by Terry 28 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Sooner or later every Jehovah's Witness encounters an intelligent person with facts at their disposal who can unload something that causes a DOUBT. Naturally, you defend against it. But, the wind has been knocked out of your belief-system however briefly.
What was your AHA! Moment?
The person I encountered was myself. I started to actually listen to those nagging doubts.
And then I looked at this forum and the I had the biggest AHA ever!
FATAL SYSTEM ERROR!
SYSTEM OVERLOAD!
REBOOT AND RESTORE MEMORY PRIOR TO ENCOUNTER.
(Don't forget to turn in your time)
Everything was so gradual for me. I think at one point, I was 18 at an assembly, and there was an experience on stage about a couple who had lost their child because of not giving a transfusion. And everyone was crying, and I was crying but not for the same reasons, I cried because they let their child die. And when I realized that, I realized I was not a Jehovahs Witness anymore.
The last Meeting i went to the Public talk was "godly view of sex and marriage"(that old chestnut!) and it was conducted by a twice Married elder with two Disfellowshipped Kids...these things happen of course,but i just thought that that was too bizarre for words!probably best described as the straw that broke the Camels back tho.....
I used to put a lot of effort into following the wt directions to being near the middle of the flock; the safe place, where the wolves can't get you, w the in crowd, etc. After 2 decades of this, i found that it didn't really fulfill me. So, i moved away from that. I started by letting my field service slide, staying in cheap hotels during assemblies, instead of the recommended ones.
Within 2 yrs, satan picked me off An older bro, who caused problems by bringing up rutherford/knorr stuff suggested me to read ray franz/ book. Defiantly, i did. And that was it.
S
There were so many things. There wasn't really a big "Aha!" for me. Some of the things that struck me were:
- When I went to the elders for help dealing with my troubled emotions from an abusive upbringing.
- Noticing all the young brothers & sisters getting married when they reached "maturity" (ie 18-20 years old) I knew something was wrong there.
- The way I was judged because I didn't like the same things that other JWs my age liked. Independant interests were much more readily accepted in the world.
I think the biggest thing for me was back in the 1980s. When I was a child, I asked my mother how much longer until Armageddon. She told me that the world probably wouldn't last longer than five years. With every year passing that five year mark, my faith died little by little.
My friend Kurt who stopped me in mid sentence when I roboticly and drop the dime in the slot automatically began inessential witnessing to him. He looked me right in the eyes and said, Dave, you are one of the smartest guys I know, do you really think the whole planet is in a world of shit because a talking snake told a naked lady to eat a piece of fruit?
That was 20 years ago and I have never accepted as fact, or possible historical evidence, such absurd myth and manipulative childish bullshit since. Science, logic, archeology, and intelligent reasoning based on facts does not bias itself by the insecure need to think that some big sky daddy tucks us in every night and keeps a couple of glowing white winged good guy boggy men watch over us.
Dave
Many years ago, while out in service, I encountered a young university student who held me to task over 1914, and made me face the specific implications if the prophecy were to fail and be changed. It wasn't an Aha at the time, but many years later, it became a retroactive aha.
The big one for me was when the hidden picture stories were floating around, back in the early 80's. Everyone talked about them, and admitted to seeing them. My uncle, who was a former missionary, stated that he had heard from his bethel contacts that someone in the art department had been disfellowshipped for it. Well, as time went on, I wondered how the society would handle it - I mean, how could Satan infiltrate that deep into the word of God? Just as I had decided that they were going to ignore it, an article came out which off-handedly mentioned that the pictures were all just a rumor.
Now, my Aha was not the pictures. It was the reaction. When the Society stated that the pictures did not exist, everyone clammed up. No one would talk about it. My uncle, with his inside information was the first person to denounce those who thought the pictures were real. If the society says black is white, then by God, black is white.
This was the first real crack in the wall that I saw. Once I actually started to look, I realized that the wall was nothing but cracks.
Having been raised by Gilead graduate parents with a father who held all the top positions as long as I can remember, my moment came at a daylong MS school. I expected something important to be brought out, something I didn't know. I spent the entire day waiting and it turned out to just be another meeting.
What really did it for me was what happened at the end. Another MS got up and read a letter to the WTS. I don't know who composed or when it was done, but I remember it being fairly long and it was singing the praises of the WTS for this wonderful arrangement etc etc etc. I thought that was such a pile of BS, as it was just another meeting. If this letter was written by the obviously brownnosing elder wannabe who read it, I have no idea when he would have had time to write it and how he got to read it in the first place if he did. I still wonder about where that letter came from, I remember it sounding like a something coming from Brooklyn. But one thing for sure, it made me realize that I didn't fit in this organization. I still thought it was the truth, but I just didn't fit in.
I lived with guilt and then came the internet. I read things that made me start to question, and then I read the reviews of C of C on Amazon, got the book secretly and it was all over.
