My Mom keeps asking me: '...but, what are you doing with your life?'
My response: 'Enjoying it!'
She just can't understand how I can be happy without watchtower mind control!
"Who else are we to go away to?"
by simon17 70 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Finally-Free
JWs love the simplicity of black and white, true and false, and are uncomfortable with grey areas. They fail to accept that there are no truly "right" answers for every question or situation.
I don't think there's much hope for them until they learn to get comfortable living with a measure of uncertainty.
W
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Mad Sweeney
I think we all found the uncertainty to be uncomfortable at first.
I have since embraced it. Uncertainty keeps you asking questions. Certainty stifles them.
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jonathan dough
Fine, if the Witnesses aren't the truth, then show me the better answer and I'll consider it."
Do you really mean this? That you'll consider other ways? Stick with Christianity and the Bible. You have been brainwashed into believing that Christendom is the work of the devil. It's not. All the reasons they gave you for rejecting Christendom are incorrect. You just have to dig deeper and roll up your sleeves.
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PSacramento
For a Christian the answer is simple, We to Our Lord and Saviou Jesus Christ.
The issue for many JW's is that they have been under the control of the WT for so long that they have NO IDEA HOW to Go to Christ and that is truly sad.
Someone said that most ex-jw's end up atheists ( eventually) and I have to agree that is probably the case.
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Hoffnung
The answer I got so far in my searching is sufficient. There might not be a religion as widely known as the witnesses that fulfills biblical criteria to be the 'True' religion. But unfortunately staying with the Witnesses is one of the worst options available. If you have kids, they will be outsiders at school for their steadfast refusals to participate in Birthdays, christmas, etc. They will not consider to do something with their lives like going to college, because Armaggedon will come soon. Their ideas about friendships with other people will be strange, dividing them into, 'worldlings', 'spiritually weak'. and others. Your own mental health is at risk because of the continuous bombardments of guilt feelings to make you pioneer, etc. Your physical health is at risk due to their no-blood policy. Your time is wasted in Field Service that brings close to no result in helping people. Instead you could better spending your time in helping the needy. (Matt 7). Your worship is directed to a governing body, faithful and discreet slave, etc, a human organization, and not to God or Jesus (maybe hard to believe, but absolutely true).
So where go to? first you must discover for yourself what the bible says. Read it on your own, without bible study aids from the watchtower, and take another translation if possible. Note down what God expects from christians (found in the New Testament). You will find it very different then what the Watchtower teaches, they have admitted as much in their own magazine in the past. That should define your belief system. (some easy points: Salvations comes by Grace of God and Faith in Jesus Ransom, and not by 'Undeserved Kindness that has to be deserved by participating in the preaching work). Then you can choose any christian denomination you feel comfortable with and that you feel as close enough as what you believe. It is not necessary that you confirm your ideas exactly to theirs, most even don't require that.
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OUTLAW
To the intellectually honest witness, it seems like it often comes down to this principle.
"Fine, if the Witnesses aren't the truth, then show me the better answer and I'll consider it."
And how do you deal with that? .....Simon17
Thats like worrying about what you going to replace the Dog Poop on Your Lawn with,after you Clean It up..
Clean up the Dog WBT$ Shit and enjoy a Clean Lawn..
WBT$..
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...OUTLAW -
wasblind
You tell 'em Outlaw
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jonathan dough
The answer I got so far in my searching is sufficient. There might not be a religion as widely known as the witnesses that fulfills biblical criteria to be the 'True' religion.
You really need to search more, take it to another level. You couldn't be more wrong.
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LostGeneration
I think the "where" or "who" else will you go to question has much to do with the witness desire to "be right" Of course they replaced the who (Jesus) in the scriptrure with where (the org) so that is how they think about it.
They are convinced (as most of us were at one time) that it is "THE TRUTH." Now of course we all hate that term now, and it is so arrogant and condescending on every other human who thinks differently. But you have to think like a JW. If you have THE TRUTH and for some reason you actually end up exploring whether or not it is actually THE TRUTH, you can go two ways. You can question whether there is ANY TRUTH, or you can look for A DIFFERENT TRUTH.
Its difficult, if not impossible for an active JW to jump to the free thinking idea that there is really no truth, just opinions. I would say most of us atheist/agnostics here first transitioned from JW to some sort of Christianity for a time, even if is just a few weeks or months. When that didn't make sense to us, we questioned further.
I guess the bottom line of this ramble is that if you are talking to a JW who is willing to question the org, they need to have somewhere to go in the meantime. Most are unable to completely drop the idea that they need to be "doing something" to make God happy so they need that replacement place to go, at least for a while
