What woke you up?

by Israel Ricky Gonzales 83 Replies latest jw experiences

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  Israel Ricky Gonzales

  In March of 2014, I was a very active JW, a ministerial servant, gave a public talk, was an attendant for the memorial, and one of 4 cleaning captains for an international convention of 40,000+ attendees. So what woke me up?

  An innocent comment from a co-worker about the Candice Conti court case rang a bell that could not be unrung. This led to the silent lambs website, which led to me discovering that 3 brothers in my circuit were registered sex offenders.

  After verifying as much as I could about the Conti case and the systemic problem of not reporting abuse to authorities and the 2 witness rule, I discovered many financial crimes/scams on part of the WTBTS, such as the Menlo Park scandal.

  Then I found out about the 10 year membership with the UN as an NGO. I took a whole week off of work to call the UN, verify the allegations and make sure if there was any falsification to the allegations. I could find none. I was trying to prove the WTBTS true, but it was too easy to prove them liars. I was mentally done at that point.

  I began trying to prove true everything that I ever believed, JW doctrine. Without WT lenses, I could easily see that what I had been teaching was utter nonsense, if not false - such as 607.

  This led me to reading many of WTBTS's old, books from CTR and JFR days. I could not believe what I was reading! WOW! Pure ridiculousness!

  But the straw that broke the camels back was researching in the WT's involvement in spiritism and its ties to freemasonry in the early days. When I discovered about WTBTS using Johannes Greber in support of their teachings, it made me want to run away from the religion I spent my life slaving for.

  From March to July 2014, I went from a ministerial servant in training to be an elder, to full blown apostate.

  I can't say there was one thing in particular that woke me up aside from the innocent comment from a co-worker, but it was a mountain of evidence that really did it.

  How 'bout you?
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  marmot

  Noah's flood + university education
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  Village Idiot

  What did it to me was the organization's self worship. It took me a few years, during my adolescence, before I realized that it wasn't the "Truth" more because of their attitude than because of any doctrines. Had I possessed some of their old literature (I was beginning to build up a collection) I would have been out even earlier.
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  OneEyedJoe

  There are so many small steps that woke me up, but I'd have to say that the overlapping generation nonsense was probably it. That's what finally made me uncomfortable enough to look online, and when I did and found the misquotes/lies in the creation book it was all over.
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  ToesUp

  Lack of love and hypocrisy!

  I also learned about Rutherford (Boozerford) living in a mansion (Beth Sarim) while others were struggling financially.
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  Tenacious

  My semi-awakening moment was when I found out the elders had a secret book. Thereafter, I slowly questioned thinks that just didn't fit.

  It did take some years until I started to fully realize how manipulated we were.
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  skin

  For me this happened around 15 years ago. It was the misleading information published in the WTs in the 80's and 90's about how wonderful they were to know about 1914 before that date. Then I read the pre 1930 wtbts books they told a completely different story about 1914. Silly me, at the time I raised this issue with another witness and was basically told to stay away from apostate literature.
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  vinman

  Finding out we worshipped Jesus till 1954. Come on!! You can't get that right and you call yourselves Jehovah's Witnesses?!! What the heck!
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  apostrate

  In 1980, at about 26 years of age, I quit attending with any degree of regularity and stopped going out in field service altogether. I just got to the point that I could no longer be endorsing this religion when I knew that it wasn't working for me. And while I chose to no longer be a part of it, I would not talk against the Organization because I felt at the time that it might be "me" and I did not want to stumble anyone else from being a part of it.

  Nearly twenty years later, with the benefit of this new contraption called the internet, I stumbled upon the "Crisis of Conscience" book and realized that it wasn't just "me".

  And while I soaked up the entire book like a sponge, it was chapter 6, "Double Standards", regarding the Malawi/Mexico incidents that really cut the "imbecelical" cord for me!
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  life is to short

  For me it was pedophiles. I was a very true believer who would have given my life. I pioneered while living on nothing and I mean only $200.00 a month and serving where the need was great. It was beyond hard, than I went to Bethel and saw a lot of bad things but still came out of it with my faith very intact. Now I am a sister in the religion my husband was an elder and put the religion ahead of our marriage and even his life. He conducted the school while having a major heart attack because none of the other elders would fill in for him. That's how die hard he was and I was not far behind.

  Than a pedophile moved into the hall we were attending and it was unbelievable how it was treated. From that one pedophile I learned that there were two more pedophiles in the hall one who was mentoring a young brother who happened to have a mentally challenged little sister who this pedophile eventually was able to watch alone at the meetings taking the little girl into the backroom alone and outside all with all the elders blessings.

  To make this short my husband was deleted after being an elder for 32 years and putting being an elder ahead of our marriage. Like one CO told me I when I was falling apart once I can have a husband in the new system Jehovah needed him now. So my husband was deleted because I was not in subjection enough because I refused to take one of the pedophiles door to door. Everything fell apart after that.

  LITS