-How powerful the thought of an afterlife is, if you can make people believe in it! What power would religions have over people if it weren't for the teachings of an afterlife?
While reading Crisis of Conscience way back, it dawned on me that most of the things that separate 'apostate' thinking from JW thinking, and makes us appalled at some of the teachings, is simply that active JWs truly believe that following the organization's guidance will lead to an ever lasting afterlife.
"You want me to dedicate my entire life to going to several weekly meetings, prepare for those meetings, conducting personal- and family studies, prepare for preaching, go out and preach, study with interested ones, go to conventions, prepare for talks, get only a brief education, get a low paying job, put my hobbies on hold... Well, I'm not sure. -What was that? -I'll make up for it in a perfect, everlasting afterlife? Wow, really!? Oh well sure - as long as I get another shot at life, why not? What - I can't have blood transfusions, and neither can my family? Well... I don't know then... What? Think about that afterlife? Yeah, you're right! What am I thinking!? What use is this life if what I do here prevents me from getting that perfect afterlife? Why would I jeopardize that by taking a blood transfusion? If worse comes to worst, I would see my loved ones 'on the other side' anyway. No biggie. So yeah - sign me up!"
"What - my uncle Carl died, only thirty years old!? So young... Oh well - he'll be resurrected anyway. No biggie."
"-His funeral memorial was mostly about the organization and not his life! Well, that's only fitting, seeing how the organization is what ensured his belief in an afterlife. We'll see him later anyway, so why not praise Jehovah and his org. at this time instead of Carl?"
"So they changed their doctrine because of new light, so that now it's OK to receive organ transplants while for some time it was not. So what? Those who died because they were loyal to the current 'light' at the time will be resurrected and rewarded anyway. No biggie."
It permeates everything. Anything non-believers can fling at a JW can bounce back with the reasoning of a perfect afterlife where everything will be OK.
"You were molested by an elder, he's still an elder, and it was not reported to the authorities? Well, that's really sad, but God will heal all wounds later on, and none of what happens in this life will matter once we get to the next life."
But Jehovah's Witnesses are not alone. All religions use the same ruse to some extent. Nowadays, few of them will ask you to do something that would potentially actually kill you, but many ask you to spend a lot of time, energy and money toward the faith, in order to be right with God and get that afterlife.
It has to be the choice of the individual how they decide to live their life of course. People's time is their own to do what they want. But should we respect it or allow it to continue when people's lives are at stake?
Now, religious people may interject here that if one does not believe in any afterlife, then one's eternal afterlife is at stake, and that that is even graver than if this current life is spent in a 'less than perfect' manner, or one dies prematurely.
But I've said it here before, and I'll say it again; One thing we can be 100% sure of is that we're alive here and now. Religious people can say they know that they'll be granted an afterlife, but we'll only know once we're dead (or not know since we'll be dead, as the case may be). And then this life has already been spent.
-If someone offers you an eternal afterlife in return for certain 'favors' or actions that seriously interfere with your current life, then you should ask for the same amount of certainty that you have about being alive currently; 100% certain evidence.
In my opinion.