by DaleRivers 35 Replies latest jw friends
Toweragent: the God of the Bible is a character for sure. A misogynistic, anal retentive, blood thirsty, character.
Hairtrigger: Some might say they're not really lying as long as they believe what they're teaching. We have all been lied to by the Governing Body.
OP is obviously interested in experiences of persons converted as adults, ie, not born-ins, sheesh.
Fascinating experience ablebodiedman. Amazed you left the borg after such a freaky 'coincidence' lol.
Amazed you left the borg after such a freaky 'coincidence' lol.
yadda,
I didn't leave "the borg", they disfellowshipped me!
There's a difference.
I am still 100% convinced that it was not a coincidence.
There have been too many hundreds of times that similar things have happened since then.
Enough to drive any and all thought of scepticism well beyond reasonable limits.
I am convinced that, I WILL BE BACK:
Romans 9:26
and in the place where it was said to them, ‘YOU are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’"
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[ablebodiedman] is no longer a Jehovah's Witness ----> ‘YOU are not my people'
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I am also convinced that the Governing Body as well as the elders and R&F in the congregation that disfellowshipped me, ARE MY BROTHERS!
Isaiah 66:5
Hear the word of Jehovah, YOU men who are trembling at his word: "YOUR brothers that are hating YOU, that are excluding YOU by reason of my name, said, ‘May Jehovah be glorified!’ He must also appear with rejoicing on YOUR part, and they are the ones that will be put to shame."
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God really does care!
Everything the bible said would happen, is really happening!
abe
I came in at 12 I never thought it was the truth...... just a quirky family religion. Armageddon.....nonsense.....paradise earth probably not. But when your young, your friends and family are presenting this as an ultimate truth...... how do you know? By 19 I knew it was BS. Simple minded people clinging to a pathetic message of hope taught by ignorant people. Just a bad joke. I left at 23. You live and you die, you hope and dream and work hard to make this place a better place for those that follow.
The WTBTS proved that they do not have the truth,by refusing to acknowledge what they used to believe. They are one of the least successful mass movements and not worthy of any respect.
Better that you walk away and find your own way. If you can't there are better, stronger, saner religions or philosophies to join.
@ Navytown
My oldest son was molested by an elder and his best JW friend was drugged and raped by that same elder.
I was df'd and my kids all left.
I still consider myself a JW although I am considered dead by them.
Were we shunned? You bet.
Would I go to another religion? No.
Anyway, Take Care.
AB
I was 19 , not happy where my life was going .A co-worker introduced me to JW`s teachings , paradise earth ,no war ,jehovah the name of god,no hellfire ,when your dead your dead ,and paradise was just around the corner.
smiddy
I was divorced with a five year old son living 1600 miles away from my family and friends when I met my husband of 32 years. He was a 3rd and 4th generation JW and was DF at that time. I found out he was a Witness because I had taken a palm reading course and I was going to read his hand and he freaked out on me and then explained why. At the time he was happy with not going to meetings. He would explain the religion whenever I would ask him questions. We laugh about the silliness of it now.
His mother invited me to two different JW weddings and of course I was loved bombed. I was getting the indrotination from his mom and their friends. I encouraged my husband to go to meetings and I went with him and started to study. There was honestly nothing that appealed to me other than the love I was feeling which only lasted a few years because we all know that will fade. I would never have gotten involved with this religion if I wasn't alone without my family and long time friends. I had a couple of new friends but no one that I was really close to.
What made it worse for me is I ended up going to work at an architectural firm with the sister who studied with me and it was a great job in so many ways but I had a lot of doubts and I felt trapped into getting baptized. I think if I were the strong person I am today I would not have taken the plunge.
I had some fun times but overall it was a living hell the 30 years I was part of it. It nearly destroyed my physical and mental health before I woke up. I nearly lost my son and his family because of this stupid cult. My relationship was very strained with my parents and sisters.
