I can understand your anxiety at looking outside of the JWs. After all, we were brought up to think that we were in a safe haven and everything outside of that haven was dangerous. That's where Satan lurked and was always trying to lure us out where he can turn us away from God.
But you can take a look at a lot of stories here about how happy people are now after leaving. You yourself are happier. It doesn't sound like the world portrayed at assemblies where life outside was miserable and those who left longed to come back.
I was scared too. Scared of being tricked away from the Truth(tm). But one thing I always kept in mind was that real truth should have nothing to fear from debate or arguments against it. Truth should hold up on its own. Either the "apostate" information can be proved wrong or it can't. And that's up to you to decide. I know I was always curious about "apostate" literature because I knew that surely they could be proved wrong. I was instead.
You're reading COC and much of what is presented is things the WTBS published themselves. Their own literature is one of their worst enemies. And that's not made up stuff by "apostates", that's their own publications that you can find and read for yourself.
Consider this. Take a JW who died 50 years ago, believing what the Society taught then. If Armageddon happened tomorrow and they were resurrected, they'd be considered an apostate by today's beliefs. C. T. Russell himself would be considered an apostate to modern JWs even if you took away the wacky pyramidology stuff. How could his organization have been "chosen" by Jesus if it were teaching all that apostate stuff? If the resurrection was/is real, there'd be a lot of apostates coming back. So why not any of us who don't believe exactly what the Society does right now?
As a side note, the Bible Students are still around. And by that, I don't just mean people who study the Bible, I mean C.T. Russell's Bible Students. Not all of them followed Rutherford and became Jehovah's Witnesses. A website for the North Seattle Bible Students exists, nsbible.org. They have online versions of Russell's Studies in the Scriptures if you don't trust Ray Franz's quotes and want to see for yourself. Or explore things Franz didn't quote. It's way different from what JWs believe today. As a JW I remember having the impression it was only slightly different.
All I can say is that many of us were where you are at, fearful of what we might find and what it might do to us. And this may or may not be comforting, but what we found lead us away from the JWs. With rare exception, most of us are glad we did and that the rest of our lives are free of them. In a few years, you'll wonder how you could ever put up with living the life of a JW again.
And not all of us land in the same place. Some end up Catholics after all the propganda the JWs taught us about them. Some even go back to the JWs. What is the path to follow from here on out is difficult to say and very individual. But we know what is the wrong path. The one we came from.
I struggled with this. There's so many different beliefs. And the Bible doesn't make it any easier because it says things in different places that can be used to support opposite viewpoints. No matter what form of Christianity you believe, I believe you'd have to squint or glance over certain verses to support your belief system. Or like the Witnesses do, come up with some convoluted excuse why words in print don't mean the words in print. Figurative vs. literal is one and there are other ways.
And if there is a God, what about all these nice, good-hearted, sincere people in other religions? I came to believe it doesn't matter. If there is a God and there is a reward, as long as you believe in him and live a good life, what God would deny you of a reward?
If God is our Heavenly Father, think of what you would do as a parent. You love your kid(s) unconditionally. You wouldn't deny them an inheritance just because they didn't see eye to eye with you on a few things. Especially if they were overall a good person. You might even love them unconditionally and reward them no matter what they grow up to be. Can a mere human have a greater capacity to love than God?
I don't think it matters where you land as long as you're a good person. You could even land back in the JWs, IMO. But the key is once you know it's false and sometimes dangerous to you and your mental health, could you go back?
