Do Jehovah’s Witnesses Promote Family Loyalty?

If you were to ask any 5 year old child what they are looking forward to in life, they probably couldn’t tell you other than to say something like what toy or computer game they hope they will receive for their next birthday or what Father Christmas is going to bring them on Christmas Day. Most young children haven’t formulated those sort of hopes and ambitions at such a young age. Many haven’t even learnt that Father Christmas isn’t real. Their hope for the future is very basic and childish as you would expect it to be. At 5 years old I was no different. I loved getting gifts and life was very simple although Computers weren’t even invented yet. But little did I know that my life was about to change in ways that would scar me for the rest of my life. When I was 7 years old my parents joined the religion known as Jehovah’s Witnesses and family life as I had know it changed forever.

The Start to 60 years of Misery.

How did it change? Christmas, Easter and Halloween were all of a sudden banned, Birthday celebrations were considered pagan and therefore forbidden. So no more parties and no more gifts to look forward to. No more visits to see my school friends and no sleep overs with them or my cousins who were not Jehovah’s Witnesses. Now all my relatives, past friends and school mates were to be treated as bad associations and therefore no longer tolerated by the religion. My Grandfather who was a smoker was no longer welcome in the house due to his ungodly filthy habit. No school trips were allowed because I might learn something from history that the religion would rather I didn’t know. No after school clubs or sports as that exposed me to teachers and worldly people who were bad association. They might try to encourage me to take up a sport or hobby if I was found to be especially talented, and that would take me away from time spent on studying and promoting the religion and it would most likely corrupt my mind from the religions version of truth. There was most definitely to be no involvement with school morning assembly or religious instruction as the school was apparently teaching religious falsehood and Satanic Lies.

 A whole life of missed opportunities.

I wasn’t a particularly gifted student in most subjects but I did have a special talent interested me and that I wanted to develop. In 1967 when I was just 14 years old and about to leave school to start a pre apprenticeship College course to develop this talent, my father showed me an article in the Jehovah’s Witness Awake magazine ( see 1967 Awake ) stating that further education was pointless because I would never get to use what I had learned and the paradise that according to their interpretation of Bible prophecy, had been promised, was coming in 1975 and was only a few short years away. What I should do instead was be a full time evangeliser and call on people to tell them that Armageddon was coming. Not wanting to disappoint my parents and being just 14, I left college after just a few months and became a very poor but full time preacher at just 15 years of age.

Has the indoctrination by Jehovah’s Witnesses stopped.

Has anything changed in the past 50+ years? Ask any Jehovah’s Witness you meet on the street or who next calls on your home what their view of family life is all about. They will tell you they love their family and want what is best for them and perversely this may be true but they won’t tell you how hard they are working at trying to indoctrinate them into their religion by telling them about the wonderful things they are learning about in their new found belief and how if they also join they can expect to live forever in paradise. They have been claiming this for over a 100 years. None of what they believe is proven and none of it was taught by Christ Jesus or is contained in the Bible that they claim to follow closely. You are never encouraged to check the things they are teaching and in fact are most likely to be shunned if you question any of their beliefs. If their family members don’t join then they are told they will all die very soon from a horrible death in the war called Armageddon. None of this can be supported by a belief in the Bible and yet I lived my whole adult life in fear of this imminent day of destruction. After 70 years believing and not questioning the lies I was indoctrinated with by my parents I finally woke up and worked out the truth, but my life was already ruined and mostly behind me. Do I blame my parents. Not really because they were also lied to and indoctrinated by the brain washing tactics of the church leaders.

My Life now as a victim of religious Lies and abuse.

I am now in my 70’s. So how did my life turn out in this so called family oriented religion? What is my reality about living forever in Paradise and what is the state of my family life. I have 3 children in their 40’s who I have supported their whole lives and who I haven’t seen for over 4 years. I have 6 Grand children and 1 Great Grand child. I wasn’t even invited to my Grandsons wedding and have never met my great grandchild and wasn’t even told of his existence. I found out on Facebook. My children won’t speak to me and I am not allowed to see any of my grand children as I am totally shunned for leaving the religion. Why? Because I finally woke up and realised after 55 years of brain washing that it wasn’t real but rather a money making scam run by a mind controlling Cult. What woke me up? A neighbour alerted me to the internet coverage of The Australian Royal Commission. When I saw what the church was being accused of I had to leave on a conscience matter due to the 1000’s of cases of Child Abuse that Jehovah’s Witnesses had covered up and are still covering up. Paradise never came in 1975 as promised or before the year 2000 as they later revised and I never did learn a trade or take out a pension to provide for my old age. I was assured I didn’t need one. The reality is I have been abandoned by my immediate family who I brought up as Jehovah’s Witnesses and totally shunned by the 100’s of people I thought were my friends within the Church. I have no prospects, no support and no money put aside to do the things that normal pensioners I see every day and live next door to do, as I can’t afford it. 60 years of faithful and loyal service to a religion that turned out to be a mind controlling Cult and who has convinced my family to abandon me has taught me that Jehovah’s Witnesses are a dangerous, unchristian and evil cult who want to control your whole life. They are so convincing that you won’t see it happening until it is too late. They may seem on the surface to be nice people but don’t be fooled by a smile. If you join they will abandon you if you ever think of leaving or question the teachings of the Governing Body or of even asking a question they don’t like. So do the Jehovah’s Witnesses promote family unity? You decide! You don’t have to take my word for it. Just look on the internet to see what thousands of other people are saying. If I could give one piece of advice to anyone reading my experience it would be, Please Stay Away from them. Don’t listen to their lies and don’t ever think of joining the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This religious Cult who professes to be pro family will ruin your life and and break up your family and will do it without any remorse and with a smile on their face.

This Story was Donated by an Ex Jehovah’s Witness who visited our website..