That's a very cunning and ruthless elite running the JW brain dead drones. I didn't see any changes in the short time I was there but if I were a dub in 1995 I would have left right away after the generation change. That destroys any point in being a dub since the end may well be centuries away. And no apologies for messing up so many lives with the belief that the end is coming any time now. Such a sense of urgency.
What big changes made by the Borg bothered you when you were in?
by LovesDubs 15 Replies latest jw friends
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neverendingjourney
I was really bothered by the child abuse changes of the mid 90s, but not for the reasons you probably think. I was 100% believer when I was in. I really thought this was Jehovah's organization. When the "Abhor what is Wicked" WT article came out somewhere around 1997, I was genuinely confused. I was well aware of the sexual abuse scandals that had rocked the Catholic Church. After all, the WT had prominently advertised them. The only genuine reasons I could think of for the changes were legal ones. Men with sexual molestation in their background could no longer serve in positions of responsibility in the congregation. It was most certainly a good idea, but where was the scriptural support for it? Where in the Bible did it disqualify "known" child abusers from serving as ministerial servants or elders?
You see, I always believed that the FDS did things according to the Bible only. Regardless of the pressures the world might bring as a result of our beliefs and practices, the FDS would stand firm and rely on Jehovah's backing. Surely Jehovah would bless his organization for following His scriptural arrangement in the face of potential lawsuits, but this wasn't the case. The FDS caved to legal pressure and instituted changes in their congregational responsibilities to protect the organization from potentially having to pay out millions of dollars in settlements.
Again, from a purely practical matter, the changes were welcome. Kids need to be protected from pedophiles, but the only issue I cared about at the time was whether there was scriptural support for what they were doing. I could see that there clearly wasn't any. They went to the extremes to twist the Bible into requiring that all former child molesters be kept from serving in any position of responsibility in the congregations.Part of the problem for me was that the article required that the elders disclose the child abuse to the authorities. All this time I had been brought up to believe that the most important thing was to protect the organization, and now we were doing a complete about-face for seemingly no other reason than to protect the society's coffers. In fact, I kept thinking about the scripture where Paul said we should not be bringing lawsuits against one another and I couldn't reconcile the new arrangement with that principle.
In short, I could plainly see that the Society was twisting the Bible to support a policy designed to protect its financial interests. That really bothered me. I could see that extra-biblical factors were influencing doctrine. I could keep telling myself that the people in the congregation were imperfect over and over with no problem, but if I ever thought the society was corrupt, than that would have completely shattered my faith. It also bothered me that they attempted to portray the change as being based on Biblical reasons instead of being based on financial concerns. They were insulting my intelligence.
However, as JWs are wont to do, I buried my head in the sand and refused to give the matter much thought. It wasn't until a few years later that I was mentally and physically prepared to make an exit that I started to think about this some more. This child abuse arrangement change was the first matter that really began to open my eyes. I saw the society changing its doctrines due to non-Biblical reasons and then trying to pass it off to the sheep as having been part of some magnificent revelation from God. A few years later, I began to add up all the loose pieces and discrepancies and saw that the entire religion was a sham. I allowed myself to truly investigate the religion, something I didn't do before I got baptized, and I became convinced it was all a farce.
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garybuss
The year text for 1974 pissed me off. I kicked the Kingdom Hall door on the way out.
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grey matters
I could see a lot of internal politics going on that really bothered me, but the higher education change was the "beginning of the end" for me. As I recall, it was in November of 1992 or 1993. There was a Watchtower article that said we could go ahead and pursue a higher education with a view to earning a "decent living", but only if we did so with a goal of regular pioneering. So, if I don't pioneer, I shoudn't be able to earn a "decent living"? I that was a bunch of crap. What right did they have to micromanage my life like that? They had no idea what it was like in the real world. Half of the idiots writing this garbage hadn't even had a real job. Why, why, was I taking career advice from them? It took a long time for me to fade completely, but I never looked at anything they said the same way after that. I could see that they didn't give a crap about me. Only their interests.
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LovesDubs
The year text for 1974 pissed me off. I kicked the Kingdom Hall door on the way out.
Gary what did this say? Or was it the fact that they said the world was ending in 75 so why the hell did they NEED a year text? LOL!
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garybuss
LovesDubs,
The year text for 1974 was written and printed in 1973. It said "If the fig tree fails to bloom . . . "
The genie was out of the bottle the minute I saw that year text.