Thanks everyone for your comments. Yes I was in deep. If I was just a little less curious I have no doubt that I'd be super elder today. I might even have had a cape!
Writing this out is a relief. This side of my story has never been told to anyone in entirety. I have a reason for typing this all out, but I'll get to that later on.
Part 2:
So, what to do. I researched the society's publications for inconsistencies. I gave them a very wide berth. I wasn't looking for a reason to leave so mistranslating "Man" as "Sir" wasn't going to send me packing. There were a few other issues, but they all seemed to be reasonably explained. Yes, you're laughing, but remember I was still very active and this was supposed to help build my faith. I was mainly using the CD archive and was very perplexed as to why they didn't include all the volumes of books and magazines back to the start. Surely it would be easy to find someone that had them. Why was the date cut off there?
I had been to bethel and seen pictures of the governing body celebrating Christmas. If you think you are going to convince someone to leave by bringing up things like that you'll find that the elders will readily admit to it as well as permitting smoking and voting and other things.
Okay that answered my question. In older publications the society's grasp of what's expected of a Christian was still being formed. We were coming out of thousands of years of darkness and the light was still getting brighter.
Good explanation, makes sense but something didn't sit right with this. Okay, so the organization made some mistakes, why cover them up?
Didn't David have a man killed so he could cover up his adultery with his wife?
Didn't Peter deny Jesus three times on the night of his death?
Didn't Paul stone and persecute the Jews until his conversion?
The bible was full of examples of being... well imperfect. Okay so the lesson is, we suck. But why would God's new organization be so intent on hiding these imperfections? I am still in pro-JW mode here so I let it pass a small infraction.
So I went on the internet to see if I could find these older books, I was naturally curious as to what they contained. At the time the internet was still pretty murky so I checked out the newsgroups. I was appalled to find exactly what the society warned us about. Apostates.
Seriously, there was a group of extremely bitter, vengeful angry people. They were just like those that had been cast out God's light. I read their posts and laughed at their ignorance. I took their posts and pointed out their flaws in my mind. They made it easy to do with petty attacking posts. I knew not to get involved in posting because they were the ones outside weeping and gnashing their teeth. I was better than that. My faith was getting the boost it needed.
People that were angry they couldn't have premarital sex.
People that were angry they their deception was discovered.
The reasons given were weak at best.
They don't believe Jesus is God, boo hoo.
They don't take blood transfusions, read the bible fool.
They don't celebrate holidays, cry me a river.
They once taught that aluminum was evil, how absurd.
WTF, aluminum?
That caught my attention and I read more. This poster wasn't a raving lunatic. He was neither bitter or angry. He seemed to derive humor in some of the older teachings.
This is when the scales fell off my eyes to coin a bible saying. Aluminum? You've got to be kidding me. I researched it more and found it to be true. With the acceptance of such an absurd belief I was now open to taking a closer look at the lives of C.T.R and Rutherford and the drama. I was floored. Russell’s wife actually divorced him over his relationship with a younger sister living with them. While infidelity was never proven, it's a major insinuation to make, especially considering the women weren't treated with much respect back then.
I started to look at Russell’s predictions for the end. Several failed dates, and the resurrection of the dead on earth. His court case when challenged about the authenticity of the bible and he claimed to have done the translation himself. The prosecutor produced a passage of text in ancient Greek and asked him to read from it and he was unable.
Floored, my shaky foundation of faith was now shattered. It was a very substantial blow to have dedicated your life to a lie. I was at first very bitter for the lies but that didn't last.
I had used to have major religious arguments with schoolmates using BBS's (old school internet) I would preach and witness to people and even asked if our CO if I could count the time. He said no and to be careful with this online association. If only he knew what the internet would become. But one example that one of my classmates used to describe religion has stuck with me to this day.
Nobody wants to die.
If you trap a wild animal, it will fight to it's dying breath to escape. There is a primal urge to keep living and guess what, humans aren't exempt from this. The key difference is what triggers this instinct is the knowledge of imminent death.
Being self aware, we, as humans are also aware that we will one day die. Uh oh, we don't want to die. What keeps this primal urge from making us go insane?
Ding! Religion.
You don't die, you are reincarnated.
You don't die, you go to heaven.
You don't die, you will be resurrected to a paradise earth.
Ahhhh, so much better. I can continue my life knowing that I am not going to die. So in actuality, all religion is, is finding what type of afterlife is acceptable to you for you to believe. That's why it's so hard to shake someone's believe in thier religion. If you succeed in shattering their faith, you convince them (subconsciously) that they are going to die. The primal urge kicks in and they cling to their faith even harder.
Personally, I don't know what will happen to me when I die. I will credit the creation book in presenting that the universe is very complex and may have had a designer. But I refuse to follow the same trap as everyone else and try to guess as to something I have no basis for. If there is an afterlife, bonus. If there isn't, I won't know about it. Personally I am fine with my life as it is and will focus it on being a good individual and enjoying what life has to offer. I don't need elders to judge me. I don't need flashes of light to guess what I should believe. I just needed myself to be comfortable with who I am.
I came to this realization over 10 years ago and no longer needed to be a witness. Being able to step back and look at the organization in a curious and inquisitive manner yielded many more insights that only created a new foundation that the JW's were not what they presented.
I'll get to those later, I had a more serious issue. I had fallen in love. I was on the verge of DAing myself, I had recconciled that my family would turn their backs on and had a letter drafted up to formally disassociate myself.
But if I've learned one thing, it is fate has a sick sense of humor as I realized that I had fallen in love with a witness girl.