by life is to short 204 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
You should do so even if he says that what you are doing together is a secret just between you and him.
What should a child do if "the secret " is between the elder body, the WTBTS and the pedophile? Doesn't that make them accomplices? Why isn't this criminal?
It is the same blame game as when a women gets raped. It is your fault cause your dress was too revealing and/or you didn't scream.
00DAD
Yes they teach some very bad lessons about secrets - who should know and who shouldn't. You don't tell non-JWs they will die at Armageddon or they have to become JWs to survive.
You keep what happens in the WTS within the WTS. Now THAT is the same lesson as not telling what happens st home to anyone else.
This whole piece that was quoted is geared towards protecting a child against non-JWs. Oddly though the child is beside a bed - presumably her own bed which means that the abuser could be known to her. There are confusing messages here that don't get addressed.
Soloman
maybe the screaming part but kids don't go out and buy their clothes. They wear what their parents bought them. And most JWs have their girls wear "appropriate" length dresses so I don't know that it applies as much as it does to women.
But certainly the scream/don't scream controversy can rear its ugly head here.
fleaman, I see your point. The point, however, you or some of you aren't aware of is its double polices. I am assuming you haven't had first-hand experience on this issue with the Watchtower.
The bottom line is, every Watchtower publications are for the publicity for general public if anything and mainly propaganda purpose for their followers. It's not all bad what they say in their publication. They come up with pretty decent comments from time to time in their publication such as this one(tho, it failed to adress its more deeper issues). Problem is that the Watchtower's another yet deceiving polices that apply to their followers are not necessarily according to what they said in their publication. It's all your fault once allegation is made. It's all depend on local elders and how they manuplate the cases in effort to covering their a** and report the cases to Circuit Overseer and the headquater. Trust me on this.
Your(victims and their family) voices mean nothing. The COs and the Watchtower only trust reports from their elders. Some of elders are abuser themselves. Top of that you are dealing with the Organization whose interest is protecting their own reputation and legal liablity. Have you ever called or wrote a letter on any legal issue to the Service Department and the Legal Department of the Watchtower Bilbe and Tract Society? They will give you complete different advises that contractdict one from the other. You are dammed for following either one. You will be punished by their boss, the Governing Body, for failing to follow one over the other. Their only policy for you is 'shut up and move on or else.'
As you said, it happens everywhere. The issue is the Watchtower has two different policies, one for publics and the other for their followers. The policies that desinged to protect their own reputation only.
The topic reads: "Ultimately it is the child who should stop the abuse according to the GB!" Yes! that's what they did to one of the victims that I know of. This kid suffered severely mostly because the way how elders and the Watchtower handled the case in protceting themsleves from liablity. They abused the victim far more than what perpetrator did.
My, My... the "Great Teacher Book" has changed a lot since I got a copy back in the '70's. Then it was "Listening To The Great Teacher" and only dealt with primary doctrines and simple things , now it is "Learn From the Great Teacher" . I really did not know that it was so different, and dealt with such sensitive matters.
I must agree with much of what has been written here, especially the expert opinion of Lady Lee and the summing up of the problem by blindnomore. The big issue in the Candace Conti case was not so much their stated policy but what they actually did
havent been on here for ages, but sadly I see that the hystyeria is the same as ever.
Yep.
Sabatious, the WTBTS's presumed ultimate intent in publishing the article has nothing to do with LITS's assertion.
The thread title clearly intimates that the GB "ultimately" (i.e., in the end) places the onus on the victim to stop the abuse. Nothing in that article supports that contention.
I distinctly remember the book's release because, at the time, I had two young daughters. I reviewed this very chapter with them repeatedly. The information was almost identical to what they were receiving contemporaneously at school. The picture is dramatic, but it merely shows a child in an empowered position.
LITS's argument is specious. S/he has explained herself since, but that does not change the fact that the information she originally posted did not support her argument.
The WTBTS makes enough errors. Making arguments against it consisting of tenuous links at best does nothing but make 'apostates' look 'hysterical.'
Sabatious, the WTBTS's presumed ultimate intent in publishing the article has nothing to do with LITS's assertion.
The thread title clearly intimates that the GB "ultimately" (i.e., in the end) places the onus on the victim to stop the abuse. Nothing in that article supports that contention.
