Do you people who have lost your belief feel more betrayed that people lied to you about God than Father Christmas or the tooth fairy?

Of course I can't speak for everyone, but I don't feel betrayed over any of them.

Almost done writing the first half of my story, but if you are being serious, I was taught from the get go that they didn't exist.

More than a few of the kids at school had their realities shaken when I told them there was no Santa Claus.

Just a heads up, definitely TL;DR

I was raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. My mother was in the faith (or ‘The Truth’ as those inside refer to it amongst themselves) but my father was not, he is/was a non-practicing Mormon who still holds the beliefs but doesn’t attend church anymore. A child being brought up in a JW/ Mormon home is not exactly a recipe for success, but somehow I managed to turn out ok.

My mother wore the pants in the family as far back as I can remember, so it was decided that I and my two younger brothers would be raised as JW’s. The Watchtower forbids marriage outside of the organization, but my mother had left briefly in her late teens and early twenties, met my dad, and (by complete accident I’m assuming) she became pregnant with me. Scared to death of bringing up a child outside of the religion of her parents, she married my father and took steps to return to the congregation, going through something like a probationary period where she could attend meetings but not speak to anyone or participate in discussions. I don’t remember any of this, but around the time I was 1 year old she was reinstated to full status, and presumably everything was going to be wonderful from then on.

My childhood was very lonely at times, since there were very few other children in the congregation my age, and Witness children are forbidden from associating with those outside the faith for fear of becoming infected with wrong thinking. Nonetheless, I still had a few friends that I could play with and at the time I didn’t realize I was any different than any other child. Nearly everyone in my mother’s side of the family is a JW, and she grew up one of five sisters. (Not coincidentally, the other four sisters all moved out of town, mostly to escape their parents constant meddling)

I can remember a few times in my early childhood, pre-kindergarten age even, when my mother did things that didn’t make sense to me even at that age. I remember one time my father bought my brothers and I a Lion King poster to hang up in our bedroom, but my mother calmly explained to us why doing so would be idolatry and why we had to get rid of it. I’ve heard Patton Oswalt talk about that first moment when you realize that an adult is wrong about something, this was my moment.

Once I started school, things got even more interesting because as most people know, JW’s don’t celebrate holidays or birthdays, so there were many times, especially in elementary school when I would spend time secluded from the group, off to the side doing something else while the rest of the kids would be eating Halloween candy or doing some other harmless activity that my mother had been instructed not to allow me to participate in.

At the time I was a full believer in my religion, as most young religious kids are. I had no doubt for a second that Noah really built that ark, that Adam and Eve really talked to that snake, and that Jesus died for our sins. Of course, I was also too young to think these things through to their logical conclusions, but then again that’s the whole point of religious indoctrination of children. Get em while they’re young, and they’re practically yours for life. At times I faced some teasing from other kids about not celebrating Christmas, but in retrospect there was never any major harassment. My teachers always protected me in those days, because I was usually the smartest kid and the best student in the class.

This is one of the few things I can legitimately thank the Watchtower for. I began reading before I started kindergarten, because my mother wanted to make sure I could read the Bible. Of course, as the years went on, I read a whole lot of other books on a wide variety of subjects, and my Bible studies got me interested in history among other things. My mother never let us watch too much TV either, so I was usually reading something. Of course, what I read did not always match up with the official teachings of the Watchtower, but I usually brushed it aside, thinking the secular authors were the ones who were wrong.

Once I got into middle school I began to read more advanced books on history, politics, and other more ‘grown up’ subjects that really started to make me think about what I really believed. As you can imagine, I was an awkward child in those days. While everyone else was talking about pop music and the latest movie, I was literally reading Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity books in my spare time at school (Don’t judge me, I was young and dumb). Guys that Limbaugh and Hannity talked a lot about the stuff I believed in, Christian morality, personal responsibility, and giving everyone an opportunity to succeed. (I’ve drifted away from those guys on a lot of things, including the whole moral conservatism thing, I’d call myself a Libertarian now, but I digress)

JW’s are strictly forbidden from involving themselves in politics because Jesus told his followers that his kingdom is not part of this world. I really didn’t care, because I found politics, discussions about economics, and other ‘grown up’ conversation a lot more interesting than reading about who begat who at the three meetings per week that JW’s had until recently (It has been trimmed down to two per week in the last five years). I was never that interested in the meetings, they bored me to death, and the only time I ever got engaged was when we started talking about the contemporary secular history surrounding the Bible writers (Alexander the Great, Roman history, etc). I was given the impression that there was something wrong with me if I was not receiving some satisfaction out of reading the Bible and the publications the Watchtower requires us to read on a daily basis.

