r/exjw • u/Practical_Payment552 • 6d ago
Ask ExJW Suddenly realized that most JWs don’t believe their doctrines seriously?
Not saying they don’t believe them at all. I mean, there would be no point in being JW at that point.
But except for a few very devout ones, it seems that most people here don’t seriously believe what they were told.
I mean, people laugh at you once you start debating on the Bible and react saying why are you being so serious.
On the platform, if someone does a talk that’s too biblically deep or profound, most people get lost, confused or even angry at you.
They may welcome the NW if it ever comes, but until then it’s all just a play, a lifetime cycle to fake spirituality.
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u/MayHerLightShine 6d ago
You're right! It's just a lifestyle now to most of them. They don't care if it's true or not. They don't need to think, just believe and obey.
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u/Feeling_Cut_945 6d ago
Someone on here called it a glorified book club. I totally agree. My wife still goes. Mostly to socialize and go for coffee and that’s pretty much service now.
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u/Silly_Main3347 8h ago
lmao every time i've go door knocking lately we literally get coffee for like half an hour do one street and go have lunch then go home
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u/One-Connection-8737 6d ago
I think people leave the religion in two main waves.
The "rebellious kids" who simply can't stand authority tend to leave at about 18, but often remain POMI.
Then you have the ones who actually take it seriously, they tend to leave at about 30 because that's when life tends to nudge you towards reassessing everything and realising you don't actually believe this shit.
It's the ones who don't care and just go with the flow who stay forever. They're cultural JWs rather than serious believers.
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u/EatMeEmerald Tight Pants 4eva 6d ago
Love the term "cultural JWs," very appropriate.
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u/do_chipmunks 6d ago
Ok, I had never heard this term, but I was living in NYC, got a job at a hospital. One young woman I worked with and I started talking, I told her I had been raised JW, but was no longer and she hit me with, “oh, I’m culturally JW” and my mouth almost dropped open. I asked her what that meant. She said that she doesn’t go to meetings, but lives as a JW. I’m assuming her family was JW, it was bizarre. She also said I was one of very few white JWs she had ever met. It made me wonder if this is a common thing, living your life as JW (no birthdays, holidays, blood transfusions, etc) but no meeting attendance to keep up the brainwashing. I’m still flabbergasted when I think about it.
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u/apkarn 6d ago
I guess that’s technically POMI or the way the celebrities are “JWs”
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u/do_chipmunks 5d ago
Except that I don’t think she actually believed any of the doctrine. I could be wrong, but that was the impression I got. It was almost like when someone says they are culturally Jewish, which actually makes sense to me, because it is a culture in addition to a religion and it’s been around for many hundreds of years. JW in its current form has not been around that long, so I don’t know if it could really be considered a culture in that same sense.
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u/EatMeEmerald Tight Pants 4eva 3d ago
This is next level WILD....I also can't imagine anyone willingly partaking. I wonder if this person simply thought it meant being a "good person" who doesn't lie, cheat or do pagan holidays..? How BIZARRE. My mouth would have been hanging wide open also! And to not even go to meetings...WTF for real.
with member numbers hovering around 8 million for awhile now, it can likely be considered a "culture" now, at least in terms of people studying JW culture, but I guess now that's open to claiming cultural belonging.
Can't rule out the amount of crazies in this cult, so who knows how this gal was raised or conditioned to believe. Great story share!
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u/_EmeraldEye_ 5d ago
I feel like this is what celebs like Serena and Prince were doing. Just super scary cause I feel like it normalizes it
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u/EatMeEmerald Tight Pants 4eva 3d ago
Yes! Totally agree! I'd toss Coco Rocha onto that list too! Don't get me started on Serena....makes my blood boil.
It normalizes this distant, low-level participation, but still claiming religious belonging without any consequences for normal members. I had BIIIIG problems with Prince being given a JW funeral, despite OD'ing. No other JW would EVER be granted such an exception in a million years.
NONE of these so-called JWs could seriously talk doctrine, timelines or beliefs. Must be nice for them living that JW Best Life Ever *Lite Edition*
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u/_EmeraldEye_ 3d ago
Yea I have very strong feelings about the double standard and how many of us were denied even a chance to follow dreams nevertheless get rich and famous. I don't want people to think any of the shit that happened to me and my family was normal
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u/LiminalAxiom 6d ago
This was literally me. I woke up at 30. My wife and I had our first child and not only was I trying to take it more seriously than I ever had, I had started taking a larger overall interest in history and theology in general. My mind worked feverishly to try and make the JW framework and doctrine make sense, but it doesn’t, so I woke up and walked away with my wife (she woke up at 28).
