by run dont walk 47 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I became a JW in 1992, by this time they had gotten pretty quiet about the 1914 generation. So the new light went right over my head, I didn't even realize that there had been a big change.
I didn't know how much they had beat the "1914 generation" drum until I started researching back in early 2002, at that time I was physically and emotionally done with JWism but intellectually I was still wondering...I don't wonder anymore
I was young enough to miss the intense emphasis on chronology that the Society used to have. So my reaction at the time was: "what's the big deal?"
But I played the game, tried hard to believe, but in the end, a shifting house built on sand was no match for two women who took their shirts off at the same time when I was in college.
I'm glad to see that your priorities were finally set straight!!!!
LOL I'd heard all these rumors that there was going to be "new light" about the generation at the upcoming DC. I was bone-trembling excited...I was half-expecting them to announce the GT had begun. During the actual talks, though, I got this horrific migraine and couldn't even pay attention. At dinner that night I was making everyone explain what happened. I kept waiting for something big and exciting...nothing...I decided I must have missed the key point and should wait for the WT articles to come out. They came out, and I scanned them intensely. Huh. As far as I could tell, they were just saying they didn't know when the end would come. A lot of people in my hall had been talking about feelings of discouragement from the article, but I just thought they were being whiney. LOL I was wayyyyyyy trusting of everything the WT said.
Of course, subconsciously, I had a lot of damage control to do...I had to decide at that point whether I wanted to remain a witness even if the end didn't come in my lifetime (which I believed it would, anyway). Of course I decided it was the best way of life for me...even though I was a sexually and creatively repressed artist who never got to go to college...:-p
I had just started being inactive in 95, and didn't even know about the change until 98 when I read about it on the internet. My mom, who never reads anything, didn't even know it had happened. She tried to tell me it was all lies, that there was no change. I told her to pull out her bound volumes and start reading. It doesn't mean anything to her, she thinks she is not smart enough to understand it anyway, so whatever the "brothers" say is fine with her.
I was so angry when I found out. My mom had been laying on the guilt really hard in 98, saying that her grandchildren would die and there was nothing she could do about it. When I read about the change, a weight was lifted off me. And I was mad. And I never again went back to the meetings.
Pam
Well, to be honest, I didn't even pay attention. Rarely did I ever pay attention at meetings. My mind was always somewhere else. (Gee...I can't understand why...:) I was even an MS at the time the "new light" came out. So I didn't even know about the change until I started questioning things. But once I finally read that, it was just another nail in the coffin. I bet if you asked the average JW today what the meaning of the generation is, they'd still quote you the old doctrine. The Society sneaks so much stuff by you, that most of us go "OK" and just keep believing. We don't even give it a second thought. It just makes you realize how much of a cult the JW religion is. We learned to just accept whatever is said from the Society....NO QUESTIONS ASKED!! Of course, the minute you start asking questions, you already got one foot out the door, cause you can't contain the genie once the bottle's been rubbed....
I was already out, so I laughed my ass off!!!!!
Just remember that this is a "sifting work" and gets all us bad apples out. The Watchtower can lie and then change it's story with "new light" and we are supposed to be faithful. What scripture talks about a prophet who phophesies and it does not come true, do not believe that prophet? Hmmm... I think that I'll take the Bible over the cult any day, thank you very much.
I was already on the way out, and didn't care. It was all vomited crap to me, and I could care less about looking at they're "new light" and they're "generation". I figured that I was cursed anyways about that time, and weak, so god was going to kill me.
Jeez, I think that I've come a long ways since then, LOL!
It was the begiining of end for me. With the change I knew that the Watchtower's claim to be the only religion directed by God was a crock of poop. I already had my doubts but when the change in the teaching occurred and I read their weasely way around the problem they had created I was convinced the Watchtower was in serious doctrinal trouble.
Being the inactive dub that I was I hadn't even read the magazine when I attended the Watchtower study. I couldn't believe what we were studying. On top of that someone answered and said that Newsweek had reported the change. Well that blew me away.
I talked to my mother later the same Sunday about the change and how big a deal it was. She was defensive of the org but I let her know how concerned I was. I would continue to associate for another year but with access to the Internet in 1996 I was soon out for good.
Thirdson
I had read about it the nespaper at first (!), quoting an English newspaper article that was spread worldwide, it was on the text news on television etc. I could not believe it and meant it must be some misunderstanding. I was sick to my stomach for the couple of weeks before the magazine arrived at the congregation. When I then read it, I REALLY had stomach problems, and I did not sleep well for weeks. It really HIT me, it really for the first time made me aware of the fact that I by all probability was going to grow old, sick and finally die - like all others; that there would be no "end" in my life time; that interpretation was a very shifting business; that yesterday's truths would be tomorrow's old light and lies; when generation could have been so misunderstood for decades, then ALL basic "truths" could be changed just by a snap of the fingers of some guy in Brooklyn. Fred Franz had for half a decade been the chief theologian, and how come HE had not seen it?
I resigned as an elder, it started my journey from eager to the present "staying, but critical and reform-promoting".
