by minimus 65 Replies latest jw friends
It is good to see young ones waking up to the truth about the "truth" .
Many of us on here have lived twenty , thirty or more yrs. before we truly Awoke . I for one was born and raised a witness , and at 44 yrs of age finally figured out why I was not truly happy .
So welcome all you new ones young, and old . I hope your journey from here on will be insightful , happier and to a better way of life .
Howdy...I'm a newbie from Ontario Canada was a JW's for 25 years and have been out since 1991. Sometimes I think that it sounds like a long time since I've been out and then again not long enough...I've been checking out your site for months now and look forward to being a part of JWN. Oh and I need an avatar can't figure that out yet..argh. I will soon enough... Here's a quickie on myself, I'm a married female with a lovely family of 3 son's 1 daughter-in-law and an adorable grandson....my wonderful husband (husband no.2) joined the witnesses in order to get me out and he did...hurray!!! it's truly an awesome story one that I will share down the road but for now this is me saying Howdy and glad to know ya....
Hello and welcome, PreciousTruth! Don't beat yourself up about not being able to figure out the avatar, you can't change it as yet! This is something on Simon's "to do" list... notice some folks are still wearing their Santa hats... ha! We will all be able to access/change our avatars soon.
Greetings, Newbies!
Wonderful having you here!
Please, tell us more.
CoCo
Thanks for the heads up on the avatar thingie...also for the welcome. This is new for me and I'm not too sure how this works. I'm a slow learner and I have a problem with grammar...it sucks...so hopefully I won't be embarresing myself too badly...hehehe
Hi, I'm Villabolo. I've been checking out your site for some time and kept trying unsuccesfully to register. You must have had a lot of people knocking at your door begging to get in. Well I'm glad I finally made it. There's not much to tell but here goes.
I was 14 and naive when I got myself into the JWs. I thought I was learning the secrets of the Universe from that little blue book (The "Truth" book). I was baptized at 15 and shortly thereafter, sometime in 1974 I went to a special assembly to hear Frederick Franz give a talk about 1975. It was a long winded talk that literally began with his idea of how the Universe was created and ended with the millenium. He went on to explain the chronology behind 1975 and then emphasized the "Adam and Eve Gap" that would allow us to predict how soon after 1975 the world would end.
I distinctly remember him saying that it was going to be months or years and not decades because if it were to take decades then Adam, who would be alone without Eve during this chronological gap, would have been tempted into bestiality through lack of a proper partner! I still remember him saying in his sing song voice, "Noooo brothers and sisters, Jehovah would not allow that". I also had a tape recorder running but after 35 years I've forgoten what I did with that tape.
In any case it was not 1975 that cast doubts in my mind. Nor was it injustice nor anything any JW had done to me, nor doctrine. It was their pathological self worship. I remember an elder relating how one of the sisters said that when she opened a watchtower it was like opening a letter from Jehovah. Then there's the one that goes "Even if the organization is wrong how dare you correct it; you're running ahead of Jehovah!" Or how about the one about the ark of the covenant when it was about to fall into the mud and an Israelite tried to keep it from falling and got killed for all his trouble. It's been a long time since I've set foot in a Kingdom Hall but I'm sure that these cliche's still echo within their walls.
At first I could not even verbalize what I felt about this organization worship but I vividly visualized it. I pictured Jehovah as a puppet in their hands and a marionette doll dancing to their strings. I read a couple of apostate books but they were not that good (30 years a watchtower slave) I remember being so afraid of that book that I ripped the covers off, not to camouflage it or hide it since my mother was not a witness but, I imagine, to magically disempower them.
I was not happy, suffered anxiety attacks during field service, was no longer attending all meetings. So I did something dumb, I sought counsel from one of the elders. Instead of one elder two came the other one being known as the hatchet man, an abrasive character. That elder provoked me to write a letter expressing my thoughts. That letter was given to the CO who happed to be visiting. That CO df'd me in absentia. Then the previous two elders and a new one came to visit me to inform me of my d'fing and offered me the chance to repent but I sat unrepentant. I asked for an appeal and got it.
The appeal commitee wanted to know whether I thought "it was the truth" and I responded by saying that I believed they had the truth but that they should not be calling themselves "the truth" because only Jesus was "the truth, the way and the life". As you would by now guess all those elders did was to keep calling attention to the organization. One interesting tactic that they had whenever I tried to quote scripture was to say "You're not Luke" or "you're not Ezekiel" but when I told them that neither where they their response was "We are the Ezekiel class. . I mean we represent it" (they were not of the anointed) In other words we can't quote scripture only they have that right. I wanted, at that point to disassociate myself but they rejected that plea saying that it would make no difference. I attended my disfellowshiping and made the person announcing it flinch when he saw that I was there.
Shortly thereafter I became part of a phone tree (this was before the internet) made up of dozens of witnesses. I found out that there had been a major purge of "apostates" around that time (1980,81) which included Ray Franz and Jim Penton. They gave each other a lot of support like the people on this website do and I'm grateful to have been a part of them 30 years ago and I look forward to participating here as well.
Hello and welcome, Villabolo!
Wow, what a story... you said:
I sought counsel from one of the elders. Instead of one elder two came the other one being known as the hatchet man, an abrasive character. That elder provoked me to write a letter expressing my thoughts. That letter was given to the CO who happed to be visiting. That CO df'd me in absentia.
That is absolutely incredible. Can't you just feel the love? Very interesting, your take on the "pathological self worship". Well phrased.
...wanted to know whether I thought "it was the truth" and I responded by saying that I believed they had the truth but that they should not be calling themselves "the truth" because only Jesus was "the truth, the way and the life". As you would by now guess all those elders did was to keep calling attention to the organization. One interesting tactic that they had whenever I tried to quote scripture was to say "You're not Luke" or "you're not Ezekiel" but when I told them that neither where they their response was "We are the Ezekiel class. . I mean we represent it" (they were not of the anointed) In other words we can't quote scripture only they have that right.
Thank you for this, and again,
Welcome welcome.
Dammnit dammnit. Whered I leave my confettI?
I distinctly remember him saying that it was going to be months or years and not decades because if it were to take decades then Adam, who would be alone without Eve during this chronological gap, would have been tempted into bestiality through lack of a proper partner! I still remember him saying in his sing song voice, "Noooo brothers and sisters, Jehovah would not allow that".
You just can't make this stuff up!
Welcome to the newbies! Looking forward to reading your posts!!!!
