I was raised JW, and left at age 18 after heavily researching and deprogramming myself for over a year. After leaving I was still christian, but plauqed by the same questions and desire to find out what is true I began to research the bible as literature, figuring that it would therefore be free of theological interpretation. WHat I found out amazed me, I thought I knew the bible well from my JW training, but in reality i knew nothing. One of the more facinating things you can do is research the dead sea scrolls. My idea of them from my JW days was that they found some very old scrolls in the middle east that verified that the bible had remained unchanged for thousands of years. Boy was I wrong!!! The dead sea scrolls are absolutley revolutionary. THey contain many missing links between the evolution of judaism into christian thought. After all, what religion exactly did john the baptists belong to? Jesus was a disciple of john. Jesus spoke very very highly of john, saying the one that came before me is greater. Theres tons of controversial stuff, stuff that raises many doubtsa on the cannonized bibles being an accurate representation of the religious beleifs of ancient jews and ancient christians. Read the gospel of thomas, one of the few published works found among the dead sea scrolls. THis lost gospel, written in aramaic, the language of jesus and his disciples while on earth, is a insightful read. There was even a major hollywood movie based on it called stigmata. Only a very small of the works found within the caves of the scrolls have been published..even now, more than 50 years later they are still trying to translate everything.
My standing right now is I am not christian..after all I researched i cocnluded the bible is a very flawed book, tainted by centuries of peoples medling with it and molding it into what they wish. It;s just another book to me, no holier than the ingredient list on my box of kellog's corn pops. Jesus lived, but to me he is just a man, a follower of another man, john the baptist. I am not arrogant enough to say there is no god, but if there is one he or she or they certainly don't gicve a damn about us. Read the darwin awards website to see how people die everyday doing stupid things or making a little mistake that cists them their lives.
Among the x-jw friends in my area, they are all agnostic like me. We have written offf christianity :) But I wont condem others for being christian. Just when the beleifs get pushed on me. Like that damn bush administration here in US.
-Dan