I was scorned constantly by my mother for reading too many secular books and not spending enough time on my Bible studies. My response was to do the bare minimum and get by without doing too much. I gave many talks or lectures at congregation meetings, which usually consisted of reading a bible passage and giving some thoughts about what it meant for us today. I got very used to speaking in front of large groups and was always complemented on my speaking skills. I was told I had a bright future in the organization as a public speaker, and for a time, that was enough. But the dissension in the back of my head continued to grow every time I read a history book that disagreed with the official Bible story, or whenever I read something in the Watchtower publications that I disagreed with. I remember mentioning to one of the ‘elders’ as they are called in the congregation, that I noticed none of the Jehovah Witnesses had a beard. I had no ambition to grow a beard, it just seemed odd to me that no one else had one. I don’t recall the exact explanation I got, but I remember that it boiled down to beards not being proper for a Christian. I thought to myself, if God didn’t want us to grow beards, then why did he make us with the ability to grow one?

By the time I got to high school, I still considered myself a Jehovah’s Witness, but I was becoming more open minded about things. In the second half of this story, I’ll explain what finally led me to say goodbye to my faith- and most of my family and friends- for good.

Definitely not a definitely TL;DR. Looking forward to part 2.

^^nice.

Now I'm looking forward to a part 2 from you and Doggg.

Yes.
Sorry for getting nasty with you.

No worries. My initial response to your comment could have
been more cordial also.

Very interested in reading. I've met several very devout JWs, but never one that "got away."

Definitely not. No one (that I know of) lied to me about the existence of God. In my opinion they were/are misinformed, but they were acting based on what they thought was right. I'd hardly consider that a betrayal.

Very well written Kirby..... looking even forward to part two as well

Definitely look forward to part II of Kirby's story.

My story was not at all traumatic. My mother became a Jehovah's Witness when I was about 5 or so, and my father has never been all that religious and remained relatively nonreligious (though non-denominational Christian by his own account) throughout my life. Since my mother became a JW well after my mother and father married, there was never any issue with their being married as far as the congregation was concerned, though it certainly has caused them some stiff arguments over the years (and yeah, they are still married). Truth be told, my mother is not all that forceful with regards to her belief, even considering my father, and she could likely be excommunicated for some of the concessions she makes in our household given the vast differences in belief structures throughout.

At any rate, I was actively encourage by my father to really explore my religious beliefs, even as my mom did try to apply some weak-to-modest pressure to indoctrinate. The indoctrination never got close to sticking and I was allowed to actively question all forms of faith from early on. This questioning was particularly strong during high school where my participation in discussions across all faiths had the respective groups convinced that I was on the verge of becoming saved, a Muslim, an atheist, a Buddhist, et cetera. Save for becoming an atheist (of the agnostic or "weak" variety), none of the above ever happened, though I did continue to assert some form of belief in a god up until the juncture between my junior and senior years (even as I firmly doubted it in my head well before that).

Revelation came at a Barnes and Noble one day as I was reading some stuff on Spinoza and just kinda said to myself that I was an atheist. This wasn't any amazing epiphany so I just continued reading. Later though, convinced that neither religion nor philosophy had anything useful to say on the matter of ultimate truth, I just started reading popular science books instead. This eventually led me down the path of studying physics and mathematics (with some philosophy) in undergrad and just physics in grad school.

True to the form of the family I was raised in, I have since allowed my children the freedom to explore a bit. My son (11) just kinda sticks with his parents on these matters and is still a bit juvenile for real contemplation of any of these issues. My daughter (13) on the other hand actively identified as a theist for a long time. She recently decided of her own accord that she was atheistic, which was actually quite shocking. She was a bit depressed about it since, as a child, she really hadn't managed to cope well with the idea of there being no ultimate purpose for herself save the one's she comes up with. She was specifically distressed with the idea of nothingness after death but described her deductions leading her to no other reasonable conclusion.

FYI, my daughter is genuinely brilliant... my son plays video games... though he is pretty smart himself.

I've been overwhelmed with work and school the last couple days, so I kinda let this fall by the wayside, but I'm now working on part 2.

Brainwashing really is the name of the game. I remember talking with my mother about something Bible-related and that I had some questions just based on my own internal thoughts about it. Her response to me was, "You need to go to the elders and ask them to explain it to you. You have to be careful about thinking for yourself." At the time that didn't sound as creepy as it does now, because that's the kind of mindset you're in. When everyone you know and everyone you talk to on a daily basis feels the same way you do, you start to believe that's the way things ought to be, and your critical faculties start to atrophy.

