Although I've read many heart-wrenching accounts of abuse and injustice on this site, I have to say that I was never personally mistreated by any Witness.
My problem with the Society and the Truth™ is the required acceptance of whatever the belief du jour is. Regardless of what your own education, experience, and reasoning tells you, regardless of what "the Spirit" leads you to see (if you believe in such a thing), regardless of whether the New Light™ passes the "sniff test" or not... you MUST accept, believe, and promulgate whatever the "present Truth™" is. It doesn't matter what your own conscience tells you or what you know in your heart to be true.
It is the forced, artificial lockstep unity that I find most objectionable. Absolutely no room for outside research or thinking for oneself. "Independent thinking" is demonized. Never mind that what is required today might have been apostasy yesterday, and may be tomorrow. What was required yesterday, what some even died to comply with, is now a "conscience matter." To teach earlier beliefs, which were required before, would now be apostasy. Unless, of course, they have been reinstated as the Truth™ again. (See the "generation" merry-go-round.)
I don't really care about their errors in doctrine, interpretation, or prophecy. I believe that's all fantasy, myth, and superstition anyway. Again, my main issue is that you MUST accept whatever they're teaching today, never mind that it was something different yesterday and may be changed again tomorrow.
Another major issue is their legalistic, authoritarian approach to maintaining control over almost every aspect of their victims' adherents' lives. Everything from the bedroom to the workplace is regulated. And their ridiculous approach to the "blood issue" is unfathomable. Inconsistent, confusing, and capricious are the kindest words I can use to describe it. And yet "good Witnesses" are expected to be ready to die before accepting whatever components or "fractions" the Slave™ says are not allowed. Never mind that there is no logic apparent in what parts are approved and what parts banned, or that the list itself has been repeatedly revised. I have no doubt that many have died "unnecessarily," even by Witness standards, but "at least they died doing what they thought was right. It was really a conscience matter anyway. And now they're practically guaranteed a resurrection." I have actually heard words similar to that used to "comfort" loved ones left behind. All I can say is, when you have to have a team of elders armed with two thick binders to interpret and enforce a couple of statements taken out of context from a 2000-3500 year old book, it is hardly a conscience matter.
And now they're tightening the noose by repeated articles stressing the need to obey the Slave™ even if the instructions seem unnecessary, unreasonable, or even dangerous. A recent article even said that no one should "challenge or question the channel Jehovah God is using in this time of the end." What??? Now they even want to be above questioning, much less challenging. That's the height of presumptuousness and arrogance!
So my reason for disassociating myself from any pretense of being a Witness has nothing to do with doctrinal errors, failed prophecies, or personal mistreatment. It is entirely about their audacious claim to be God's exclusive "channel," deserving and demanding unquestioning obedience and acceptance of whatever their latest pronouncement from on high may be. Their authoritarian and legalistic approach to controlling their members only further reveals them for the charlatans they are.
