What did NOT get you out?

by problemaddict 2 45 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  OUTLAW

  What did NOT get you out?

  WBT$/JW Protesters.

  They were feared, laughed at, or ignored.
  

  

  I think the above picture is a "Staged WBT$ Picture."

  It makes my point though.
  
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  Anony Mous

  Yeah, none of the apostates have beards, something is wrong.
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  Phizzy

  1) Reading quite a few books and Tracts that were ,in hindsight, rather good at pointing out JW Org problems did not get me out.

  2) Seeing the problems with Elders etc did not get me out.

  3) Seeing that all the application of prophecies to the org from Rutherford on was all Bullcrap did not get me out.

  4) Other stuff too that should have triggered my investigating the Org did not, tooo numerous to mention.

  Why oh why did it take me from birth till I was nearly 60 to wake up ?

  Finally reading the Bible book of Daniel without JW Specs on I realized that 1914 was simply not a Bible based doctrine. As it is the foundation doctrine, the whole House of Cards fell down, i.e No 1914= No 1919 "choosing" = the GB are self-appointed crooks.
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  stillin

  My wife keeps saying that I have allowed PEOPLE to stumble me. Not. Oh, sure, there are some nut jobs and asshats mixed in with "the brothers." But I can live with that. Hell, I'm a bit of a nut job myself!

  Nope, not doctrine, particularly, either, although in hindsight I see big problems there.

  Not the handling of child molestation cases. Bad, but I really believed that as an organization, they were doing their best to "get things right" albeit late in the day.

  The NGO affair raised an eyebrow, but I accepted the excuse that it gave WT researchers access to the UN library and studies.

  I guess my wall wasn't so much individual bricks as it was just a poor mix of concrete. It took two years but after praying my heart out for those two years, nothing changed and my wall just crumbled.
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  Phoebe

  I didn't leave for most of the reasons people seem to have left. In my mind I justified all the the things my husband was telling me about the organization.

  UN? they made a mistake. 607/1914? Maybe it's a matter of having faith in God on this one. Shunning? Leave it to Jehovah.

  I could pretty much explain away anything to myself because I wasn't prepared to think it wasn't 'the truth' As far as I could see, I was one hell of a lucky lady to have been born into the one true religion. I wasn't breaking for anything!! I'd faced childhood abuse, you name it and I was not giving up. I was Rahab and I was going to save my family!

  What loosened my brick was a talk on the broadcast.

  I had ALWAYS believed that no matter what happened in my life, God would fix it. I even had a piece of the WT taped on my computer about how God is obligated to take care of his people. Then I saw a talk, think it might have been morning worship talk - can't remember. The brother said God lets you go through things. He let Jacob suffer the agonising pain of losing his son and all the while he could have said 'hey, Jacob. Don't worry. He's not really dead.'

  Suddenly, I realised no, he isn't always going to be there for me. What was I thinking? Brothers went to concentration camps? Where was God? It's weird but I suddenly felt very alone.

  About this time, I kept hearing 'It isn't all about you, you know. You have to see the bigger picture.' So many times that got mentioned in talks and answers. 'It's not all about you!'

  It was silly, I know now. But through my life of so many hardships including suffering sexual and emotional abuse, my one constant was God and now the organization had ripped it away from me. They had made me see, God didn't have my back after all.

  Then I really began to notice the lack of love and compassion among the brothers. People didn't care about each other unless you were part of their clique. If you were suffering in anyway, the most you'd get is 'I'll pray for you.'

  I knew I could drop dead in my hall and no one would notice. But to me, it didn't matter because I had Jehovah with me and they took that away from me by saying, nope, you know what. He's going to let you suffer. It's not all about you. I know it sounds daft but I had so much faith God would be there for me - always.

  Suddenly, my bricks came tumbling down.

  So, if any of you has a JW family that are still in and you think they'll never wake up, be patient. If I can leave after 50 years, anyone can. The right brick just has to be loosened a little bit and it can be in ways you haven't thought of.
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  mentalclarity

  It wasn't the UN/child sexual abuse/607 timeline/generation issues.

