by WasOnceBlind 75 Replies latest jw experiences
it was this blood transfusion thing. i was 23 and about to be a dad for the first time. i knew i would never refuse a t/f for me--my wife--or our kid.
that led me to re-consider all my beliefs---and god was struck off the list. i never looked back--so leaving the watchtower was easy. its only since joining sites leke this i realise how completely crazy the whole nonsense really is.
For me 3 points:
- why no longer meals at the conventions?
- why no longer money for the publications?
- why the amount of a sold kingdomhall is not used for buying the new one?
I found all the RIGHT answers here and on jwfacts.
The I studied the bible very deep . The end: I saw TTATT
For me it was the generation change of 1995. Any doubts I had before that were forced out because I truly believed WTS was God's one true organisation. However, the 1995 about-turn led me to the glaringly obvious: they're just making sh1t up as they go along.
It first dawned on me WTS was a cult around the same time (Oct/Nov 1995) when I read an article about comforting victims of child abusers. It specifically said that without two witnesses, nothing could be done but wait for the new system and Jah to put it right. This was and is absolutely disgusting. It's one thing for a cult to affect the lives of consenting adults, but innocent children?!
My brother was converted to the borg and he tried to indoctrinate me.
Much of his anti-anyone else's belief system banter had me research his JW position.
Every single biblical example that the WTS had used to explain their position actually undermined what they were trying to prove with in the same chapter. They would take one verse that said something, but further reading proved the opposite of their point. Unbelievable....
I thank God for not getting involved myself. Now I just want to help my brother and his family.
I had a few moments of doubt over the years, but submerged/suppressed them:
- why did Jehovah create Mosquitos if he so opposed to the eating of blood..?
- how could the angelic trumpet blasts from heaven, from book of Revelations, really be said to be resolutions passed at certain conventions in the 1920's? If they are so important and supposed to have the amazing impact they did, why do we not even talk about these resolutions or pronouncements, why are they forgotten?
- how is it possibly okay to take BLOOD FRACTIONS??? We constantly told that the person faithful in what is least is faithful in what is much..... And blood was this holy thing, the most sacred representation of life, and you couldn't even store your own blood, yet it's okay to take fractions made up from a whole bunch of other people's blood, and which is also stored??????
- but the kicker, the final thing which made me finally see this was all a crock of shit, was their publication, MY BOOK OF BIBLE STORIES, which I was going to give to my little grandkids. But then I looked at it as if through looking through their sweet little eyes -- and I thought, What kind of people could put out such a frightening book for little children, such dark, terrifying pictures!! So scary and so much hurt and blood... Who could put out and approve such a book for innocent little eyes?? Then I realized it was the governing body, a group of men who, for the most part, didn't even have children of their own! Once I questioned this, I saw that the GB were just making things up as they go, there was no Holy Spirit directing the publication of this malicious, evil book!
- which led me to read CoC, and ISoCF, and that was it.
I had read everyones thoughts here but didnt post because my story seems (to me) so convoluted and is still developing in some ways and I didnt know how to express it.
I think though, that even though my eyes
have been "opening" I must still be in that stage because this thread
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/316740001/disfellowshipping-image
has floored me.
I know they are a bunch of hooey but I didnt think they would be so bold as this.
There is so much wrong with this picture I wont even start.
My eyes just got opened a LOT more.
The single biggest thing that I discovered shook the faith of more Witnesses than any other event since the 1975 debacle was the November 1, 1995 Watchtower article, which gave an entirely new interpretation of the "this generation" teaching that the Society had advanced for decades (and which was the key draw that brought in new Witnesses). Not only did the change confuse a huge number of Witnesses, but it also angered many when the Society seemed to play off the previous decades' teaching of "this generation" to mere speculation on the part of Witnesses, when the Society had published numerous magazines and books claiming that "this generation" absolutely referred to the actual generation of people born/alive in 1914.
From there it was a downward spiral. The biggest crash for the WTS was, by far, the May 1, 2007 Watchtower article changing the teaching that the sealing of the "anointed" ceased in 1935. The Watchtower Society now claimed that the time of sealing remains open. Witnesses weren't blind to the implications: it is all tied to the "this generation" teaching, which has been the Watchtower Society's "hook, line and sinker" for nearly a century. All Witnesses since 1935 were taught, and believed, that Armageddon would come within the lifetime of those born/alive in 1914. Essentially this meant the end of the world would come in the lifetime of every Witness alive in the latter half of the twentieth century. It was the "sizzle" to the Watchtower Society's "steak."
And then the sizzle fizzled. Another WTS prophetic road paved into yet another dead end.
And since 2007, with Memorial partakers increasing significantly each year since, the WTS has been in constant damage control.
