When I first looked at the Internet without worrying who authored what I couldn’t believe how many people had similar stories of frustration, lack of love and mental and emotional stress! Their woes made me feel better. I was not alone. One of my greatest concerns at that time was that I must be following Satan. After all, according to JW lore, if you are not following the WTS you must be following Satan. Singularly the best book I read at the time was Elaine Pagels’ Origin of Satan which confirmed to me that there was no Satan – that Satan was largely the bogeyman of the tumultuous times around 70 CE when the destruction of Jerusalem was imminent. One way to show this is to compare the Satan of the writings much before Christ’s time with the Satan of the New Testament. Job’s Satan was quite different than John the Revelator’s Satan. A totally different creation. Causes always do better when the enemy is clearly identified – make him to be the Great Serpent and it unites the followers. I read much of Russell’s work and concluded (as others had) that he would have been DF’d for his beliefs had he been around today. That didn’t make sense if these same beliefs were the ones Jesus’ picked when he came as king of the kingdom in 1914. Russell used a lot of freemasonry words and symbols (there’s a pyramid by his grave, the cross and crown on the WTs and the wings of Ra were on many books). Even Russell said that a true Christian would not be baptized into a religion, only Christ. So, if he had been baptized after 1985 he would have balked at the notion of being baptized “in association with God’s spirit-anointed organization”. I read much of Rutherford’s work and felt duped that the much-referenced booklet “Millions Now Living Will Never Die” was actually about 1925 when the “ancient worthies” would most definitely return to the earth. He also said that in 1918 the Holy Spirit was done away with when God’s Organization was identified 1918 {SALV216-7}– so how can the WTS be “spirit-anointed” when there is no Spirit. Rutherford, a mean-mouthed drunk, was packed off to San Diego when he got too embarrassing. The Great Crowd speech of 1935 came about at the last minute before the convention of that year – it helped Rutherford explain why there were more coming to the Watchtower than would fill the ranks of the 144,000. The WTS uses “…” when just quoting parts of scholarly references that support their doctrines. If you read the full reference, in many cases it’s not the same as the WTS doctrine. There are even copies of letters on file from these said references asking the WTS not to misquote them anymore! In the case of Johannes Greber (the quoted scholar behind “the Word was a god”) you’ll find that he was a spiritualist. There are 10,000 pieces of evidence that disproves 607 BCE as the beginning of the Seven Years calculation. 587 BCE is a well established date for the destruction of Jerusalem. There is actually no evidence that states otherwise. The appendix in the Kingdom Book is actually circular reasoning. There’s a lot of circular reasoning in WTS material once you take an objective position in studying it. Based on the writings of a former GB member, the WTS does not pray over any major decision as you’d expect, nor does a majority vote necessarily count. In the case of the brothers in Malawi in the 70’s there was a majority vote to allow them a political party card, and thus escape persecution, but the GB bylaws said that a 2/3rds majority is required to pass a motion, so they continued to suffer. The New World translation of the Bible is not as scholarly as claimed. Yes, the language is simpler than the KJV, but the words are often loaded with WTS meaning. There was not one member of the translation committee that had credentials, not even Fred Franz. For example, the word Grace was replaced by Undeserved Kindness. How do you feel about the Grace of God compared to the Undeserved Kindness of God - Grace is unconditional kindness, Undeserved Kindness implies it to be conditional. Many of the favorite WTS Scriptures imply more than what is written. “Bad association spoils useful habits” stops the JW from hanging out with non-JWs, at any time. Most other translations use the term Evil, but most non-JWs are not Evil – even the JWs know that. It becomes a tag-line to keep the JW in line. “Free without spot from the world” is one of the identifying marks of the true religion. I liked that about the JWs, they’d put their money where their mouth was and take hardship over compromise. Imagine the shock to see the WTS on Scientology’s and Jimmy Swaggert’s side as an amicus curiae in some court cases involving sales taxes! Add to that the WTS working with the UN to get a non-cult status in some countries – working with the wild beast! Worse than that is the letter from the WTS to Hitler before WW2 stating that the Nazis and JWs had a lot in common, as they tried to position themselves as good Germans! I doubt the several hundred loyal JWs who died in concentration camps knew of that.