by minimus 64 Replies latest jw friends
I absolutely believed it. I was born in 1974 and lived my life counting those "70 or 80 years" from 1914 forward.
I wasn't supposed to graduate from high school, I wasn't supposed to get a job.
I'm 30, thankfully I left when I was 19-20 yoa and I have a life, a job, an education, and planning a retirement.... I quit actually believing it sometime around 1993 or 1994. It just didn't happen.
Don'tcha feel stooopid?
Nope.
Yes I did (as a teenage SDA). The choir that went down a storm at our World Youth Conference was called The Last Generation Choir. They will all be in their fifties and sixties now!
I did start to wonder however when, during Bible studies at Central Hall, we were advised to still take out life insurance, company pensions etc. I thought this sounded like hedging of bets, and was just one of a few reasons why I and a few of the other teenagers started to question things.
On the positive side, I can't remember ever being criticised for questioning teachings or having and expressing doubts. We were treated kindly and given guidance and encouragement, rather than being force fed.
The Watchtower will say (and I believe they have said in the past about armageddon and 1975), that no one forced anyone to believe what they taught and printed in their magazines! It is another way of The Watchtower not taking responsibility for what they wrote and insisted that people believe!
It is amazing that The Watchtower time and time again shows that it wants Authority and Devotion, but without any Responsibility. It is all one sided when it comes to them.
--VM44
I was told in the 3rd grade that I wouldn't have to goto junior high. I'm 24 now.
Don'tcha feel stooopid?
No, but I do feel disappointed.
Of course I believed IT ! Thats why we were J W's , thats why we hauled ourselves out of bed on Sat/Sunday mornings to go and knock on the doors and tell them .(and as I write, thats what the faithful are getting ready to do)."You can live forever in paradise on earth" , rememember the title of the book we carried?
If anyone says they did not believe it then, i am sorry but I question that.. To doubt that we were in the time of the end was to doubt the whole thing
Like Flyinghighnow I was really disappointed when the penny dropped and the realisation hit me . I then knew that I was not going to grow younger and gain the vitality of an athlete, I was not going to be able to learn to ride and drive horses in a rural idyll. I was not going to have my wife and I transformed into perfect characters who would be ideally happy all day long . Worst of all, I was going to grow old and die just like my father did and everybody before them ... Whatever the problems of the world, I could not comfort myself with the belief that "Jehovah will soon sort it out" I knew it was down to mankind to work out solutions to poverty and injustice
I felt conned !
Yes I did. Although I became a Witness in 1973 I never bought into the 1975 hysteria. However I was totaly freaked out by the decade of the 1980's. You mean the end had not come by then?
I remember the brochure "Jehovah's Witnesses In The 20th Century" I told an Elder at the time I hoped we would never see a brochure called "Jehovah's Witnesses In the 21st Century" He did not understand what I meant.
I was a true believer. I believed hook, line and sinker. What an idiot I was.
Not only did I believe it would come in my lifetime, I believed it would come before I reached the age of 21.
Just in case you are wondering, that was 40 years ago. OOPS, I guess I was wrong.
Thank goodness I got out when I was 22.
I certianly did. I'm 33 now. I fully expected it to come around 1990-1994 (I had a fascination that Jehovah was as upset as pop music/psuedo-metal and its replacement grunge as I was, I've always hated all three genres from that time period). I remember in 1991 discussing marriage with an old JW friend of mine parked in his car for hours and how the "persecution" would soon befall us all and how difficult it would be if we were separated from our wives.
I remember as a JW an elderly lady privately commenting to me (she liked me and trusted me) that "we've been told Armageddon is coming for 50 years....WHERE IS IT?" What could I say to her?
My father who is now 60+ tells me how his mother insisted upon him that he'd never finish high school before the Big A. That was 45 years ago.
Now in later 2005 very many JWs who have been in the org. over 15 years have given up on waiting for Armageddon and they quit pioneering and are taking up school courses, dancing and painting lessons, and other nonJW activities. Even especially middle aged JWs like my girlfriend's mother. My own mother is 60 and a JW but she spends 60 hours a week on our family business, another 10-15 training for her IRS work for the big January-April push, and also takes care of my invalid father and my aged grandmother. I sometimes wonder when she finds time to go to meetings or even the field ministry.
Fave it, the Watchtower religion is pathetic.
