Sarabi,
Welcome to the site. My situation is similar to your family, except that it is my wife who is not happy about me being on this site. I commend you for at least checking the site out, which my wife refuses to do. Cognac is not hiding anything from you, since all of her posts are publicly available to read... just click on her profile. I am not DA'd or Df'd, merely an irregular publisher who no longer goes to meetings. So you won't be communicating with an "official" apostate by reading this or responding.
I have a few points to add. I am a very new member of this site, since I just came to my conclusions about a month ago. I was an elder for 7 years, I was a special pioneer for 5 years, a bethelite for close to 3 years, and I went through Gilead and served in Latin America for about a year and a half.. What really helped me to wake up (Similar to Snake's experience) was my Gilead training. We went thriogh the whole Bible and scores of Society's publications and teachings that I had no idea about.
2 points I had trouble accepting (since Gilead), which led to the unraveling of everything else:
1. The 1914 issue: The 607 BCE start date was already mentioned on another post. I was not aware of that issue, but my concern with the date was from my Biblical study of Daniel. If you compare the 7 times prophecy with the 70 weeks prophecy, you will note some differences. The 70 weeks prophecy is very specific.. It explains the start date, the length of time, and the result (the messiah will come at 69 weeks and will be cut off in the middle of the week.) This prophecy is straightforward. However, the 7 times prophecy in Dan Ch 4 is about Nebuchadnezzar. It is a stretch to apply it to 7 Gentile Times. If this is the most important prophecy that we need to base our faith and hope on, then why didn't Jehovah just write that from the destruction of Jerusalem to the installation of the messaih as king there will be 7 times. That would be brief and would follow the pattern in Dan Ch 9. After weighing the arguments in the society's publications I came to the conclusion that Ch4 is merely talking about Nebuchadnezzar, and not God's soveriegnty.
2. The faithful slave class - Who really is the faithful slave? My stepfather is of the anointed, and I asked him recently if the GB had ever contacted him about anything, and he responded that they had not. In fact, they do not even know who he is!!! Besides this anecdote, my experience at Bethel and Gilead showed me that the majority of the information that is printed by the organization is prepared by brothers who are of the "other sheep." So this means that the "other sheep" are producing most of the information that is read by JWs worldwide, including the anointed that are in the field! So how is it that the GB represent the rest of the anointed and feed them as if they are the domestics - if the feeding is being done primarily by the O.S?This realization helped me to see that the WTS is not following the Biblical model they claim to follow, and something is "off" with their model.
These and other points that I began to question, such as the concept of the "other sheep" (John 10:16), "the Lord's Day" (Rev1:10) and others led me to realize that I did not believe in the major tenets of JWs, and this led me to find this site.
Please don't feel we are anti-JWs. Even the really bad "apostate" Ray Franz writes in his books that he doesn't support Watchtower bashing or picketing. I have found great support on this board which I need to maintain my sanity.
Take care.
A@G
