If the scriptures tell us anything they tell us not to give blind obedience to men.
When Jesus talked about being a child of Abraham to the Jews he exhorted them to do the works of Abraham. The work of Abraham was to listen/obey God's voice only.
In my final interviews with the elders Abraham's faith at Genesis 22 was my saving. Why? Because Abraham was a human being who, even without a clear understanding of God's request, responded with all his heart and mind.
I told them that, like Abraham, I had to answer to God first before I answered to them. That conscience before God required me to act upon my understanding---not somebody else's. That without compelling, persuasive teaching to convince me of another viewpoint, then I would have to act on my own (even if flawed) understanding--because cowards are not approved by God. I was open to God changing my thinking (after all, Abraham didn't drive the knife into Isaac's throat when God stopped him and showed Abraham the ram in the bushes after all.) But for me to do and say what Bethel dictated given no more reason than that they had said it was not the way the first door-knocking JWs had presented a Bible study to me in the first place.
If I were to be a child of Abraham, I too had to give God direct consideration. Abraham didn't have a religious organization to interpret God. He didn't even have a King James Bible or a New World Translation. He didn't submit his contact with the Being to a mediation committee. Talk about ignorant! But Abraham listened--as best he could--to God. I realized I had given my ears to Bethel.
But now I wanted them back.
By the time the months of interviews were done and Bethel had reviewed and condemned my conscience ,I was realizing that I couldn't live any more blindly obeying the writings from Brooklyn.
Every poster here has said what is the real Truth--no group of men, no matter how educated and intelligent and full of years can rule over your faith and conscience. Even stumbling and falling, we have to answer on our own.
Maeve