Not long ago I bet no one from this site would have been able to stand me for 2 seconds. I was one of the most fiercest JWs of all time. I'd argue until I was blue in the face and I was darn good at it to. I would have had you scratching your head all the while scratching my own head but never letting you know about that. I was so good at WTS logic that I could speak to almost anyone and have them questioning themselves and their position against the WTS. The person I had the hardest time convincing, though, was myself. The toughest arguments I had were with myself.
I look back now and I see the effects being a Witness had on me. The whole mentality that as a JW I was in the right and will live forever and anyone who is not a JW will be killed kind of created a superior and hatefull attitude in me. It gave me the tedency to look down on "worldly" people. But then, the society tells you to love your neighbor. That's kind of hard to do when you think that if you cannot convince them to be a Witness then they must be drinking beer with Satan the Devil and that if you can't be convinced to be a Witness you must be stupid and have demons. How can you possibly have a positive attutude toward people if you have those kind of beliefs. I struggled inwardly because I knew that the person that probably had the biggest effect on my life was not a Witness and could not be conviced to be one. Believe me, I tried. But this person was probably the best person I've ever known.
I remember one time I was out in the ministry talking to a guy that I've known for a long time and he had pulled up some info about Witnesses off of the internet. He showed it to me and I took it and started going over it. Latter I was speaking with a guy who was home from his missionary assignment for a while at the kingdom hall and was telling him about this experience and how I had thumbed through the written material that this other person had pulled from the internet. He immediately got this concerned look on his face and this concerned tone of voice and told me ever so gently that I shouldn't even touch "apostate" material. This kind of insulted my sense of justice. How can I not look into contrary opinions? How could I be qualified to try to "help" people who have heard all of these negative things about the WTS if I never looked into those things myself? I believe in looking into all sides of the issue. Heck, the WTS is the main one that taught me to be that way. They tell people from other religions to be honest and examine their religion and so forth but strictly forbid a Witness from examining things if it means he might found out something not kosher about the Witness organization. That made me think that the WTS had something to hide.
I tell you, the reason why Witnesses can be so stubborn is because they are completely and thoroughly convinced that they have the truth. They simply are not willing to entertain any thought out of harmony with that belief. If they are told things that are good valid points against Witness teaching then they will find a way to justify it. All knowledge is built around the firm and unshakable belief that they have the truth. When they read the Bible they are looking for validation of their belief and nothing else.
There is actually very convincing evidence out their that even the Bible is simply made up. One of the things that shook my confidence in it is something I found out when looking in the Insight book. The Mosaic law has been alleged to come from an earlier set of laws in Babylon and the wts was trying to show the differences in the Mosaic law and that Babylonish law. There was an excerpt of that Babylonish law and it sounded almost identical to the Mosaic law. That kind of stuck with me. I have heard that a lot of the stories in the Bible came from ancient myth. I haven't really looked into that yet but what I saw in the Insight book was shocking.