Honest survey question on effectiveness of 'apostacy'

by Simon 178 Replies latest jw friends

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  Violia

  The personal experiences were helpful to me when I finally got the nerve to check out an Xjws boards. I could not bring myself to read any of the doctrine threads for many years. I did not care to know anymore about jws than I already knew. Then it happened one day , I began slowly to read the doctrine threads. I now read the atheist's threads but often find my belief in a creator stronger after reading them. As a newbie the board was pretty overwhelming, but sticking to the personal stories made it easier. I could never have debated anyone in the doctrine threads-nor do I want to now.

  I would never have taken a pamphlet from an apostate at the conventions and never read apostate literature. The literature that convinced me jws were wrong eventually was the Bible. I realized that if I just read my Bible and not with the aide of the wts literature, well, I came away with a different point of view. I had a few doctrine issues, 1975, ransom doctrine, change in baptismal vows, the use of theocratic warfare to just outright lie about anything or anyone.

  Mostly it was the double standards in the wts that shook me loose. I do not think anyone on their own will ever "take down the wts". What could hurt them badly is money loss. Someone once told me the answer to most "but why" questions was "money". Follow the money.

  "it's not the fall that hurts, it is that sudden stop"
• 

  braincleaned

  Again, I don't think the videos, radio, podcasts, memes... have a chance with a hardcore JW... they will NOT even look.
  
  HOWEVER, all of the above is VERY important once the spark of doubt has started. I would have been lost without all the YouTube videos and sites!
  So I believe without a doubt that all activism anti-WTS is essential to the coming out of JWs. It is the first life-jacket we grab when we leave the WT ship!!!
• 

  factfinder

  I agree Simon.

  I left because wrongdoing in the congregations I was in created doubts that God's spirit was there. When I stopped attending meetings I had not yet learned the tatt.

  As a witness I rejected anything that came from "apostates". But my experiences led me to realize too much was wrong. After giving up meetings I discovered information about the UN/NGO thing and as upsetting as it was to me, it made me want to know more. After discovering Watchtower News and JWN I discovered and was open to accept the tatt.

  But while I was still an active witness I did not believe anything that "apostates" said.
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  yadda yadda 2

  
• 

  Ruby456

  simon I agree with this

  With JWs you're also battling against the pre-planted control mechanism that has prepared them against people trying to convince them that it isn't true which means that attempts at convincing people simply become more evidence of the truth.

  and then the control is also social and not just cognitive.

  I think we would need some empirical data that videos have loosened wts control mechanisms. AwakenedatGilead had lots of hits and lots of discussions I think with his videos. I remember the impact of watching loads of his work. His handle was eyecatching in itself.
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  Phizzy

  I agree Simon, apart from your spelling of "Apostasy", no "c", but I think when we first leave we have a mixture of emotions, anger being one of them, and justified too.

  But crazy schemes to bring down the WT not only won't work, but if our family or JW friends get wind of them we are doomed as far as helping them is concerned.

  Far better to keep communication open, and plant seeds.
• 

  likeabird

  I would say that what gets you in in the first place (or convinces you to stay in if you are born-in) is also what will get you out.

  For me it was two things.

  First, the (what I firmly believed at the time to be) logic of the prophecies. When it was suggested to me that the dates might be out of sync, I checked them in encyclopedias. Seeing they were wrong and then double checking the WT pubs to discover they actually backed up the encyclopedias (indirectly, of course).

  At this point I stopped believing but still didn't detach myself from the borg. I do a ton of research to check everything els, but solely relied on WT pubs and sources such as encyclopedias to do it. I adamently refused to touch anything "apostate". I had to check everything myself. I figured if WT got me into this in the first place, they could get me out. Those were my terms.

  Second, I was always proud of the fact the borg was so "clean". In service when the subject of child abuse in the Catholic church came up I would proudly say that if I was in a religion that covered up child abuse like they did in the Catholic church, then I would leave. I couldn't understand why people would stay in such a religion. All the fuss made in the borg even for pornography only confirmed in my mind that child abuse would never be tolerated.

  Shortly (a few months after I had stopped believing in everything), a friend convinced me* (I was still refusing to touch anything "apostate") to watch an extract from a documentary showing an interview by Barbara Anderson talking about her experience in bethel and the problem of child abuse in the borg. I immediately read her life story and then spent the next few days reading the different accounts of people on silent lambs and with tears in my eyes.

  By discovering that not only child abuse existed but was covered up in the religion I had been born into, devoted my whole life to and literally sacrificed everything to, my relationship with that religion was permanently and totally severed.

  It was only at this point that I had no problem looking at ex-JW sites, watching their videos and reading as much as I could.

  (*The only thing that convinced me to watch Barbara's interview in the first place was because I knew that someone who had got where she had got in the organization, would never throw it away lightly or give up her whole life work just like that.)
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  ABCXYZ

  While it may not be effective to make people leaving the cult, it would definitely be good for creatig awareness and preventing non-JWs from falling into the cult trap.
• 

  new hope and happiness

  As i wrote on an earlier post today...one person leaving multiplied by a thousand is an army....on this post id add many are happy and need the ORGANISATION.
• 

  Crazyguy

  The more people leave and the more people talk it starts a wave, eventually the wave becomes to big to stop.