I've read Crisis of Conscience this week too. I downloaded it from Commentary Press.
It's a life saver.
Definitely no going back now.
I read CofC this week on holiday...life changing stuff!
by Lozhasleft 35 Replies latest jw experiences
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joelingeorgia
the voting on doctrine explanation was the death knell for me and the witnesses.
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Chalam
Hello Loz,
Glad you had a good break :)
Blessings,
Stephen
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Lozhasleft
leavingwt No I havent got that yet but its on my list for sure...thanks..
vinny I plan to move onto to that one next ..it sounds like really good...a clever, well read man with a deep love for God...I liked him a lot in the way he told his whole story ..
I dont know how anyone could reconcile staying in after reading it...and yes the voting on doctrine left me cold...so many lives and families wrecked for the wrong reasons...disgraceful....
Its really upset me the only way I can describe the feeling is like 'grief'...and I thought I had come through all that....will it ever end?
Loz x
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Scarred for life
I started to read it about 2 years ago. Even though I have been out for a long time, I had trouble dealing with the emotions that it made me feel along with the emotions I already had with my mother's death.
My grief from reading the book is for not only myself but both my parents and all my aunts and uncles and cousins that have believed from the heart in the JW cult.
It gives you a very strange feeling but I don't know how anyone can read it and then continue gong to meetings and in FS or even pretend that they are still JWs.
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babygirl30
That book made me cry...it was SO enlightening!
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A.Fenderson
So the consensus seems to be that this book is the one--if you're only going to commit to one book in this regard--so I just ordered Crisis of Conscience on Freeminds.org to help support Randy's great site that led me here. Thanks for sharing your recommendations and personal experiences with the book, everyone.
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Lozhasleft
Good decision A.Fenderson ...its got to be up there with one of the most significant religious books of our time...completely unforgettable...
Loz x
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Scarred for life
To me, it is absolutely the #1 book that should be read by anyone that has left or is thinking of leaving the JW cult. There are other books that are important to read also but this one is about Jehovah's Witnesses and it comes from someone who was at the top level.
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ziddina
OnTheWayOut..."I was past the point of no return when I read it, but it's hard to imagine that some JW's could read it and remain JW's. No way..."
Well, depends on how "mind-controlled" they are... I wish there was some way to prove thru independent means (letters from Mexican officials, letters from Malawian officials) that the Mexican officials had definitely accepted bribes, that the Malawian officials' request that their citizens carry a simple 'identity' card that amounted to no more than a driver's license in most countries...
Because, sure as you're born, there's going to be some hard-nosed JW out there who declares these things to be "lies" spread by a disgruntled "apostate"...
For me, the book caused an almost incendiary fury - I clearly remember the panic [while I was still "in"...] that had spread thru the rank&file JWs during the Malawi persecution - their very real sufferings were held up to us as righteous "examples" of what OUR behavior should be under 'persecution', as well as being used to "prepare" us for the "Great Tribulation"... I also remember thinking at the time that the WTBTS was being uncomfortably salacious in the way they lingered over the stories of the sisters being gang-raped...
So when [decades later...] I read the "Crisis" book, I had an "AHA" moment - something about the WTBTS' breathless accounts of the violence in Malawi had sounded contrived or too convenient to me...
And that the Mexican brothers were allowed to BRIBE officials - while American brothers were expected to go to PRISON for refusing alternative service during the Vietnam war... Infuriating!!! But too terribly typical of the WTBTS organization... Still the same mentality as ol' Judge Rutherford - stake out the sacrificial lambs and use the resulting slaughter to keep the rest of the "sheeple" in line... [thx to whomever came up with the term "sheeple"...]
Zid