Welcome Cold-Dodger! Thank you for sharing some of your story. Were you born-in to the Mormon religion? It seems many born-ins leave their religion when it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. I would be an example of that re: JWs although technically, I was never a formal JW as I never got baptized. I was certainly raised in it though.
The JW belief that 'Armageddon is coming soon' is rather embarrassing. Over 100 years is not 'soon' or 'imminent', nor 'closer than the inside of your eyelids'. And their shunning of disfellowshipped and others, as well as their blood doctrine has hurt many. I lost a cousin because she refused a blood transfusion. She left behind a husband and 3 children.
We tell them that these feelings mean the Book of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God.
Just to be clear, Joseph Smith was a fraudster but I am not sure many Mormon's are aware of that. Why would God pick someone with this type of lowbrow morals as one of his prophets? And the golden tablets/plates... where are they?
anyone who doesn't pull their wait and do exactly as they are told is a
shame to themselves and treated accordingly by the most Puritanical
religious society you have ever been a part of.
In JW world, you are called 'a weak Witness' and are typically 'shepherded' by the elders when this occurs. If you persist in being an issue, they will disfellowship you - aka kick you out, label you 'Disfellowshipped' and possibly 'Apostate', and shun you. My uncle was disfellowshipped in the early 1990s. I am not sure why but I suspect he didn't agree with some doctrine. He was reinstated after the elders that kicked him out got kicked out themselves. There seem to be a lot of politics in this religion.
When I was little, my Mom was the one who was more strong in the faith than my Dad. He wasn't a big fan of religion at all. The JW religion was introduced to the family in the 1950s when my maternal grandfather converted from being a Catholic to a JW. The JW hardbound yearly volumes/books in my parent's bookcase start at 1960. We were kind of 'fringe' JWs when I was a kid. We still celebrated the holidays and us kids did mostly normal kid things like play sports and go to movies etc. We didn't go to the Hall except for the Memorial and I only remember going a couple of times. I think my Dad's disdain of religion kept a more even keel in our household when I was young. It wasn't until me and my brothers grew up and left home that our parents decided to become 'zealous' and get 'dedicated' (aka baptized) as JWs. Things were rather rough after that as they became mean-spirited and holier-than-thou towards us on many occasions.
Children have built in BS meters. As I got older, mine kept going off. For example, the JW claim that they are preaching to all the inhabited Earth. The math just didn't add up. There just aren't enough JWs compared to the world's population for them to be doing this. This is still true today.
