I am a born in, third generation J W, elder for 25 + years, and i didn’t know J W teaching or belief that Jesus is not my Mediator until two years ago. It was while preparing the Memorial talk that I discovered this, and i had given the Memorial talk five or six times before. It’s not something that JW’s will tell you straightforwardly. Most don’t even know.
Teachings "Unique to JW's" They Hide From You Before Baptism
by Sea Breeze 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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FFGhost
It’s not something that JW’s will tell you straightforwardly. Most don’t even know.
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner.
Most JWs don't know, and even fewer care.
Doctrine doesn't matter to well over 90% of JWs.
All that matters is, if I "listen and obey", I'll be "blessed" with a new world mansion, a pet panda, and I'll get to see dear dead grandma again.
Oh! And fruit. Lots & lots of fruit. Piled high on picnic tables. Grapes the size of apples! Apples the size of watermelons! Watermelons the size of....really big watermelons!
Hope you like fruit.
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LongHairGal
SEA BREEZE:
Decades ago when I got involved with the religion it was certainly misrepresented to me what it was all about. This was before the days of the internet and instant information like you have now!
I was interested in End time prophecy and was made to feel they had some ‘special’ bible knowledge 🙄. I was also told they had ‘no clergy’ and that everybody was equal. In fact, I didn’t really see JWs as a religion, per se. It wasn’t until I was in that they lowered the boom.
Then came all the criticism about me: my clothing, getting rid of non-JW friends and being made to feel I shouldn’t be close to my family and that the JWs should be my ‘new’ family. (What a joke.) Also, I was told that I should quit my full time job and take up housecleaning and ‘pioneer’. (I am so GLAD I never fell for this shit. I wouldn’t be Retired today.)..I was also expected to follow in the footsteps of other single women and do favors for all the Users there. (They were delusional if they thought I was stupid enough to do this.)
So, in my case there was a mountain of things that were not told to me upfront. I suppose if they laid all their cards on the table I would have run like crazy!
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Sea Breeze
LHG,
You are very lucky to have had a life prior to joining. As painful as I'm sure it was, you had some psychological template to return to. Us born-ins have to start from scratch. We have nothing to return to.
Glad you got out when you figured out their game. -
Vidiot
Once again, for the newbies, lurkers, and trolls...
...if you have to cheat to defend your beliefs, your beliefs don't deserve to be defended.
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Rocketman123
How about the fact that you have to make a personal vow of servitude and loyalty to the GB members of the organization (GB) who they now claim are the Faithful, Discrete Slave.
This happens at the talk just before baptism.
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Overrated
If I have to be treated like a number to be in a club, it just is not worthwhile.
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Lost in the fog
Wasn't there a recent WT article someone mentioned it on here recently where they link not giving up your worldly friends to sinning against God!?
Just found it after a bit of a search, December 2020, page 9. "There is a lesson for us today: No good can come from choosing as regular associates those who have a live-for-the-moment outlook. Being with such ones can ruin a true Christian’s viewpoint and habits. In fact, it might lead him to have a lifestyle that includes what God hates—sin. Thus, Paul strongly urged: “Come to your senses in a righteous way and do not practice sin.” - 1 Cor 15:33, 34."
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Disillusioned JW
When I got baptized (as an underage teenager) I knew that the WT claimed I was not going to heaven and that I would thus not be ruling with Christ and that according to the WT I was not to partake of the unleavened bread and of the wine. I don't know if during my early years as a baptized JW I thought Christ was my mediator or not, though I knew the NT says he was of those who go to heaven. [At some point as an adult I did think he was my mediator and I later was shocked when I read in the WT periodical/magazine that he is not the mediator of those who don't have the hope of going to heaven.] As a teenager I knew a number of doctrines (no Trinity, Jesus is not God in the usual sense, no hellfire torment, no inherently immortal human soul, future paradise earth, God has a personal name - namely Jehovah [later I realized the Hebrew OT says his name is YHWH/Yahweh] and he wants it to be proclaimed extensively, there will be a great tribulation and a battle of Armageddon, etc) and as a result I talked to people about the doctrines when I went door to door and I gave talks in the congregation about various doctrines. I had a good knowledge and understanding of what the "Truth" book taught - it was my main Bible study book before I got baptized as a JW. I would thus be shocked if JWs today know hardly any of the JW doctrines. However when I was pre-teenager and when I was a teenage JW (and even many years later) I did not comprehend the Babylon the Great book and the "Then is Finished the Mystery of God" book and some of the other in depth ("dense") WT books, and I had no interest at all in reading them (and I never acquired much of an interest in those books). I read them while in the congregational book study meetings because I thought I had to, but I rarely managed to force myself to study them in preparation for the meetings. In the late 1990s I found it a huge drag (very boring) to have to study the United in Worship book and some other doctrinal books in use at the time. The whole time as a JW (before and after baptism) I disliked attending the KH meetings (except when a few certain topics were discussed), but I attended them because I thought the Bible required me to do so.
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LongHairGal
LOST IN THE FOG:
I guess you can make the scriptures say anything you want them to say then? 🙄
In my opinion, the reason the religion wants people to give up their non-JW friends (and relatives) is so that the person can be better controlled if they are totally isolated. This way when they ‘step out of line’ they can be shunned. Otherwise, how can the shunning routine work if the person has other associates or friends to fall back on? They won’t feel the sting of it or maybe wont even notice.
I’m convinced this is why they wanted me to get rid of my so-called worldly friends back then as well as not bothering with my family.
If I had to say what the worst thing about the religion to ME was this ‘isolation’ as well as knocking me for my full time job which, luckily, I ignored.
When I started my ‘Fade’ 20+ years ago, the first thing I did was to mend relationships with my family and Thanks Be to God I did it before it was too late! I have happy memories of sending out Christmas cards and getting together after so much time...You cannot put a price on this!