. But eventually, I began thinking their message of "good news" was about the worst possible thing that could happen, and since the worst possible thing usually does happen, then maybe they are on to something. That's just pessimistic, but I think the whole world view eventually got to me. Also, I always worried about everything. If I hadn't been that way, maybe I would have had a more positive attitude and more confidence to question.
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Lady Lee
My two kids were raised in it from birth. The older one probably would have stayed in it if I had stayed. But the younder one would have rebelled.
She rebelled against everything from the time she was tiny. She has always had an independant spirit (that got her into a lot of trouble with the still-a-witness father).
I think some children are timid and others have a strong desire to do it "my way". I hated it then when my job was to make her conform. Now I think it is her strongest asset
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Mulan
I was raised in it and believed it all, hook, line and sinker.
My father said something to me one time, when I was a teenager, that did haunt me. I called it to mind when I was starting to doubt. He said "You are so stubborn and rigid in the way you think, that it's a good thing you were raised a JW or you would never have listened to them. You would argue with a buzz saw".