Narkissos, thank you for your observations and story, very interesting.
Also thanks to everyone else for your input.
So many non-believers do see a religious upbringing as something helpful as opposed to something damaging. In my 2 years on this discussion forum there have been regular threads talking about the damage religion causes, I think such observations suggest otherwise?
Personal observations Re: former religious members
by Zico 14 Replies latest jw experiences
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Zico
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hamilcarr
I know a guy who was raised a JW, got never baptized, stopped attending meetings at 17, married at 22, his wife now being pregnant with a boy. Lately he said to me he would certainly ask his parents to take his son to the KH. I was a bit surprised and asked him to expand. He answered that JWs are part of the only church in Belgium that openly speaks out against homosexuality, premarital sex and other loose morals (his non-JW family is known as traditionally right-winged). He, however, describes himself as a "spiritual" agnostic. It's remarkable that many exJWs I know aren't anti-WT. Maybe the congregations in my area are somewhat more liberal, I'm not sure.
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Tired of the Hypocrisy
I have been angry for a lot of years. The more time that passes I am seeing my anger transform into a seething hatred for all things wt. I try hard to not attend if I can and if I do go I just go, try to mind my own business and then go. If some asswipe comes over and starts to bug me I am usually snide and sarcastic. My son? No way would I force him to go. I am beginning to feel some heat for this, but I cannot in good conscience tell him to go there when I don't feel they have the truth. I tell him to really seek truth and to live a happy life that follows his conscience. a conscience I have tried to develop in him based on being kind but not a sap. forgive but learn from the pain caused to you so it don't happen again.
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WTWizard
People that leave mainstream religions usually leave because they find something better. Typically, they leave only because they see it as a waste of time to go to church once a week, because they are no longer going to church and decide to quit, or because they find a new religion. Usually, very little damage (above and beyond that which our leaders are doing) is done to their lives by that religion.
People that leave Jehovah's Witlesses leave because the rules are stifling them. No fornication (strictly enforced, and with pre-emptive measures to prevent opportunities) means people staying single their whole lives. They are told lies that keep them wasting their time out in field circus. Anything that is fun is banned. Children in the cancer are deprived of holidays and birthdays.
Worse, the Washtowel Slaveholdery is vindictive about people that leave. They will bust up families. They hound people to death. Very few other religions, and no mainstream religions, are nearly as vindictive when people leave. If I were a Catholic and left, I could rejoin later in life and pick up where I left off. Same for most Protestant denominations. Jehovah's Witlesses? Have fun trying.
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Moxie
Personally, I've noticed that many people who are "fresh-out" of the witnesses say that they will raise their kids in it because (just as you mentioned) it's good for morals etc. It has been my observation though, that many, after time (myself included) they no longer feel that way; In fact they become quite opposed to raising their kids with the witnesses.
Born-again or Atheist, I believe it's all relative... a religious person may chose to carefully guide their child in a less all-consuming religion as the JW's whereas an Atheist will have to teach them without.
Overall, I believe that parents are familiar with the mechanism of religion to teach good morals since that is how we were taught. But does that mean it's the only way? I don't believe so... As the brilliant Richard Dawkins said, humankind has morals not because of religion but inspite of it. I think we just need to learn (and are learning) how to pass-down and instill good values and morals in our children without religion as a tool.
Moxie