Hello Strider
You kind of remind me where I was years ago, many years ago now in fact, around the late 80's, early 90's.
I guess these days, I'm completely on the other end of the spectrum, not that I used to be and the journey from one place all the way to the other, has certainly had it's ups and downs.
Of course, one has to try and give respect to any one individual, where they are right now, within their own individual headspace.
I could turn around and tell you that what you are thinking about is a right load of poppycock (which in fact it is) however, it would be pretty disrespectful of me to tell you why as that wouldn't be giving you real consideration for where your feelings are right now.
Suffice to say, you gotta stop worrying matey about Satan and his demons. This kind of thinking has been inculcated into you so obviously you believe it to be true, that these are very real entities when in fact that is not the case at all.
If you choose to think negatively, that is what you will become.
On the other hand, if you choose to think positively, that is also what you will become.
It's all in your very own head, your perception of the space around you and it all boils down to one thing, one word in fact....
Habit.
Believe it or not, it is our habits that control us, not anything else.
Habit will make one man rich, another poor, another man or woman satisfied with life, another unfulfilled - at the end of the day, it is up to each and everyone of us whether or not we want to deal with our habitual modes of thought or move on and make changes to the way that we perceive the world and our own sense of identity and place within it.
If you fill your mind constantly with negative information, thoughts about devil's and demons, you will naturally become quite fearful and dare I say it rather paranoid about life.
If on the other hand you can learn to disentangle your mind from it's present dis-ease and take aboard more positivism on a daily basis, you'll find that eventually, after a lot of internal work on yourself, that there is very little room to allow such negative thoughts to even enter into your headspace.
The Witnesses, whether you are prepared to accept this or not, they want to keep control over your mind and over you as a person, an individual.
What better way to control people than waving a figurative big bogeyman stick, putting the fear of God into their souls to enslave people?
Does that honestly sound like to you to be reasonable.
Hear me out a minute.
Let's just suppose that for me or for you, that there is this perfect God, whatever we choose to call Him or Her.
Do you honestly believe that if that was the case, that this Being, the very personification of loving kindness, would use as His or Her channel an organisation that puts so much emphasis on another god, one filled with hateful violence, slander, greed, murder etc?
Is that honestly the way that a true God would communicate with His or Her followers?
The answer I believe is pretty obvious, a deafening bloody no! Of course not. Such a situation is truly preposterous.
The Witnesses are just a man made organisation, dissect out all of the fluff, all of the bumkum, all of their control mechanisms and what are you left with?
An empty shell from a spiritual perspective.
The Organisation is about as spiritual as my, as my hmmmmm, errrrrr right big toenail for want of a better expression, the first one to jump to mind was much too rude to post up here on this forum.
Strip it all away, the disguise, the mask, get down to the barebone facts and all you are left with is an organisation that is out to control people and is worth a hell of a lot of money.
What better way to do that than wave a big satanic stick, introduce a bogeyman figure resplendent with his demons out to get you and persecute you, it's a load of complete claptrap.
When you read online, don't go down the conspiracy theories route of searching for information on the web.
As anywhere there are absolute fruitcakes wherever you go on the planet and some of those conspiracy theory websites are enough to put the complete jitters up anyone that is shall we say, a little frail in the membrane.
Stick to the cold hard facts. This site, although it's been a right pain in the backside over the years to some of us old hands, it does have a great deal of very good information and not a lot of it has been blown out of proportion.
Dig around, you'll soon find that the witnesses are not everything that they're cracked up to be and too, pretty much all of us at one time or another, have been where you are right now.
I was 3rd generation, born in, worked at Bethel briefly in London. Not that I'm ever going to stick that on my cv.
A few things you might want to look at and/or research:
The WT involvement with the United Nations - that story should still be around somewhere, that's quite an interesting read.
The situation over the party political cards of the brothers in Malawi compared to their brothers in Mexico at precisely the same time. A bit of an inconsistency by anyone's standards.
You might want to check out where the witnesses founder is buried, Charles Taze Russell, may he rest in peace, the old beggar. Ask yourself what that Pyramid is situated right next to his headstone and the story behind it. Also, the cemetary itself and the grounds that that cemetary is in, that might be a little eye opener for you.
Of course, you'll also want to read Ray Franz two books, In Search of Christian Freedom and Crisis of Conscience, both make for happy bedtime reading.
I'm sure you'll enjoy them both.
Have I written that much already? Blimey!
OK enough of my rattling on, I've got to get on with some more search engine optimisation work for another one of my clients, back to the treadmill I go.
Cheers mate and wishing you all the best on your personal journey!
Kindest regards.
Mark