After reading and responding recently to a post about eating pork and clean and unclean meats, and also a few about newfound freedoms and pleasures that some enjoy now that they are out of the JWs, I got to wondering if there is anything like that on the flip side of the coin. In other words, despite you leaving the WTS, is there anything you still believe that they taught, even though you left or were forced out, and no longer believe the rest of the JW doctrine?
I was never a JW, but I was raised in a rather similar group called the Worldwide Church of God, many of the controls, strictures, and abuses that I saw as a child there, I see posted about here-though they are different, they are also the same. Even though I am now an atheist, there are some things that I was raised believing that are just hard to let go. For instance, eating pork, shellfish, etc, that breaks the taboo I was taught as a child. At first, I would purposely eat such things just for the little charge I got out of 'being naughty' after being kicked out the church. Once the novelty of it wore off though, I found that for the most part it was still hard to do on a regular basis, or enjoy when I did. (I still remember my first experience eating crab for my 13th birthday while in a foster home; it was the first birthday I'd had since I was 6 or 7, and the first time I had EVER eaten crabmeat. At about 2 in the AM, I woke up and had to run to the bathroom, I was violently ill-unsure whether I got sick from eating the wrong parts, or a food allergy, or what. At the time I was nearly convinced that I was being struck down like the Israelites who ate the quail in the bible story, I had not only had the audacity to eat crabmeat, but celebrated a b-day besides!)
Another example of this was that the WCG actually lead to me being atheist, they taught that christmas was wrong and pagan just as JWs do, so once I was kicked out, there were very few religions I felt I could turn to. I have seen people here talk about the frustration of trying to help family members out of the organization, but they won't leave because they say 'where else is there to go for the truth?' even if they don't believe the entirety of the doctrine anymore. I sometimes even wonder if I somehow contributed to my wife joining the JWs, due to my own beliefs, which in many cases coincide with JWs. Like not celebrating easter or christmas, which we had talked about before, it never really bothered me to give presents on christmas and such though, in fact I long ago agreed that if she wanted to have a tree or once we had kids to celebrate christmas, I had no problem with it. How ironic that now the shoe is on the other foot, and she is the one who now says they are bad.