Sure the WT deceived you with its claim to be God's channel but why for so many is there a subsequent loss of faith in God ? It puzzles me and makes me wonder why they were JW's in the first place.
I was born in and I left because I found out the JWs weren't a chosen organization. It was just a bunch of men acting on their whims and doing damage along the way. So I decided to fade.
What next? I still believed the basic principles the JWs taught. That the Bible was the word of God, that God was not a trinity, etc., etc. Although there were many beliefs I wasn't so sure of anymore. One thing I did know is I despised the rituals in other churches. I knew from my JW beliefs that they weren't the answer either. I decided to study on my own and not be part of a church.
An ex-girlfriend thought I should have some teaching, so I studied with a Lutheran for a while. He taught me aspects of the Bible I had never heard before, like Grace. As for the trinity, some things seemed to indicate it. I left it on the "does it really matter" pile.
After that ended, I went solo for several years. When I married and my wife was going through some issues, she wanted to go to a church. We went to at least half a dozen. None of them fit right for me, but I went to one my wife liked. When she got through her issue, we stopped going. Didn't like the contemporary christian music they played anyway.
As I studied more, I learned just how fragile our belief system was. I looked with an open mind at things I had just assumed were fact. Like the Bible wasn't some sacred book handed down intact for generations. It was a book assembled by men after everybody mentioned in it was dead. And what got included and what didn't was often the subject of intense debate and even fights and I think may have also involved murder. And furthermore, what's been assembled isn't exactly perfect. The haphazard way with which it was assembled explains it's inconsistencies.
Then you also start to hear of other accounts, older than the Bible that contain striking similarities. There are also religious sects that may have influenced teachings and ideas. You get the feeling the Bible is just a rehash of other past religious tales.
You also start to read it critically. The great tales of Genesis just do not make sense. Like starting at the very beginning, how was God's spirit moving over water before the Sun had been created? It would have been ice. Read the creation accounts - both of them - and see if they are in perfect harmony. How about Noah? How many birds were on the ark? Depends on which scripture you read. How could the flood have really happened on a global scale?
You just look for the personality and mind of God and he's a spiteful, impetuous being. At least in the old testament. And then totally different in the new testament. Did God change or did man re-invent God? If God is never changing, then man changed God. So is this book to be trusted?
The Bible is no longer an infalliable book to me. Once you see it's errors, you can't go back. Is there a God? Could be? Was the Bible his story? Maybe some of it. Who knows? We can't prove it.
So what gives us our faith? Christians believe in their version of Christianity based on a book that's not exactly credible. What proof is there that anything in it happened? At least anything that relates to doctrine? Oh it says it's inspired by God. Anybody can write that. Jesus didn't even write any of it. All it is is quotes. Everything Christians believe is based on faith alone, based on the stories in a book.
That book might just have easily been movies like Star Wars. I wonder if years from now there will be a Star Wars religion. They will take all of the independent books about Star Wars written for the past 30+ years and assemble them together and pick and choose which ones agree with what they want to go forward and then create a Star Wars Bible. And if you don't believe it, it is the Dark Side working to keep you from knowing the truth about the good side of the Force.
And the same things about the Bible are true of the Talmud and the Koran. At some point, somebody decided to call it a Holy book because it spoke of God.
Our beliefs aren't built on solid foundations. We can believe if we want, but know that it's based on shaky ground.
That said, sure, there could be a God. But if he wanted to be worshipped and for us to follow his rules, don't you think he'd make it more clear? Wouldn't his book be perfect? And hasn't the world changed enough since the Bible that maybe a new set of rules needs to be set forth? For that matter, why even leave people hanging as to his existence? Why not make it very obvious?
