by Steve Lowry 27 Replies latest jw friends
I will never forget my turning point!
I was on a bus and I heard a young guy on the back of the bus saying that his little sister and his mother had the jws calling and now his little sister started acting wierd with him - talking about birthdays and treating him different cos he was 'worldly'. He was really confused and lost with it all. You could tell he was feeling he was losing his nlittle sister. I'd already stopped going for a while but that was a bit of reality i'll never forget.
Unfortunately, as a bible student, I was not made aware of a certain "lex non scripta", where principles and ethics are dogmatic laws for the rank and file members, but flexible, convenient and accomodating for those "taking the lead".
Hypocrisy, selfishness, politics and greed always expose themselves eventually, and sure enough many leaders in the borg behaved exactly like ancient jewish money loving pharisees.
My "turning point" happened gradually over a period of approx. 10 yrs....it was an accumulation of dirty deeds done to sheep, including my fam members, unloving, judgMENTAL acts, and their admittedly spying on us....the climax was when they repeatedly refused to baptise my youngest son for totally non-scripturally founded reasons, when he so earnestly sought baptism (glad they didn't now)......
Frannie B
For me it started when I decided to go to college and learn how to THINK. The real clincher was definitely evolution. I thought "how darn stupid can I be to fall for that reasoning . Then I had to deal w/ elders who I finally saw did not want to help me or anyone else, they wanted to parrot the WTS so they could remain faithful. What crap!!! Oh yeah, then I went to live in China, that was a real eye opener.
"Doubt" is not the opposite of faith. I know that the Bible suggests that a person with faith doesn't doubt but if you look at the definition of faith you can't help but see that doubt is a component of faith.
There are two ways to deal with doubt. 1. Face it and re-evaluate your situation and move forward. 2. Squelch your doubts and move forward as a fanatic. The first situation leads to "real faith" & growth the second- stagnation.
Faith implies a leap. Hope in its middle english etymology carries the idea of hopping. The reason for the plunge forward is doubt. The result is a new paradigm that integrates what may have seemed a contradiction.
In truth I questioned some things from the very beginning. In particular, I had a problem with special creation and the idea of a global flood. Trying to deal with evolution in particular was very hard for me because growing up a science buff I was exposed too a lot of very strong evidence supporting evolution. Still I put my doubts on the back burner for the sake of family harmony and also because I felt that since this was not my proper field of training, I could in fact be totally mistaken. Sadly I went on like this for years before something happened. My turning point had nothing to do with my existing doubts, it had to do with the reality of just how hard-hearted the so-called spiritual wise-men who govern the flock really can be.
I started on my way out during the summer of 1987. At the time I was a very frustrated engineer who was unable to use his engineering skills because in my locality most engineering jobs involved defense or classified government work. As a result I had to settle for being a TV repairman, a part time security guard (I babysat mansions in my area that were under construction), and a janitor (I did some office cleaning with my wife).
I had lots of debts, lived in a damp cockroach infested basement apartment with my wife and child, drove a rusty old car that burned more oil then gasoline and emitted clouds of chocking blue smoke, worked a lot of hours, and yet barely made ends meet. Then one day out of the blue, (and you can call it divine intervention, a stroke of good luck, or whatever); I was given the opportunity to play a role in helping NASA get the Hubble Space Telescope launched. I was selected to lead the team that would evaluate the vulnerabilities of this billion dollar spacecraft and recommend any necessary changes before it was launched.
Now do you think this little boy who was allowed by his own parents to skip school to watch televised rocket launches from Cape Canaveral because they knew how enamored he was by the space program could turn this opportunity of a lifetime down. Do you think this little boy who was now a full-grown man and still thrilled with anything and everything NASA related would let this opportunity just pass him by?
NO WAY!
You bet your ass I jumped on this, and in so doing I went from an average of perhaps $10 per hr. to about $50 per hr. overnight. In today’s dollars that’s more like a 100 per hr.! I started paying off my bills very quickly; and I would soon be debt free! Leaving the cold damp cockroach infested basement and perhaps owning my own home was swiftly becoming a reality!
