Recently I was asked by post and pm why I left the WT. I expanded on my hello post to give a fuller story. I witheld certain details in the beginning because they would have identified me to someone that knew me. I'm not so concerned about that anymore. I will repost this story here because I posted it off-topic in another thread. I have a tendency to highjack threads without really thinking it through. I'm working on that.
NC
I certainly was not looking to leave, that's for sure. I fully believed I had found the truth. I saw the negatives around me but generally dismissed them as human imperfection and worked on being positive. I really loved the people. I have read poster's stories and I believe them, but my experience was very different. I never felt intellectually stifled. I have always been a thinker and a reasearcher and a writer. I felt free to continue with that aspect of my personality while a JW.
I took my bible reading very seriously. I would read accounts and then picture them in my head. I would think about details and textures and smells. I would think like a writer. This often led me to be curious about unclear details. For instance when Herod sent soldiers to kill all the baby boys under 2, I tried to picture that in my head. Only I couldn't because who killed the babies? Herod was a vassal king, installed by Rome, over Israel. So did he use Roman soldiers or Jewish soldiers? Would Jewish soldiers kill their own? Would Roman soldiers? Why would they? To protect Herod from a threat based on an ancient Jewish prophecy? How would that be in the interest of Rome? It seems Rome would not want to intentionally aggravate a rebellious, conquered territory. Even Pilate carefully considered law and crowd control when Jesus was brought to him.
Questions like this led to deeper and deeper bible research. I searched everywhere for my details. I remember doing quite a bit of hunting to find out what the temple looked like as Jews approached it from outer regions. It was elevated, so I assumed they could see it from a distance. But how did it grow on the horizon? Did it emerge gradually like a gray smudge out of a fog? Did it appear suddenly and completely when one stepped over a plane? I started reading maps (which I'm terrible at) and studying the terrain. Who did the Jews meet along the way? How did it feel to meet Jews speaking foreign tongues? When Jesus was--misplaced--how did the news trickle through the crowd of travellers? What did Mary, the frantic mother, look like as she asked if anyone had seen her son? Details!
I was doing brain exercises like this when I thought about the flood. I pictured the scene and the mothers of the Nephilim. I realized that these women were free to get on the ark--but they'd have to leave their children behind. I'm a mother and this stirred my emotions. Could I leave my child to drown without me? This thought completely changed the account for me. These were real people with strong familial attachments. Sure the nephilim were evil, but they were also sons. Suddenly a story started unfolding in my head about a woman in that time that had one of these children. How did that play out? How did she get involved with an angel? Was she completely morally bankrupt? But people aren't like that. They are complicated with layered motivations. So this character grew to become quite complex. She was faithful but life was hard. She resisted the angel's advances, but weakened over time. The angel wanted her because corrupting her was part of the game. It was a great story.
I followed my usual pattern of research and meditation. I reconstructed the ancient society. Able herded sheep, so they had wool. Jubal-Cain founded the stringed instruments and the pipes so they had music. Tubal-Cain founded iron and copper, so they had metalurgy. This was a world where mammoths still roamed the land, because I believed they died in the flood. As I added more characters and developed their personalities I had to also add their love and goodness along with their complicated badness. I studied ice-age animals, or as I thought of them, pre-flood animals. I went to the Natural History Museum and looked at their fossils. One day I was looking at a mastadon fossil while reading about mammoths. I was reading the evidence that humans hunted mammoths. That is when it all crashed. Why would humans hunt mammoths? They didn't eat meat. The climate was mild, they wouldn't need the heavy fur. They had sheep if they wanted to make clothing. WHY WOULD HUMANS EVER NEED TO HUNT MAMMOTHS? All the research I had done crashed through my cognitive dissonance and at the moment I knew with no doubt that the flood was a myth and never could have happened as told.
I also realized at that moment I could no longer be one of Jehovah's Witnesses. It's all or nothing with them, but it was more than that. That set off a domino like effect. More research that I had done over the years became clear to me. I gave myself permission to question evolution and history. Once I crossed that plane, everything suddenly came into clear view, much like the Ancient Israelites catching site of the temple. (one scenario anyway). And that was it. I only ever wanted truth. I was always willing to follow it. It wasn't the truth I wanted, but it was the truth all the same.
Once I stepped away I was better able to see the negatives I had always suppressed. The guilt, the anxiety, the. . . EXHAUSTION! The cruelty of shunning. The cruelty of requiring a scriptural divorce (which affected me for 5 years). I felt free and I still do.
So I wasn't looking to leave. I had developed some difficult questions about prayer and blessings and trials, but I was trying to work those out. I didn't read apostate material. I didn't know about WT wheelings and dealings. I simply concluded the bible was a flawed book written to give an ancient people answers and direction in an uncertain world. Why did I leave? Deep bible research. And mammoths. Evil beasts.
