Great post Randy
I've heard that women that come from homes with abusive fathers are often attracted to abusive husband and thus repeat the pattern. I'm sure this is also true of men. We learn by example. What better god follow than Watchtower Joe to complete the circle?
Even as a witness I found a lot of the things God did in the Old Testament distasteful. I either ignored them or would rationalize them believing that if God did it it must have been the right thing to do. I think in the back of my mind I always knew it wasn't right to think that way so it was easy for me to drop it once I left the WT. My understanding of God has evolved and changed a lot over the years. Now often find myself weighing stories of God with WWID (what would I do). If the god in the story behaves worse than I would have I rule that story out as not being inspired and believe it was just a case of people trying to justify their bad behavior by saying God to them to do it.