To answer your questions, was I happy? As a whole, probably not. This had as much to do, IMO, with my family itself and our financial situation as it did with my religion. I've always envied people who say that their mother or father is the strongest person they know. My mother and father were two of the weakest people I ever knew. My mother is not mentally stable, as she was brought up in a house where she was emotionally neglected and her parents fought constantly. My father by all accounts is a loser. In his mid-40's his credit is terrible, he works crap jobs, and doesn't even attempt to change his life for the better. He has resigned himself to a slow death of mediocrity on the couch in front of his satellite TV.

My parents were never any good with money. Even now, my father's satellite bill is in my name because he's ran out on so many bill collectors. Some kids say they grew up not knowing they were poor, well I sure knew, because my parents were constantly complaining about it.

They never had many adult friends from what I can remember growing up. Looking back this isn't a surprise because they are both extremely depressing people to be around.

As to your point about whether I missed out on socializing with other kids, etc, and many normal experiences growing up, yes I did. Most kids got to sleep in on Saturday mornings, not me. I don't remember a time when I wasn't being forced to go from door to door as a child. I hardly ever got to watch Saturday morning cartoons, but I don't really care about that. What's more important to me is that I didn't realize how held-back socially I was until I went out into the real world.

When you voluntarily exclude yourself from most of society, you don't bother learning how to make friends, or deal with people with different viewpoints. It really is dangerous, because once I got out into the real world, it took me a while to figure out how to have a real relationship with new friends.

I've never been a shy guy, and I have a pretty good sarcastic sense of humor that can usually break the ice in just about any social situation. It never seemed like I could get a genuine relationship going for a long time. I basically had to learn how to be a normal working member of society again. I feel like I'm in a good place socially now, have a good number of friends here in college (Spoiler Alert), and have a better sense of who I am.

I don't get this. What can a child do going door to door? I mean, it's not like a 10-year old is going to be answering deep theological questions, so were you just handing out pamphlets or what?

You are attempting to put logic into a place it does not belong, religion.

The JWs are constantly told from the platform to train their children up right in the ways of God. This includes teaching them the importance of what they call the 'Field Ministry', or going door to door.

When I was really young, too young to talk at the door or too shy, I would often go with my mother to the door and hand the pamphlet or magazine to the person at the house. It's hard to say no to a little kid, especially one with my level of cuteness (Those days are long gone).

As I got older, into my teenage years, I started to realize that people didn't automatically smile when they opened the door because I wasn't that young anymore. I was old enough to explain my beliefs on things, and there were many times I enjoyed it, more because I got to spend time talking to a friend, usually older than I, about whatever. There are plenty of good people in the Watchtower Organization who are being lied to or are just in denial, and I feel very sorry for them and their children.

I deconverted from Christianity to atheism after taking a genetics class. I've taken many many classes, just got my Bachelor's of Science degree a few weeks ago, and this single class has pretty significantly changed my beliefs. No other class has had any real impact on my beliefs at all. Here's why.

First, it made me an indeterminist. Which means it fully convinced me that chance is real in nature, and not all events have causes. When you take two heterozygotes for a recessive disease and mate them, 25% of the time the offspring will be homozygote for the disease. It's as if a deck of cards is shuffled and one card is picked. If it's a heart (13/52 or 25%), then the offspring gets the disease. If not, he is healthy.

Second, it revealed the enormous quantity of stupidity and design flaws in living creatures. There is no way you can say, for example, that colorblindness (which is heritable) is anything other than a defect. There is no advantage to being colorblind. This makes more sense under unguided evolution than intelligent design. The amount of genetic, inheritable diseases in humans are huge and are more common than you think. So why don't you see them often in real life? The victims are in hospitals or don't leave their homes as often as normal people. Or they are aborted before they are born or modern medicine helps mask the visible symptoms of the disease. They also occur in other species.

Third, it convinced me that humans are just physical things. There is no soul, we are just matter. How do I know? Let's say you have two zygotes (one cell) that will become two human beings within a few weeks. At this point, these are microscopic, tiny little blobs basically. Yet they contain all the information to construct a human. If you take one zygote and just slightly change the chemical composition within it (very slightly!) by adding an extra chromosome #21, it will result in the human being ending up with an adult IQ of 50. The result is disastrous and the child is often infertile with stunted growth and an abnormal appearance. This happens ~1/600 times. The fact that this happens, that a tiny change of molecules in the zygote results in such life/personality altering results, is irreconcilable with the whole soul idea.

Fourth, it showed that nature can be ugly. Sure, nature is beautiful normally, and if you don't go out of your way to notice these genetic diseases, nature may seem "too perfect and beautiful" for there not to be an intelligent designer. Take a closer look at nature though, and there is ugliness and stupidity as well.

