Paduan, I beg to disagree in many ways.
Given, some of the things she wrote in her last post were uncalled for to say the least. To state that some are df'ed because of their own doing is cruel. For example, If a person is dying a slow and painful death because of lungcancer, you don't tell this person that he/she asked for it, and you don't tell this person "Well, thanks for all the warnings, but I have decided to pick up smoking again and inhale as deeply as I can". What Holly did was about the same. Some -many- people who come on this site are hurting inside. People like AFIN are not popular here, because they defend the very source which is the cause of their pain, and I fully understand that.
However, I do believe that Holly was honest. The essence of her first post was that she had been studying with the JW's for 8 months, and things were starting to get 'too serious' for her taste. She intended to get baptized in April. Once on this site, she stumbled upon a lot of information about the WBTS, which was all new to her. Her initial reaction was shock. She confronted the person she was studying with, asked a few questions regarding sore subjects, such as 1914, 1975, etc... and instead of answers, she received a "I don't think that you are ready to become a JW", and her study was dropped. It was then that she started to get involved more at this site, and started to ridicule the JW's in posts like "101 things to do at the KH". Then, when she posted her last two topics, which had a lot of responses, it was obvious that she became irritated while responding to the comments. The fact that she decided to go back to the JW's would not have seemed so harsh, had she not lashed out the way she did in her 'goodbye' post. But in the end, I really do believe that she was honest.
Unfortunately, I can very much identify with Holly. Should you look at my own posts, you'd see that I too swing back and forth between bashing the JW's and defending at least a few things about them. Why? It is called doubt and uncertainty. Even after reading a ton of useful information on this site, there are times when I wonder if perhaps I should go back to the JW's. Other times I wish they had never crossed my path. What I'm saying is, not everyone feels the certainty that the JW's do or do not have the truth. Different people look at different aspects in order to define justification for either JWD or for the JW's.
It was brought out that Holly is deaf. I don't recall reading this myself, but several people brought it up. Now, check this out.. Let's say you are thinking about buying a Toyota. After you are no longer happy with the things the Toyota dealer has told you about the car, you go to a website of ex-Toyota drivers, perhaps to confirm your doubts. Once you hear from all the members how many flaws the car really has, you are glad that you found that website, and you happily help bashing the car. But in the end, you find out that the Toyota has a build in radar detector for deaf people, it makes the seat vibrate whenever a police car is around. This one feature is something very important to you, so important that it outweighs all the other flaws, so you decide to buy a Toyota anyway. This might be the same thing with Holly. If she is deaf, then I can see where she would get attention from the JW's, in a way she has not had attention before. I read something about 'isolation' in one of yesterday's posts.. it is said that deaf people feel more, much more isolated than blind people. Should someone, or some organization be able to break through that wall of isolation, you can guess what kind of a joy that could be. Not to mention the promise of being 'perfect' (read : not deaf) in the 'new system'. Everyone needs a raft to hold on to in life's merciless waters. Some know that the raft will break and sink eventually, but prefer to believe the opposite.
Unless there is proof that Holly was a troll, I prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt. Although I strongly condemn the words in her last post, I do believe that she is a lost soul, deserving of compassion.
If anyone wants to knock me over the head for my post here, that's okay, I kind of expect it.
