State your "epiphany moment " for leaving the WT (page 5)

ranmac

My whole life has been full of moments that should have been epiphanies. Im gonna leave out a thousand experiences and revelations but give a simplified account.

A ruined youth and anger problems due to years of bullshit and humiliation from elders is probly what set the path for my fade. "Imperfect men" was the excuse I had always tried to use to stay in and move on.

However the biggest "mistake" I made was starting to get very interested in history. Particularly religion and politics. As I started obsessively researching, my mind was blown away as to how little I had been taught about anything. The JW view of the world is just as narrow and deluded as their veiw and beliefs of their own religion. After studying alot about ancient Egypt I remembered the Pyramid at Russels Grave, and realized for the first time that his name is not on it. The WBTS is. I looked back at the Proclaimers book which shows russell's tombstone but couldnt be bothered to pan over slightly to the massive pryamid. What ever your opinions of this and its implications are, you cant deny that this almost a monument to display their complete lack of transparency and honesty about themselves.

I decided then to start reading the entire bible on my own for the first time with out the aid distraction of the publications. I thot this would truly open my eyes to what I had been basing my entire life on. And it did. After reading just the first two books, I was in shock. This was not the loving god of perfect justice that I had been indoctrinated my whole life to worship. I didnt know this god, and I am unsure if I want to.

A time later at our next DA we had the privilege of having David Splaine give the concluding talk. This was when I first heard their "new understanding" of the (failed) generations prophecy. He spewed the justification out and the thousands of sheep lapped it up, smiling and clapping. There was no "we were wrong" or any kind of onus put on themselves. Jehovah was simply giving these special men "new light" and graciously passing it on to us. That was it for me. I had already had an uncomfortable feeling from watching and listening to Splaine. I got up and left. I wish someone would have hijacked a microphone and read Deuteronomy 18:20-22.

Mac

the pharmer

(bookmarking)

Violia

1975 started it and 1985 finished it. When they changed the baptismal vows, I knew something was amiss.

Violia

I also had a wake up moment when they started using Theocratic Warfare ( otherwise know as lying) for just about anything. Also they would lie for some jws and not for others.

d

For me it was the issue of college.Also it was the anointed issue I could never that, I would ask "How do you know when you are anointed" the response was you just know Which only lead to "well How do you know."

Escapee

Mine happened when I was 19. I was out in the 'good work' with an elder and we met a guy that I had seen at the Kingdom Hall.

I had never spoken to this guy but i had heard that he had taken up a study and did this for awhile and then quit and then started again and then quit. I think that he had a girlfriend who started studying and she had told him that this is what he must do if he wanted to keep seeing her.

The guy was nice and friendly and we wanted to help him, so he invited us in and he had a very well thought out presentation of why the truth isn't the truth. He said a number of times that he felt the witnesses were 95% right, but he struggled with a few things. He talked about the lack of evidence for a flood, which was new to me at the time, but the main thing that hit me hard was that he had some photocopies of publications that the wtbts quoted from. He showed us how they had quoted completely out of context in the Creation book. He also raised questions about the poor translating of the New World translation and had a lot of problems with the appendix that also quoted other sources in a way that totally misrepresented their original meaning.

You could have knocked me over with a feather as I left that house. I think the elder was really disturbed by what was said as well, he kept saying to me on the way home "Are you sure you are OK with this?", to which I said, "of course". I really wasn't, and I needed time to think about it.

The stupid thing is that I didn't leave the borg there and then, but I tried hard to get over the doubts that had been raised. It took me years of thinking about this stuff (For years I didn't do any more research apart from using the societies stuff), and I only really left properly when I was about 25. I guess up until that point I had absolutely no friends outside the organisation, and just couldn't see leaving as an option. Those 6 years are the ones that I regret the most, the ones where I knew but couldn't face up to it.

I am so glad I met that guy. He knew exactly what he was doing, by forcing me eyes open. I don't even know his name. If I ever see him again how would I ever thank him!?

Heaven

I think it was between the ages of 10 and 12 when my Mom told me that Jehovah had turned his back on all mankind. That had a profound impact on me and not for the good of believing in God or religion. As I moved into my teen years, I was given the red "Your Youth"book which just pissed me off to no end. Being told I had to subject myself to my husband was not within my abilities nor my aspirations. The blood policy was then presented to me and I was horrified. I continually disagreed with the Watchtower's interpretation of scripture as well as their blatant going beyond what was written in the Bible. No where in the Bible could I find it written that going door to door passing out Watchtower and Awake magazines ensures your eternal life, nor is it the definition of 'works'.

I put my plan together, got my driver's license, got a part-time job, and when I graduated high school, I moved away from home to go to College. I got a job that made me real busy. I am still busy today. There is no time for the Watchtower's Happy Horshiite in my life. And there never will be.

OnTheWayOut

I came out of the Watchtower haze so slowly, but I will try to give you an idea of what my "epiphany moment" was.
(I laugh because I really learned all about myself in such moments after leaving Watchtower.)

I started to live for retiring and dying "in this system of things" when they changed "this generation" in 1995. I went and got a career instead of a job five years later. I gave Jehovah one last chance to prove I was in the truth after I started my career. I juggled things so that I could pioneer and I let Jehovah show me. When my year of pioneering was almost up (I decided to finish the year and go to the school in case Jehovah was a bit slow in showing me) I got my answer.

Instead of being shown I was in "the truth," my householder at a random door showed me that I was wasting my time. He started asking me if this "Jehovah" was really expecting me to take the wonderful life I was given and spend it praising Him in this way. His way of speaking reached right into my head and heart. Jehovah had not blessed my special effort that year, He had not made even an unblessed effort particularly enjoyable. But this guy helped me to see that if there were a "Jehovah" out there, He would not want me to be obsessed with "time" and productivity pushing literature. I had nothing to say in the way of rebuttal when this guy spoke, my partner neither.

Funny, though. I didn't fully realize what an epiphany moment that was at that time. By the time I went to pioneer school, I knew I would not pioneer anymore.

I found loads of things wrong with WTS after that, but I was looking at things differently.

MrMonroe

I hated it for years, but made the actual decision to never return after reading the first few chapters of Crisis of Conscience and reading what an utterly manmade religion it is, not at all averse to lying, and just how baseless its claim to be God's organisation. God bless Ray Franz! How many lives did that man save?

WhereWasI

I was decending down the stairs and I stopped midway, and I said out loud: Somthing is Wrong.

A lot of other stuff happened but that was when my mind tripped.

State your "epiphany moment " for leaving the WT

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