I am very thankful that today I am very close to my family and things have been repaired. They are so happy we are both out. My husband is out with me and we are very happy together and we are enjoying our life to the fullest. That is the best revenge!
I was raised as an Anglican but stopped attending sunday school and church when I was about 10, but still believed in God. Around 28 years old I began to wonder if you could find the real God if you looked closely at Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc and bought a book called What Man Believes that examined all the major religions. JWs came to my door and raised the prospect of living forever -- it seemed reasonable that that was God's original purpose. I swallowed the selective scriptures the JWs provided.
It was 1985 and I was scared of nuclear war and I was reassured by the JWs' claim that God would never allow man to destroy the earth. I was also greatly persuaded by the "fact" that only JWs used "God's name" and that they alone were sharing the "good news".
Yup, I swallowed the lot. It was only later, reading books by Ray Franz and others, that I realised how easily those seemingly rock-solid reasonings could be refuted, or at least challenged with equally convincing arguments. Which is why, of course, the JWs warned (and still warn) against reading writings of "apostates": they want their people to hear only one side of the argument.
Nothing but false promises. They promised to get me in with the opposite sex if I became a jokehovian witless, and promised that joke-hova would do the same. Of course, nothing. Joke-hova doesn't take care of anyone except "its chosen people", of which the jokehovian witleses are not.
Going beyond that, it will take legal pressure and force for them to get me back in. Threats to revolve on my baptism being a legally binding contract coming on the back of Saturn in Sagittarius. Threats of being sued, monitored to ensure I really do the field circus, even harsher conditions, and even Seroquel in lieu of disfellowshipping are probable if they get the right judge. All the while, they are afraid of Satan--if Satan would have been as aggressive as they claim Him to be, I never would have gone into the cancer in the first place.
Did not actually convert but did come pretty close to converting after 6 years of study with my wife and other witnesses. They could very easily use the Bible to refute some of my personal beliefs or at the least some of my understandings of the doctrines I accepted. They alone (seemingly) taught that Jesus was not born on Dec 25 and the idea that many of their doctrines did seem to line up more closely with the Bible than the doctrines I came to believe in. They alone seem peaceful in that they wanted no involvement in the military and they seemed to rely on God more by not preaching about politics or even participating in government. They were not nationalistic like so many other churches were as they believed more in a worldwide brotherhood which I found appealing. By claiming these were the things found in early Christianity they claimed that they were the closest to the original Christians both in belief and practice.
What they don't tell you is their false prophesying in the past concerning the years 1914, 1925, and 1975 for example. They also fail to tell you about their past teachings concerning the years 1799, 1874, and 1914 and how they refined them due to the passage of time rendering them false and not by some divine revelation. That fact alone puts them more in the camp of other preachers and religious institutions that falsely prophesy only to later make up more bullshit to cover up their previous bullshit.
How can anyone take this religion seriously once it has been revealed that back during the time of Jesus' inspection the Bible Students were teaching false prophesy and various ludicrous teachings like Michael the Archangel being the Pope, the Leviathan being a steam locomotive, the distance of 1600 furlongs in the Bible describing the distance between Scranton, PA and the Watchtower headquarters in NY, and that the great pyramid of Giza predicting 1914? Especially when the pyramid teaching was later debunked as satanic by the Watchtower society sometime later. None of this is ever mentioned during any Bible study and most JW's are woefully ignorant of their own history.
Their excuse that they were refining their teachings and correcting their errors does not hold much water as at best many Christians I come across also refine their beliefs (some more dramatically than others) upon the presence of greater evidence or due to a more intense Bible study. So, no special award to the witnesses for that one. Also, considering that their teachings concerning pyramidology, Michael the Archangel being the Pope, and the Leviathan being a steam locomotive were truly unique to them they cannot claim (as they often try) that they simply inherited their errorneous teachings from apostate christendom that they had to later refine after they learned the truth about them as they reason for why they originally celebrated Christmas.
