The advancing technology of the Internet will continue to change the topography of the Watchtower. They can no longer function with the age long philosophy of business as usual due to the proliferation of computers and the easy access to information. This as we have seen will lead to more baby boomers and generation xers logging on to educate themselves of the truth about the JW truth.
Individuals are going to fall into one or more of several categories as they take the initiative and expose themselves to factual information about the Watchtower. This segmentation of people is due to everyone being at a different place and stage in their lives. Other factors are their past experience inside of JWs, personal motivation, extended JW family relationships, the hierarchical position inside of JWs, financial status, psychological health, exit plan, etc.
I once had one JW family who was so disillusioned, that when I presented the facts to them they made their exit plan and in less than three months were completely out. The woman had suffered from numerous experiences at the hands of incompetent elders. She, through her own personal experience saw the religion for what it is. This family had no other extended JW family to lose so their decision was quick and final. Making the adjustment back into society was not an easy thing for the mother due to her lack of job skills. The children did not fare much better; they were born into the religion and also had put off a college education so they worked at minimum wage blue-collar jobs, two of them trying to support a family.
Then there is the couple that the wife was ready to exit while he was not. He was a second generation JW who had a lot to lose. He had business relationships, extended family, and the JW experience was his whole way of life. He spent a good two years reading everything he could get his hands on in order to convince himself that what he was reading was factual. He even went to the kingdom hall to read the original books to convince himself of their rewritten history. At the end of this, he was not only convinced but was en expert on the history of the Watchtower. He and his wife were instrumental in helping others to exit from the religion.
One lady was already out but she still defended the JWs blaming herself for being too liberal. When she learned the facts she transformed that guilt into self-confirmation of her intuition. She was going to school at that time and finished with an associates degree. Last I heard of her she was working and living her life to the fullest.
Another lady that was inactive semi probed to learn to the facts but not having a support system decided to go back to the JWs. She is a middle aged woman with no job skills divorced and no support system whatsoever outside of JWs. This lady probably made the right choice for her because outside of the JW subculture it would have been very hard to reconstruct her life.
I loaned one of Rays books to another inactive client and she went home and left the book on a coffee table for her mother to see. Her mother a retired teacher read the book in one weekend. She took all her JW literature put it in boxes and went and left it at the door of one of her elders house. She included a letter telling him she did not want anything else to do with JWs. This woman had been a JW for some 30 years.
One man was unable to function or exist outside the social structure of the JWs. He was very codependent and was still mourning the loss of his JW wife. Leaving for him was not an option he would even consider. He was a Watchtower apologist that would rationalize and justify all the wrongs inside of the Watchtower. He was also invested with a lot of business contacts inside of the religion.
One lady became very knowledgeable about the Watchtower yet she could not leave for fear of losing her aged father. While she was inactive she still was cordial to the JWs when they would call on her to encourage her. She at times though would fluctuate between feelings of exiting and staying. What would motivate her was her anger and inconvenience of having to live a lie. She was caught in a double bind not wanting to set a bad example of hypocrisy for her young daughter.
I am sure you have your own story to tell, we all do. Each of our stories is unique while the paradoxes may be similar they are never quite the same. In the final analysis no one but us can make that decisive choice of whether to stay or leave. We alone will have to face and live with the consequences of our actions. In that moment of our decision our destiny and quality of life is set. We should be ready to revise any belief, we should change a belief where there is compelling reason to change it, and we should not change a belief wantonly without some good reason. The first point needs intellectual courage, the second, intellectual honesty, and the third, wise restraint. Do not believe anything but question only what is worth questioning.
We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinkers damn is the history we make today. Henry Ford