  It wasn't the botched up committee meetings/love-less elders.

  It was realizing that there was nothing "special" about JWs. All of my life I had been told that we were in this blessed organization that was so different and unique from all other religious organizations. Everyone outside of it was supposed to be struggling and unhappy and we had the "truth". Then I looked around at other religions and people and saw that it was a lie. There wasn't anything "special" about JWs. Alot of people were loving and helpful to others- alot of religions did humanitarian things that actually helped people now and the last straw was at meetings and seeing how psychologically damaging it would be to teach my children this. "We must be humble", "just endure until paradise", "don't invest in this system of things". So it was a combination of all these things- JW's are not perfect/other religions and people are "good"/it would be psychologically detrimental for my kids that did it for me.

  The doctrines were just fluff.....(I'm a born-in so that makes a big difference- they always sounded bizarre, especially when they would try to apply specific scriptures to modern day events-like the early bible students being arrested and the "work" ceasing for a couple of years...I mean, c'mon-it's just weird. One verse has a modern day application and then we're back to it applying to early Christians and it's pretty arbitrary and benefits the JW history? Yeah, I never bought that.
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  StephaneLaliberte

  • Sexual Abuse: They are among the worst organizations in how they handle this. However, I always felt that the people bearing the utmost responsibility in such cases are the perpetrators themselves and the parents. Though religions do indeed have their share of responsibility, I feel that this responsibility is first and foremost with the man involved. Anyone can complain to the child services or the cops and remain anonymous.
  • UN Scandal: This never bothered me. Sure, it is hypocritical, however, when you become a big religion, you have to pull the strings where you can, even with the wild best itself.
  • Weird Teachings: Teachings about the locomotive as a fulfilment of prophecies or the Pyramid’s measurements used for prophecies were actually troublesome for me. Still, after much considerations, I felt that misunderstood prophecies by over enthusiastic brothers were “honest mistakes” and should be looked over. As long as they had the decency to change course (new light).
  • Elders doing bad things: From time to time, I would hear about Elders committing fraud, abusing kids, cheating on their wives, etc. I always felt that these were man that did not represent the congregation and as long as they were chastised, they could be dismissed.
  • Stand on Education: Though the religion, as a whole, puts a lot of pressure against higher education, it is still, technically, a matter of conscience.
  • Blood: I did not agree with the blood doctrine, yet, I stilled carried my card. Why? Well, I saw it as an acceptable risk in the same way someone risks his life when he goes skiing. I also reasoned that by the fact I didn’t do drugs, didn’t have multiple sex partners, didn’t drink excessively, I was already in much better shape than a great deal of people. I was taking a measured risk in order to be part of a religion.
  • Everyone you love and that are not JWs will die at Armageddon: I reasoned that God would make me forget about them or would wire my brain in such a way that I would not feel pain about it.
  • Disfellowshipping: I thought that was a good thing, keeping the congregation clean. I would actually brag about our organization doing this. I also reasoned that people who got baptized went through an exhaustive process before being baptized and faced three different elders asserting that they wanted to be baptized. So, they knew what they were getting into.
  • Changing history: Changes in new versions of publications were, to me, simply fixing mistakes.
  • Time reports: I thought this was annoying an unnecessary. However, I thought it was a small price to pay in order to be part of the true religion.
  • Changing prophecies: I thought they were wrong in the past and wrong in the present. What mattered was that they were the only religion truly pushing and enforcing Christian values.
  • Sex practice: Thank God they had changed their mind on that! How relieved I was to know that this was up to the conscience of the married couple!
  • Gays: I felt that they were basically asking Gays to be celibate. As I thought that this is what God himself was asking, I didn’t see a problem to this. I was also actively taking stand for the gays in my congregation, putting an end to all the Gay jokes.
  • Not allowed to openly doubt teachings of the GB or say anything negative about the religion: I felt this was acceptable in order to maintain unity.

  SO, what did do it for me then?