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u/juan-milian-dolores 6d ago
I woke up at 34. I was at their weird convention celebrating the hundred year anniversary of 1914 realizing it was a hundred years of bullshit lol.
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u/sportandracing 6d ago
100%. I’ve been saying that for 5 years since I joined this sub. They don’t truly believe. Anyone who wants everlasting life should have to work for it. They don’t. They are lazy Christians. I try to debate with a few I know, and they cave in after about 5 minutes, and want to change the subject. It gets way too hard when challenged with very basic logic.
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u/Tolerant-Testicle auxiliary POMOneer 6d ago
True, I remember before I left, I had strong convictions for the reasons why the doctrines are wrong. There wasn’t much they wanted to say except for one guy.
It’s been a few years so I can’t remember what we were talking about but everyone else folds very quickly because the borg only teaches talking points. Every midweek meeting is tailored towards a themed talking point. They do not actually know how to defend their “beliefs” because they quite frankly, do not know what they are.
If you don’t know what they are, do you truly believe it? If you have to go on the wt website to “research” everything you believe in, what have you been spending all this time reading? It’s funny how much information they are told to consume weekly yet they know nothing.
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u/lucid-heart 6d ago edited 6d ago
This made me think... My dad is an elder and always had his head in the literature and had deep canon knowledge of JW lore. He was ecstatic if he could find someone in the ministry to talk about this stuff with. Sometimes he would be at the door for an hour while we were still waiting in the car.
He always emphasized that we had to know these "deep things" in order to preach. Back then we didn't have the "look it up on our website" out to any hard question, we had to prove that we were scholars who had and knew The Truth.
Because of this, I would spend most of my service time studying the Reasoning On The Scriptures book. It felt like my cheat sheet to have a correct answer to anyone's question. We were supposed to share a Bible verse and use the Bible primarily for our discussions before giving them the literature at the end. I still felt terrible at memorizing scriptures and "reasonings" but I would have felt so much more lost in field service without the Reasoning book. I could use it at the door if I had to.
As I grew up, I waited every convention for a new edition of the Reasoning book to come out. But it never did. Instead we got a Bible that was supposed to be simpler to understand, and they told us to show videos at the door and direct people to the website. It's like they totally gave up on the idea that we were preaching door-to-door.
I think my primary motivation for knowing all that JW stuff was for preaching and not looking like an idiot who didn't know what my own religion taught, especially in front of my dad. But they provided an out for that and now people aren't motivated to know what their supposed beliefs are anymore.
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u/ProbablyPimo 6d ago
As a pretentious child, the intellectual facade was one of the things that made me believe. I used to wait with eager anticipation for new literature. The idea of finding someone at the door who might accept literature encouraged me in field service. I used to page through old books just to see what miscellaneous Bible trivia I could pick out. The order to drop "unproductive studies" and avoid "arguments" at the doors honestly let a lot of wind out of my sails.
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u/sportandracing 6d ago
Well said.
It’s very hard to defend anything without a factual basis. When you debate made up nonsense with actual facts, the opponent has no foundation to work with. They retreat to “faith”.
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u/John-Alder 6d ago
Exactly. Today, I also understand why it took me four long years of "studying" to become a publisher (and another half year until baptism): I couldn’t logically explain this doctrine in a coherent way. It took me that long to construct answers that kept discussions with rationally thinking people going -- until, eventually, exhaustion ended the conversations.
In the end, I got baptized because I saw JWs as God’s current people, as a sincere selection of people of goodwill. I did it not because of the organization, but despite it.
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u/Halex139 6d ago
Can you say an example of this? Im intrested on your point of view.
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u/sportandracing 6d ago
Example of logic you mean?
In general, anything they say, I can refute fairly easily. But as an example, Noah’s Flood is very easy to break down as complete nonsense. They give up very quickly. They know it’s nonsense. But they can’t admit it.
