by EndofMysteries 52 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
As an elder....it was a sister we had DF'd.....when I called her to tell her we were reinstating her the next night....she cried and said thank you....and said she was going to kill herself the next day
I woke up.
Disfellowshipping....something I NEVER agreed with....is what did it for me.
Next came the GROSS lack of love among JW's..... especially the elders and CO's.....some of them are just terrible/dysfunctional people .....
I never read any ex-JW literature before I sent in my letter of DA.
I was convinced that God was a real being through an experience similar to the one that Abraham experienced when he was tested. That experience and reading the Bible made me feel primarily responsible to God not the FDS. Over the years the way the Organization undermined Jesus and Jehovah as our leaders made me look again at the significance of Genesis 22. Of the many things that are misrepresented in this account one that began to resonate with me is the ignorance that Abraham had of any "doctrine". He didn't rely on a committee to help him "take in knowledge of God". Rather he got to "know God" in a more direct way. Never mediated by anyone else.
The scriptures finally separated me from the Organization. The Branch would not tolerate an alternate understanding of their version of Jehovah's test of Abraham.They say that God called for a bloody sacrifice. I read that God asked for a new thing when he asked for Isaac as a burnt offering. I believe that each of us have to find where we are called to our own mount Moriah and engage with God at that point . "Taking in knowledge of God" is a lousey translation of John 17:3 that destroys or at least distorts the only way of knowing God---- through a measure of ignorance. Yes, a measure of ignorance in which he shows each one of us who he is.
I study the scriptures to deconstruct the layers of falsehood the Organization force fed us. There are many treasures in the scriptures. But we can search and search them and never, ever find God in them alone because the men who wrote them hardly knew what they were saying. We won't find God without a little risk--and Jesus.
I understand "burnt offering" to be a free and trusting relationship not a forced bloody submission. No committees, no corporation, no governing bodies. Only Jesus. Only his Father. Genesis 22.
Daringhart said:
As an elder....it was a sister we had DF'd.....when I called her to tell her we were reinstating her the next night....she cried and said thank you....and said she was going to kill herself the next day
I woke up.
Disfellowshipping....something I NEVER agreed with....is what did it for me.
Oh my... I'm not sure if I want to hear the rest of the story? But I must ask... what happened? Please tell me she got help?
Your story chills me to the bone, Daringhart, but you and I have something in common... I left because I knew disfellowshipping was wrong. The irony, of course, is that when you leave because you disagree with the shunning, you have brought that possibility upon yourself, as well.
I probably lost my faith at the KH. I was so bored sitting through endeless talks that I actually read the Bible; but only the sexy chapters in the OT. The speaker on the platform might have been talking about the 'fruitage of the spirit', but I was reading about the depraved lifestyles of Jesus' ancestors. It was then I realized the Bible was just an ancient book of stories, and the JW's were misguided.
for me it was 30 years of female opression and my brothers and sisters so called acting mostly without love at all. It was the glorification of the GB in the Daniel and Isaiah books, their banging on about 1919 and the small amount of scripture in bold next to the huge paragraph where they had read so much into it.
I had also started to see that the JW's were so warped and abnormal compared to everyone else, even members of other religons.
I had left months before i ended up here. So really it was the WT that pushed me out.
Frankly, it was just reading the Bible itself. I'm not particularly literally minded, and I could tell that a lot of it wasn't meant to be taken literally.
Also, catching the Watchtower constantly contradicting itself over the last 34 years. I have an almost photographic memory for what I read, and I'd catch those things pretty easily, which isn't too hard, since they change their teachings as often as a teenage girl changes her clothes.
The initial catalyst for my loss of faith in the Watchtower was the Watchtower itself.
The Bible was a big second.
"Apostate" material (which came WAY after my irrevocable loss of faith in the org) was just icing on a cake that had been cooling a long time.
As for scriptures, "I am the way, the truth and the life" simply sums it up better than I ever could about what ACTUAL Gospel truth is at its very core.
The biggest thing for me was reading in an old Watchtower that the GB didn't claim to be inspired, I always thought they were because of being "spirit-directed"
So that got me thinking, if they're not inspired, how come I'm supposed to follow them as if they were??
Praying about this dilemma led me to read Luke 21 v 8 which hit me like a bullet between the eyes
"Look out that you are not misled, for many will come on the basis of my name saying I am he, and, "the due time has approached". DO NOT GO AFTER THEM".
AlwaysHere, how did your son wake you up? I want to wake my parents up.
