: A Witness when presented with some errors of WT doctrine such as 607BCE for example could turn round and say, "Well we might be wrong on this but this matter is not as bad as teaching that God burns sinners in a fiery hell forever like some religion of Christendom do. I do not feel that chronology (or some other matter) affects my relationship with Jehovah and his organization."
This is just an excuse to avoid answering the more difficult and basic question of just what standards God might apply to determine which religion, if any, is the only one he approves of. It amounts to claiming that God has determined The One True Religion by selecting the least among evils -- an idea that even the Watchtower Society rejects.
The fact is that every religion has its warts and that's not going to change. Where JWs might claim superiority of doctrine with respect to the trinity, they lose in the "Bible chronology" department. Where they might feel superior because of not participating in war, they ought to feel inferior because of showing hatred for those who leave the religion. Where they might claim that they enforce strict standards of morality on their members, they should feel inadequate for producing a group of people who are incapable of following 'good' standards without being policed. Where they might feel good about themselves for having Pharisaically detailed rules about all aspects of adultery, they fall flat with the child molestation issue because they allow known pedophiles to operate freely in their own community and in the outside world. I could come up with dozens of similar exampes, but you get the point.
: Or I have heard some say, "Jesus said that those who show love to another are his true disciples. Jehovah's Witnesses are showing outstanding love in this world so it does not matter about these other matters whether they be right or wrong."
JWs do not show outstanding love in this world. They show a certain amount of love to one another, but only in the limited sense that a show of "love" is demanded by the Society in certain ways. For example, they claim that their preaching work is the epitome of showing love, but a careful look at what they preach and how JWs go about it in practices shows that this is a fairy tale.
In more basic ways JWs are among the most unloving of religions. Anyone who quits the religion knows this firsthand. JWs do nothing for the world around them; the best they can claim is that they do no harm by carefully paying taxes and not engaging in revolution and so forth. But they do absolutely nothing positive besides their lame claim of preaching.
: I have had these things said to me and at this stage I find it hard to deal with this reasoning as they put it so logically sometimes.
Hopefully this thread will give you a lot more ammunition.
: I feel that many hearing this reasoning as soon as they start to question WT doctrine still decide to stay in the organizaton because of it.
That's true, but only because most JWs are quite ignorant of other religions. This includes those who are on the verge of quitting. Once a person really starts to do some research into the various religions that exist, and finds out that JWs are unique only in that they alone teach the full range of JW beliefs (I assume you can see the problem with this kind of reasoning that JWs use), he can refute the JW claims that they're so much better than everyone else.
AlanF
