Hi, I'm 49 and have been an inactive Witness for years now. I was baptized at age 16 about 33 years ago mainly to please my parents and to fit in, cuz everyone was doing it. And I was able to answer all those questions in the Organization book because I have a near photographic memory, as it turns out. LOL
I have three kids who I have not raised as Witnesses. I'm married to another inactive Witness who quit going to meetings because he's had a bellyful of personal and business abuse. We ran a business for years and had much trouble when working with some Witnesses. Some were fine and fair, others believe that you're there for them to take advantage of or that you owe them a job. We got awfully sick of the latter in 15 years of business.
My husband now works for a company.
My parents are Witnesses but fairly inactive due to age and health problems, they're in their 70s now. They do not attend meetings much, they listen to meetings by phone. My dad was an elder once, but he was forced to step down in a very ugly incident with what used to be called the PO. (I have a whole list of alternative names that PO stands for now, including "Power Obsessed" and some nastier ones. LOL) My dad quit going to meetings and would actually have a panic attack when he tried to go the KH. Yes, this is your body trying to tell you something. He's fine with JWs now as long as he doesn't have to go the KH. Because that was the scene of the crime, you see. That's where the PO grabbed a Watchtower out of my dad's hand and said, "I don't give a damn what that magazine says, you're WRONG!" threw the magazine on the floor and stomped out.
This was when my father was trying to get a hearing to rescind my brother's DF, which actually NEVER happened. He supposedly wrote a letter stating he didn't want to be a Witness anymore, but the letter didn't exist in his file or anywhere else. My father was trying to get them to reinstate my brother on that basis. He was merely inactive. My dad wanted a public announcement to that effect and they were too embarrassed to do it!
Finally, about 2 years later, after my brother had jumped through 99 hoops to be reinstated, he was told the truth by the PO..."Oh, the WTS had on your publisher file that you were deceased, and that's why we could never find it. And there was no letter in it, you weren't lying."
My problems with JW teachings started when started reading everything in the library I could get my hands on. I devoured books on every subject I could find and weighed against what I had learned as a child.
A few things I can still accept, but I found I didn't really believe or couldn't prove about 60 to 70% of what I'd been taught.
So, I slowly drifted away and so did my husband who wasn't ever that "strong in the Truth" anyway, being a rather practical and skeptical kin dof guy to start with. He mainly liked some of the people, especially the fellow who studied with him. Same with me, I adored my BS teacher, and she was quite a character. I've noticed that along the way, that quite a few people come in because they develop such a great bond with a teacher who has a charismatic personality.
Ever so often, I'd get an attack of the guilts and try to come back to it again. Then I'd hear some ridiculous thing at a meeting or read it in the Watchtower and I'd get disgusted and quit again.
My reasons for bailing:
Sexual micromanaging:
I once asked an elder (my dad, at the time) what was so terrible about masturbation since there's no scripture that forbids it. "Well," said my dad, "It's just uncleanness and we're all unclean. It's not really biggy. But...don't do it. "Why?" "Well, it's bad for you." "Why?" "It just is, because God says so." "But it's not in the Bible." "Well, it is in principle." "But, not specifically?" "Well.....no."
During the time I was a JW, that was flip flopped on sexual issues about 99 million times. One minute it was "unclean" but not a disfellowshipping offense, then it'd become so heinous we had to hear a dozen articles on how evil it was. The WTS has never been able to figure out what to do with perfectly normal sexual expressions like masturbation and oral sex. They go between villainizing it to ignoring it and back again. The one constant is that if it feels good, for the love of God, don't do it, even if you're married. It's none of their Effing business what my husband and I do in our bedroom...which is mostly sleeping these days because we're both around 50. Seriously, we're boring. Go away. Nothing to look at here, honest.
I also have a lot of gay friends. Deal with it. They're nice people and I'm not shunning them on the basis of a few iffily translated Bible verses.
Everyone must die at Armageddon but us:
Stated flat out, it sounds really arrogant. "Yep, God hates everyone but us, the rest, all goners." They avoid answering this question flat out that way, "Are Jehovah's Witnesses the only people who will be in God's New System" pretty cleverly by stating that people who worship as they do from the past will be there too. They were JWs too, you see. They just didn't know it.
(I once watched a Witness stand there with his mouth open when a Ba'Hai person he was preaching to told him there was no need for a Ba'Hai to convert to being a JW, because they encompass all faiths, including JWs. "We already are JWs.", he told the brother, who couldn't find a reply to that. I was trying hard not to crack up.)
That's a meaningless reply since they also teach that anyone who has died has his sin absolved, so it doesn't matter what the hell they believed. they'll be resurrected regardless! It just makes them sound a little less arrogant about being the only people God loves. As my 19 daughter once said to my mother, "I know a hundred plus other religions that believe that they're the only one that God approves of...it's not special to believe that."
The fact that every single thing anyone ever did in the Bible foreshadows something that the WTS did:
Naw, I can't buy it. It's too narcissistic. I swear, every time one of the GB farts, they think it's in fulfillment of a Bible prophecy. The gradual assimilation of Papalish infallibility by the GB even when they can't even use the same books they used 5 years ago to teach from without pages of "updates" is sadly ridiculous. You're not infallible and you're definitely not God if you got it WRONG!
When you're DF'd it's not what you did, it's who you know:
I've seen this happen over and over again. If you're Joe Nobody who only gets an hour in Field Service, and you do a boo boo, you're out with barely a hearing. But, if you're a long beloved elder who studied with half the congregation and you cheat on your wife with a much prettier young sister and knock her up, and then you lie for two years to cover it all up, including who is the kid's father, you walk out of the JC with a "private reproof" after doing your best Jimmy Swaggart impression "I've sinned!" and cry a lot.
Don't try that one unless you really have years of clout in the organization, though. Having been to Bethel or a special pioneer gets you Anti DF points too.
There was a pioneer sister and her husband who fleeced money from brothers in at least a dozen congregations and she was never DF'd when caught because she was so amazingly likeable. She even had a circuit overseer fighting with 2 congregations bodies of elders over how lenient her punishment should be. Seriously, they were plea bargaining her down like a bunch of cheap suit lawyers.
I saw too much of that over the last 30 years. My brother shunned for years because of a non-existent letter, and other people walking away after doing some seriously awful shit to other people with just a slap on the wrist. It's too unjust for words. And it NEVER is going to stop until the absolute power elders and the WTS claim over people. Humans don't deserve that sort of authority...they always end up abusing it even if originally well intended.
Well that's my tale and I'm glad I'm here amongst the unwashed now. I'm trying to decide what religion I can best express my spirituality in. I'm attracted to more liberal and less structured beliefs, like Unitarianism. I looked at Judaism and wasn't impressed, to much ritual and rules and not enough Jesus, although the scholarly aspect was interesting.
I guess I'm still looking until I find what I' m looking for, but I'm still an avid student of religion, spirituality and the Bible. Doing my own thing now and loving it. I'm loathe to formerly join anything because I'd be DF'd and my elderly parents couldn't handle it.
But, I think when they pass away some day, I'll join something that is more true to my particular beliefs. I know, it's chickenshit of me, but they went through such hell when my brother was "accidently" DF'd. It'd be cruel to do that to them, although it's not me doing it, it's the WTS, of course.
