Wow! I am so happy for you! What a relief it must be to be able to share this with your husband and have it turn out so well.
I am sure there will be many challenges ahead as you go through the difficult process of getting out of the religion and rebuilding your lives, but doing it together will make it so much easier. You will make new friends and build new memories as you encounter many wonderful new firsts: Your first Christmas, First time voting, first Halloween, etc.
Goodbye fear obligation and guilt, hello sleeping in on Saturday morning!
I think you are on the right track. People can come up with all kind of convoluted reasons why a loving God would create mankind then go off and leave us to torture and kill each other for centuries, but in the end it just doesn't make any sense.
And believing in a literal Adam and eve is ridiculous when science proves mankind has been on the earth far longer than any possible interpretation of the bible could account for. Most Europeans have Neanderthal DNA, how could that be if we were created? That is just one piece of the mountain of evidence that confirms we evolved, there is so much more.
It's hard at first when your whole world view changes so quickly, but I would never go back to believing in fairy tales, no matter how comforting. Just because God isn't going to step in and save mankind from themselves does not mean there is no hope, it just means we have to work harder at making the world a better place. I believe what Ghandi said, that we must be the change we wish to see in the world.
So take your time getting used to these new ideas, educate yourself on things, learn all you can about cults and how they warp your thinking. I recommend Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steve Hassan, especially if you want to get your husband out. Don't make any big decisions, be very careful what you say to others. You are starting on an exciting journey of discovery.
first let me introduce my self, i am a 33yo male show spent much of his youth in the jw cult, i was not raised into the truth however thought i found it at the age of 11 when a well caring brother knocked my door, i had no father figure so this brother was everything to me, like a father, i quickly began attending meetings even when my mom used to oppose, i was taken like an example kid because i was an "orphan" in the spiritual sense, i got baptized when i was 12, and spent the rest of my teenage years being this good kid everyone thought i was, i hated that attention and pressure however it felt good to be doing good things, when i was about to finish high school i started to get into punk and ska music, i used to listen to it in secret, one time an elder found out and went to my house when i wasnt there, he went into my room and took all my cds, this was my first time i felt like i was being invaded of my privacy, i was made to feel guilty for liking this music and lost all my priviledges..theres a lot more i can say but i will stick to the main points, i became a reg pioneer, i became an ms, the whole thing, living in new york allowed me to visit bethel many times and had many many friends there, at the head quarters and walkill, in my cong we had bethelite elders etc, so yeah i was "in the club" , i always had a doubt in the back of my mind if what i was doing was the right thing, i used to rent the basement out of en elders house, he is what made me turn, he was the mos unloving person i ever met, for instance he would turn off the heat during snow storms, sometimes due to my pioneering i had no food and he knew this, well no food from him etc.
yet all this time i thought i was doing the right thing, eventually i feel in love and started dating this beautiful pioneer girl, daughter of pioneer parents as well, i never felt fully excepted because of my spiritual orphan status and no family in the truth, eventually got to a point where i could not communicate with her and her parents used to pick up the calls, they told me i could not continue to pursue a relationship with her, i was devastated!
long story short i wanted to see her etc, they put a restraining order and labeled me a stalker, made a mistake of sending her an e-mail and well, that got me arrested!!
Welcome. I am sorry you were treated so poorly. Sadly this is not that uncommon in "God's loving organization". Although I'm sure this was very painful, at least it allowed you to break free.
i mean, i don't want to be miserable or anything, but what's the bloody point of it all?.
since i left the watchtower cult, i have come to realise that god cannot possibly exist...and if a god exists...god is indifferent to humankind as the least.. in 100 years time i'll be gone.
I get what you are saying, I am one of those that tends towards depression and sometimes I wonder whether life is worth living. I finally realized that it was up to me to find a purpose, I had to find a reason to get up in the morning. I believe we all have a gift to bring to the world, and it is up to us to figure out what that is and then do it. You are a musician, maybe that is your gift. Maybe it's playing the music others want to hear and and maybe your gift is your own music, that's for you to find out. You can only know by getting out there and doing it whole heartedly and without fear. You may never be famous, but that doesn't mean your efforts are in vain because of you are doing what you love and what fulfils you then you are a success.
I have struggled with this myself, I wonder why I feel this need and the way forward is not always certain, but I find I can only be my best self when creativity is part of my life, so I make it happen.
i might superstitiously have some kind of doubt but digging a bit deeper in my heart i really don't believe in god.
as a human i could never just sit and watch people be tortured, live years of abuse, suffer from illness and disabilities and all the other awful things people have to endure day after day without doing something about it.
onestly, like all other ex-watchtower I understand the horrors of realising that we've been hoodwinked and the feelings that induces - and I can imagine how easy it is to simply discard God to put an end to any chance of touching belief again. But that attitude - and I mean attitude - loses us so much.
Even after realizing the Watchtower was a bunch of lies I wanted to believe in God. I liked the comfort of belief and being part of a religious community. But my need or desire for those things doesn't mean God exists, and I couldn't fool myself that it did.
In a real sense, the watchtower is making people believe even after they've left: they're making them believe that God and the watchtower are somehow genuinely linked, so that they must reject both.
Not really, at least in my case. I could see how the Watchtower has twisted and manipulated the scriptures and that there are other ways a sincere person could interpret the scriptures. I found churches that were acceptable to me and that I felt were compatible with the scriptures. But finding an acceptable church doesn't mean God exists any more than bad churches prove he doesn't.
They're making people believe in no God ever again. Didn't we leave to be free of that influence? why should we have to disbelieve, just because we leave them?
Obviously we don't have to believe or disbelieve because of the Watchtower. But questioning the Watchtower started me on a path at looking at many things in a more critical way. Once I disproved the Watchtower I couldn't just stop there, I had to look at the evidence for belief in God as well. If the facts had supported belief in God I would have been happy to continue believing in him, but they did not. I had to go where the facts took me.
i was just reading through some posts and had a startling realization.. the comment that sparked this went something like this: why oh why when i started into this in 1989 did i not research the history of the wtbts?
etc....... i too was studying and moving towards baptism around that same time.
Access to information only helps when people are willing to look at it. I do believe the internet has caused a slow down in growth and will continue to make it more difficult for the Watchtower to recruit new members, but there are still many areas where the internet is not widely available. Even in areas where the internet is available it's no guarantee, as the Watchtower belief system appeals to people who are struggling with life issues and seeking simplistic answers. If people are desperate for hope they are less likely to question things. Of course once people start a study they are quickly warned about any information critical of the Watchtower, at that point it's usually too late.
just happy to be alive....can barely move ☺.. a girl who just got her license , and a new suv....thought it might be cool to pass the person in front of her....at a curve......on a two way road!!!!!😠😠😠.
i didn't see an introduction forum anywhere but i thought it would be weird to start posting without first introducing myself so, here we are.
i'm 15, and i've been looking for a place to discuss my thoughts on the religion that i'm pretty much stuck in at the moment.
my mom and dad divorced over their different beliefs over a year ago (my mom is jw and my dad is an very knowledgeable apostate, so you can see how they would fight over it), and since then i've stopped believing altogether.. just thought i'd say hello.
I know it's hard with your mom, but she really is trying to do the right thing in raising you in a religion she believes in, so be patient and respectful.You will be an adult enough and able to live your life on your own terms.
