I posed the question, "Were you that stupid all those years you were in the truth?" It is a reasonable question I think. And, apparently the answer for some of you is yes.
If by "stupid," waht you mean is 'able to be deceived by clever liars,' then, yes, many of us were that stupid. But that doesn't change the fact that JW's are clever liars. I was 17 when I got baptized as a JW. Young and naive. Utterly without the life experience that, with more maturity, might have caused me to be more skeptical about what I was getting into. Most people do stupid things at 17. Some get involved with drugs, with unwise sexual choices, with crime, etc. I got involved with a cult instead. I'm not proud of it, believe me.
So, my next question is, if you were that stupid then, what makes you trust your own judgment on matters now?
Maturity and experience. Following your reasoning to the logical conclusion, all JW's who converted from other religions should now go back to those religions, or, at least seriously question the foundations of the one they're in now. But we don't want them "thinking independently", now do we?
From my standpoint, then, those who have left the truth are the ones with the credibility problem, not those who remain.
Well, that's from your standpoint only, then. In this forum, you are the one with a very serious credibility problem. Like other JW's, you have frequently shown yourself to be less than honest in your presentations at times.
I can defend my faith on any topic of your choosing using the Bible and the Bible only.
I've never seen you do it once. Rather, in standard Watchtower fashion, you cite a scripture and meander off into wide areas of speculation and human reasoning. That is not at all the same thing as proving your case using the Bible alone.
Let's face it, not all of Jehovah's Witnesses have a personal relationship with Jehovah, but many do. Those who do are in the truth.
I would change "many" to "some," but I actually may agree with you to some extent on this. A few JW's may be individuals who have placed faith in Jesus Christ prior to their getting involved with the Watchtower. The relationship they formed at that time remains in place. Occasionally, you do meet a JW who appears to be a truly spiritual person. Most are simply followers of the organization. When such a truly spiritual person appears, he is usually at best seen as a "weirdo" by his congregation, and at worst gets disfellowshipped as an apostate, because he puts too much emphasis on Jesus and not enough on the organization.
And the Watchtower has served as an instrumentality by introducing us to God and Christ.
No. The Watchtower is an instrument used by Satan to keep people away from God and Christ. By imparting some Bible knowledge, a false gospel, and another Jesus, and by substituting itself for Christ as a go-between with God, the organization actually prevents people from coming to a real relationship with God and Christ, while at the same time providing them with a false "spirituality" based on numbers and outward works to keep them so busy that they don't know what they're missing.
I think you have allowed yourself to be stumbled by the failings of the Watchtower.
And one should be stumbled - away from the organization, that is - by its failings. The Watchtower presents itself as God's sole channel of communication, as His prophet in these "last days". That is a weighty claim that leaves no room for error. The fact that there are "failings" proves that the Watchtower (which is held to be closely associated with Jehovah's Witnesses until apologists like you find it necessary to distance themselves from its practices) is not what it claims to be. It is a false prophet organization, and God tells us not to be afraid of such ones. It is not as if an otherwise good organization had a few flaws in it. The Watchtower's claims are absolute. Its demands of its followers are absolute. Therefore, its performance must be absolute. But that is not the case. Therefore, the entire organization must be disregarded as a possible source of truth.
I find it interesting that in a 1993 Watchtower, the organization claimed that it could not be a false prophet, since "false prophets do not admit their mistakes". That is an absurd claim, and is actually an outright lie. The only prophets who could admit their mistakes are false prophets, since true prophets do not make mistakes! The words of true prophets are from God, and do not fail. It is only false prophets who present their own words who must later eat those words, as the Watchtower has had to do over and over again. For this reason, nothing they say can be accepted as pure and true. Everything must be discarded and reevaluated.