While I am new to this network, the evidence seems to be overwhelming that the WBTS is in decline. While many voice their pleasure at this prospect, it is in many ways sad for me:
It is sad that so many have spent such a great quantity of their early lives supporting a cause that appears to have been a waste of time. Time which could have been spent preparing for competition and function in the real world.
It is sad that so many seem to suffer from post-related emotional discomfort which in extreme cases lasts entire lifetimes. Pain that has been initiated by those whose love was once conditional and who now no longer wish to be a part of the everyday lives of the affected.
I am sad for parents and grandparents who are too old to abandon the only faith they ever knew and look elsewhere. These also will see the end of their group yet will have to practice denial in order for their lives not to have been lived in vain.
It is sad to see marriages and families that require two sets of goals ... one predicated on living forever, the other on seventy or eighty years of existence. For me, that is hardest part. To maintain a relationship with a mate that somehow reasons you don't love them since you do not have the hope of spending eternity with them.
There are no winners here and now ... only hope for generations to come ... those who will have one less cause for pain and separation to deal with.
Yet somehow history shows that others will rise up with twisted, selfish, and damaging causes which will result in a similar lament from future scribes. Or, as a species, will we have learned our lessons?