I appreciate with what iamwhoiam says about how Witness veterans can and should share our memories of what it was like in the organization forty years or so ago. It was a radically different environment then. If any who had passed away since that time were resurrected into today's WTS "spiritual paradise", I doubt they would even believe the people they would come in contact with were really Jehovah's Witnesses. There has been a sea change in the organization from top to bottom since those heady days of Armageddon-anticipation.
I find it interesting what is happening with respect to the older publications as iamwhoiam has pointed out. Most of them have been quietly removed from Kingdom Hall libraries and either given to those Witnesses who have wanted them or, as is the more frequent case, destroyed. This is the paper trail the WTS does not want present-day Witnesses to ever see. But that has always been the modus operandi of the organization. I can't recall ever putting my hands on a physical copy of anything C.T. Russell wrote or J.F. Rutherford either, for that matter. And while the WTS used to mention such publications as Studies in the Scriptures, The Finished Mystery, Light, Vindication, Enemies, Children, Babylon the Great Has Fallen! and others with pride, now their titles and existence have been drowned in silence and secrecy.
But there is no mystery as to the reason for all this revising, rewriting and denying of history. If anyone read those old books and writings, he would immediately draw the conclusion that this organization has proved false to its claim of sole divine direction and support. The history of failed predictions and prophecies, the simple-minded and parochial worldviews expounded, and the chauvinism, sexism and racism advocated, would quickly destroy all those claims. And as others have pointed out, the WTS has even altered some of the documents on its Watchtower Library CD. The texts there sometimes are at variance with the original hard copies that can be read in the old bound volume series. The alterations have been subtle, but they have had the effect of changing the flavor, thrust and meaning of the original thought or teaching that was put forward.
If this organization had divine sanction, it would be as transparent as glass. It would have nothing to hide and would welcome inquiries from all quarters. It would encourage active, restless and energetic study and investigation of not only its teachings, but of the Bible itself. It would foster autonomy, creativity, independent thinking and free will among its followers. But the passing of time has seen it do the exact opposite. And now that we have the tyrannical and retrograde "leadership" of the present Governing Body, we will witness continued atrophy and decay leading, I sincerely hope, to the organization's collapse. That day can't come soon enough.
Quendi