Fifth, it confirmed Darwin was right. Strongest possible proof of evolution.

nvm

Part 2

My sophomore year of high school I was becoming more and more dissatisfied with my religion, but then again, I wasn’t doing everything I was supposed to do when it came to my weekly studies and other duties of a young JW. The Witnesses follow a strict schedule of weekly Bible reading, and study of the various publications printed by the Watchtower. Each week, at Witness meetings all across the world, every congregration follows the same schedule of study distributed from the central headquarters in New York. To an outsider, the amount of control the organization has over its members may seem Orwellian, but to the members, they are being directed by the hand of God himself.

I was never that interested in Bible reading, like I said before, and I took most of what I knew about the Bible from the different publications that had been hammered into my head for years. This is why I always took for granted that the Bible was the word of God, as I never was interested enough in it myself to do my own research.

Anyway, I had to be honest with myself and admit that I hadn’t been doing everything I could to be a good JW. I decided to buy into it completely and dedicate myself 100% to my faith. I was facing increasing pressure from family and the higher ups in the congregation to do this anyway, and I thought at least I would be treated more like an adult.

I was baptized the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school. Baptism is something akin to a gang initiation for the Witnesses. If someone is raised, or becomes interested in the organization, but never becomes baptized and decides to leave, there are few consequences, other than that person is treated like any other non-witness. You can talk to them if you run into them in public, and if you run into them at the door while preaching you can have a normal conversation. If someone in your family decides not to get baptized, they are still part of the family and may still be part of your life.

On the other hand, if you go through with your baptism, and then leave like I did, you are cut off from everyone you know. You are avoided like the plague so you do not infect the congregation with your unholy beliefs. Many people leave for so-called immorality, mostly sexual related stuff. Think of the BYU Honor Code.

Once I began my junior year, I started working on the student radio station at my school calling the football games on Friday nights. Now for those of you who don’t know, I love football. I loved it from the moment I discovered it at the age of 13, and every fall since then I fought and fought with my mother to let me play. JW’s do not typically allow their children to participate in any after school activities, for fear of bad association. At this point my mother had conceded enough room for me to do this, which in her mind was not as evil as playing I guess.

I loved every minute of it. I was the color guy, basically playing the role of John Madden explaining what was really going on out there. The ‘problem’ was that I loved it too much. I wanted to get involved in the team itself, which I ended up doing my senior year, to the chagrin of my mother. I was in charge of taping practices during the week, and on Friday nights I would still call the game on the radio. (Brag: I won state and national awards for my commentary)

I approached it like a coach, I broke down film of the opponent, tried to predict tendencies (with moderate success), and had a sheet on game nights of what to look for from certain formations, etc. I was very good at what I did on the radio, and I worked very hard to be the best film guy I could for the team. I quickly picked up the terminology, and before long knew the offense better than many of the players. I was loving every second of this.

The weekend before my senior year, my parents separated because my mother forced my father out of the house. The reason? He had some porn stashed away, and she felt it was a threat to the house. Looking back I think she was just looking for an excuse to kick him out, as he can be extremely depressing and irritating to be around. This didn’t really affect me at all, because my parents were never happy together as long as I can remember, and so I knew in the back of my mind that this day would come.

Life went on, and for a time, things were ok. I remember getting out of football practice one night when there was a meeting scheduled in less than two hours. My mother informed me that there was a need for someone to do a Bible reading assignment that night on the platform, where a short lecture would need to be written from the material given. I rushed home, read that week’s assignment, wrote up a talk, and delivered it with few problems that night. The speaker on the stage then informed everyone that I had only got the assignment less than two hours before. There were plenty of people who thought I was headed into life as a minister. I was not so sure.

After a while, football season ended, and I graduated. I wanted to stay involved in football anyway I could, and the next fall I returned to help out as a video assistant, and helped coach the scout team sparingly as needed. The elders in the congregation viewed this as a minor annoyance, continually dropping hints about how important it was to put aside childish things, as if this was a phase I was going through. I resented very much the condescending tone they often took with me, like I was an idiot who should take a look at his priorities. I still had no immediate plans to leave, as I really couldn’t imagine a life outside.

