Why is it so hard for Ex-JWs to make that "final step" and give up Christianity?

by sabastious 60 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  dandingus

  Wasn't that hard for me, really. When I questioned witness teachings I questioned Christianity in all its forms. I woke up agnostic almost (but not quite) to the point of atheist. I'm still there.

  But I can see that some may be ready to question the Watchtower, but not necessarily the whole sum and parcel of Christianity. They still think of themselves as believers in Christ, they just reject that religion's teaching about him. But I went off the deep end, and left it all. The only tragedy is that there was nothing to take its place. So nothing is what I have. Sort of...
• 

  wobble

  I think it is hard for many , because they have come from a religion that forbade thinking for oneself and education.

  I have educated myself since leaving, and I have rejected the Bible, for obvious reasons, as being the word of God, not least among those reasons being what our Terry points out, we only have translations of copies of copies. The Bible is interesting as literature.

  I do not believe in God, as a person, as a friend of mine put it the other day "If He did exist, I wouldn't like Him !"

  I reject the idea that Jesus was anything other than a man.

  Having said that, I am interested to get back to the real Jesus, to what he really said, he was obviously a great teacher, his words were strong enough to start a movement that still exists, to produce martyrs and to make all the Myth that has grown up around him come about.

  I am interested in what scholars come up with about the Historical Jesus, as opposed the the legends of the Gospels and other myth.

  So, education of oneself makes it easy to give up God, organized religion, the Jesus Myth, and all the silliness that goes with those three.

  Love

  Wobble
• 

  Chalam

  Welcome not a captive!

  Cool post :)

  Blessings,

  Stephen
• 

  steve2

  For me it was not that hard. I harbored concerns that the JWs - like all other religious fundamentalists - proudly based their beliefs on one of the most blood-thirsty, maniacal and cultic pieces of literature ever assembled, The Bible. Every cranky idea the JWs have is mirrored somewhere in "Holy"Scripture, right down to shunning apostates and condemning those öutside the "true"faith to death. To me, the worst thing you can say about any religion is that it is based on the Bible. Ditch the Watchtower, ditch the Bible. The very same thing.
• 

  The Finger

  Maybe this is rubbish, but without God in the picture I find it hard to imagine where everything came from as there would be no time or space for it to exist in?

  With God in the picture. Christianity seems to answer for me why we are in the mess we are in and how God gets us out of it. Where as the reason I left the witnesses was I felt they weren't really Christian.
• 

  yadda yadda 2

  There IS NO historical record of Jesus Christ,

  A very ignorant statement. Yes there is: the gospels. You will be hard pressed to find a single reputable historian who denies that Jesus was a real historical figure and who does not admit that at least some of the gospels contain historical truth. Even the most sceptical bible scholars and academics admit that Jesus at least existed. What you make of the content of the gospels and their historicity is another matter.

  You make a lot of bold assertions about Christianity and the bible with nothing to back it up. It's absurd to say that the bible is a 'fraud.' What parts of it? Are you saying all of it is completely fictional? You are basically asking ex-JW's to discount two thousand years of writing by 40 authors as all just a fraud? Give me a break. It's very easy to jump on the trendy bandwagon of western post-modern scepticism but another thing to back your claims up with proof.
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  cantleave

  Almost as soon as I woke up to fact that I had been brought up in and lived a lie for the whole my life, my scientific training kicked in and I ditched the bible and the idea of a god that was so lacking in self confidence that it demanded worship from its creation.
• 

  Aussie Oz

  I dropped christianity like a hot potato. From day one out. However, beating the mind control and imprinting took a lot longer.

  In fact, i have become anti any religion pretty much these days. Religion brings out the worst in human nature i think.

  I have no respect for the god of the bible, to me he is a despot dictater who practices ethnic cleansing at whim. That he would commit mass murder of his own creation at armageddon fills me with disgust.

  so, for me, giving up christianity was easy.

  oz
• 

  GromitSK

  It seems to me there is plenty of historical detail in the tales of Robin Hood or King Arthur but that doesn't mean they actually existed or if they did, that they were anything like what has been written about them. One could argue that the gospels were contemporaneous, however one might also ask what happened to all the other contemporaneous accounts that didn't make the Bible? Don't most religions have some 'book' that was written by eye witnesses and/or received directly from God? As far as the books omitted from the Bible - it looks suspiciously like they didn't fit the political agenda of the time and somehow 'God' influenced the early Church to have them excluded.
• 

  jaguarbass

  I was born a witness my thinking abilities got me out of the tower.

  There is evidence that Jesus existed,

  There is evidence of a world wide flood.

  There is not evidence beyond a reaonable doubt,

  just as there is not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no designer/God.

  You have to have faith to be an atheist and you have to have faith to believe in God.

  To begin with JW's are not a Christian religion so JW's dont give up Christianity.

  At best some become Christians after leaving the tower.

  JW's are as Christian as muslems or atheists, they all know of a Jesus, they dont accept who

  he was.

  The bible says God made some for honor and some for dishonor so his name could be glorified.

  Our lifes are part of Gods story its called his story, history.

  In the end every knee will bow down and give an accounting.

  Thats what the book you dont believe in says.

  I have read Dawkins, Darwin, I've studied anatomy and physiology, to me all roads lead to God.

  To others all roads lead to no God.

  That's the way it will be throughout our lives.

  If there is a God and he wrote the bible thats the way he said it would be.

  If there is no God thats the way the yin and the yang work.

  For every positive you have a negative.