When You Were A Witness Did You Believe Everything Taught?

by minimus 43 Replies latest jw friends

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  Diogenesister

  Iriddle80 He had been looking for a place to worship. I remember not wanting to do a return visit because I didn't want him to have the burden of it all.

  I know right?! Logically if there's a fair, loving God, we wouldn't preach witness stuff to anyone!! It just "loads them down" with that giant millstone of witness guilt and fear. It risks them failing the test... It should be a red flag.

  When I joined the Congo. no Bro wore Tie when on the platform ! This independent attitude continued for a good number of years, hence i did not wake up, the seeming freedom of my new Congo keeping me content to remain.

  Phizz If you don't mind, what region was that? It's just So swear it was more laid back late 70s early ,80s....no matching suits for example, and beards were ok.
  
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  gabcol

  I believed everything.. never questioned any of the beliefs, no matter how odd they were. I even believed that everything and that happened was due to demons.. any odd noise was a demon. I once thought I had a demon attack because I was naughty enough to be reading a Stephen King book at the time ( I threw it out instantly). It turns out I had sleep paralysis.

  The other belief that I still try to shake off is life after death/armegeddon. I have a big phobia of death because of the witnesses. I don't know what lies on the other side, and once in awhile I still worry about what happens if armegeddon comes and destroys me forever.

  What woke me up was an elderly brother who I used to read the 'proclaimers' book to. He was a devoted brother for decades. Went through the ban on Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada, and one of the nicest, kindest, softest people you will ever meet. When he died, it threw me a curve ball. He spent 8 decades telling people god's kingdom is coming. He believed the end was just around the corner... and he of all people , never got to see that day. That was a " aha" moment and my heart became cold.
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  minimus

  The elderly brother.... what a sad waste of time, really.
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  Nicholaus Kopernicus

  Not quite everything. I found the teaching re "The Woman" and the "torture stake" rather tortuous.

  "The Woman" - that this was a reference to God's heavenly organisation was difficult to swallow. At meetings I would sometimes answer up saying RCs believed the Woman was the virgin Mary which is one reason why statues of her may show her trampling on a snake's head (alluding to Gen 3:15). The countenance of folks was rather serious when I made reference to such. Also, Jesus referred to his mother as "woman" at Cana and when dying. Never referred to her as mother. The woman in revelation was quite descriptive of the virgin Mary too.

  That the WT decided that stauros means torture stake only, was another difficult one. They were so rigid. Yet they admit that acts 5 (xylon) is translated as tree and so, that Jesus was fastened to a tree was OK with them but much ignored. It was as if they were a scholarly bunch of lexicologists and knew better than others. Since then of course we've had the exclusive definition of generation which evidences their intellectual bankruptcy and caprice.