Thanks for all the well wishes ... some have have been inadvertantly confused. I am noting that its 15-years since my last official talk/act as a JW before I resigned. My actual birthday (56) will not happen until May 11.
Slimbuyfat: You noted the following which deserves some commentary from me.
I agree the Witnesses are wrong, but let's have some perspective. People all over the world believe all sorts of fabricated stories. Jehovah's Witnesses are not special in that respect.
Yes, many do believe fantasies. And, even if others religious leaders "know" that they teach fantasies, the focus of my discussion is the Watchtower Society. A classic false argument is to allow one group or person to get by with something simply because others may also do it. The problem with the JW fantasies is that they are especially harmful, and are deliberately perpetrated upon the JWs.
I don't agree if you mean to imply that the leadership do not believe it's the truth. There may be isolated power hungry disbelievers, but as the exception not the rule.
The difference is that the Watchtower knows that it has fabricated much of its belief system. Ray Franz, former GB member stated in one of his books (C of C, I believe) a quote by some GB members who said that they could just take a date (false prophecy) and move it from one shoulder to the other. Thus it was implied that they cold move dates around and it mattered not. His uncle, GB member Fred Franz (deceased) stated in the Douglas Walsh trial that even if the Society teaches false prophecy (as they had already done) the JWs were still obligated to believe and accept it. Dan Sydlik (GB- deceased) once told Tom Cabean (Factory Overseer), as reported to me by Tom, that he felt the Society had it (their beliefs) all wrong, and they they needed to go back to Genesis 1:1 and start all over again. The GB knows ... and one only has to get immersed into it long enough to see and understand this point. They know about the pedophile issue ... they know about the victims ... and they still act as they do. Ray Franz himself knew what they taught was wrong and rpesented his findings to the entire GB. The aregument did not center on his findings, but the voting-political structure of the day. He was forced to resign. Truth is not something that the Society for which the Society holds any concern.
Jim Whitney