even though i wouldnt consider myself to be the smartest on the planet, i wouldnt consider myself to be dumb as well. but your story @jws sounds similar to mine, except the fact that i am still in, anyway.
Before i got baptized my elder dad who I consider to be book smart (he reads a lot!!!, even worldly literature!!!) used to tell me, that i should research if thats the truth. So I asked him, where should I start with my research, and he would always point to the bible and the jw literature.
But see, being at the age of 13/14/15 I had better things to do that spend my free time doing research in the bible when I was barely doing my homework because of other interests.
But kudos to my dad for not pushing me to get baptized while everybody else was, especially my mom who I love a lot, but she is not the brightest person.
So reasons why I got baptized:
- To get everybody who was pushing me to get baptised off my back (that was every person who wanted to go out in service with me and my mom)
- Putting a stop to the study with my parents
- Make my parents proud
Thats how I got baptized at the age of 15. Add the fact that my friends back then were also getting baptized I being shy back then, I didnt want to do that step alone.
Speaking about my book smart dad, I had a lot of discussions about 607/1914 and the generation changes with my dad. Sometimes he appears open minded and sometimes he appears as a cult member, which tells me that he probably also has his doubts. Regarding 607 he said that he believes that the WTS did their research and probably everybody else is wrong. He doesnt like the new teaching regarding the generation, he thinks it is way too complicated and the average rink and file member would never understand it. But at the end of the day, he told me with his own words "even if the wts is wrong, where should we go?"
and i thinkt thats the reason that even some smart members stay
sidenote: isnt it funny that before you are allowed to get baptized they ask you 100+ questions but you can still get baptized for all the wrong reasons?