i have never posted my story on jwd and it was only recently that it occured to me that i should really make more of an effort to; here is the first part....sorry if its longwinded.... .
i was brought up in the borg from the age of 18 months old and as you can understand i have known little else.
previous to being in the truth my mother was an unwanted child and beaten by her mother, sure enough she fell into an abusive relationship with my father which left her with minus zero confidence and on the verge of a nervous breakdown; apparently my mum was considering throwing us both off a railway bridge she was that depressed and to her there was no point in living.
Yep DB ringing a few bells with me here too.
My mother was a single parent die hard dub (or so I thought) until she married my step-father when I was 11. Reading your story was quite painful as I had very similar experiences.
The thing is, nowadays, (particularly in the UK) their feet wouldn't touch the ground on the way to the Police Station as they were charged with child abuse. JW parents shouldn't have kids. That religion simply has no idea.
Craig
ughhhhh, i left "the truth" when i was 16 i had my daughter when i was 18. while is was finishing college my mother watched my daughter for me , so they are very very close.
well whenever my daughter goes to visit usualy about a week at a time my mother takes her to the hall .
she fills her head with the doctrine and tells her that ill say bad things about it and scares her into not telling me about it .
Sorry I have to agree with Luna here.
I had to press the nuclear button with my mother as she would not give me a categorical assurance that she would not talk to my kids about 'the truth'.
I would rather have my kids angry at me for cutting off contact with their gran, which i can rationalise with them when they are old enough to understand than lose them to the dangerous cult that is the Watchtower. I would make it clear in no uncertain terms that she stops talking to them about it now or you will severley restrict future communication. A kind of reverse shunning if you will.
Craig
a common feature many of us suffer from after exiting from the wts is that we are often left submerged in a morass of financial problems.
the 'live for today' attitude induced in us by the wts is certainly no help in building wealth, so few of us leave the wts without some damage happening to us financially.
in my own case it was a business partner who cleared out the business accounts when i was an overseas trip, no doubt justifying his fraud as i was now not attending meetings.
I agree with HS's analysis.
My upbringing in the Watchtower gave me no financial sense at all. This was combined with clueless parents who bought into 'The End is Soon' dogma big time gave me a very poor start in life from a financially.
So... by the time I'm 25 I have amassed nearly £25k in debt through credit cards, bank loans and store cards etc. I was very fortunate to have a wife who worked with me to pay these off and learned the hard way that you have to plan for tomorrow, and the next day ... and the rest of your life!
I don't blame the Watchtower for every last penny of my debt problems, because by nature I'm not that great with money; but I do think they bear a great deal of responsibility for not allowing people to plan for their future financially with their 'end is real soon now' approach to life.
Craig
the term 'generation' can mean a number of time frames.
it can refer to the time from the birth of one generation to the birth of the next, which is about 20 years.
the society used the psalms to determine the length of a life-span to calculate the "last generation" in making its case that 70 years from 1914 would put us at the threshold of 1975.psalm 90:10 says, "the days of our years are threescore years and ten [70 years]; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years [80 years], yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.".
Quote from Watchtower August 1st 2023 (Quarterly US and European Edition)
"Not misled by the past"
"In recent times some of Jehovah's people have made reference to 1914 as being of some biblical significance! In their eagerness to see the Kingdom Work fulfilled they have speculated that somehow 'the faithful and discreet slave' has in the past promoted this date as being tied in with Bible prophecy. How foolish!
True, some over zealous brothers in the mid to late twentieth century indicated that this may be the case, however 'the faithful slave' has at all times 'kept on the watch' (insert out of context scripture here), not knowing the 'day or hour'. We always strive to be 'cautious as sperpents and as innocent as doves'.
How happy we as Jehovah's People are that we are not slavishly bound to some date, but rather spread the good news as Christ's faithful followers!"
Just you watch, 20 years from now they'll be printing stuff like this.
