For those who think they know the JWs, or dubbers, as we former cult members call them: you know nothing. I was a dubber for 35 years. From the time I can first remember, I was indoctrinated with reading the cult material, being told that we were the only people that god loved. That we would be the only ones saved when, shortly, god destroyed the world. I was not to look into going on to higher education, that was for stupid people, the world was passing away and so was "this system of things." Worldly people were under Satan's control and were not to be associated with. I had a cousin lose his wife during child birth because she was bleeding and would not accept blood.
I have seen many families ripped apart because of the use of shunning, or as they use the term, "disfellow shipping." You can be DF'd for as little as saying I do not believe in this organization as god's sole mouthpiece on earth, smoking, or having unapproved types of sex with your own wife or husband.
If you have a family member who has been DF'd, and you are caught talking to them, you are most likely to be DF'd. You cannot have a meal with your son, daughter, or mother if they or you are DF'd.
They also have a strange (one of many) practice of telling a cult member that they cannot go to the authorities if they see a fellow member doing anything illegal. One big problem comes in with children. If a child is molested, the parents must not go to the authorities; they must instead go to the elders of their congregation. Now here is the big rub: you can only get in trouble if someone reports you to the elders and they have two witnesses or you confess, so if the child molester does not confess, and there were not two witnesses to the molestation, then the guy goes free. And if the parents complain or report the incident to the authorities, then they can and will be DF'd. Nice, ain't it?
As a dubber, you have to attend 5 meetings a week and knock on doors for a minimum of 2 hours a week to convert the worldly people. Each meeting is 1 hour. Usually on Tuesday night, there is 1 hour of book study, where you read a paragraph in one of the cult's propaganda books, and answer, hand-fed from each paragraph. Then on Thursday night, you have two meetings in a row, where every person does a talk from the platform. Yep, every one preaches from the stage or pulpit, not every week, but you rotate until everyone has taken a turn. Then you get a council from the stage on what to work on. Sunday is another 2 hour meeting and 1 hour public talk, usually given by an elder. The talk is an outline from Brooklyn head quarters of the society. No one is to make up their own talk. Every thing is very tightly controlled. Then a one hour read and answer on the Watchtower articles.
The list of how silly this religion is and how it came into existence is long. They used to teach in the 1930s that aluminum was the devil's metal, the vaccines were horse pus, that god lived in the Pleiades, a star cluster in the constellation of Taurus, that the end of the world was going to come in 1874, then 1914, then 1916, 1925, 1945, 1951, and 1975. The last was that the world could not go past the year 2000. Since then, they quit using dates and started saying "the end is very near."
This cult is very dangerous. Do not let them study with your loved ones; they will start out very friendly and slowly teach them that they need to stop celebrating holidays with you, birthdays, and then stop associating with "nonbelievers." Depending on how strong your loved one's mind is, this could be very dangerous. They practice Lifton's mind control techniques.
Most of the people here who post that "they (Jehovah's Witnesses) are not that bad" have their heads up their asses and no idea of what they are playing with.