I can speak to this topic personally. My brother, at the young age of 17 had sexual relations with his girlfriend. Both were baptised witnesses. He was disfellowshipped. A highly intelligent honor student, his disfellowshipping sent him into a down spin he never recovered from. At that young age, what he needed was his friends and family to surround him with a safety net and encourage and support his effort to get back on track. But, instead, what he got was shunning. Being raised a witness, he was socially inept at making friends outside the borg. He graduated with honors, but my JW father didn't even attend his graduation! The pain and humiliation he suffered scarred him to the bone. He struggled to get on some kind of footing, but succumbed to his lonliness and rejection. I cry to this very day because I watched him sink deeper and deeper into alcoholism as his long-time friends abandoned him at a time in his life when he was most vulnerable and needed their help.
It's right. We are all responsible for the choices we make. But the cult known as Jehovah's Witnesses perpetrates the most heinous acts with its practice of shunning. Disfellowship wrongdoers....okay. Take away their right to be called a JW, but don't tell their long-time friends and family to treat them like they are invisible. Don't jerk their LIFE our from under them at such a tender age. This does contribute to a young person's tailspin into the hell of dissipation.
You know, it is sad that people like Rosalie come on here with fire-like zeal, ready to tell everyone how this young man "knew the rules" and at 17 was "old enough to know the penalties for breaking them." BUT when it is pointed out that she is just as guilty of "breaking the rules" by coming to this website, she surely does not feel the same rules apply to her.
No mercy is merited for others-just swift and severe punishment. But if she were "found out" about knowingly joining this site and repeatedly coming here, certainly she would seek mercy. I am pretty sure she would find none from the elders. They would label her apostate and probably have some choice and demeaning words for her. She would swiftly be df'd.
What she would find out is her entire network of friends and perhaps family gone. She would feel the lonliness of no one to turn to. No one to talk to. Just a total sense of rejection.
Then and only then could someone who so mercilessly looks upon others with condescension dig deep enough into their hearts and develop fellow feeling for others.
The good news is, the longer she comes here, the greater the odds of her being found out. Then maybe we'll see.........