My humble opinion is that sure as hell they know what they are doing.
They start out as rank-and-file believers, and climb the ladder all the way to the top. I cannot believe none of them ever had any doubts, was never told to wait and Jehovah, and, later in life, didn't come to have his doubts removed on seeing what really happens when you lead the organization. Especially how things are made at the top. I cannot believe they do not realize that it's not God almighty that tells them what to do. From Crisis of Conscience I understand that their decisions are made by a majority of two thirds. Are they to believe that YHWH inspired one third of them to vote in one sense, and the other two thirds on the other? What happens when no majority is achieved?
Ray Franz did realize how things were done and his conscience didn't let him be part of that world. How come the rest haven't had that integrity? Because they don't have it, not because they don't realize how things are made.
Can anyone believe that Stalin didn't know what he was doing? That he really believed the proletarians ruled Russia?
I read somewhere that Joseph Goebbels joined the Nazi party because he was fully and instinctively aware that it was an organization where he fitted. I understand Goebbels hesitated between joining the Communist Party or the Nazi Party. It's forgotten, but "nazi" is "national socialist". Those were very similar organizations and Goebbels knew. He climbed to the top. My speculation, then, is that the good guys are wiped out of the organization early on. So are the ineffectual. An occasional good soul can survive, for different reasons, but as a whole, the higher up you go, the worse the bastards. If there are things you won't do, then you won't move up. Simple. If you have reservations about disfellowshipping someone, you won't make it to elder.
I hope I won't offend anyone with this new paragraph. My point is to reflect about the topic of this thread. When I was being lured into the organization, the person who was doing it had sized me up and was pulling certain strings that she thought would lure me in. I wanted friendship, and she offered me seven million friends. Did she know I would be asked to leave my family, maybe leave my job, et cetera, if I had joined? Yes, she did. She also knew I loved her and that would give me a strong reason to join. Maybe she thought some things wouldn't be that good but YHWH would straighten things in the New System. Anyways, my point is, SHE KNEW SHE WAS CONTROLLING ME. She would mislead me or hide information. Very quickly, before my realizing of it, I already had a copy of "What does the Bible really teach?", a Bible, and a Watchtower. I already had an "elder friend" who would show me the ropes. He knew where I lived, what my phone number was, what I did for a living, et cetera. I had seen him ONCE. I happened to know that there was a study edition of the Watchtower, and so she wasted no time and got me study editions only. Did she know what she was doing? Yes.
The drills on how to speak to people, what to say, how to direct the conversation, how to dress, et cetera, are all the brainchildren of a mind who was very intent on bringing people in. Disfellowshipment is the brainchild of a mind that blackmails people into staying once they baptized. Does this happen by chance?
Would you expect the Governing Body not to know what they are doing? My opinion is that they are fully aware of what they do and why. We like to think of them as dunderheads, but perhaps we should recognize that they are anything but. They are very wicked, and that's a different thing.
