At first I wasn't going to post this but I noticed a lot of people here have been getting visits from elders lately,all with pretty much the same results.
Three months ago,my wife asked an elder if he could answer some of my questions.He offered to come over,which he did,to waste my time talking in circles to basic questions he couldn't answer from the bible.(i.e. where does the bible say God has an organization and uses a governing body to direct it?) Anyways,after 3 hours of proving his allegiance tot the WTS and showing me his level of denial he said he would do more research on my questions and get back to me.One main question that night had been 607 BCE.
Last week he made arrangements with my wife to return with another elder.That day I decided,based on advice I got here,that I would not use any research notes,only the bible as final authority(unless we got into 607 since you need secular history to support dates).The discussion started on God's organization,and being that I'm not very good at these type of debates,it basically went in circles with one elder getting upset that I didn't believe that God has a visible organization.He kept asking me well,which religion has the truth then? and told him no religion does.Finally he asked me if I believed the witnesses were God's organization and I had to say no,I didn't.After about 45 minutes of this,we had not opened our bibles once,one elder had barely spoken and it was obvious that no research had been done on my questions.At this point I realized for good I was wasting my time and I started to talk less and just let my wife chat with them.
Their main topic was to "encourage" me to go back to the meetings and listen to the talks,maybe I would learn something from them.Also to keep searching for answers and maybe Jehovah would help me.Then the quiet elder pulled out this little piece of paper with a note scribbled on it-WT 2004 feb.15 Guard Against Deception.He recommended we read that together and blah,blah,blah.They then kept on encouraging me to go to the meetings for spiritual uplifting and social contact.It was obvious they felt I was falling onto an apostate course.By this time I couldn't wait for them to leave and my wife asks me what I think.I said "well,if they can't answer my questions from the bible,going tot the meetings isn't going to give me answers".
So after six months of trying to get answers for my questions,my wife still doesn't have one satisfying answer.She hasn't talked to me about this last visit,not one word about it,probabbly because she saw the effort they put into answering scriptural questions.All it did for me was confirm even more than before that they do not have the truth and are not God's visible organization.
Goldminer