Just a couple of tips for people searching for educated information, the posters as follows were great, among many others :
Leolaia for background on the Bible writings and their origins and more ! Doug Mason for the same, Alanf for much on the false JW teaching and on some JW history, and from these Threads you can be led to those of other early posters, some no longer on here, who will give you much insight.
I still find it annoying, slightly insulting even, unless I use the epithet as a label for myself, to be called an " Apostate". JW's tend to use it to dismiss what you say without reading. They forget of course that they are all Apostates themselves ! using the word in the sense of "standing apart from" a former belief. The ever changing JW teachings mean that they have become Apostates to the former teaching.