I don't recall any one specific idea or teaching that started me doubting. Jehovah's Witnesses are a very restrictive group, they insist that their members must not read or listen to anyone but the organization, lest they become corrupted by false teachings. That attitude itself was problematic, because it contrasted with the idea that the truth of god can withstand any assault. I always felt that the truth should stand easily against any non-truth, so why be afraid to challenge what you know? And at the same time, the organization would encourage us to "be like the Bereans," who tested Paul's teachings against scripture to see if his teaching was true (Acts 17:11). But they made it very clear, time and again, that what they meant was not "check the scripture to see if we are right" but "check the scripture, and you'll see that we are right." There was a clear implication that if your 'testing' led to a difference of opinion, you were flirting with apostasy and that you'd best get your shit together quick and fall in line.
Fear can work to keep people in line, but not if it's your fear. Once your followers realize that you are the one that is scared, they stop being scared. And disinterest soon follows.
Fear can work to keep people in line, but not if it's your fear. Once your followers realize that you are the one that is scared, they stop being scared. And disinterest soon follows.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
