Thanks to everyone for their responses.
It is endlessly interesting to me how others feel about the Bible. My girlfriend, a recovering Southern Baptist, and myself, a recovering JW, have had many conversations based upon how and why we believed in the elements of our respective religions and why others still believe. Being a science and history buff from an early age I began to have questions about my JW doctrines at around 12 years old which caused me to avoid baptism. I am glad I did not take this step as my eventual leaving would have been even more painful and complicated. I was watched closely because of my unusual unbaptized status, especially by the time I was in my midteens, but I was generally a well behaved kid and kept most of my questions and opinions to myself allowing me somewhat normal relationships with other JW kids. I felt guilty because I could not reconcile what I saw in the congregation with our own JW doctrines, let alone, with what I read in the Bible. I had many questions and the Society's answers were pathetic at best. "Wait on Jehovah" was a constant refrain.
My growing love for science, history, and Eastern religion were all contributing factors to my hating the narrow minded ignorance the Watchtower Society encouraged. I also had an "evil" hobby which really challenged my faith in the Bible, I kept aquariums of both fresh and salt water fish. Whenever we studied the Flood I knew that there could not have been a release of fresh water into the oceans because all of the sea life would have been wiped out and the reverse would be true for freshwater fish if the flood had been of salt water so why did we have both fresh and salt water fish just a few thousand years later? This was especially difficult to explain considering the Society's hard line against evolution and animals changing over time. I knew from experiance that only a few special fish are capable of adapting from fresh to salt water environments, and even then it had to be done gradually. Corals and other delicate sea creatures could not tolerate even the slightest changes, so the World Wide Flood, as preached by the Society, was frankly impossible from this evidence alone. Not to mention huge amounts of other evidences piling up against the Society as 1975 came and went and 1914 receaded ever farther into the past with no end of this World in sight (the obvious failure of the 1914 Generation link to the End is even more shocking now that 23 more years have past since I left).
After I left home I just never went back to a Kingdom Hall. I struggled with my belief in God for years after leaving the Watchtower behind. Unfortunately, I had followed the Society's rules about higher education and had not taken college prep classes in high school nor applied for scholarships but my desire to learn was strong so I worked and saved my money and finally got into a University. I was older than the other students and not as well prepared but I made up for it in enthusiasm and took science and history classes. Wow! No wonder the Society discouraged a University education! None of what I had been taught by the Society was true. These classes supplimented my own research and knocked down every argument a Bible literalist could make. After several Geology, Biology, and Paleontology classes evolution made perfect sense, and other puzzle pieces started to fall into place. The World was much older, stranger, and its history far more complex than the Bible was capable of revealing. The God of the Bible was small, petty and illogical. I prefer my Universe without Him and His irratic behaviour. I reasoned that, if the Bible wasn't true, belief in a non-communicating extrabiblical God was pointless. I had finally become an Atheist.