by one 13 Replies latest jw friends
How longo it took you to find out your mate was cheating you, kidding
Really How long it took you to find out the truth about the truth or at least to become really distrust about the whole thing, AND WHY.
To start i just knew, by summer 1974, that big A was not comming on 1975. The oil embargo, Nixon etc kept me worry for a while. I even resigned a very lucrative and promising job to piooner.
When the old Revelation book came out in 1969 (I think) I remember not accepting the fact that the trumpet blasts of Revelation were fulfilled by assemblies in Cedar Point. That made no sense to me whatsoever. Oh ya, I forgot to mention, I was 6 years old at the time!!
Dan
8 years before i found out that anything more than
6 reps is a complete waste of time.
6 reps a day or a year?
The 1975 thing was devastating. I was a "true believer." I had been told that the date could be "off" by a couple of years either way. So I hung in until 1979.
I got very depressed, had crying spells and catatonic episodes. My husband, an elder and not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, was really aggravated with me. (I had married him for all the wrong reasons, i.e., religious affiliation though we had nothing else in common.) I realized the problems of my youth that led me to the JW's and the relative safety and security of marriage to a JW elder. I needed help, but no help was available to me. I wanted to enroll in college, and I did (with financing from non-JW family members), for which I was ridiculed by members of the congregation and had a daily argument with my husband.
Then I read an article in the "Awake" about the Peoples' Temple fiasco in Guyana. This article actually advocated thinking for oneself when confronted with such a situation. I was really confused because I had always been taught blind obedience to the "slave" regardless of anything.
Then I saw Dr. Wayne Dyer on "The Phil Donahue Show." I liked his practical, down-to-earth approach to psychological self-help and I read his book, "Your Erroneous Zones." The book encouraged me to think in ways I had never dared before.
I summoned the courage to escape. I took my daughter and moved to the opposite end of the country. Times were hard, and this is not the end of the story. But I was on my way. It still took about 2 years to convince myself that the "truth" was not the "truth" at all. But, little by little, things have gotten better, and I have experienced new places, different kinds of people and lots of things I would have missed out on if I had stayed in.
Life is good.
Regards, Mum
After feeling something was just not right while serving as an elder, I read Fay Franz's First book, Crisis of Conscience and then I knew the org was just another man made religion. However, I still kept going.
Then I read Ray’s second book, “In Search of Christian Freedom,” which addressed the JW belief system. Then I understood that a good number of “truths” could be view more than one way, that was it for me............this took place over a period of two years.
Erasmus (1520 AD): "If we want truth, every person ought to be free to speak what they think without fear."
I think I knew before I was "in". I got baptized in March and by the middle of May, I was gone.............Six weeks I guess.
Originally, I was going to leave the religion if Armageddon had not come by 1980 (a five year margin after 1975). But somehow, by the time 1980 rolled around, I was a mind-numbed robot, filled with a mix of belief and guilt. By the late 1980s I knew that something was wrong with the picture given my experiences, especially as an Elder, and then reading [i]Crisis of Conscience[/b] in 1989. By November 1991 I knew that the religion was wrong and that I needed to leave it. It took me until May 1992 to firm up the decision to walk away and reject the religion. By July 1992 I told my family and made my decision known. - Amazing
Dan B
The trumplet blast in Cedar Point were also hard for me to swallow,i just did not think too much about it.
nytel
reading your post sometimes is a waste of time.
mum
seems like 1979-81 were critical years a lot of jw started to make decisions, bethel blew out in 1980.
Escargot
how long were you an elder?
when did you read CoC?
open mind
you were really quick, why getting wet at all?
Amazing
How did you find out about CoC? I did not know anything about the book until 1996!!! thanks to the web. I eveen know R Franz and Cinthia for a long time, very good people both of them they were part of our family so to speak.
Anyway the book just confirmed my feelings, I knew too much how thing were inside to trust the wt.
But when they blamed, around 77 or 78, the R&F for the 1975. I became angry and told my wife so. I told her i remember each and everything they said about 1975 and they were understimating our collective memory or something.
I do rembember GB Shorder kind of apologizing in a public talk for the false expectation, around 1980.
I remember getting a fit of hysterics @ the book study one nite over Ceder Point. Hubby and me always had a bit of trouble swallowing the modern day fulfilment stuff applying to JW and their little events that they seemed to think fit the bill. Cedar Point came up time and time again. One nite hubby whispered to me "Oh no, the brothers have been arrested again", and me being more than happy to play along whispered back "what for this time"? Hubby's reply was "LOITERING AT CEDAR POINT"! We just cracked it and sat their shaking in suppressed laughter until one of us had to pretend a toilet break! They really did press their luck with Cedar Point!!
Btw One, it took us about 4 years in all to finally walk away. This from initially thinking that there were things that didn't add up, and praying for more faith, and working on our faith, which worked for up to six months initially but sooner or later more things would surface that didn't sit right. Eventually we were overwhelmed by things that weren't right and even though we kept going out of habit, it got to a point where we realised we couldn't go on. We had small children and we knew we couldn't subject them to such a stupid way of life. When we stopped going to meetings we were very clear in our minds that we had no choice and that it was all over.
Marilyn