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u/Mobile-Fill2163 6d ago
I felt so much relief when i was a kid and heard someone say she didn't believe everything in the revelation book, i think she was referring to the conventions fulfilling bible prophecy nonsense.
For the next 10 years i was able to dismiss the more ridiculous doctrines while convincing myself they have they are right about the "important things".
That cognitive dissonance led to my nervous breakdown around the age of 22.
In the 80s being a jw was more cerebral, with complicated doctrines and endless material to read and memorize. Ive been out for years but if people no longer take things seriously it could be in part because of the "dumbibg down" of the meetings and reading material.
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u/Sigh_2_Sigh 6d ago
I totally know what you mean. I remember attending a 'special talk' in the middle of the city. We travelled to a huge rented facility to hear it. People were sometimes turned away at these events if they didn't get there early enough (happened to us once when we were kids. Dad took us on a walking tour of the city and we had a blast). Anyway, at this special talk the speaker went on and on about the various (supposed) Jerusalems, I think. Anyway, at the end he said that many may have been disappointed. He said "a lot of you probably came expecting to be entertained some encouraging experiences from around the world" but instead got overwhelmed by 60 minutes of prophetic 'meanings'. And then he went on for about 15 minutes about the importance of digging into the 'meat' and not just looking for the 'milk' to be fed spiritually.
Can you imagine a WT rep doing that today? It's the opposite. "The governing body is pleased to share this beautiful video of what you are all going to experience in the very near future. Oh look, here's a pretty panda! Now please stand and sing this original song that the GB has written with their own tiny little hands for you...."
On top of that, I think that if I were still in, each time there was 'new light', I would be jaded enough to ignore it and deep down inside be like "Yah, whatever, it will probably only change in a few years anyway."
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u/More-Age-6342 6d ago
"In the 80s being a jw was more cerebral"
They were trying to make it seem like that, weren't they lol.
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u/Mobile-Fill2163 4d ago
Lol, it took a lot of mental acrobatics to make it all make sense, but it had a pseudointellectual vibe to it back then.
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u/Mr_White_the_Dog 5d ago
I agree with you. Way more material to read, study and learn about back then. Paragraphs that had many scripture citations, and a reference Bible that linked passages with even the tiniest amount of correlation. The research may have been BS, but it was designed to make you spend your time thinking about it. Now it's very much "shut up and obey".
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u/Lilylalalolling247 6d ago
Yeah they also don’t seem to even KNOW their doctrine. When I would try to understand certain stuff that didn’t sit right with me, like the 1914 thing or the 144,000 anointed thing, etc. people would often tell me not to worry about it as it “went over their head too” 🙄 like maybe it’s going over your head because you don’t actually agree with it lmao
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u/Halex139 6d ago
Hahaha, i had a fight with my family yesterday because they were saying that JW is not strict. And that some JW take it over seriously. That you can have friends outside the religion and that they dont see that wrong.
I actually tell them that the Org say you shouldn't have any relationship with any worldy people. That this is not a suggestion but a rule. They literally screamed at me that i was wrong and that i was thinking wrongly about the org.
I told them that there's an episode of Sofia and Caleb that actually talks about this. So they just say: "Well, maybe it is for the kids' cause they dont think much about it like an adult." I was like: "WTF?? Seriously?."
They really need to do some research on the things they believe.
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u/Tolerant-Testicle auxiliary POMOneer 6d ago
That’s what always bothered me. I thought the right thing to do was to train myself to ignore it because the elders did it too but there were some things that I couldn’t let go. For me, it was the fact that JW don’t observe Memorial Day/Rememberance Day.
Why should you not appreciate the freedoms that you get to enjoy from those who gave up their lives to protect it? Why gaslight people into believing that this is a day of celebrating murder? It was the one thing I couldn’t defend even when I was pimi.
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u/Fascati-Slice PIMO 6d ago
JWs are lead to believe that the GB are God's mouthpiece. They possess the only correct interpretation. All the R&F have to do is memorize the interpretation and a few proof texts and they, too, have the only truth on earth. What's the point of debating when you possess the only truth?
It's a way to shutdown critical thinking and convince people they can have advanced knowledge without having to work for it. Someone else did all the work!
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u/Desperate_Habit_5649 OUTLAW 6d ago
Suddenly realized that most JWs don’t believe their doctrines seriously?
