LG beat me to what I was going to say about your claims that exJWs are hypocrites for criticising JWs. It's a pretty common sentiment around here that we're all ashamed of our behavior when we were believing JWs. If a drug addict cleans up his life and proceeds to insist that his friend do the same, is he a hypocrite or a good friend?
So much of what you've said reminds me of how I once thought - if there's a god, then the JWs must be the truth. Unfortunately, I came to that conclusion after being born into the cult (I'll get to that in a second) and never really caring enough to do thorough research into the true doctrines of the bible (and certainly never considered that the JW bible had been tampered with in order to better fit their doctrine) - but why would I? The JWs were kind enough to provide their doctrine all laid out for me, complete with cherry-picked and out-of-context scripture to legitimize it. There's no room for dissent in JWdom so why research if there's the possibility that the research may reveal a flaw in your belief system?
On the topic of it being a cult, you'll want to investigate your definition a bit. I think most here don't necessarily refer to any religion that has an authority structure as being a cult. While it could be thought of as something of a spectrum (in which all organized religion would have some degree of cultness to them) I think it's usually pretty clear when a religion crosses the line into being a cult. For a good start on a better definition of a cult, try reading the information at the link below. This model of a cult was written by a man who had no exposure to JWs (but was, for a time, in the moonie cult). He identified common traits that all cults feature. See if anything seems familiar to you:
https://freedomofmind.com//Info/BITE/bitemodel.php
I'll offer you the advice that I wish someone had given me when I was at your stage - take things with a grain of salt, and be wary of making ad-hominem attacks in your head. There's no one path that you'll be forced to take. If you find that someone is an atheist, it doesn't mean that their biblical refutation of the JW doctrine is invalid. If someone became a satanist (a bit of hyperbole, but you may run into one or two), it doesn't mean that they were never a genuine devoted JW that left for legitimate reasons.
