I found myself in the situation where i was regularly conducting the book study on the Revelation book, and many of the points being made, I simply didnt agree with. It was the start of my fade a short time after.
When You Were A Witness Did You Believe Everything Taught?
by minimus 43 Replies latest jw friends
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Fadeaway1962
Yes I think I did , but when I had any doubts I would just do more study in JW stuff , and now realize i was being brainwashed into their mind control techniques which worked for decades in my case .
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Sea Breeze
Age 0 to 12 - Yes
Age 13 - 23 - No
Age 23 to 31 - Yes
Age 31 to present - No
I know, it's complicated. -
waton
yes, unreservedly, until he superior authority change. ironically a change to conform to the contextual, mainstream interpretation .
Even if wt could totally become "the truth" , the thing is permanently tainted. it could not happen.
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hoser
Yes, I believed it all and berated myself for not being able to live up to the standard the watchtower corporation expected.
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minimus
Ahhh the Cedar Point Ohio conventions! They fulfilled Revelation prophecy. Once I started reading the Revelation Climax book and had to teach it, it became one of those books that I could hardly wait for it to be over. But no! They kept making us study it over and over again. It was a waste of a Tuesday night.
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Ultimate Axiom
I was a convert at 16, and believed it completely. Within a year I had left school, got baptised, started pioneering, become a typical SR jerk thinking that those who went into full time jobs after leaving school were hypocrites. This was 1969/70, so if you were around at that time you might understand.
Having said that, I don’t think many of us actually believed all of the stuff in the books about Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation. We “accepted” it not because it made sense, but because of all the other stuff the WT taught, and we knew that some of it would change anyway, and took the view that all would be revealed after Armageddon.
My first doubts about the WTS started creeping in when I discovered that a huge percentage of witnesses in Africa were in Nigeria, and I thought, what about the rest of Africa, so I started to investigate further. When I discovered that less than 1% of JWs were covering 50% of the world’s population I realised something was wrong, and not just with the Watchtower. The evil in the world that had been going on for thousands of years made me realise there was also something wrong with God (I had had a somewhat sheltered childhood). It took three or four years for me to go from PIMO to POMO, but by 1980 I was out. -
cha ching
No, but I kept thinking, Jehovah will "show them up"/ teach them a lesson... He will make them "see the light". I got baptized at 16, in the 70's, because Jehovah was suppose to be a God of Justice. I thought he would "make things right," where no man could.
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truth_b_known
I was born in and raised a JW. My father professes to be of the Annointed and was an elder most of my childhood. My father is a highly intelligent man with a great understanding of the Bible. Looking back now it seemed like he was a charismatic cult leader.
Growing up with that I would hear my father from time to time point out things that were no "Christlike" in the organization, but he had no problem telling anyone right to their face that the Watchtower had "The Truth." So, I believed. Children usually believe their parents. After all, moms and dads, look out for their children.
Now, due to what I believe is a case of the Sunk Cost Theory in action, my father still won't budge on all the cognitive dissonance it takes to be a Witness. I remember back in the 1990s my father was floored when an elder told him that the organization changes and it was just that way in regards to the decline in spirituality with Jehovah's Witnesses. Now, my father is all gung ho about JW.org and the whole JW Lite version of the religion.
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minimus
Truth, no offense but your father is a highly intelligent man with a great understanding of the Bible?? Ok