Enter the spiritual police:
However because I was commuting from New York to Maryland each week (that’s where the NASA center was), I missed a few meetings and was late for some, also my field service hours and magazine sales placements slipped a bit.
You guess it, the elders got on my case. The loving elders told me I had to make a choice; it was NASA or the meetings, which is more important to me? And besides, do you really want to be working for the government (this coming from an Elder who was a postman, a federal employee himself, can you spell hypocrite Mr. postman).
I wanted to tell these jerks: first off pronounce it correctly, it’s NASA National Aeronautical and Space Agency not ‘Nassau’, it’s not in the Caribbean, it’s not an Island, it’s the US space agency, you freakin uneducated ass-wipes!
But I was a good little JW drone and held all that in. However, I explained that this consulting job would be over in just another month or so. I would soon be back working my old job and making the meetings regularly.
Their response: not good enough, you need to make a decision.
I tossed and turned over this one and made the decision that providing for my family was more important then making these guys happy. Meetings then became second place, then last place, and now thankfully they have absolutely no place in my life at all. I owe these elders a debt of gratitude. They helped me see things clearly; I owe nothing less then my freedom to these elders. Thank you boys for showing me just how much mind control I was under, how much I was being held back from reaching my full potential, thank you for releasing me from the matrix and from the borg. The Dark Tower is a killer of hopes and dreams and in many cases, just a plain killer period!
End of captivity, end of stupidity, end of story!
PS: Sorry for any typo’s or disjointed sentences but the dyslexia is really kicking in today.
Freeman
The night I stopped up because I started reading Crisis Of Conscience and I could not put it down and go to sleep until I had read it all
I wanted to tell these jerks: first off pronounce it correctly, it’s NASA National Aeronautical and Space Agency not ‘Nassau’, it’s not in the Caribbean, it’s not an Island, it’s the US space agency, you freakin uneducated ass-wipes!
But I was a good little JW drone and held all that in.
Same experience, brother. I was always ashamed to bring anyone to the public talk because of their ignorance. They murdered the English language. Once, my daughter brought a school acquaintance to listen to this uneducated speaker saying 'we was' and 'I seen' , etc. while a slobering youngster in the seat in front continually hung over his seat and spit on our guest. She never came back and eventually stopped studying. Guess she wasn't humble and couldn't be marked for salvation.
When a wife and child beater was not disfellowshipped. The elders and the GB were threatened with a law suite so they choice not to take action.
So much for a clean organisation that buts it's trust in Jehovah.
That made me "know" that this was NOT God's organization.
brandy
Hamas (and stillajwexelder),
I actually had the chance to meet and talk with Ray Franz a few years ago at his house in the Atlanta area. It was a get together of former JW's. After most of the guests had gone, I stayed and talked with him for a few hours. He told me about how the Aid To Bible Understanding book was primarily his work and that within it’s pages it gave direction to JW’s to disassociate themselves from former JW’s. Ironically, he later wound up taking on this same status of XJW. As it turns out, he was seen talking (over lunch) with someone who the Society didn’t approve. He was "counseled " about it, but in the end, it was what was finally used to disfellowship him. (This is what I remember how he related it to me.) Fred Franz (his uncle) refused to ever talk with Ray again, even until his death.
It was hard for me not to gloat a little at his pain, since the time frame he had mentioned the Aid book became available (early 1980’s) was about the same time my JW sister disowned me. I told him about my sister and he shook his head and said that the Aid book probably did help to influence her. It took great self-control (for at least for a few minutes anyway) not lambaste him for what he had done. I lost not only my sister, but also my relationship with my very young two nephews and a niece. But, it was obvious he felt a great amount of guilt and personal responsibility for the pain he had directly/indirectly caused concerning the shunning policy. At least he acknowledged it.
Many JW’s have broken the shackles of the Watchtower due to Ray’s book, Crisis of Conscience. It is a book that any former JW just can’t put down easily without completing reading it. I read the book in three days!
Maybe he has made restitution with Crisis of Conscience . . .
Steve
(Nice web site Hamas. I’ll go and visit more when I get a little time.)
