I'm wondering with the wording of your comments Zep if you were really ever a Witness. Its very easy to say what you do when you're outside looking in. But if you're raised in it, and that's all you ever knew, you believe the most rediculous things, because people you trusted told you that such things were true. I feel like an ass.
Don't get me wrong though. Your questions (or some of them lol) are good, and I've wanted to ask the same thing. Perhaps from the psychological perspective of what feelings we went to as we came to the conclusions we did.
Plus, I must say, that as stupid as this quote is:
it must be kind of cool to reflect and think...."Well, heck, i'm a damned freaking Apostate" or altleast a closet Apostate, of which most of you are, i think?, right?.Yeah, Such a cool label is "Apostate" huh!.
- I am laughing because at least the rediculous wording has some comedic value.
But I'm interested, just how did all here personnally come to realise 'The truth' aint really that?,
good question
what set you on that track and made you look outside the bounds of WT literature into so-called Apostate areas.. and what finally convinced you that its all just a heap of nonsense? and forced you to shockingly conclude you had been living a lie?.
good question
What did it do to you at that moment, i mean, how did you deal with this blatant self admission that the WT was wrong?
good question
Did it crack you up or what...or did you just laugh it off or something?.
How many Fosters did you have to write that garbage? As much as I like your posts, do you really think that anyone is going to say "ha ha ha, I've lost x number of years living a lie and my family and friends won't speak to me. Oh well."
Anyways, as far as the serious questions go...
I've always seen the inconsistencies, much like everyone else as far as what we claim to be, and the people we really are. The common complaint of a lack of love, the obvious cliques and backbiting, competition in the congregations.
The misuse of authority on the part of elders did much to wake me up. There really are few people certain elders have to answer to for their actions, and little in the way of control mechanisms to keep them in check, and that is wrong.
The problems with the youth in the organization were always on my mind, because I was one of them. I'd read in a WT "our youths are not like the world", Sunday morning after having been out 'til 3 Saturday night at a witness party with 3-400 young people jammed on a dance floor, all of us drinking, lots on E.
In the last few years tons of marriages in the area were breaking up. Elders leaving wives. Groups of wives leaving their husbands. We couldn't say our families were any better any more.
The "generation 1914" change was devestating. Moral all around was falling. The organization seemed to be heading towards some sort of cross-roads. If they didn't pull itself out of the tailspin and come up with some new incentive, I could see it was coming to an end.
I pioneered for some years. I realized that the "success" of the preaching work was only in our minds. The growth came from Witnesses having babies and the young one's were just pouring out the back door, and no one really seemed to care. We were content just to keep knocking on doors.
I realized all these things for a long time just from observation. I racked my brain trying to figure what it all meant. I figured that the Organization as a whole had lost God's favour much like ancient Isreal and Christianity that had apostacized in the 1st century. I thought perhaps only a few would actually make it, and I paralleled them to the few faithful in ancient isreal and Christendom.
Then I got the internet. So I type in JW's and chance upon H20 (lol). I could see it was apostate, but my thought is, well lets see what they have to say. If I have the truth, what am I afraid of. So I see all these people talking about things that I've gone around racking my brain over for years. And talking honestly. No bullshit cover-up half-answers.
So I get hooked on this. Realize there's alot of garbage out there, but also alot of honest and logical thought. I begin comparing old WT quotes with the Proclaimers book and with what the "apostates" are saying. I find that while the Proclaimers book is accurate, its a complete white-wash of what really happened and what really was said.
I start looking into this 607 BCE thing, having known for a long time its significance. After realizing the overwhelming evidence against that date, and seeing how the 587 date harmonizes with the Bible and history, I realize the organization's position crumbles on every possible side.
The straw that broke the camel's back was reading COC. After having read that, particularly the Mexico "cultural organization" thing where Witnesses were denied public prayer and song in worship, to gaurd their real estate assets, I was livid. Especially reading how one woman had "tears of joy" because they now could worship freely when they could have all along if the Society had not been so concerned about its assets.
I realized that the organization will never get better, because at no point was there a time when God was clearly behind it. And if he never was, he never will.
At this point, I have many sleepless nights. I feel sick to my stomach. All day while at work, I'm tormented by my thoughts. I finally knew my conscience would allow me to have no part in this, no matter what price I would have to pay.
So I start to work on a DA letter. My masterpiece of a letter turns out to be 20 pages long. Friends wait for me to finish it so we could all make the exit together. It takes over a month and a half to perfect it.
The letter never does get sent. The time it took to write it allowed me to cool down I guess. I realize that I was too hasty and had not carefully weighed all my options. Fading away becomes the option of choice, and the letter in the end becomes serves to become a disassociation only in my heart.
This whole time, I am rather withdrawn from my parents and family, trying to find some way to break the news to them. It gets harder with the a couple calls out of the blue with my father telling me he ran into an elder from the hall and that they tell him I'm a real asset to the congregation. They like my talks apparently too (maybe because I never used the publications, but wrote about real people and what we all really thought??)
But enough was enough of that. I said, we've got to talk. I'm not doing so well.
So we meet up, and I tell him my "concerns". He sits there and listens, not saying much. I felt like I was cutting out his heart with every word. And that was that. No more family.
So here I am. I've done my time torturing myself over this. I feel pretty good these days. I have no regrets over this whole affair. I'd rather know, than to be ignorant about everything. I'd rather believe there is no sure answer than to be told the wrong one.
I'm swimming in the wide open waters away from a sinking ship these days. I might not have the answers as to "where to go", but I do know where I do not want to be.
Path
