In the spirit of cantleave’s threads titled Why Would Someone Like me Leave the "Truth"? I felt motivated to write a mini account on why would someone like me leave the “truth”.
My father was one of the leaders of the Socialist Movement party in my country of origin, as such, he was influenced by the Marxism’s view on religion, Karl Marx once said “Religion the Opiate of the Masses”. Because of this, religion was not an important subject at home. My father had to leave the country due to three attempts to take his life, to his dismay, the only country where he could be safe from his persecutors was the good’ol USA (he hid himself in Germany, Japan and another Latin American country for a short period of time). So, my mother was left to raise 4 children alone (my father made sure that we had financial support while he was in hiding, when thing cooled down, he kept in touch and provided for all of our financial needs). Even though my father was gone, my mother had no religious inclination. So, in essence I grew up in a home with no religion, free to make my own choice sort of speak.
In my pre-teens years I began to show interest in religious and spiritual matters. I joined the Catholic Church for a while, but the favoritism shown to the children from my town’s well off families made me leave. I then joined a small evangelical church, but I noticed that while the flock had a difficult time making ends meats, the pastor had a nice big house, brand new cars and his kids did not play with the flock’s children.
Fast forward, my father managed to get us out of our country into the USA. I now had to get adjusted to a totally new lifestyle, new language, new people, new society, etc. But above all, I had to get acquaintance with my father, whom I have not seen in person for almost 10 years. One fateful Saturday morning…the JW came knocking at my door. I took “bible” studies twice a week, quickly progressed into the “truth” and against my father wishes…I got baptized before reaching my 18 th birthday.
After high school, I new in my mind that I was going to college…no questions asked. This was important to me, as it was my first act of defiance against my mother’s whishes, see…I’m no referring to my real mother, but to the “Mother Organization”. All the young ones in my KH used to tell me how wrong I was in pursuing a higher education in this “dying system of things”, “there will be no need for lawyers or doctors in the New World”, “you are more interest in material things than putting God’s kingdom first”, “they teach evil thing in college that will make you doubt God”, “there is drugs, alcohol, and lots of immorality in college”…so they said. I soon realized why the WT is so adamant about young JW getting a higher education. They are afraid of JW having access to information, on developing research skills, they are afraid of JW broadening their horizons, on being exposed to new ideas, on developing real critical thinking skills. They are afraid of JW questioning the establishment. What about protection from drugs, sex and alcohol? That’s a façade, based on my own experience, I got offered marijuana only once, never got drunk and the possibility of un-marital sex was present, but not at the pervasive level that the WT likes to picture it.
One of the big discoveries and the genesis of my semi-apostate ways came one day when I decided to look up some of the books cited in the “Reasoning From the Scriptures” book (almost 99% of the works cited by the society were available at the University’s library). The research that was meant to solidify my faith in the JW religion, actually made the first crack on the foundation of my faith.