As a child, ne of my best friends was from a JW family. I got to know all of them well-his parents spent a lot of time trying to convince my parents. My father (son of a minister and brother of 7 other ministers) was one of those guys who held his own extremely well in discussions of religion and he asked some searing, penetrating questions about the JW philosophy.

I can sit here right now and realize it was them, and their inability to do anything but repeat dogma in the face of my father’s questions, that first planted a huge seed of doubt in my mind regarding all organized religion. That seed, of course, has been fertilized endlessly since then.

It’s weird sometimes, what thing will trigger one of those long-lost memories.