I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness AMA

[ElloElloElloWhatsAllThisThen]

Fire away! I’m not the most knowledgeable but will try and answer all questions to the best of my ability

Do you think it's worth paying for branded dishwasher tablets or are supermarket own brand just as effective?

Are you still a practicing?

Has anyone ever invited you for a chat when you've been knocking on doors and bothering people?

How did you feel about missing out on birthday parties and Christmas?

Would you rather, fight 12 duck sized horses or one horse sized duck?

I’ve never had a dishwasher before so I couldn’t tell you. HTH

Unfortunately not. I was never actually baptised as there were a few small things that I didn’t quite agree with. I also believe in God but don’t see myself as a religious person hence why I haven’t continued a spiritual journey within the organisation

When I was in primary school, I went on the ministry with other members of the congregation quite a lot. We’d often be invited in and could spend hours talking about religion and other things. Some would eventually start a bible study and some wouldn’t. It was really interesting tbh

what makes it a religion instead of a cult?

So you are not a Jehovah's Witness .......... ?

I never felt as if I was missing out as I understood why we didn’t celebrate it. My mum also made the conscious effort to get us things all throughout the year so we never felt ‘left out’ so to speak.

Sometimes we’d come home from school and she would randomly have gifts wrapped for us and things like that. She had a yearly summer party which friends and family would come too also.

As for Christmas, a member of the congregation (also a close family friend) would take us out of school when the Christmas lunch was happening and we’d have McDonalds. I really enjoyed it!

I recently celebrated my 2 year old’s birthday and that felt quite weird if I’m honest

What would you rather do?

There is no ‘self appointed’ leader so I’m not sure how it could be considered a cult? Unless you view all religions as cults?

If you have your own child how do you now feel about the fact that your parents would rather you died than had a blood transfusion if the need arose?

I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness. I had a bible study from age 12-13 up until around age 20. I stopped practicing a handful of years ago just before I had my children and no longer consider myself a Jehovah’s Witness. Hopefully that makes sense

Can you explain this conundrum to me - I may well have misunderstood something but I think JWs say that there are only 300,000 places in heaven. If so, why do members aim to recruit more competition for those places?

Apologies if I'm just repeating false info there.

Not entirely sure why pp are being arsey, but I do have a serious question!
I grew up around a lot of JW families. Very good friends (in school) with a couple of the girls and dated a boy for a time. They all went to mainstream school and college, this would have been in the 1980s and 90s.
As they grew up the girls all left the JW, before baptism so they are still in contact with family.
The boys have all stayed within the JW, become quite fanatical and now homeschool their kids as they consider it was school that influenced the girls they knew to leave. Their wives were not raised within the JW but have become part of it since. They are now elders and have obviously embraced the very patriarchal nature of it all.
Does this resonate with you at all? I found it striking as there was such a clear gender divide. Also becoming more indoctrinated with age, does that ring true?
I have my own ideas around all this but would love to know your take on it!

Do you agree that harrassing people in their homes is an extreme form of antisocial behaviour and should be banned? And that targeting the mentally infirm in order to pressgang them into a cult should be criminalized, if it doesn't already fall under the definition of coercive control and/or modern slavery?

Great question.

There’s quite a few other options that you can choose from instead of having a blood transfusion. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of cell salvage but it’s when blood that you’ve lost is collected, cleaned and put back into your body. My mum would have opted for that (and a few different options that are available) in order to save my life.

If a blood transfusion was the only option to save my life and nothing else worked, I can see how my mum would have made the decision for me to die. As she believes in the resurrection, she’d believe that she’d see me again after armageddon. I know it all sounds a bit batshit and it’s certainly not something I’d do for my children, I still understand why she’d do it

No problem, this is another great question.

The belief is that only a selected group of people which are known as ‘the anointed’ will make it into heaven. The anointed are also known as ‘the 144,000’ because this is the total amount of people that can/will be anointed and make it into heaven.

Unlike most other Christians, the aim isn’t to get to heaven. The aim is to make it to paradise after armageddon and have everlasting life on Earth when the world will be perfect again. Whilst they live in an imperfect world, the mission is to ‘spread the truth’ and that’s why they knock on peoples doors and stand near stations. They want to make the ‘truth’ known so more people enter paradise, not to enter heaven. Hopefully that makes sense!

Aren't you the one supposed to be answering questions?

For the record. A horse sized duck.

Ooo there’s a lot to unpack here.

Within the religion, responsibilities within the congregation are different between the two sexes. Men can be elders or ministerial servants which are two things that women can’t be. Elders and ministerial servants can give talks on the stage whereas women can’t.

Within the organisation, it’s discouraged to pursue further education (uni) as studies will take up more of your time and leave you with less time to be out on the ministry. Saying that though, there is no ‘consequence’ for going to uni. Most Witness’ that I know, have a degree!

The reason why I’m saying all of that is because the girls you know may have thought, ‘well hold on a minute. Why would I get baptised and live a minimal life when I can further my education and possibly become a director/CEO etc.’ Whereas some men are probably happy to work towards becoming an elder as they’ll have more responsibilities.

This is just my guess though! I know more men that haven’t got baptised than women. I know a lot of women that haven’t got baptised, left and came back and ended up getting baptised. I don’t think there’s a clear divide (in terms of what people choose to do with their life and their place in the religion) between boys and girls/men and women. It probably just depends on the people we know!

I personally don’t think anyone is being indoctrinated. Children may be raised as JW’s (like me) but there’s no obligation to get baptised if you don’t want too. No one forces you to believe or accept these things, as you’re encouraged to think for yourself as an individual. You can’t get baptised as a baby/small child unlike in may other religions. I think the youngest you can get baptised is 12/13 however if may have changed (I doubt it)

If you're no longer a Jehovah's Witness what is your relationship with your parents/siblings now (assuming they're still alive)? Have you been cut off? An old work colleague left the JW and was subsequently cut off from his entire family for leaving the JW. Does that still happen?

When my 71 year old grandma goes on the ministry, she isn’t harassing anyone in my opinion. If she knocks on a door and doesn’t get an answer, she’ll move on to the next door. If she knocks on the door and someone answers, she’ll ask if they can spare 5 minutes to speak on a topic mentioned in the Awake or The Watchtower. If they say ‘no’ or close the door on her face, she’ll make a note to not visit that person again.

Harassment would be continuously going back to that door, shoving things in their letterbox and not leaving them alone. Unless I misunderstand what it is to harass someone, there’s no harassment involved. I don’t think it’s possible to ban people going from door to door because what will charities and other businesses do that also knock on doors?

How is it that the mentally infirm are targeted when you don’t know who’s door you’re knocking on? I’m sure you’ve seen JWs publicly witnessing near tube stations, bus stops and other places. How would they target a specific group of people when they stand at their stations and have to be approached by someone who wants to approach them? In terms of baptism, no one forces anyone to get baptised especially if they have difficulty in understanding what it is they’re actually doing.

You seem to have interesting views and it’d probably be helpful if you actually met a JW and spoke with them. Your view seems to be quite dark and none of what you’ve said is something I’ve ever experienced in all my years of growing up within the religion

Do you still speak to your family?