Was it for love of the kingdom hall and Jehovah? Pressure .. felt like you had to? for me it was because all my friends my age had gotten baptized.. and it was left up to me to do it too.. to fit in i guess. what was your reason?
Why did you get baptized?
by NoLongerAjw 34 Replies latest jw friends
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peaceloveharmony
nolonger,
what you said
lol, i got baptized because my best friend was getting baptized. i managed to pass that question and answer crap that you had to do before your baptism was approved (am i remembering this right?) without trying too hard. i moved recently and found in my stuff a picture of me and my friend on our baptism day. the look of shock on our faces, damn, if we only knew then what we know now....
love
harmonyps. my best friend is an inactive jw. she came around to the truth about the truth about 6 years after i'd left...she called me up first, when she realized she was living a lie. i love happy endings.
"If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced?"
..........Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792-1822) -
mustang
Don't forget what I call "it was expected of me". I guess that equates to "felt like you had to", as you put it. I don't recall a 'race' involved, but then again maybe I was the first one. I was 11, as I recall. That was before the drilling & grilling. I would probably have 'shined it on' w/ the current crop of examinations.
Mustang
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LadyBug
Biggest reason?? Thought it would "wash" away all my sins. Not that I had many being perfect and all.
Other reason, figured it was the right thing to do.
LadyBug
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tergiversator
In three words, it was: age of accountability.
Defined as the idea that 12 or 13 year old children are old enough to understand witness doctrine and thus old enough to take a stand for themselves when Armageddon comes Real Soon Now. Or else they (might) die.
I got baptized because I thought it was the right thing to do and because I wanted to do what I thought God wanted me to do, but I got baptized on my thirteenth birthday (well, what would've been it) mostly because I didn't want to die when Armageddon came. I seem to recall being guilt-tripped (er, inspired...) by the the hardhitting baptismal talk at the district convention the summer before I got dunked.
I also wanted to be baptized so I could auxiliary pioneer. People just didn't support unbaptized kids who were trying to get more hours. Stupid, stupid me.
I was the first one of my friends to get baptized, and was also the youngest person at our circuit assembly, and boy was I proud of myself for that. (I also think it was partly because of me that my brother, 3 1/2 years older than me, got baptized the same day I did, because otherwise it wouldn't have looked right.) In my mother's view, of course, I was much more mature at 13 than when I decided to leave at 17.
Gah. If ever there was a true believer kid, it was me. But I was still a kid.
-T., who hopes some of her friends wise up the way plh's did.
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closer2fine
I was 13 & all my friends were getting baptized. There were so many of us and not enough elders that we all had to double up on going over the questions. My friend and I took turns answering every other question for the elders. While she was answering her question, I was reading over the next question.
The way I figure it, I was only half baptized - so instead of getting disfellowshipped - I walked away :o)
If God dropped acid, would he see people? -- Steven Wright
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Yerusalyim
I was baptized because my momma said so. I was only 10 weeks old at the time. If I had to do it all again, I would, except this time in English, my Latin is bad now and was even worse in 1964.
YeruYERUSALYIM
"Vanity! It's my favorite sin!"
[Al Pacino as Satan, in "DEVIL'S ADVOCATE"] -
logical
I never got baptised. About the ONLY thing I did right in my life.
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slipnslidemaster
Was it for love of the kingdom hall and Jehovah? Pressure .. felt like you had to? for me it was because all my friends my age had gotten baptized.. and it was left up to me to do it too.. to fit in i guess.
Ditto. There were like 10 of us that all did it at the same time. I didn't want to be left out.
Slipnslidemaster: "But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near."
- Andrew Marvell -
GodRules
Oh, get outta here!
Take resonsability for your actions, for god's sake