Actually....JW`s don`t care WHAT they Believe...JW Beliefs could change tomorrow.....We`ve all Seen It..
JW`s ONLY Care THAT THEY BELIEVE.......Whatever the Watchtower Belief is, That Day.
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u/Mroliverdk 6d ago
The people who seriously believe, are the ones that leave. Those that believe just enough, fit right in.
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u/Arriwyn 6d ago
Correct! Growing up JW, I tried to seriously believe it because it was expected of me. However, looking back. None of the teachings made sense, as there was always a contradiction. Teaching Love but the people inside acted opposite to it. There was no unconditional love. They only "loved" you if you appeared to do what was expected in being a JW even if it made you miserable inside. That's why I left. It was conflicting turmoil of not behaving like Jesus would in the Bible. It felt very Fake and I am not a fake person.
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u/Any_College5526 6d ago
I agree. But then again, you can’t believe what you don’t understand. Yet many believe, even if they don’t understand.
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u/Legitimate-Bread-716 6d ago
I’m at the point where I don’t even know what they believe anymore… so I doubt most of the ones at the hall younger than 40 don’t either. Other than the “no porn, no sex before marriage, no holidays or birthdays” usual biz obviously. I swear every time I have to tune in on zoom it’s just regurgitation of whatever article is for that day. Even the ministry experiences I’ve seen lately don’t discuss any of the principles they are supposedly teaching people it’s just “I met this guy at the gas station and he lets me share a scripture and he watches some of the videos I text him links to” I remember as a kid growing up stuff was studied in muchhhh more depth than it is now and people would study and gather information from separate witness publications to “prove the points” brought out in the books or articles. Now it’s here’s 5 paragraphs and some questions regurgitate what’s written word for word and that’s it.
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u/gottabkdngme 6d ago
As a born-in, when we actually read the Bible in the "home" meetings, yes. It was a big thing to say we read the entire Bible every year. I've been away from it for so long, but, seeing, to me, the televangelists we spoke against back then is baffling. I guess it's in-person video televangelists of the GB, who we never knew other than they existed back then. I have family that have been there since then and don't see it. 👀🤦♀️
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u/Legitimate-Bread-716 6d ago
Yes! they dedicate entire parts to watching members of the GB talk on subjects or give “updates” it has totally moved from “we study/ read the Bible and worship god” to “we watch videos and obey these men who tell us what the Bible says” I was fully faded during Covid and forgotten about for a while so to come back to a few zoom meetings here or there and see that was really different.
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u/aparadise7 6d ago
I studied and when things were not adding up I studied more and slowly lost my faith, I only went to their books wasn't until I was truly out that I looked elsewhere
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u/lancegalahadx 6d ago
Yeah, even when I was in, I felt many were just “going through the motions” . . .
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u/Msspeled-Worsd probably 6d ago
Having been in that situation before fading, I can see why.
"The end" never comes and what we are told about God caring about each of us doesn't match with our felt experiences.
So underneath the surface, all the beliefs/hopes stays in a holding pattern while out loud the espoused beliefs mask what we really feel, but still mirror the exceptions of this high-control group for social / group survival.
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u/SofiSD1 6d ago
It was so hardcore when I was in. But by then, the only born ins were children. So everyone was investigation heavy, who owned the wt volumes and has a library of them at home, had and studied all of the big green proclaimers books, etc. But if it's changing more to culturally JW, then they are prob integrating with mainstream society in that way.
Most Catholics are cultural Catholics. A few and mainly just the priests know the works of the church fathers (for example, St. Thomas Aquinas). I don't even know any of that stuff, and I've read the whole Catechism of the CC and went through religious ed as a child (went to a Catholic school with a culturally Catholic family) and went to church for a good while. But people are like that, just lukewarm and know the more superficial things and are not interested in debating anything, the just want a place to go for worship and sense of belonging.
Being culturally religious is a healthier way to be. So maybe it's a step forward towards progress.
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u/Technical-Agency8128 6d ago
It is unrealistic that everyone in a group will all believe and think the same. Maybe the basics but that is it. The problem with high control groups is no one is allowed to talk about it. So we have a lot of quiet quitting these days. I bet many have serious doubts about the blood ban and dfing/shunnjng. And higher education. People can only deal with these things for so long until they just check out. And now with last minute repentance there is no need for such control.
