Hello everyone. I'm totally new to this...so it's nice to be on here-quite an interesting site. Well, I'm a 22-year old girl. I seriously just stopped being a Witness like this past month. My Mom and brother are WItnesses. My other brother and Dad aren't. O man, I don't know where to start....well basically I stopped going to meetings for a couple months and it really allowed me some time to THINK in a non-Witness environment (if you go to meetings three times a week, only hang out with WItnesses, go to assemblies all the time, and go out in service a lot, you're CONSTANTLY in that environment-gives you no time to question it....) I'm still in sad-mode, meaning I've decided not to hang out with my Witness girlfriends anymore...actually it's kind of mutual between me and them...
There are a lot of reasons I left...too many to even list, but the wrong dates over the years all gave me a red flag. Not only that, growing up as a Witness in a divided household I really had to stand up for what I believed against my dad when I was about 16 and he was being really strict about me not being a witness. Now I'm in my early 20s, still living at home, but just....so unsure about it all! When I was baptized at 18, sure, I believed it wholeheartedly, but the whole "Do you accept Jesus Christ as your living savior and accept this organization as the only living mouthpiece of Jehovah" (or whatever they ask you at baptism) a little....much... When you get baptized, you have to "repent of your sins to God," but what is the deal with that!? I live an everyday life. I don't believe in having a relationship with Jesus and/or God who live in some other dimension! it seems like bologna.
Right now, they're studying the Revelation book again in bookstudy. My elder kept saying in all his talks, "We've studied this book before over the years, but we have to ask ourselves...Will this be the last time? WILL this be the last time?" True, it scares me to hear talks like that, but I'm really trying to stay strong in my decision to not be a Witness.
In a world of 6 billion people, how can only 6 million + be right? What about some guy living in the jungles of AFrica who's never heard of Jehovah's Witnesses? WHat's his fate at "Armageddon?" My brother told me, "Well, it'll be like in Noah's day when only him and his family lived and everyone else died." But....I don't know IF I EVEN BELIEVE IN THE BIBLE!!! Then my other brother told me, "What are the chances that Noah's ark even happened? THat would mean tha ALL the animals in the WORLD would have to fit into that ark. And that ark was smaller than a lot of ships we have TODAY..."
Anywayanyway anyway....I"m totally going on and on..but I thought this would be a good forum for me to come and let some of my very new non-witness self out and maybe get some support!!! I would appreciate any feedback or questions or whatever. :)