Yep 9 years full throttle son of god, saved born again, forgiven, adopted and heaven bound. Did some preaching too!
It made a lot of sense at the time. When I criticise the faithful I am speaking from experience :)
Please can we all have a go at describing and celebrating our different NEW IDENTITIES, versus our OLD WBTS IDENTITY?
by Fernando 38 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Terry
Once Galileo peered through a really well built telescope and plotted the movement of the heavens... the evidence led his reasonable mind
to conclude the Church was wrong: the Sun did not go around the Earth.
He wrote about his observations and the Church (Inquisition) threatened him with Torture if he did not publicly recant.
Being rational, he recanted and spent the rest of his life under House arrest.
The fact that hundreds of years later the same Church publicly apologized for their treatment of a bold (and right) man of Science was little consolation to the long dead Galileo!
In front of a monolithic Authority with the power to hurt you, it does not matter if we are right or wrong in accord with the evidence.
What does matter is that the Authority has the power to enforce THEIR official dogma and punish you for insubordination.
Jehovah's Witnesses don't leave the Watchtower Society unless they come face to face with the summary Authority and are invited to "view the instruments of torture."
Once disfellowshipped or after having "faded" we are mentally and psychologically "under house arrest" for an extended period of time.
The pressure is almost unbearable.
We have lost something HUGE: a firm grasp on the ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY and Authority behind it.
Going from one end of the absolute (Truth) to the other end---(uncertainty and dread) is a whiplash.
How do you scratch THAT itch?
Some become born-again so that God can utterly forgive them, love them, accept them.
Some become raging iconoclasts with fangs and claws bared.
Others keep going over the "scene of the crime" looking for clues as to what went wrong.
It takes time to become WHO YOU REALLY ARE.
It took me over 10 years to abandon my world view that the Watchtower had the Truth (even though the men running it were assholes.)
How?
Education about everything I had neglected: science, history, philosophy, the bible, math, physics, logic.....
I needed mental tools. I needed to know what a Logical Fallacy was.
I needed to read the older publications and observe the changes and the reasons given.
Then, I needed intimate contact with my best friend who was still an active JW. Why? So that I could watch and listen as he covered his ass.
I didn't become fully human and an individual until I was past that 10 years-out-of-the-Kingdom Hall.
Then, one day, I emerged from my cocoon a free man who could love people, celebrate life, view the world with courage and optimism and see
human progress for the great leaps that have been made. I learned how poisonous the End Times viewpoint really is to mental health.
I became charitable and able to spend time volunteering with those less fortunate.
I stopped needing to start religious arguments and beat the living hell out of my opponents!
Now, I'm a pussycat.
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Muddy Waters
Terry, that was an AWESOME post. You said,
" Once disfellowshipped or after having "faded" we are mentally and psychologically "under house arrest" for an extended period of time.
The pressure is almost unbearable.
We have lost something HUGE: a firm grasp on the ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY and Authority behind it.
Going from one end of the absolute (Truth) to the other end---(uncertainty and dread) is a whiplash.
How do you scratch THAT itch?
Some become born-again so that God can utterly forgive them, love them, accept them.
Some become raging iconoclasts with fangs and claws bared.
Others keep going over the "scene of the crime" looking for clues as to what went wrong.
It takes time to become WHO YOU REALLY ARE."
I am SO experienceing this right now. Going from certaintly and absoluteness and total trust in what you thought you knew -- to nothing. To being without clarity or focus. Feeling adrift, alone, betrayed. It IS just like a whiplash. I've developed a stupid nervous tic near my eye and feel much despair and anguish. I can only hope this painful process of trying to figure things out does not take me too long!
Thank you for your post.
- Muddy
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Terry
I am SO experienceing this right now. Going from certaintly and absoluteness and total trust in what you thought you knew -- to nothing. To being without clarity or focus. Feeling adrift, alone, betrayed. It IS just like a whiplash. I've developed a stupid nervous tic near my eye and feel much despair and anguish. I can only hope this painful process of trying to figure things out does not take me too long!
Thank you for your post.
- Muddy
I remember clearly the day, as a kid, I was riding my bicycle with training wheels and my grandmother shouted to me to look down at my back wheels.
I glanced back. The training wheels weren't touching the ground any more! I was riding without the cushion of confidence being necessary.
Oh happy day. I was doing it all by myself.
That fear of falling, of crashing of hurting myself vanished. I could do it.
The craving for Absolute Certainty is really a disguised FEAR of crashing.
