I find its a real challenge; like I was angry at God for quite awhile in that why would he allow myself, my parents, siblings to join an organization when we were sincerely and earnestly seeking Him? My parents and a brother are still in, one of my brothers who was never baptized still attends but my whole family is still quite loyal to the organization. I don't bring up things with them much anymore but it was the overlapping generations piece that killed it for me.
So I don't feel that I've been scarred in any way, in fact, in some ways I'm thankful in that while it wasn't infallible, it did help me discern other aspects of religion. Like I don't watch Olsteen or Jakes or any of the other large money makers because all they talk about is prosperity with themselves becoming very prosperous by the donations coming in. Nothing wrong in being comfortable in this life but there needs to be a balance in accord with the bible. So right now, pretty much lukewarm on religion.. I too grew up always fascinated by the new age stuff and I look at things on Youtube, but even there, underlying many of them, is that there is no God or that 'we" are gods; eternal souls with no beginning and as such, no need of a creater (got into some debates with some on youtube about that).
So at this point, every now and then I listen to Charles Stanley but then he also gets into politics and a focus just on america so then I tune him out as well. There is the Reformed Church of Christ who seem to borrow a lot of the same beliefs as the witnesses (the good beliefs I'll say), but they also focus just on the "English Speaking Nations of the World". I sent them a number of emails about that and how could they exclude the rest of the world.
So to me its exhausting and I've given up on trying to find another religion. I feel a void but really not sure what to do about it. I do like the post about the universalist church though, I too felt like Witnesses were taught not to worry about these social justice things, the kingdom will take care of it. Well, the kingdom isn't here so....
I remember bringing up something to a brother one time. A guest speaker came in after having been a missionary in Africa and I remember him constantly referring to going to "deepest darkest africa"; almost a throw-back to some racist terms of early explorers. I saw some of my african american brothers and sisters look a bit uncomfortable during the talk and I eventually walked out thinking could he not be more insensitive with so many in the audience? So the universalist church and the bahai are two that eventually I may look into.
