@SirNose586: Sounds familiar.. I also researched 607/587 and know the site you are referring to. I'm sorry for you that you can't just leave, apparently ('still stuck'). That also sounds familiar. Could you provide some more info? Or rather not?
Ok. I'm a 3rd generation dub, my grampa is an elder, my dad stepped down from being an elder, and I am an MS. Because of my grandfather's influence, I get a less heavy hand from the elders. I am not pleased to see everyone else have to sweat it out upstairs, however...
Because I can hash out a different and enjoyable talk every so often, I am the darling of the congregation, even though I only go out in FS when I am slated to conduct in the morning. Every so often I am told that I will be a "future elder" or a "future CO." I hate hearing these titles. "I am NOT your company man!" I would like to tell them.
In the meantime, I keep a "mask" on, like Sir Nose d'Voidoffunk (a villian from Parliament's music). But, even though I rock a mask so no one will be the wiser, every so often I drop semi-controversial topics from the platform. I can still remember when I said that higher education was okay, because of the effect it had on Paul and Daniel. The audience froze in place when I said that! It was priceless...
Whenever I get the chance, I try to see how my wiser friends will react to certain ideas or apostate-influenced lines of logic. Thankfully I haven't been turned in yet. My goal is to be subtle and force them to confront the very ideas they've been bombarded with all these years. When one of them is ready to learn, I will be there with my secret data file, as it were, like Morpheus and the red pill.
In regards to how exactly I came here, there is one aspect that I neglected to discuss. I was on myspace and trolling for the profiles of bad kids in my congregation, when I stumbled upon a pro-dub board. There was a young man from Atlanta who was making fools of them. He would make an accusation, and they would respond with familiar lines of responses. He still shot them down and made them feel uncomfortable. At the time, I would've been on the Witnesses' side. But something didn't make sense. Was he really right? Why couldn't they defend his attacks?
Only after that did I decide to look at the biography of Nebuchadnezzar. I was shocked to find that his reign was a uniform 19-20 years different from whatever the Society said. I was disturbed, but I made two rules as to how I would treat this information:
- Someone was right and someone was wrong.
- Big differences cannot be ignored. Prophecy rests on these dates (607-1914)
Time and again, I found nothing but support for 587/6 BC being the destruction of Bablyon. Out of desperation I created an escape clause: If only ONE other secular source agrees with the Watchtower, I would call off the whole thing.
I guess you can see how that turned out!