Terry said: What if I told you JW's embrace a mental construct which is at odds with history?
I just wanted to say that I find ALL religious people embrace mental constructs at odds with history. Faith requires, demands even, that you let go of rational, logical, critical thinking skills. When facts contradict faith, the faithful side with faith. Because if they don't, the life they've built on this tenuous house of cards comes crashing down. We know because we've all been through it. The faithful make a choice NOT to deal with factual truth and reality but to just accept and obey. The faithful also seem to need to have someone else interpret scripture for them.
Terry said: I'd love to be able to talk to somebody who has been in, and remained in, since the 1950's who could talk about all the changes. I know there is an infinite capacity to make excuses. That is a given. But, surely there is a cumulative sense that the world has turned under the feet of the older ones and nothing is really the same anymore except the name Jehovah's Witness.
Terry, I think my Father had his doubts as he grew older. He wasn't 'in' back in the 1950s, only becoming 'dedicated' around 1986. He's experienced a lot and there have been a lot of changes even since then.
After the death of a really close friend of his back around 2004-2005, my Dad started calling me a lot more. We've had a lot of discussions since then. I should attempt to document them one day. In 2009, my Dad told me he thought he had dementia. He was correct. In 2010, he realized he was going to die (which also means I think he realized he would die without Armageddon arriving. He was convinced it would come sometime in 2009-2010 and it did not). My Dad is still alive, he is now in a nursing home, and no longer remembers his religion.