by minimus 54 Replies latest jw friends
No one is pushed into it.
Not if your born into it... My parents expected me to be, what they wanted me to be...
You can also leave at any time. Just because others shun you, you know that is what will happen.
Well if those "OTHERS" are your own "family".. It really SUCKS! (trust me, I never gave a Fuck what the elders thought)
,Mike
Did You Believe "The End" Was Going To Come In Your Lifetime?
Yes I was a sucker. I believed.
In fact I was busy learning how to survive without electricity, how to can foods, how to make clothes, how to card wool and spin into wool. I was a busy gal
"You have to admit that out of all the religions on this earth, the JW's try to live their life by the bible. No one is perfect and everyone has a choice of whether they want to be in that religion or not."
Saw this kinda late and prolly too late for a response, but just had too. Really, I think you're missing the point of this thread. It isn't if JW's try to live by biblical standards or not. Its about, did we buy into the foretold by the Watchtower Society end of the world thing and did we believe. If you didn't live thru 1975, then you have no idea what that was like. It was a kind of histeria that caught like wildfire and everyone believed it (ofcourse I don't mean that literally, there were a few exceptions, as there are always). People were duped, and people made life changing decisions based on the Watchtower's 'leading' about the end of the world as we then knew it. And yes, I did leave the group when I was about 21 years of age. But up to that point it was all I knew as I was raised a JW. It took inner strength and conviction to leave. Its not something you just stop doing like no more drinking coffee or something. It is a very hard thing to do to break through the mind control and the years of programming of fear of leaving the "Truth".
i had mum always reminding me that "a mere young boy shall be leader over them" - they the animals - haha, and the odd thing is, even as a kid i found the idea odd.
I was first exposed to the JWs in the mid 1950's, my fathers parents were JW'S. Our home had burned down so I spend one summer with them while our home was rebuilt.
They (grandma and pa) were special pioneers, establishing a congregation in Port Perry Ontario. Anyway I went out in the service with them everyday as that was their lifestyle. They told me about God destroying the world of wicked mankind, Grandma used the illustrations in the Paradise Lost book to show me what to expect if we were wicked, if we are to obey Jehovah we will live in Paradise she would say. She made it sound wonderful. But I was only 7yrs old at the time. My mom and dad were in no way witnesses and my dad never wanted to be a witness he hated them with a passion just about as much as he hated his father.. Well as it turned out that my then alcoholic father wised up when he was finally sober (as he had been on his death bed.)
I was 13 years of age when my parents started with the witnesses.
We celebrated our last Christmas in 1963 and the day after my father took the tree down and sat us down to tell us that we would no longer be celebrating Christmas or any holidays for that matter. I was stunned , mad, and livid. I didn't want to be that kind of religion. My dad said that soon Jehovah will destroy the wicked and then we will live in paradise. It sounded similiar to what my grandparents had told me years earlier. I asked my dad." is this the same religion as grandma and pa," he said YES, At first it was like a magical disbelief, then with time I settled in to the JW bump and grind lifestyle. Devoting the next 38 year of my life to God's work and the WTBS
From that time we were told the big A was coming real soon and we had to be preaching and teaching people so they too could gain salvation. I was upset in many ways and in other ways it sounded like in order to get blessings from God we had to do this work. I started in 1964 witnessing and told the world the big A was upon us. It was an urgent message we were told to proclaim it . The years would come to and end very soon. Not many years are left in Satan's system.
In 1964 the Pope proclaimed that the UN was the only way to mankinds peace and security, the society held on to those words like it was gospel.. Like the International year of World Peace in 1986. What a bunch on hogwash , the Society had us bouncing up and doing tricks to get our attention. The reward everlasting life..
When the date 1975 first came to our attention that the new system would be here and 6,000 yrs of mans e xistence and then the new world with the last 1000 yrs for the millieum reign of JC. I swallowed this lock stock and barrel like everyone else. I quit school to start as a pioneer following in the steps of my grandparents. What a waste, I could have been that doctor or joined the military like I wanted.
I was batptized the yr the Lamp bk was released so we had no 80 questions to answer before baptism.I wanted to please God like everyone else was doing. I didn't want to die in 1975, the Society ingrained into our minds the climatic year 1975 and if we weren't busy in the Lords work we would be destroyed in 1975. This date was like branded into us. No matter how much the Society denied the hype they did indeed intimate at every corner that A was coming fast. Yes I believed it was coming. When 75 came and went I too was upset, and felt we were lied to and we were being cheated. But like a good little obedient robot I succumbed to believe that the Society at no time said 1975 was the end. even it was in writing in the literature . (ie) in book "Life Everlasting in the Freedom of the Sons of God" Conventions , CS visits DO visits had us buzzing with the news that 1975 was it. Where were we going to be in our relationship with Jehovah God and the Org.?
I was sick of years of trying to be a good witness, I went to Quebec like mouthy, to serve where the need was greater. I worked my ass off day in and day out in tempratures. that soared to the 90-100s with humidity that your clothes were soaked the second you went outside and then sub zero temps. Feet freezing and hands almost numb from the cold, just to please the Organizaiton. I would come home summer days my legs bleeding because we were told we had to wear nylons in the service. I cried for the whole summer because of the bleedi ng, But knew it was what God wanted us to do . My mom bought me a new girdle with legs in it so that my legs didn't rub together with the nylons.
I think I was allergic to nylon as it still bothers me. I don't even wear them anymore. Hooray!!
I guess like all of us we endeavoured to honour God and the Organization and being a firm believer of the lies the Organziation was telling us. I fell for it too. I know many witnesses suffered great losses after the 1975 fiassco. It was a sad time for many. Then the Society had the audacity to say they never told us 75 was the end. What liars & hypocrites. I mean it mattered not to those who were So called spiritual it seem to have no impact on them and their preaching work, they went on preaching continually believing that maybe the 30 years Adam was alone on the earth was the reason the Big A didn't come. How that org. hoodwinked us all. Stole from all of us years where we could have gotten better educations. I really hated the lies. I hated not having a good education to this day my grammer is terrible.
But I am a firm believer in what goes around comes around. So beware the Society.. it is like a ravenous lion seeking to devour us.
Orangefatcat
