What woke you up? (page 6)

I simply could not logically defend the change in policy, and I always prided myself in being able to debate the bible and doctrine very well and with dignity. I simply could not defend....even really stretching it.....why some things were "allowed" and others weren't. It began to dawn on me the people I knew or had heard of directly that "died faithful".

I wondered what they were being faithful to. Something they believed to be true no doubt, but who had taught them that was true? My logical mind kicked in and it went like this.

2) So who decided what was forbidden and not? What was the criteria for this?

3) Crickets.

4) Answers I received revolved around weak arguments of better overall health, continued growth and therfore evidence we could not have been bloodguilty, and the argument that "not that many had died", and that "cause of death really couldn't technically be traced to blood loss in most cases".

My brain went wild. I thought I could stay for the good. I didn't want to leave. Years later i knew I had to be my authentic self, or not. I decided to be authentic. My wife did too.

Blood started it all. It woke me up.

It gave me permission to research with new eyes things I had previously already held as truths.

Then.........it all falls down.

Finkelstein

What woke me up ?

Answer = lies ignorance and corruption orchestrated by self driven dishonest men trying intently to attract attention to the literature they published, as well create a semblance of power around themselves..

DarioKehl

Seeing stephen lett for the first time; saw him speak in person. That alone did more damage to their credibility than anything. I am *convinced* he's having the same effect on people now that his mannerisms are regularly broadcasted around the globe. Come ON! How can any rational person watch him and not experience profound cognitive dissonance? "THIS guy is one of our leaders? THIS guy will become one of christ's 24 co-ruling elders over all of humanity? *HIM???!!?!?*

Oogie

Researching 'mind-control' woke me up.

Truthexplorer

Revelation-its grand climax

punkofnice

Dario - How can any rational person watch him and not experience profound cognitive dissonance?

As nice as many JWs are - I wouldn't put the 'zombified' JW in the rational person category. I know at least 2 JWs that will watch him and not pay much attention to his weirdness.

On the flip side - I hope this paedophile protecting weirdo watchtower rock star pope wakes many JWs up.

passwordprotected

The ditching of the book study groups and the "rising gas prices" reason.

I was an elder at the time and heard the pain from people who's only association was the little tea-drinking time spent in the private homes where the BSGs were held. I couldn't understand why the Governing Body would state "gas prices" as a reason to abandon the BSG arrangement, which just a few months earlier had been praised in the Kingdom Ministry.

I heard about the GBs letter through the grapvine before the body of elders had had it read to them. Icouldn't believe they were doing this, so I went online and Googled it (why? No idea now...) and came across an apostate blog. I glanced at some of the articles and seeds were sown.

I decided to try to look after my own spirituality, and that of my family, by reading the Bible more. This opened up more questions in my mind, and within a couple of weeks my life fell apart.

I resigned as an elder and quit the meetings. The whole process took about 2 months. I DAd within 6 months. Free ever since.

Fencing

I think I subconsciously knew something was off for years. But I always avoided any "apostate" sites like the plague. The turning point for me was an article posted on Fark.com several years ago. It was article in a paper about an upcoming District Convention in Florida, and in the comments I happened across someone posting how the entire JW theology was based on the year of 607 BCE, and how not a single historian, scholar, or expert agrees that Jerusalem was destroyed then. That they were literally the only people in the world who thought 607 was the correct year, and how everything else falls apart after that. I had never heard that before, and it really jarred me. Then someone posted a picture of the pyramid grave and talked about the pyramid measurements Russell was fond of. That lead me to immediately find and start reading Studies in the Scriptures. That's when I started discovering that so much of what the modern Society claimed about the original Bible Students' teachings was demonstrably wrong. And not just wrong, but intentionally misleading.

And I couldn't stop reading after that.

vivalavida

Pedophile story on NBC in 2007, then the Sept. Kingdom Ministry NOT condoning people to get together to study the Bible. My thought immediately was, "Do they have something to hide?"

I had already heard of the Mexico / Malawi connection and the UN debacle like 10 years before but deleted it from my mind. But after those two events mentioned in the first paragraph, I gave myself permission and just did what you did. Checked everything and "that was it for me"... FREEDOM AT LAST after almost 40 years in the religion.

What woke you up?

stuckinarut2

problemaddict 2