  • Enforced shunning of family members and close friends.
  • A father cannot safely explain everything above to his kids without running the risk of being declared an apostate and be shunned by his own family.
  • Organization taking a stand against people studying on their own using alternative sources.
  • Closed doors judicial proceedings.
  • Wrong priorities: The organizational structures, schedules and traditions of the JWs often make them behave with less love than their surroundings. The fruit of the spirit is not meeting attendance, field service, construction projects, translations, etc. It is based on love. If you fail love, everything else is meaningless.
    
  • Blood fractions as a conscience matter: No attempt at a biblical argument to draw the line where they did.
  • Considering that the GB is not inspired, the authority and devotion that they expect and enforce is actually blasphemous.
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  Vidiot

  problemaddict2 - "What did NOT get you out?"

  Everything in "the world" that seemed to confirm WT ideology.
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  problemaddict 2

  jp1692 - That is an interesting perspective. That the relative "perfection" the WT expects makes us hypersensitive to the faults within said org. I sometimes thing it ALL bugged me as well, but that is from the perspective now of someone aware they were duped. So maybe it didn't.......if that makes sense.

  Anony - Its never just one thing (we have so many to choose from, its like the salad bar of the deplorable). BUT, it seems like one thing usually lowers guard to the point one is willing to "think" for the first time. Some brush it off, some use their power of reason.
  

  Freemind - UN didn't do a thing for me. But jp1692 said that was it for him. I guess that is what I mean. I now see the hypocrisy in the UN situation, but it isn't even in my arsenal of discussion when I can actually get a few of these things through some conversation when their guard is down.

  Sparrowdown - Good point. Its why i refuse to be disfellowshipped. People have asked me questions and reached out to me, where I think they would not have if I was DF'd, just because of the psychological barrier.

  Chook - Me neither. I actually miss the elders that i grew up with. I am sure they feel the same at the root.

  Ucant - Do you mind if I ask what that 1 thing was?

  SBF - But everything else eh? Haha.

  Scratchme - Thanks for that detailed response. I read it a couple of times. It makes perfect sense. However I would add one thing that might not fit simply into that. I was a "born in". So there was no point of refference for how the org made me feel. It was just everyday life. While I wasn't affected by items I mentioned (and in part due to the explanation you offered), I didn't stop entertaining them. I was a JW apologist on line for a few years. Pretty active too. In the end, blood just was too much of a foundational "brick" for me to keep the structural integrity of my mental wall in tact. then I was open to other things I hadn't seen before.

  I am still rubbed wrong by aggressive activism and yelling at convention goers on you tube, and I still don't think arguing Christian doctrine vs JW doctrine works. Yet the people I assisted out.....none of them felt the same way about blood (even though now they see it). That wasn't their "thing".
  
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  problemaddict 2

  llama - Wheres the link. I would love to hear it.

  joe - join the club my man. We have many members. ha.

  trying now - not hard to believe. What matters is now. I knew it was BS and stayed in 5 more years trying to affect change when all I was doing was torturing myself.

  Magnus - My anecdotal observation is that many leave specifically because of treatment from the elders. Or I should say, that treatment opens up their mind to the idea that Holy Spirit isn't running the show (the first brick for them).

  Dreamerdude - You think he has PTSD? I don't know. I think he is just an arrogant asshole, unqualified to be in the position he occupies. A sibling disfellowshipped while very young is a killer. It really lights up our inate concept of fairness.

  OTWO - You see, and a couple of those really got me. Its so individual. Part of the reason i am asking this, is because I am trying to discern what approach to take with those who I still talk to, that won't set off the wrong flags, and will maybe loosen the brick.

  Wanton - Child abuse didn't do it for me either (it makes me angry now of course). Abusive elders seems to be the winner for many people here.

  Tor - Thanks for sharing that. So can i ask, the thing that brought you to the internet and got you to think, was the general lack of charity? Or a narrow viewpoint? Just making sure I understand that correctly.

  Oppostate - I was like most of JW's. thought it was a lie, and that it didn't mean anything. Honestly, I still don't really know the deal.

  Shnufti - Me either. None of those things resonated at the time of my awakening.