i was a jehovah's witness from the age of 6 till 17. i was disfellowshiped at 14 after running away to san diego with my two friends. we were put on a sort of trial and forced to confess things in front of a panel of elders. at one point a woman acussed my friend of having sex with his sister, which of course was not true, but shows how ugly the proceedings got. this religion tore my family apart. both my parents and my sister are still devoute members of the group. the crazy thing is, i eventually repented in order to make our home life more comfortable. when i was 17 i finally said enough and formally disasociated myself permanently. i can barely remember celebrating any birthdays or holidays and fought with my mom so much that we barely speak anymore. i would never let my daughters alone with my parents. they will grow up free of indoctrination and decide on spirituality on thier own, that i swear! the greatest thing is when they come to the door preaching, i know the bible and the religion better than most of them do. it makes for intersting conversation!
i sorry to hear that. cults suck. did you know prince is a jehovah's witness, and always carries a bible in his pocket?
that seems a bit strange to me . i think prince is way to sexual to be a joho. larry graham is one, though, but not when he was in sly and the family stone.
In my opinion ABSOLUTELY! I fell in with that cult when I was about 14-15. Ruined that part of my life. But at least when I argue with Christians now I know a lot more. LOL. Glad to see you made your way out.
i grew up in the 50s. whent to high school in the 60s. never heard of any Branham. of course my parents weren't all that into all that kind of thing. my mom was raised jewish and my father, when i was growing up was a practicing humanist agnostic, who told me to go out and find whatever i wanted to believe in myself, or not if i didn't feel like it. i remember we watched, my mom loved television, i think maybe she almost still does, evey news show on there, and i still don't remember ever hearing that name or anyone by it. so i don't know where he could have been that big, other then maybe someplace where i wasn't. i take it this must not have been anywhere in the u.s. am i guessing britain? of course we lived smaller towns along the railroad up in the hills that didn't have ghettos, or suburbs either, i mean the largest town i lived in except for a couple of years in sacramento in the early 50s, was maybe 4,000 people, and most of them less then 1,000. so there weren't any 'store front churches' either. just methodests, catholics and assembly of god. i think there were a few j.w.'s, but i don't think they's built their 'kingdom hall' in that town yet either. the methodists were lukewarm oatmeal, the catholics were a closed and mysterious, at least to me, secret society, that some of the other kids in school belonged to. and other that it had something to do with the same christianity as methodists and assemblyists, was pretty much of a closed mystery to me. the assembly of god were at least entertaining, with their everybody singing the hymns and all that weaping and gnashing of teeth and 'speaking in toungues' stuff. but their anti-objectivity trip, well by the time i was 12 even i could see it was a matter of promoting their organizational self interest, which by then i was also beggining to suspect couldn't possibly have a whole heck of a lot to do with any kind of a god. =^^= .../\...
i once joined a cult of "space people" for free food and a place to stay when i was homeless. they followed an elder system and the guy at teh top was lord gabrieal "planetary ambasseder of this section of the galaxy" or somthing like that, he wrote all their literature and had the final say in everything. they studied the urantia and the cosmic family volumes all afternoon. it got super wierd so i left. true story. when in sedona az, stay away from the folks at aquarian concepts...unless you want to join them on the mothership when the rapture goes down. lol
Jews for jesus is a cult. My friend got sucked in, and now he can't jerk off. I told him to go ahead and release some testosterone and just flog himself after. Go to Youtube and check out clips from Jesus Camp....it's a sicko movie!
I,having no parents that cared for me and thusly receiving no religeous brainwashing or any other kind,learned to depend on my own mind at a very young age,like 4 or 5.It has been said that --"no one can do anything to you that you don't allow them to do."It's obviously false,from what I've read here.It's sad how some humans mistreat and manipulate others.I'm glad so many are able to break free of these awfull people.I have gone to various churches when I was younger to see what the fuss was all about.My impression was that the rituals unfolded like stage plays with director and actors dancing some esoteric dance that seemed unnecessarily structered to excercise control and gather money.
There was the United Pentecostal Church, but I did not really fit in. The way they tapped into the collective unconscience was interesting though.
I was a Christian till I was 19, which I definitely consider a cult! Especially when I was a member of a Pentecostal church. It wasn't as strict as some - we wore pants outside of church, makeup was allowed, nobody cared about your hairstyle (except for supershort hair on women or past the shoulders hair on men). They still did speaking in tongues, dancing, that weird "EH" after every word in the sermon (if you're from the south you know what I mean), sex that's not procreative is EVIL, etc. I even took part in a "haunted house" that demonstrated what would happen during the tribulation. I'm 24, so I've been out of Christianity for going on five years (I'm Wiccan now). I'm still fighting its influences. I'm just now able to enjoy sex completely, I no longer feel bad about being attracted to women, I don't have to get up early on Sundays to be bored out of my skull. But I still get that "OMG, what if they're right?" feeling sometimes and I can't help but feel like a bad person sometimes for not being a Christian because I was taught that anyone who knew about Christianity and chose not to follow it MUST be a bad person. I could go on and on, but that's my experience.
Sure I've been in a cult before. It's called the Pentacostal Church and it was against my will at age 15. My mother and I ran away screaming after hearing the garbage they spewed.
I was also involved with a fundamentalist Christian church in the early 90's called the Christian Life Church. The senior pastor gave out some really horrible vibes, used to yell and rant and rave the gospel like Hitler, they spoke in tongues, did 'healings' by pushing people to the floor and have them writhing around, and saw homosexuality as a sin. The pastor of the church was later involved in a legal battle over his property, and the church folded up. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. These people did not possess any love or compassion that Christ had.