If Jehovah's Witnesses have the Truth; why do they take hostages?
The threat upon leaving is twofold.
1.Extinction at Armageddon
2.You'll never be able to communicate with your bros. and sisters again
Who did Jesus ever disfellowship? Not even Judas! When faced with a person who deserved death under the Law he forgave her and instructed her to "go and sin no more".
Jesus was criticised for keeping company with tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes.
Jesus taught continued forgiveness.
Jesus taught that the Law was to serve man's benefit (such as Sabbath law) and not the other way around.
Jehovah's Witnesses claim to represent the government led by this same Jesus and yet they pile rules galore upon the rank and file.
The TRUTH will set you free; Jehovah's Witnesses never will.
The fact that a person who leaves the organization cannot easily rid themselves of the conditioning is more a tribute to the Stockholm Syndrome and mind-rape of the Governing Body than it is to a feeling that one has left the "true" religion behind.
(Stockholm Syndrome describes the behavior of kidnap victims who, over time, become sympathetic to their captors. The name derives from a 1973 hostage incident in Stockholm, Sweden. At the end of six days of captivity in a bank, several kidnap victims actually resisted rescue attempts, and afterwards refused to testify against their captors.)