Craig
i submit the following for your thoughts and comments.
making the claim.
the single most significant problem i have with the jw doctrine, is that they claim that god chose them to be his earthly organization, to the exclusion of all others.
The FDS doctrine is the one doctrine they can never ditch no matter what the cost. If they throw that out then all else falls.
hi there i'm new here, my name is fiona i am not yet a jw and have not started to study yet.
i am very interested in doing so but since i am still new to all this i thought i should attend some meetings first.
i am going to my first one today at the kelvin hall in glasgow, i am quite nervous as i do not know what to expect but also excited at the same time since it could be the beginning of a huge change in my life.
Hi Fiona,
Can't really add much to what has been already said! Run as fast as you can FAR FAR AWAY from these people. You will never regret it.
I live local to you in Glasgow so if you want someone local to talk to feel free to contact me.
Craig
last night i was out with my friends and i ran into another ex-jw.
based on the conversation with this ex-jw, my friends could tell that i was hiding something.
i think i will have to tell my friends that i was a jw.
When the occassion arises yes.
It then gives me the opportunity to anti-witness to them thus ensuring that they will forever be a no go area for the Watchtower.
In all my years as a dub I never once studied with anyone to baptism, but as a direct result of my educating people about the dangers of the Watchtower cult I can personally vouch that at least 40 people will never become Jehovah's Witnesses.
:-)
Craig
it makes you wonder when exactly the governing body and their lawyers decided to change the "generation of 1914" doctrine.
the first quotation below is from the 1992 wt and the second one from the 1993 brochure the purpose of life, just two lousy years before they imfamously dropped the whole idea:
*** w92 5/1 p. 7 the 1914 generation?why significant?
Hi all, interesting thread,
I personally feel that the damage caused by painting themselves into the corner is already long done; we are just too close to it to see it. At some point towards the end of the 21st century, the religious historians of the time will look back at the period from around 1990-2000 and draw the line saying here marks the beginning of the end for the Watchtower Society.
Irrespective of what the Watchtower does now 'the era of global expansion' (to quote Penton) during the days of Knorr and Franz from the 50's to the 80's are long long gone.
It is, as has been said, just a matter of time.
Just my thoughts.
Craig
i am wondering how iminent did armageddon seem when you were jws?
how iminent does the wts feel it is today?.
i recall that for me it seemed that it could happen at any moment.
Hi all,
Back in 1982 when I was a mere 12 year old, a group of us were sitting round after the book study discussing how soon ?it? might be. The general consensus was that it was ?real soon? but a few short years at most away.
My stepfather then chipped in with this comment. ?I tell you all here tonight. If we are all sitting here in the year 2000 then I will have some serious thinking to do, because obviously by then we would know it could not be true!? He said this in all seriousness secure in his own mind that what he was saying was never going to happen, and indeed the nods and smiles of the mindless drones also in the room re-enforced that view. Namely that of course we were never going to wait as long as the year 2000 and how silly to even think such a thing.
When I see my mother and stepfather now I just see burnt out hollow shells of their former selves. Of course they cannot see that they have been sold a dud. They still live for the hope of ?any day now.?
I recently repeated my stepfather?s comments back to him and all he could come back with was a feeble ?well we don?t serve for a specific date and we must have faith that the end will come soon?.
They are going to go to their graves mindless tired and lonely old people.
How sad.
I HATE you Watchtower for the hurt you have caused my family.
Craig
so many of us on this forum have criticised the watchtower society for their obscene blood transfusion/fractions policies.
quite right too.. it begs the question though; what are you doing about blood now that you have a more tolerant and informed perspective?
it's a rhetorical question.
Yep, the knowledge that I am breaking another poxy Watchtower rule being part of the pleasure.
When I first started earlier this year the nurse explained to me that the blood can save up to five different people. It's a really simple act and takes all of 15 minutes followed by free tea and biscuits.
There's no reason why a healthy adult shouldn't donate blood.
6
'A pint? That's nearly and armful!' (added to see how many remeber that sketch)
