Hi Cold Steel,
"There's no ritual shunning, Latter-day Saints can visit any church they want or read any religious materials they wish."
Compared to the Witnesses this is a point in favor for Latter-day Saints. As is this...
"They're actually encouraged to seek the highest education they can"
John Cedars is an Ex-JW who sometimes posts on this site and he is the author behind jwsurvey.org. He asked about shunning on exmormonforums.com. One response he got from "Rainfeather" was this:
From what I've heard about the way people are treated when they leave the JWs, yes I would say they are worse. With Mormonism, it's more of an individual thing. One family might tolerate a member who has left, while another family will shun entirely. It's a different experience for everyone. But the stories of shunning are just so sad and it's all so unnecessary.
"The Latter-day Saints are completely different, but there's no convincing some people."
I do not assert the Latter-day Saints are the same as Jehovah's Witnesses. Several aspects of those differences are exactly what you highlight in your post. What seems to be the case is this. For believers in either faith the focus is on doctrinal points and what supports those. The doctrine is all important, because it is correct and the truth, for reasons X, Y, Z. In the initial stages of doubting most disaffected members begin to examine the foundation of those doctrines and find them faulty. However, after awhile the focus shifts to aspects of how one was mislead, how wrong, but subtle arguments were presented and reinforced, etc. How control structures with the faith worked. In this Ex-Mormons and Ex-JWs often find common ground.
I doubt any believing member would find anything more the most superficial commonality between the faiths. Instead, if they did gaze over the fence it would be to laugh at how silly the other faith is in one regard or the other.
I believe almost no one on the outside can convince a believing member they are part of a faith the lacks a factual basis. Instead, something happens within the faith, that causes the member to question. Only then do such folks begin to take seriously what critics of the faith are saying.
"But what is death?"
The opposite of life.
"It's a separation. Spiritual death is a separation of man and God."
There is no evidence of this apart from a statement of belief.
"As for Ecclesiastes, it's clearly a philosophic book and not an eschatological book."
Says, who? Eccleiastes is part of the inspired word of God and truthful in all it's plain statements of fact!
I am of course being sarcastic, since again, either view amounts to a statement of belief. All we can say for certain is Ecclesiastes is an ancient book written in Hebrew that became part of the Bible canon. The writer certainly does seem to focus on the vanity of life, but I don't think there is any reason to believe he was merely being philosophical when he said the dead "know not anything." Rather, in context the writer is reflecting on the value of being alive in constrast to being dead. As he said, a live dog is better than a dead lion.
"And the apostles asked Jesus, "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents that he was born blind?" (John 9:2) How could that man sin before his birth if he did not exist? Jesus made no attempt to correct them."
Hmm... I don't think the account demands that conclusion. The answer Jesus is said to have given here is this: "Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."
The parents were of course alive while the child was in the womb, so they could have "sinned" then. Likewise, it may have been the belief of Jews then, that an unborn child could "sin" while in the womb. In any case Jesus said neither had sinned.
But, there is little point for me to go into great detail on these points. I don't believe in God or that Jesus was anything more than a man who long ago died along with everyone else in his time period. Likewise, I don't believe Jehovah's Witnesses have the "truth", so all I can do is share what I know about the faith, but I have no interest in defending their doctrines.
"You're also correct that death ends animated life. If you've ever lost a family member or friend, or if you've ever had an animal as a pet, once dead, the body looks different. It's clearly a shell in which the spirit, an eternal being, resides."
Again, this is just an assertive statement of belief. To say the body "looks different" is obvious enough, why would we expect any different, given the physical actions of respiration have ended?
"Injustice? How? The Lord has stated that children who die return to the Lord and will inherit eternal life, without the necessity of going through the pain and suffering of human life."
Hmm..., okay...
"I wish I could have died that young, though if I had, I don't think I would have appreciated death and a return to God as much."
I'm trying to imagine how the parent of the 5-year-old would react if you told them, no injustice had befallen them and in fact you wish you could have died at that age too. Not to be too hash, but this is just contempt for life now, we know we have. All such talk of after-life is, at best, wishful thinking. Jehovah's Witnesses routinely talk about the wonders of paradise earth without seemingly giving a thought to the genocide that must proceed it.
"On the other hand, many of those who live selfish, hedonistic lifestyles or reject the existence of God experience fear and for that reason refuse to move on."
What though of atheists who are not selfish and hedonistic? Who have not so much "rejected the existence of God" but instead accepted life for what it really is? Could it be they neither live in fear and have "moved on" from superstitious belief, that is?
"Indeed they do [claim ordination as ministers]. But from whence do they get their authority?"
The same place as any who make such claims. It is a faith claim. Each particular faith dictates these rules -- that is their proragative. Saying they aren't ordained, but I am, because of this or that, is, again just another statement of belief.
"They may surmise such, but do the JW Governing Body members see visions, have angelic ministrations?"
Jehovah's Witnesses do not make such claims, but again, they would view with suspicious any who do. In any regards Latter-day Saints are not alone in these claims. TV Evangelist Oral Roberts claimed to have several visions, including one in 1977 from a 900-foot-tall Jesus who told him to build City of Faith Medical and Research Center (see Wikipedia for more details).
Cheers,
-Randy