Was thinking about this the other day and wanted to get your (yes: your) opinion. I find myself slipping farther and farther down the agnostic scale in my thinking--it's possible that I'll end up an atheist.
My suspicion is that because I was raised being taught that all other religions are false, that I came to the conclusion that if the Witnesses don't have "The Truth" then nobody does. At this point I gotta say, I don't see any good arguments to convince me of God's existence, and it's hard for me to imagine any.
On the other hand, I see a lot of ex-Witnesses who were Witness converts going back to their previous religion, or a new one.
Do you think that ex-Witnesses who were raised as Witnesses are more likely to be irreligious after they exit?
Your opinion: Are those raised as Witnesses more likely to end up godless?
by under_believer 33 Replies latest jw friends
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under_believer
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TopHat
NOT YET!
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daystar
More likely than who? Than people who drop out of other religions?
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Athanasius
I was raised a JW and until I left the Watchtower in 1984 didn't know any other religion. However, my departure from the JWs didn't turn me against God or religion. Though my spiritual journey took me to a number of religions, I became an Episcopalian in 1991 and still attend Church services.
But I know others who were raised in the JW religion have had a different experience.
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AK - Jeff
My journey to date is not a godless one. I consider myself an 'Unchurched Christian' at this point. The effect of the Watchtower indoc on me has been a greater fear of committment for sure - and a lack of interest really, in organized relgion. But God is still a part of my life and thinking.
Jeff
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144001
I was born into the "truth," and I've had enough religious programming for ten lifetimes, thanks. I see no evidence that god exists or, that if he/she/it does, that the bible was inspired by he/she/it.
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veradico
I definitely relate to what you’re saying. As a Witness, I was free to analyze and criticize other religions as long as I focused on their flaws, and, once I made the first steps toward freedom, I found that being a JW had in many ways trained me to start analyzing the JW religion. However, as I stopped believing the Watchtower, their condemnatory perspective on other faiths and traditions was one of the first things I questioned. I found that Catholicism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Taoism, and various philosophies all have wonderful, beautiful, and useful insights. But, as I learn more about religions and philosophies, I find them all both more enjoyable and less believable, in the sense of compelling my absolute assent. Instead of coming to the conclusion that objective and universal moral laws, incorporeal beings, or even I myself exist, I tend to view all normative claims as conventional and useful, spirits as products of the imagination, and my sense of self as a emergent byproduct of the cognitive system in my brain. Of course, I can’t live as an absolute skeptic, so if I feel like behaving as if God exists (for example, when I read a beautiful devotional poem, see an impressive cathedral, or hear an inspirational hymn), that’s how I behave. I don’t think we can ever know anything with absolute certainty, but even this conviction is not certain enough to be a belief. Some people claim to really know that God exists. Maybe they’re correct.
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Little Drummer Boy
I suppose that since being a member of the borg is so traumatic, when one leaves there might tend to be a backlash that causes a person to examine the bible more critically than your typical Sunday church-goer. This can lead to the belief the the bible isn't word-for-word inspired, which leads to other questions and research. This is what happened in my case and why I am now 100% firmly planted in the evolution/there is no god of the bible camp. Not that I don't think that there couldn't be some spiritual force, just not one as is classified by any of the organized religions in our world.
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Narkissos
I find myself slipping farther and farther down the agnostic scale in my thinking--it's possible that I'll end up an atheist.
Someday you might even drop calling that "slipping down" and change your nickname to over_unbeliever...
If some international perspective is of any help, I'd answer: more likely than the average American maybe, certainly not more likely than the average Western European.
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under_believer
Thank you for the answers so far--I actually find them to be somewhat comforting. Nice play on my handle, Narkissos...
To clarify, the question I meant to ask was "Are ex-Witnesses who were raised as Witnesses more likely to be godless than ex-Witnesses who converted to the Watchtower?"
But all answers on this subject, whether they answer that question or not, are appreciated. veradico, in particular, highlights the direction I've been going lately--definitely nihilistic and perhaps slipping dangerously close to classic Descartean Idealism... wherein the only assertion that cannot be doubted is "cogito, ergo sum."
I can come up with all kinds of plausible scenarios that allow for the existence of a Creator (though not the vain, silly biblegod we find in the Old Testament Bible as we have it today--sorry YHWH) but what I can't find in any of them is verifiability, falsifiability, or indeed proof that such a Creator actually wants something from me.