Raised in a family of JWs, I was taught that Memorial Day was a worldly celebration. And I believed that the WTS was right and all war was wrong. As I grow older, and watch those born in a carefree generation grow, I pause and wonder what would've been if all the eighteen year-olds in the 1940s would've been Jehovah's Witnesses. How many more lives would've the little man Hitler destroyed ? Would the world now be a better place ? How many copies of "Paradise Lost" would've been "placed" in the 1960s ? Would we all be in "Paradise?"
I've watched at gravesides as newly-disfellowshipped persons were lowered into the ground without a "brother" in sight. Perhaps this person had brutally murdered a stranger. Perhaps he had killed a child. His sin ? I don't know, perhaps he had smoked a cigarette or allowed his child to accept blood. How could he ? Certainly Jesus himself would not have forgived such a sin, how can we ?
To those that allow a corporation to dictate their hearts, those led astray are to be envied. If the annoucement is that you're disfellowshipped, who would stand by you ? They are your true family.