Were You Ever A True Believer?

by minimus 28 Replies latest jw friends

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  S K Ditta

  step back and think.

  
  

  claiming infallibility

  Thank you for sharing these phrases of insight.

  
  
  
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  sparky1

  Between approximately 3 to 6 years old, I was a true believer. At least that is what my mother told me. I went out in 'service' alone at 5 years old in our neighborhood. When I hit about 7 years old I knew the 'jig was up' after reading THE PHOTO DRAMA of CREATION. It was downhill from there! I played the game for sake of family and friends and because the Congregation Servant and Bible Study Servant told me to put my questions aside as they will all be answered after 1975 when Armageddon takes care of all our problems. So I became a Pioneer, Bethelite, and Ministerial Servant. Finally, when offered the 'position' of congregation secretary so that I could be appointed an Elder that Fall..................................I turned it down and started my long fade. True believer? Never as a rational, thinking Adult.
  
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  waton

  "--.I turned it down and started my long fade. sparkyone:

  I like that I turned down to become a circuit overseer (you will never have financial problem again).
  
  
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  blondie

  I was a skeptic because my family went back to the 1920's, Bible Student days. They left in the early 30's due to differences in opinion, My mother's generation were not baptized and held off getting involved until their early 20's and by the early 60's they had all become jws but not about everything.

  disagreed that the GT started in 1914 and stopped in 1918 and took a hiatus to start up in the future (changed by WTS in 1970)

  disagreed that the superior authorities were god and Jesus, but were the secular governments (changed in 1962)

  never bought into 1975 because Matthew 24:44 says that the end would come at a time people did not think it to be
  

  But they felt flawed though the WTS was it was better than any other religion.

  I did take a while before I left completely in 2001 but up till then I was not "true" believer accepting anything they said. I just was smart enough to keep my thoughts within my family.

  I finally realized there was a third choice, no religion at all in my life.
  
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  minimus

  It's interesting that those who followed Russell or Rutherford may not have been true Jehovah's Witnesses in the classic sense
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  Ucantnome

  Was there ever a time that you truly believed you had the "truth"

  
  Yes. Otherwise I wouldn't have joined in preaching something that I didn't believe
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  slimboyfat

  Yes I would say so, until about 1999, and then gradually less so.
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  blondie

  Probably not, min, more willing to question the organization but between 1931 and 1942 you were officially a jw and Rutherford was in charge. My grandfather often said that Rutherford was no better than he was, that Rutherford put his pants on one leg at a time too.
  
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  btlc

  Yep, a true believer, since childhood, raised as a JW, till mid 1990-ies. The first red bulb started flashing with "generation" change. The second was UN-NGO issue in 2001., when I wrote to local branch asking what's goin on and got inquisition on my back. That's the time when I realised that JW is a cult by definition and WT is a legalized scam. I still belived in God and Bible, but in the meantime I mastered some science, as part of the study I have conducted evolutionary algorithms (mathematical formulation of evolution) and realized that theory of evolution "has more evidence than gravity, electricity, wind...". Now I'm in the best case an agnostic.
  
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  Londo111

  Yes. Cults cultivate and retain true believers. Everyone else they chew up and spit out.

  Otherwise I would not have done so many things I otherwise would not choose to do, or even found against my nature. Like going door-to-door on Saturday mornings. Attending 3 meetings a week. Studying Watchtower publications. Not having friends who were not JWs. Not going to college immediately after high school, but attempting to regular pioneer. Then when I did go, not getting beyond a two year degree. Not dating until I was “ready” and only with the intent of marrying a JW.

  I would not have avoiding apostate writings and been afraid of “apostates”. Or been afraid of demons. Or afraid of God. I would not have gone to confess matters about myself to the elders when I’d “messed up” or reported on very private matters that happened in the bedroom between myself and my then wife. I would not have watched the news nightly with a view of finding any signs that the Great Tribulation was close.

  I could go on and on.