by minimus 58 Replies latest jw friends
Not intentionally. Because I didn't want to know the details of how screwed up they were 15 years ago. I wouldn't have gone looking for it 15 years ago. But, then again, 15 years ago the generation change had not occurred yet. That one hit me like a ton of bricks, so I might have gotten out after 1995 instead of 2004.
AuldSoul
Definitely! I'd have looked up 607 BCE a lot earler and the rest would have just slotted into place. We're all the better with hindsight but it's the present that counts in any case. Life, eh!
Ian
YES!!!
Like Dansk ,the 607 thing was working on me but information was really hard to find.All I had were quotes from encyclopedias at the library that all pointed to 586/87.The internet really helped me speed up my exit.
Goldminer
I've had the internet for about 8 years... but only this past year have I looked at sites like this one..
So NO.. unfortunately I was too stupid to reason, and just did as I was told and kept away from apostate sites!
I think you have to be ready mentally before you can go and start searching, that's why our friends and family who are still entrenched cant see past the ends of their noses.
Poppy xx
My family got internet access in 1998 and I must say that the internet helped my exodus along. But, I think what really did it for me was the fact that my mother would have books lying around the house like Crisis of Conscience. She would also have computer printouts about ex-jw's and the history of jw's. She would tell me not to read them because she was afraid that it would “stumble” me, but of course as soon as she left for work I would read as much as I could.
Actually, I read COC when it first came out----in secret. I harbored all these facts. Then I read the follow up book and mulled those facts for years. Things would click over time. I could no longer ignore it.
I was already on my way out. I was miserable in the seemingly endless cycle of meetings and preparing for parts. I was a young elder with more and more responsibility being piled up on me. Everyone seemed to be happy with my life except for me. I still somewhat believed even though I had serious questions that no one wanted to tackle, and I didn't want to press too hard. I wont get to far into it, but I was what could be termed the pinnacle of my JW career, which made my next moves all the more unexplainable, discomforting and disquieting to those around me. There was no label to place on me.
At this point I changed congos, resigned and reduced my attendance to a trickle. I was willing to just live and then die at Armageddon.
I eventually went on the internet, and I cant quite remember what I typed in, but in had something to do with being a free spirit. I started going to sites about being a free thinker. I knew that I wanted to re-engineer my whole life. While researching reethinking and reading more about personality types (i.e. Jung and Myers Brigg) I literally stumbled onto the freeminds site. I read everything. It expressed a lot of things I had already thought and filled in the gaps in a lot of other areas.
I read COC and it allowed me to come to terms with the fact that it was ok to leave. ISOCF then showed me Ray's brand of chrisianity, and though I'm still deciding what i believe now, I do know the wt took the wrong path when they came to the fork in the road in the late 70s and 80. I read books on cults, and was finally able to admit that I was raised in one. Other key books were True Believer, 1984 and Animal Farm. There were other books too.
I enrolled in a couple of college courses. Seeing and learning the cyclical nature of religion, and how it has been used to control, opened my eyes emensely and made quite evident what a sheltered education I had gotten throughout my jw life. Once I saw a more whole picture, I was able to see what a speck the jws really are and have been on the world scene. Jws are legends in their own minds only.
But there is no way I would have gotten to the point of looking on the internet at jw sites if I wasnt already ready for it. I had no clue these types of sites even existed.
This is more info than you asked for, but I felt like typing.
Axel
Another quick point:
I believe the intenet is a big threat to the WT because through information, it exposes so much of their misinformation.
But the bigger threat is that of networking with others who have been there done that. When jws can see that they are not alone in their depression in the "spiritual paradise, that they are not crazy, and that their thoughts are shared by many others, this is the bigger threat. It will provide many the courage to peek behind the curtain. That number is increasingly reaching a critical mass. The internet will provide the support.
Axel
I started to fade in my early 20's. That was over 20 years ago before the internet, but we still had the LIBRARY!. Something compelled me to look up JW and I found a Time or Newsweek article about Ray Franz. From there I found his book, as well as Visions of Glory and The Orwellian World of Jehovahs Witnesses. These books helped to solidify what I already knew deep down. I was also attending college at the time which helped me to think critically.
But all the reading in the world did not help me cope with the extreme despair, loneliness, and depression I experienced when I left the "truth". That's where the internet would have helped so much, connecting me with others who had similar issues. Also, I could have learned from those with more wisdom and avoided many mistakes I made in dealing with my mother who shunned me. I was seeing a therapist, but she had never left a cult.
I have had internet access for years. When my mom was dying last year, a friend suggested I try some ex-jw sites. I had never even thought about it before! I must have been in extreme denial. I spent many months lurking before I got the nerve to post.
Eva
I have had access to the net for years, but never dared to llok up "apostate" sites. Only when I was ready and was shown the way I started looking up info.