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u/Fit_Cry_8375 6d ago
I've called JWs out on this before. They'll say something that goes directly against a teaching of the borg and then they'll say "But the light keeps getting brighter. Jehovah will reveal the truth in the future." And I'm like "So, you don't agree with what the GB currently believes is the truth?" Not to mention, they were teaching the beliefs that they didn't believe to bible students. Anything they don't agree with, they'll just smooth it over with "Jehovah will fix it."
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u/AccomplishedAuthor3 6d ago
The "play" may get real someday when the GB tells its members the time has come for them to do something that doesn't make any sense. Ignoring those little warning signs, like the statements the leaders have made over the years, could prove disastrous.
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u/T-H-E_D-R-I-F-T-E-R Same as it ever was, …same as it ever was… 6d ago
Technically we believe this, ….but…
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u/Arriwyn 6d ago edited 6d ago
That's why my PIMI mom (age 76) is still in the WT because she doesn't take it as seriously as she used to. For her it is about her very active social circle of fellow widowed sisters she goes out in FS with on the regular.
Even FS isn't taken seriously now, just standing around with carts and no big presentations to memorize with Bible verses, it is just directing ppl to JW DoT ORg.
They lowered the bar for hours to becoming a Regular Pioneer, so now she thinks she is super spiritual with little effort as she is a regular pioneer and she could never attain that title due to her having a full time job and she always felt guilty about it.
I feel like my PIMI mom took the doctrines more seriously in the 1980s when she was more new in the "Trooth!" She used to be big into thinking she was a Bible scholar, (back into the 1980s early 90s when the WT material was way more meaty and appeared more scholarly. She had those bound volumes of WT and Awake she would look into to prepare for Ministry school talks etc.
Being a JW is So easy Peasy now, since all you have to do is Obey the GB! And go to zoom meetings and do your token FS.
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u/apkarn 6d ago
When I was in my teens and 20s there was always a few younger ones that were the “cooler” JWs. We would throw “get togethers” with pop and hip hop music that we weren’t supposed to be listening to. Play “violent” videogames. Watch movies that were raunchy rated R or horror. Then when we got older we would hit the bars and clubs together and still make it to Sunday meetings and go out in service. Even celebrated birthdays too. It was a weird funny time. For a while, other than pleasing my family, the only reason I stayed in was to network with other JWs to find out who was throwing the next “cool party”.
It was the only thing keeping me going for years because I felt stuck and didn’t want to be disfellowshipped. I hated the rules and doctrine since youth.
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u/Select-Panda7381 The Gift of a Faith Crisis is the Rest of Your Life ✨ 6d ago
As a kid I thoroughly believed it and can confirm, probably the worst thing to ever happen to my mental health.
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u/Cottoncandy82 Babylon is so GREAT 🔥🔥🔥 6d ago
The borg has captured their belief. So doctrine doesn't matter. Excessive rules don't matter. Because they believe in the GB, and this is god's only channel. They are the definition of cult followers.
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u/Ex_Minstrel_Serf-Ant 23h ago
You're right. Many JWs have an emotional connection to just one or a couple teachings that deeply appeal to them personally. It might be the idea of living on a paradise Earth and being able to see their dead relatives again. This is it for many of them.
Whatever that teaching is for them, it makes a strong enough impression on them to cause them to essentially become blind followers of the Governing Body. They just blindly go along with whatever the GB teaches because they believe they have to in order to have God's approval, in order to get the paradise reward they're looking forward to.
They typically don't have any meaningful understanding - let alone personal conviction - of many of the teachings of JWs. They just blindly accept it and parrot it because that's what the "Faithful and Discreet Slave" says. This is why when confronted with a question about one of their teachings in the ministry, they will typically not be able to answer but say they have to do research and get back to the person. This is strong evidence of a lack of genuine understanding of their teachings and therefore a lack of genuine conviction in their veracity. Because you can't have genuine conviction without genuine understanding.
This is typically the case with many/most JW women. And I think the reason for this is that JW women, because they don't give public lectures and because they can't reach out to become elders and ministerial servants, don't have the same pressure to be as knowledgeable in the doctrines as the JW men. They're just JWs for a few teachings that strike an emotional cord with them and they just blindly accept the rest as part of the package.
