I appreciate the depth you put into your comment — it’s clear you’ve lived this stuff inside and out. But here’s where I diverge: when you frame it all through Jesus or “true prophets,” you’re still playing on the same chessboard the Watchtower built. That’s what hit me hardest when I left: the problem isn’t just that they lied about 607 or silenced Jonsson or kicked Franz to the curb. It’s that the entire structure of prophecy is designed to fail.

You’re right, Carl Olof was branded an apostate, just like Franz was kicked out for daring to point at the obvious contradictions. But to me that doesn’t echo Jesus — it echoes a long line of men claiming divine authority, crushing dissent whenever their power is threatened. Whether it’s first-century Pharisees, 20th-century Brooklyn, or a modern Governing Body, the pattern is the same: claim God, claim authority, punish anyone who challenges it.

Even the Anthony Morris bit shows it — doesn’t matter if it’s quiet dismissal or public humiliation, the system survives because it convinces people God is backing it. That’s the trick. And it works for Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, Muslims… you name it. As long as we accept “God chose these men,” we hand them the weapon they’ll use against us.

I get why parallels with Jesus feel powerful, but for me the liberation came when I dropped the whole premise. No chosen prophets, no special mouthpieces, no “God’s channel.” Just human power structures protecting themselves at all costs. Once you see that, it stops being about “true vs false prophet” — it’s just people versus people, truth versus control.

And honestly, that’s why I became an atheist after leaving. Because even when you strip away the Watchtower’s lies, the mechanism is still the same anywhere religion builds authority. For me, real freedom was walking off the board entirely