No, I haven't been a Christian. And yes, I think there's sacrifice involved. I think absolutely everything must ultimately be sacrificed to God and that our ultimate destiny is to totally surrender to God. That is not easy.
I believe that surrender to God is required now. If we don't surrender our will to God's will before the judgment, there will be no future for those who want to do things their way.
Well, you think it denies His creativity whereas I and many others certainly do not. God is greater than that for me, God's the canvas upon which this is all happening, God's the painter, God's everything involved.
Evolution attributes creative genius to blind forces. God is not blind and neither am I. Nothing is left to chance because each individual creation is a work of art......even in the microscopic world we see perfection.
Also, as you can guess, I don't hold to an infallible view of the Bible but see it as a human-written set of documents some of which is attempting to translate divine revelation and some of which is talking about history and tents and so forth.
That is of course, your prerogative. I see scripture as God's communication with his human creation. As the only sentient beings who can receive instruction in written form, I cannot see why he would leave us without a record of his expectations and his requirements after the rebellion in Eden. His choosing one nation as an example for all is quite brilliant. Their actions and reactions to his directions and his laws have something to teach all mankind. As the only nation in existence who were bound by his laws, their conduct is a teaching tool for all. His laws are binding on all humanity regardless of whether they claim to believe in him or not....and regardless of which faith they purport to follow.
Well it's good to know some more about JW beliefs.
Go to the source....
JW.ORG 
There have been many examples of speciation observed. A common method by which species are delineated is reproductive isolation. If organisms from two different populations can't reproduce and produce fertile offspring, they're different species. This doesn't hold water across all taxa, but is a decent general-purpose definition. By this definition, we've observed at least half a dozen speciation events within the Drosophila genus in laboratory populations, we've observed speciation of the apple maggot fly Rhagoletis pomonella into apple-feeding and hawthorn-feeding species as a result of introduction to the Americas by humans, and in a few other invertebrate species as well. This is not to mention many more examples among prokaryotes, which is predictable given their much shorter generation times.
And when did any of these "species" go outside their genus? The flies remained flies, the fish remained fish, the plants remained plants.....they did not transform into another genus....and never would no matter how many generations came and went.
As for the whales and their ancestry - this is only an argument from incredulity. I could say 'Oh no I don't believe people could have crossed the Atlantic to North America with ships from the 11th Century, that sounds like nonsense' and someone could then show me the evidence. I could then brush it aside because 'No that just can't be true, how ridiculous'. Nobody could argue me down from this position, and I could sit there being incredulous indefinitely, but it would impact the fact that the findings totally indicated a particular series of events.
That is just the point again.....evolution cannot provide that evidence....all it can provide is educated guesswork.
It postulates a theory and then tries to prove it. No matter what the evidence really says (which is almost nothing) they will interpret it to fit their theory. How do you not see this? When it comes to real evidence, it is completely missing. How can you find a few fossil bones and construct a creature from suggestion, and then relate that imaginary creature to another one that seemingly appeared 20 million years later and say...."oh look! here is the next creature in the chain!" How does that happen when there is nothing in between to even suggest the possibility? You might fall for the rhetoric, but those with any sense of logic, uncontaminated by this ruse, can see right through it.
We already had enough evidence to totally accept evolution prior to this, but since the genetic evidence has come pouring in (in particular since the advent of next-generation sequencing technologies) we have more evidence in that quarter than we ever had from elsewhere. Association of symbiont lineages, divergence of codon usage frequencies, the patterns of variation in junk DNA, everything - you go anywhere and it's right there staring you in the face that this is the process by which this variation emerged (for me, the process by which God brought things to their current state of affairs). I recognise that you are unable to accept this given your adherence to a religion which does not permit it, but I hope it is edifying to some readers.
My "religion" is only one component in my position on this issue...the other is what I see with my own eyes, hear with my own ears, and understand when I read "scientific" explanations that involve suggestion masquerading as facts. I don't see what you see, or hear what you hear when science wants to explain something away.
I see your beliefs as having no more basis in fact, than mine....which is what I have stated all along. Science is not on any pedestal in my estimations....it is the study of what God has created and no human is going to convince me with fancy talk by trying to override what my senses tell me. It requires faith to believe in either one.....that is the only fact that matters in this discussion. Only one side fails to acknowledge this reality.
Your teachers have convinced you because you want to believe them.....science provides a convincing story but they cannot substantiate it with any real evidence....not even DNA, since we are all made by the same creator, out of the same raw materials.
My teachers have convinced me because everything they teach is backed up by what I see, and what I instinctively feel is right. It doesn't require me to stretch anything that is actual truth and provides me with a reason for everything that happens in life. It also provides me with a hope that no man can give to suffering humanity. Only the Creator has the power and the will to fix this mess....but not until humans learn the value of exercising free will unselfishly. Those who learn, will live...those who refuse to learn will have the privilege taken away. Its really that simple. The Creator is selecting citizens for his kingdom, soon to come, and only those who qualify of their own free will in obedience and full submission, can expect to be accepted for entry.
