steve2, I agree with you 100%
Believe me, I claim WILLFUL ignorance as well as a measure of selfishness wanting to live in paradise. There is blame to go around and around.
The reason I made my post is I don't think people who believed what was said in that 1969 article were/are necessarily stupid. Our natural intelligence was not fostered or rewarded. We were directed to be "sheep like" as the gold standard for faithfulness. And the pressure from family? INTENSE As I was reading that article my much older brother was being shunned and disinherited by the family simply for not getting baptized!
All that being said I am mad at myself for being too stubborn and lazy to research my own religion as an adult.