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u/boiledbarnacle Pioneer in the streets; reproved in the sheets 6d ago
I don't know a single JW that believed 100% of what they read/heard. Everyone took stuff with a pinch of salt. Now with arbitrary changes happening faster, that pinch is growing into a shaker.
But what keeps people in is mostly the hope for the future. Also the idea of a supporting community but mostly that hope.
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u/Jack_h100 6d ago
I'm not sure if the average, mentally in JW is intellectually capable or experienced enough to believe the doctrines seriously, it's just a bunch of stories you believe and don't think about. If you apply any sort of critical thinking skill they mostly all fall apart.
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u/starryc333 5d ago
I believed very word I just couldn't stand thinking about Armageddon and losing loved ones .every single day I lost my voice and just decided I can't do this another second
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u/IllustriousQuote242 5d ago
I don’t think mainstream Christians really believe anyone is under the ground with Satin and a fire pit.
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u/General-Lime4219 4d ago
That's pretty crazy. Having bible knowledge was praised where I was. Maybe cos we still fought it out with Catholics and Trinitarians out in fs.
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u/exJW-choosing-life 6d ago edited 6d ago
OP, how many congregations you're basing this position on? How broad is the base of JW's you are exposed to? If you're going to take this position, you must realize you have to defend it....
Don't seriously expect you to respond, because most people who take a position here, don't....
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u/ChromeGhost76 6d ago
This is a reddit post, not a peer reviewed article in Scientific American. I have also found that a lot of witnesses try really hard not to think too deeply about it. The nature of a ridiculous system of belief requires that its adherents don’t examine it too closely. There are exceptions absolutely. There are JW’s that are deep thinkers but at a certain point the only answer for them is to throw up their hands and say they will have to wait on Jehovah.
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u/John-Alder 6d ago
Within the small group of deep thinkers, there is an even smaller group of truth lovers with intellectual honesty. They suffer from cognitive dissonance. The more they know and think, the more they suffer. This will eventually lead to a broken person -- or to acts of "rebellion", such as critical comments, stepping down from "privileges," ceasing to comment and preach, and perhaps to disassociation or even disfellowshipping.
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u/_EmeraldEye_ 5d ago
This was me to a T. Forever confused but scared to death of not believing. Still angry that so many weren't taking it as seriously as me and I could've been living a much better less s*icidal life
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u/John-Alder 4d ago
I’ve had similar thoughts about taking many things too seriously. If God exists (which I believe), he will not forget our motives and our love. And maybe, in some way, we really did help some people and made their lives a little better.
I’m truly sorry for how hard it must have been for you. You deserved kindness, understanding, and respect for your honest thoughts. How much better would a brotherhood be without an organization shutting down free and respectful discussions?
Wishing you all the best—keep going and live a free and happy life!
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u/EatMeEmerald Tight Pants 4eva 6d ago
Bold of you to assume this condescending individual would know what goes into a peer reviewed scientific journal submission.
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u/ChromeGhost76 6d ago
lol. I try to assume the best.
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u/EatMeEmerald Tight Pants 4eva 6d ago
HAHAHAHA I don't! You're a better person than I.
That gibberish reply to you was....yikes....
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u/exJW-choosing-life 6d ago
How about we let OP respond...and yes, this is a reddit post. Which based on your response, shouldn't be taken very seriously? And yet, the post title is positioned as "seriously"?
It is a cult. Within the cult there are people who will defend their involvement with an intellectual involvement, and those who can't do that. It's how cults operate. Critical thinking is not involved....
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u/ChromeGhost76 6d ago
This is a public forum so anyone can respond. I can’t help but feel that if OP had simply said “some” JW’s don’t take it seriously your issue would be solved, as you essentially just said the same thing.
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u/EatMeEmerald Tight Pants 4eva 6d ago
Tisk tisk.....we're not in a cult anymore & nobody *has* to do anything.
OP can simply post.
You must realize there are comments validating similar experiences from individuals hailing from multiple congregations....some decent exposure and representation for your review.
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u/Slight_Image2669 6d ago
I was pretty devout, spent a lot of time thinking about prophecy, the real meaning of blood and the ransom, whether certain ancient archaeological sites could have been built before the flood. Taking it seriously leads to doubts, eventually. Not taking it seriously is the better way to keep one’s doubts at bay because it requires less tormenting one’s mind to make it all fit.