The thing to remember about the Watchtower is that it is largely a sad collection of socialphobes and narcissists. The people are constantly reminded of the dangers of life in ‘The World’. When JWs use this term they mean all the immorality, promiscuity, drugs, etc that drive the fundamentalists crazy. Witness children are constantly told how fortunate they are to be in an organization that has their best interests at heart. There are plenty of stories in the monthly publications about how a young person slipped up by leaving the congregation and then somehow managed to get pregnant, get AIDs, or something else horrible happened to them. These usually involved someone using a ****** level of judgement and putting themselves in terrible situations where something was bound to happen to them. I always chuckled to myself when I heard such things, even when I really believed in this stuff. It was always like, “Reeeaally? You thought experimenting with heroine was a good idea?”

I never heard a single experience where someone had left over legitimate theological or philosophical differences. JWs are fed a very controlled stream of information from the central HQ in New York and are repeatedly told that it is the only place to get correct information. This bothered me, because in the back of my mind I knew I couldn’t logically explain what we had was the truth, because we were getting all of our information from one source. There are no debates in the Watchtower organization. JWs receive constant training on how to handle different situations at the door, and one of the biggest teaching points is not to debate with anyone. If it becomes clear the person is not interested, they are told to move on.

Naturally, I had to be honest with myself and admit there was a small chance we were wrong. Did I believe it? At that time I did, I believed it with everything I had. But then I had to admit that Muslims and Jews felt just as strongly as I did. So that couldn’t be a deciding factor. Another thing that didn’t sit well with me was when my mother tried to limit what kinds of things I read. She never successfully kept me from reading or listening to anything I really wanted to, but she really tried. Fortunately for me, my two younger brothers kept her busy be doing things that actually were worthy of discipline. (They both dropped out of high school and the youngest is in jail. again. Another shining example of Witness parenting.) What got me most about this is that she legitimately seemed scared of reading things with a different view than the official Witness doctrine. My view was, if we have the truth, what are we worried about?

Three years out of high school, I had been convinced I needed to go to college by the coaches I was working with in football. By this point I had worked my way up to full fledged assistant coach with lots of responsibilities. The lack of support from anyone in the family annoyed me, because I had worked very hard to get where I was. And frankly, I was starting to realize in the back of my mind that I had to leave.

I’ll wrap it all up with part three next time. Not trying to drag this out, but I think it’s important to get all my thoughts together to get the full story. Part 3 will be the last portion of the story.

"At this point, godless materialists might be cheering. If humans evolved strictly by mutation and natural selection, who needs God to explain us? To this, I reply: I do. The comparison of chimp and human sequences, interesting as it is, does not tell us what it is to be human. In my view, DNA sequence alone, even if accompanied by a vast trove of data on biological function, will never explain certain special human attributes, such as the knowledge of the Moral Law and the universal search for God. Freeing God from the burden of special acts of creation does not remove Him as the source of the things that make humanity special, and of the universe itself. It merely shows us something of how He operates."

Francis Collins, from his book The Language of God, former head of the Human Genome Project and current head of the NIH

Humans have less genetic variation than many other species such as chimps. Why? Because we are suspected to have gone through a population bottleneck. THat's when most of the population dies in an event, and the resulting small population is not a good genetic representation of the former population.

At the same time, "knowledge of the Moral Law" has a survival advantage. By generally following the "Ten commandments", whether you are a believer or not, you have better survival prospects. Example: If you have two primates, one that steals and one that doesn't, the thief will be retaliated against when caught. The non-thief will not. When retaliated against, the thief may be killed or his/her children killed as punishment. So the reason we have a "conscience" that says "don't steal" is not because a diety gave it to us. It's because that conscience has a survival advantage.

Now you may ask, as Colins does, "But why do ALL humans seem to have the same conscience?". Remember that population bottleneck I was just talking about? What if there used to be variation in consciences? Some individuals had genes that said, "stealing is alright" and with genes that said, "don't steal", and a wide spectrum of individuals in between. Then the bottleneck kills everyone except thats that were programmed to "not steal". That would result in future human populations all having genes that say, "don't steal".

And how do you know God isn't managing the bottleneck?

Collins: "The tragedy is that many people believe that, if evolution is true, which it clearly is, then God can't be true." However, he blamed this on the reaction of the scientific establishment to the literal interpretation of Genesis by Creationists, views not held by respectable theologians.

"It is not just the fringe elements of the Church that are demanding a Creationist view in order to prove that you are a true believer; it is also the scientific community fringe who are basically saying that evolution proves there is no God."

Do our genes reveal the hand of God?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...nd-of-God.html

We don't...the same way we don't know leprechauns aren't managing the bottleneck. It's an unnecessary supposition.

It wasn't directed to you.

What about kids who learn the wrong things from grandmas and grandpas who love them? Grandparents are filled with as many wrong ideas as other people.

The rule over the exception.

I'd trust someone I know over someone I don't.

At least I've got a background check.