I wanted to make a few comments to those of you that have recently begun to question or have already left the WT and made their way onto this site. Welcome! This site is a great resource to learn how others are coping with leaving the organization and moving on into a fulfilling life.
I wanted to write this post because I think reading something like this would've been helpful to me to understand where a lot of people that comment on this site are coming from. You are going to hear from a wide range of people that have moved on to a diverse range of beliefs. The most common types that I have found are those that have, due to the organizations destruction of their faith, become atheistic or agnostic in their views, and those that have not lost their faith in Christ, but have moved on to a closer relationship with Him. You can learn a lot from each type of person you encounter here. One of the nice things that you will find after coming out of the organization is that it is ok to have a difference of belief with other people. You don't have to ignore them or be afraid of hearing what they have to say. You are an intelligent person that is capable of making your own decisions on every sort of matter.
That being said, here comes the controversial part of my post. I myself am a Christian. Due to family circumstances I still go to the meetings with my family and have not been DF'd or DA'd. However, I have a new love of the Bible and what it teaches about God, which has turned out to be very different from what the WT teaches. When I first began posting on the site I was troubled by how many I saw that had left the organization and completely lost their faith in God. Not only that, anytime I brought up anything about Jesus or the Bible I had multiple atheists condemning my views and either directly or indirectly calling me gullible or unintelligent for believing in the Bible.
That being said, I through some Bible study the other night, I found what the Bible says about why people turn atheistic in their beliefs. This commentary is not meant to be insulting. It is merely what the Bible says on the issue. And I really do think it's insightful to what you new Christians to JWN may encounter here. Psalm 14:1 says "The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one that does good." So WHY does the man say "there is no God"? The verse answers that they are corrupt. Verse 3 expounds on this and says, "All have turned aside" and "there is no one that does good." I really think this is why people buy into the atheistic philosophy. They want to eliminate the ultimate judgment on such sinfulness, consequently, they eliminate God. It's expedient for them to philosophically get rid of God so that they don't have to live under the guilt and the fear of a coming judgment.
So can atheists REALLY have contentment in their belief (or unbelief)? They will claim that they are content. There are all kinds of people that try to find contentment in just about everything imaginable. But REAL contentment only comes from knowing God. Notice what Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 9:23,24. It says, "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight." If that doesn't characterize the attitude of our modern day, I don't know what does. What do smart people glory in? Their intelligence. What do strong people glory in? Their strength. But what SHOULD we glory in? That we know God.
According to the Bible mans purpose is to know God. That's our sole purpose. What a thought! God initially created man to know Him, but something entered into man's world and turned the light off. What was it? Sin. Romans 1:18,19 describes this. It says, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." Watch. "Who hold the truth in unrighteousness." Isn't it amazing that men have the truth. Everybody does. Every man who ever lived in this world has resident truth about God available to him. Look at verse 19. You say where is it? Well,"because that which may be known of God is manifest" where? "In them." God plants the innate knowledge that He is in men. It is instinctive for men. Go to any classroom of children and ask them who believes in God. I would be surprised if most if not all raise their hands.
In conclusion, these are just my musings. I will probably get a lot of flack from the atheists about this post, but it's ok with me. For those of you who are Christians and new to JWN I hope it will be ok with you to. I personally think this forum would benefit from a stronger presence of Christians. I know that there are MANY Christians that lurk on the board and read the posts, but are afraid to post because they feel that the atheists will hijack their threads. This isn't something to be afraid of. We can respect each others differences of opinions, yet hold fast to what we believe. Sometimes that changes over time. But I hope no one continues to be afraid to post here for fear of others beliefs (or unbeliefs).