@Vanderhovan7- thanks! I think it will be a long while before I will have a balanced view towards God, Jesus, and the Bible again. Right now there is much negativity and I feel its all academic. Perhaps one day I will have faith in God again-thanks for your kind wishes!
@sizemilk- that is a good point- yes- when first discovering what we thought was the truth- it was very exciting- everything opened up and became so clear! Well, not all-the 144,000 was hard to grasp at first. You put it so well... "as the disparities and shortcomings mount...the percieved benifits seem to diminish.' Thank you for explaining how anger is most often expressed, but fueled by dissappointment and embarressment. I find myself embarressed to let people know I was once a jw.
@still thinking-it seems you are still trying to figure out what to believe, like I was. Yes, I thought some of the teachings were still true, about Jesus, the resurrection hope. But now, it all seems like it no longer matters what the Bible says. I am also in that weird, in between place, regarding what to believe...sometimes I seem to lean towards being agnostic even. But I guess I have learned something from being a witness. I'm sorry you too were so dissappointed when discovering the truth about the wts.
@Quandry-I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who really believed the wt teachings!!!! Yes, the change in the generation teaching in 1995 was very dissappointing, it was as TIME magazine put it: "The Jehovah's Witnesses have decided that the end times are fluid." The end seemed further away. (The new generation teaching now is pathetic.) I'm sorry to hear that your daughter was treated so horribly by the elders- they have no real love at all- it is all just words. I witnessed a kangaroo court at the kh. There was a power play between an elder who was in charge, or wanted to be, and a CO. At the time an elder had begun to study with me as my faith was very weak and I was thinking of leaving the "truth". ( I should have!) This elder sided with the CO. So sides were drawn with prominent elders backing the PO against the CO, and the others were afraid of losing their position-so weakly went along. The elder who was my friend got "railroaded" as the CO put it- and was deleted as an elder. Bitter and discouraged, he moved to Florida shortly after that and I left that cong. to return to the KH I was originally in, although it was a different cong there by now! The elders in that cong were very encouraging to me, but I greatly missed my friend. I viewed the congs and elders differently from then on, Jehovah's spirit had nothing to do with what took place in the congs. after all. Thank you for your words of encouragement!
@talesin- thanks for your encouragement. I'm sorry you were so dissalusioned too. It is a very hard thing to discover the WTS is not God's Org and has been corrupt. My wonderful Mom told me right from the start that the witnesses are not perfect, but I did not listen to her. For years I came up with excuses for the wrongdoing, lies and hypocrisy I saw among so many of the witnesses in several congs. But finally, it was too much and there were no more excuses. I'm sorry to hear about your former boyfriend. I am happy I started this post. Thank you!
