I was just read an email about me and the writer had several questions that I would like to address. As he knows, I am 63 and left 40 years ago. His first question was why did I leave? It seems to me that people leave for one of two reasons - interpersonal or doctrinal. I had no interpersonal problems. I liked the people in my Kingdom Hall. I left because of doctrine. I went to used book stores and read the early works of Russell and Rutherford. It was a totally different religion back then. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ His next question was if my life would be different if I had remained a Witness. You betcha. I went on and got a Ph.D. No, I am not a retired window washer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ His next question was if my family talks to me. Well, at my age, most of my family is dead. My sister didn't talk to me for 15 years. Then, we had to deal with my mother's illness and death. I guess she figured out that me and my wife were pretty good after all. Since then, we talk an a regular basis. His last question was answered above, I think. Am I alone as far as family goes. Well yes, because of age and being dissasociated. However, my wife and I have created our own family, and now I have three children and three grandchildren. Hey, we have a good time.
Why I left.
by larc 11 Replies latest jw friends
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Lady Lee
larc
I'm really glad you are back posting here again. You still have much to offer a site like this.
Welcome back to active posting
and hi to your wife too
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Annanias
larc, I'm trying not to be nosey, but the impulse is hard to overcome. The doctrine issue(s), was it more the questions, or the answers that did it for you?
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dh
right, this was a nice post to read!
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larc
Was it the questions or the answers. I would have to say it was the answers given by Russell and Rutherford. I mean, come on, they wrote a lot of silly answers. If you haven't done this, go back and read their drivel. You might also, go to Lady Lee's best of category, where I write about the foolishness of these two "Bible Scholars."
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Lady Lee
a lot of enlightenment
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Outaservice
Hey Larc,
You always have me as a brother! Come visit sometime next Spring???
Outaservice
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onacruse
larc, you were the first poster to respond to me on JWD (a post I buried on page 4 of an obscure thread LOL), and I will never forget that! You made me feel very much welcome here, as did subsequently a whole bunch of other wonderful people. The speed with which my barriers dropped and my perspectives grew was due in no small measure to the understanding that folks like you showed.
So, in response to your post:
I didn't "leave" voluntarily.
Sure, I'd accumulated a fair amount of doubt, and increasingly so from the early 90s; some evidence that was presented to me caused me to doubt, and even reject, the Biblical accounts about creation, evolution, the Flood, the ransom, etc. But I kept this all very much to myself, in no small way as a result of the fear of being yet again cast out of the community in which I'd grown up, and to which I'd devoted 40 years of my life.
The turning point for me was the "generation" change (as you say, a 'doctrinal' change), and though for some that may seem to be an insignificant "adjustment," for me, it was the repudiation of everything I'd been taught, and fully accepted, for all my life. Something "snapped" in me when I read that Watchtower, and at that very specific point in time, I knew that my love affair with the WTS was finally, and irreversibly, over.
However, I still desperately clung to the social and familial habituations that permeated my life...after all, how in the world could I walk away from every friend, and every family member, just because of some hypothetical theological disputation? I just didn't have it in me to do that.
But, finally, I was df'd; and there I was, awash in innumerable guilt-feelings, convinced that I couldn't go back, and yet equally unconvinced of how to go forward.
And that's all I'll say for now.
Respects to you, my good fellow...my very sincerest respects.
Craig
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larc
Outaservice, I consider you a brother as well. I would love to see you in the spring, however, Jan and I don't travel much any more. We are becoming old foggies -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Onacruse, I am very touched by your comments. I just happened to be there at the right time, and I am sure glad that I got you off to a good start. Take care, my brother.
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DanTheMan
Yes, long before Thirty Years... and Crisis of Conscience, and the internet, there were a few dubs who were astute enough to figure out themselves...that this religion is soo stoooopid!!
Hope all is well with ya larc! And I'm glad your sister recognized that despite the fact that you left the Joho's and became a republican, that you're really not such a bad guy.