Excellent post, pig... I was raised a JW as well, and you're absolutely right about how kids are raised in the borg... Positive reinforcement for every comment, every talk, every right answer in the family study, even for just ringing a doorbell when you're not even old enough to walk, hardly... And the punishment for anything done against what they believe... Disobey your parents, hang out with the "bad association" at school, bad music, etc is all punished and forces you even further into the mould...

I remember digging up some of those demonic "violent videogames" when I was younger, and my parents would never say "Get rid of that right now", no, they would walk up behind me and oh so innocently ask "Do you think you should be playing a game like that?" The kind of leading questions that force you to say you have to get rid of it, because any other answer gets a smack upside the head.

And, of course, forget ever saying you have doubts... An elder had me cornered one time, and basically started asking a bunch of questions about why I wasn't baptised... All the mental conditioning left me the only option of saying that I believed everything, even though even way back then I had some vague doubts (I was about 17 or so when this elder cornered me).

It kinda makes me wonder just how many JWs (I mean active, all-the-meetings, service-every-week Jdubs) actually have doubts but just put them at the back of their minds as something that God will explain to them in the new world... Even my dad mentioned he had some doubts when I told him I wouldn't go to meetings anymore.. (Although he added that he would just wait on God or whatever bullshit) Wouldn't surprise me if a fair majority of the Jdub population has the roots of doubt, but supresses it...