Boy...that was a great post! I dont usually read loooong posts like that because I have a short attention span but that fascinated me. It made me recall so clearly how VERY cool we JWs thought we all were then the Creation book came out. (The light blue one?) with alllll that scientific evidence backing up the Bible and all of it in OUR hot little BLESSED fingers and nobody elses. We were all that and a bookbag of chips, I tell ya. When I first was shown how the "quotes" in there were so taken out of context from the originals, and the author's meaning so misconstrued and facts manipulated...I was sick sick sick from how duped I had been. I actually helped my boyfriend at the time, an aspiring Elder in the Making, do his part of a Symposium on that book which was part of its introduction to the masses I guess. There is just so much emotionalism with religion.
Since leaving the Borg, one thought has always been with me...that if God wanted to write a book, he damn well should have been more specific...and like the folks in the upper room on that day, when everybody could speak and understand each others language...he should have and COULD have...made it clear as crystal to us all with no differences in meaning, no leeway for individual interpretation...and hence have avoided the incredibly deep and destructive divisions which are the result of RELIGION. It left me rather pissed at God for a long time...but then, he didnt write any of those books, we just SAID he did, so its not his fault.