I had an interesting experience over the weekend. I took a couple of my in-laws on a trip as a present. Unfortunately they wanted to attend a meeting while they were out of town. They are totally indoctrinated pioneers and tried to recruit new cult members everywhere they went.
I went to the meeting with them and what a steaming pile of crap that WT study was. It really took the cake with all that "faithful slave, faithful slave" baloney. The brainwashed comments were all the more convincing of how far gone these people really are.
Anyway we met a couple who invited us to lunch. They told us about their backgrounds. Neither of their parents were still Witnesses. They said that they had slowly stopped attending meetings and drifted away. "But Mom," the wife said she told her mother, "you raised me to serve Jehovah no matter what." This daughter had been baptized at the age of ten!
The husband said that his family had "for lack of a better word, just gotten involved with living life." (LOL!) He even quoted the recent religious survey that showed the retention rate among JWs who grow up in the truth is around 30 percent. (Never mind that I told my wife that recently and she didn't exactly believe me.) The couple related that most of the friends they grew up with were no longer Witnesses. The husband also described all that he was doing for the Kingdom Hall both as wonderful and as "being abused by the congregation".
It just saddened me how this religion divides families. The parents had raised their children in WT thinking too well. Now the children couldn't understand their parents and the parents didn't want to continue in what they formerly believed. I thought if everyone could just live and let live, who really cared? But that's the trap of this overbearing religion.
I was both happy and sad for everyone there. I was the only one who understood what was really going on, who could see the big picture, and yet- what could I say? You can't tell these people anything, and if you try- you get that "evil apostate" label. In the end I'm just thankful to know what I know and hope I can seed enough doubt to eventually free those close to me.