Using the opinions of others as training wheels is ignorant. It destroys our own confidence.
Worst still, dependancy pulls us down and weakens us.
The more we surrender control of our life to some outside voice the less of a person we dissolve into.
After a while we become just this "thing" who does what he is told. We are nothing. A cog.
It takes time to build strength back up.
I'm just as good as everybody else replaces "only they know what I should do".
All that TRUTH is just a stupid OPINION. That's all. Nothing more.
And it has proved wrong time and again.
We can do better on our own.
Just unfold those wings and start flapping. You'll soar higher and higher in no time at all.
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losingit
Marked-- lots of beautiful life experiences after leaving the cult. Terry's post is classic. Idk if I can contribute a before and after. I have to think about that some more.
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Mum
Pre-JW: Shy little girl with a physical deformity, loved by my grandparents and my teachers, earnest, maudlin, empathetic, did well in school and had a few close friends. Both grandfathers were uneducated country preachers.
Becoming a JW: Dad's boss came to our house about 3-4 years every week for "Bible study." Ignorant hillbilly ("Appalachian American," to be politically correct) self was quite impressed by them and their ability to quote scripture. I idealized them and wanted to be like them. When my dad got a Civil Service job, he stopped the study. Rare association with JW's for about 3-4 years. At age 15, parents decide to go to nearby Baptist church. Jack Van Impe comes to do a "revival," and spends a lot of time warning about Jehovah's Witnesses. My undeveloped teenage brain then saw JW's as the "underdog" and wondered why this rich evangelist felt so threatened by them. Much of his "information" was inaccurate as well, so I thought he was lying. Decided to look into JW religion further. Ironically, Jack Van Impe was the real catalyst for my conversion the the Watchtower "faith."
Being a JW: I started out as a maverick of sorts, in that I became a JW while no one else in my family did. I was lonely, but tried to make the best of the situation. I still hung out with a "worldly" friend from high school, as the JW kids I had previously hung out with were mostly married or moved away. Eventually, I married an elder and moved to another state. Life with him started out unhappily. I actually got ill the first week of our marriage - unheard of! Little by little, I adjusted to my new life, as I had a slavish temperament and had always been very obedient, trying to stay out of trouble. I almost never watched TV, so my husband would come home and turn on the TV because, as I later figured out, TV was where he got ALL information he knew outside the Watchtower system.
In 1972, I had a daughter, and she changed my perspective on the world. I started asking myself if I wanted her to have the kind of life I had. I came to realize she would probably do just as I was doing, and I was creating a doormat life pattern for her. I decided to take some classes at the local university. I was forbidden to do so. I asked family members to borrow money to take two classes. They agreed. There was a fight about it every day. Elders derided me, asking if I planned to "teach English in the New Order" and such nonsense. 1975 had come and gone by this time, and I was waking up to the reality that I might actually live to get old in this world, despite constantly being reminded that Armageddon was just over the next hill, so to speak. I realized that I had become an uptight, mean-spirited person, so unlike the sweet little girl everybody liked.
One day my cousin stopped by to visit. I advised him of my unhappiness and my struggles. I told him I was going to take a year and see if anything changed; if not, I was leaving. He told me I could stay with him until I got on my feet. Well, nothing changed, of course. So I left, aided and abetted by an ex-JW friend and a friend who was still a JW, but was open-minded and saw my unhappiness.
Post-JW:: It was a struggle at first. I re-entered the job marked. Fortunately, there were lots of jobs in the town where my cousin lived. I earned little money, but knew from my wonderful grandmother how to survive on very little.
My friend who helped me get away left the JW's shortly after I did. I went to visit her, and she introduced me to her classmate in graduate school. He and I got married. He was a total contrast to my first husband. He was well educated, thanks to parents who heavily emphasized education. He was in the top one percent of the smartest people I had ever met. He wanted me to finish my degree, so he supported me while I returned to college and graduated! Unfortunately, he had a serious drinking problem that escalated over the years, and it became unbearable to live with him, and we got a divorce.
I am now open to new ideas and am excited about life and its possibilities at any age. I no longer hang back and can talk to almost anyone about almost anything. I have learned to value freedom and opportunity.
I am 66 years old, am studying Chinese, and have a goal of going to China to teach English. More growth and adventure ahead!
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losingit
Wow Mum! Really interesting life story! I like that you're still planning adventures!
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Mum
losingit: I didn't set out to tell my life story, but, apparently, I almost did. I have been told that I should write a book. Maybe I'll do that someday.
Life's a tragedy and a comedy, eh?