Did You REALLY Believe?

Eh

I don't believe JW teachings anymore. I don't believe the Bible is anything more than a religious text written by men. I have no reason to believe there's anything beyond the natural world. But I used to be a JW and I did believe all this before.

Or did I?

Since leaving the group I've been having trouble convincing myself that I believed it. I remember saying that I believed it. And when I mentioned this internal retrospective question that I had to someone else they said, "You had to have believed it... why else would you have been in there?" The idea being that you have to believe in order to pound on people's doors, and to become an object of hatred, and to teach your child about Jehovah, etc. But I don't know if belief is really a requirement.

But I can't really trust my thinking now to interpret my thinking then. Instead, I've decided to analyze my behaviors when I was in it. Were my actions consistent with I supposedly believed?

I put in the hours and had a number of responsibilities in the congregation. I told people I was one hundred per cent sure of what I believed in. I prayed. I was scared of demons. I gave talks in spite of not liking to be up in front of large audiences. So yeah, there were a lot of behaviors that would make me think I did believe.

But there was this one thing that I can't explain. And mind you, this was when I was in the thick of it. At first glance it may seem like it proves that I believed in something, but maybe not. You see, I once tried to make a deal with the Devil. And I have memories of very zealous feelings and actions before and after this. It's very strange to me.

There was this chess tournament at work - twenty people. I wanted to win. I figured I would do well, but there was one guy in particular that I had played many times and had never beaten. There was another guy who almost always won when we played and still others who would beat me on occasion. There were also some unknowns. One guy played all the time online, but never at work so we didn't really know how good he was. There was one guy who I'd never personally played, but who had beaten others who had regularly beaten me.

So I prayed to God for help. But within a minute of praying I realized that this wasn't something that God would have any interest in granting. It was selfish. It was self aggrandizing. it was an Earthly pursuit. So I took the matter to the opposition. "Look Satan, if I win this thing, it's gonna really go to my head. And I'm gonna want to play more chess with these guys. They smoke and tell dirty jokes when we play. This could really lead to something bad for me. Maybe some female co-worker will think I'm pretty great for winning this thing and... who knows?"

I went from trying to con God into helping me out to trying to get The Devil to do the same, but for opposite reasons. "God, if I win this thing people will think I'm a smart guy. I talk about you and they'll listen. You should get in on this thing. It could be good for both of us."

Seriously, could a guy who believes in all this JW/Bible stuff really do such a thing? How do you know if you ever believed? When I did - I did. Now that I don't, well, I don't know.

Did you REALLY believe? How do you know?

Oh, and I won the tournament. What does that say?

nvrgnbk

I always had some doubts, even about the existence of God.

But yes, I really did believe.

Blueblades

Yes I really believed it. I played chess very well, almost always won. I believed it so much that when the society put a stop to chess playing, which I liked to play, I complied. 33 years later I no longer believe.

Blueblades

Tyrone van leyen

There was a two year period I might have had great conviction in my beleif, but I was straifed and raked over the coals and the fires of hell shortly therafter, with warm neo judeo christian love. I'm always glad to see a Newbie here. The monster is growing. Watch your ass Watch Tower!

Burger Time

I tried. I really did. But I just couldn't believe they fell in line with biblical guidelines. I am so glad my Mom forced me to read and choose for MYSELF rather or not I believed. She would guilt me but the seeds were already planted. I could choose for myself and my Mom and Pops always backed me up, albeit with a bit of guilt every once in a while. I never got baptized and can bash the society as much as I want cause as my Mom says, "your not apostate because you have never acknowledged that they have power over your life". Yea go Mom!

WTWizard

I gave it a fair chance. In fact, I gave it more than a fair chance. I read it, believing it to the extent of having no previous religious beliefs or experience to compare it to. So I believed it until things started not integrating. At that point, I realized that it was costing me more than it was worth in terms of time and energy--I actually saw God as a wicked, cruel tyrant that would create trouble (since anything really good was short-lived and the troubles were running through my whole life, I realized that Satan could not be responsible for things that were running my whole life, but Jehovah could.

In fact, I was more afraid of Jehovah than I was of the demons. At no time did I have a bad experience that I could pin to demons, but plenty that I could trace to Jehovah. And I saw right through specious logic suggesting that demons were responsible, since demons cannot cause trouble that runs through a person's whole life but Jehovah can (and did). From that point, it was a matter of time before I stopped giving Satan the slaps in the face and started giving Jehovah the slaps.

brunnhilde

I tried desperately to believe and tied myself in knots with guilt when I couldn't quite pull it off. That dissonance between what I had been brainwashed into thinking I SHOULD believe and my own morals objecting fiercely was what ultimately drove me to leave.

It was also a huge shock to realize that my husband at the time hadn't really believed; it was just a comfortable situation for him, and when it interfered with other activites that were more important, he had no qualms about leaving. For him it was much less of an anguished soulsearching and much more a matter of convenience when he walked away from the Borg. To this day he still really doesn't understand why I am so angry and bitter toward the Borg.

brunn

Terry

I don't know how many people still write checks when they pay for something, but; I have an analogy that applies here.

You can write checks and buy things as along as you believe you have the funds to cover your purchase.

If you are WRONG about how much money is in your account there will come a time and place when you receive notice that your are INSUFFICIENTLY FUNDED.

You have to pay a surcharge and put money in your account to cover the difference.

The same is true of any kind of belief.

1.You are confident

2.You are certain you have something you can use

3.You proceed "as though" it is true

4.Your needs are satisfied.

5.Something happens to notify you there is a "problem"

6.You have to act to cover your deficit. (i.e. Wakeup call!)

7.You suffer a penalty and you have to cover your loss.

8. You either continue writing bad checks and paying fines or you stop and get source of REAL FUNDS for your account.

Have you had your Insufficient Funds notice on your belief system yet?

eclipse

If anyone asked me, Do you picture yourself in paradise? yes

When you went door to door, did you wholeheartedly believe that you had the truth? yes

I did believe...I wasn't a zealot, but I was zealous.

Did I have doubts as well? yes

But that's where the cognitive dissonance kicked it...it kept me from listening to my doubts,

I kept trying to push them down, to rationalize them, to explain them away as lack of faith on my part.

It was liberating to find out I was not the only one who was on the journey to waking up.

the dreamer dreaming

I wanted to believe and I prayed a lot, but I always had doubts... I wanted something, anything to show me that it was more than a belief System or BS... I remember at times, I would be preaching and feel like I was describing a cartoon not a real life situation. I felt that I was not worthy at times, but perhaps I could save another... I felt doubts over different things about employment love and other things that the WT told me God would take care of... It was not until I was out that I could see how many doubts there were. while a believer I had a sort of hypnotically induced tunnel vision that only let me see one doubt at a time and never see them all together...the mountain they were.

When the trance was broken, I realized that I had never had any reason to believe that God was real other than being told he was and the more I examined this the more I could see it was a lot more like santa claus than anything I could identify as remotely real.

even before JWs I pondered how God could know that he was the ONLY God... if we could not sense him in any way, why couldn't there be a greater being that God could not sense?

Did You REALLY Believe?

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