I distinctly remember the book's release because, at the time, I had two young daughters. I reviewed this very chapter with them repeatedly. The information was almost identical to what they were receiving contemporaneously at school. The picture is dramatic, but it merely shows a child in an empowered position.
LITS's argument is specious. S/he has explained herself since, but that does not change the fact that the information she originally posted did not support her argument.
The WTBTS makes enough errors. Making arguments against it consisting of tenuous links at best does nothing but make 'apostates' look 'hysterical.'
*Finally, someone who gets it. All the obsessed posters on here who only seem to discuss sex crimes and child abuse. Just desperate to bring down JW,s by using desperate tactics and then theres idiots like outlaw posting complete drivel. Sorry, doesnt wash. I was a jw for 30 years since age 3. Its a stupid time wasting religion for sure. Haven for paedophiles? Rubbish.*
fleaman
Dont tell me what I can and cant see. Im no fan of JWism, I just find the hysteria about child abuse a bit, well, ridiculous. It happens everywhere, terrible fact of life but it does. Now clear off and patronise someone else (page 2)
*Finally, someone who gets it. All the obsessed posters on here who only seem to discuss sex crimes and child abuse. Just desperate to bring down JW,s by using desperate tactics and then theres idiots like outlaw posting complete drivel. Sorry, doesnt wash. I was a jw for 30 years since age 3. Its a stupid time wasting religion for sure. Haven for paedophiles? Rubbish.* (page 3)
Perhaps you didn't read my post at the start of page 3. My comments are solely based on what the WTS published in the book.
Unless you have been the victim of abuse either within the JWs or outside then you might have a problem seeing how great the problem really is.
As someone who has researched the issue of child sexual abuse outside of the JWs or worked with other non-JW survivors it might be very hard for you to grasp the magnitude of the problem, its effects on the victim, and/or the various educational programs that are used to teach children about inappropriate touch and what they should do and then see how poorly the WTS deals with the problem.
Yes sexual abuse happens everywhere. But the JWs insist it rarely happens or that the elders are mismanaging the issue and that their 2-witness rule is more than enough. By not reporting the abuse they create an arena where it is safe for people who do sexually abuse kids a safe haven. There have been plenty of stories on this board to show there is a real problem that results in keeping the abuse a secret. I have my own family story which I think demonstrates the problem.
MY parents separated and I stayed to live with my father and my mother moved about 500 miles away. During that time my father started sexually abusing me. It was reported to the police. Social services got involved and the police found my mother and told her to come get me.
During that time period when my mother was gone she found out her youngest sister (only 1 year older than me) was being sexually abused and reported it to the police and wound up with legal custody of her sister. My grandmother, a JW, came to live with my mother.
THEN she started studying with the JWs.
When she found out her common-law husband was sexually her sister the elders were called - but not the police. The elders told her to send her sister somewhere else to live. The abuse was not reported. MY aunt wound up living 600 miles away from her mother and brothers so that the problem could be quietly dealt with.
A couple of months later my mother caught him sexually abusing me. Again the elders were called and the decision was made to send me away from my family to live in foster care. Again the abuse was not reported. It was swept under the carpet.
Later we found out he was sexually abusing my sister (his child). This time he chose to disappear before the elders got into it.
So first we have a history with two girls who have been sexually abused by their fathers. In both cases the eiders were not involved. In neither case was there any hesitation to call the authorities.
Then my mother (who already knows how to deal with the issue properly) starts studying with the JWs. She was only a study and went to meetings. She wasn't baptized yet. But this time the elder whom she was studying with was called in. (just one elder because that was the arrangement at the time). In both cases the abuse was not reported to the authorities.
The only difference here was non-JW and studying with JWs. How you can say that it is rubbish that the WTS is a haven for sexual abusers. is beyond me. The end result for my family is that both my aunt and my sister committed suicide due to the mishandling of the abuses. Perhaps if the elder had suggested that the police be calle two members of my family might be alive today.
Now go back through what I posted - the critique of the page where they discuss what a child should do and why it isn't good enough. That directly addresses the first post on the thread.
I am so upset and just cannot believe that you Justitia andThesmis and fleaman uk would think that, that picture is OK.
I am not just DESPERATE TO BRING DOWN THE JW"S!
I am DESPERATE to have PEDOPHILES stop interacting with kids in this religion!
I had three, Do you understand THREE, pedophiles in the hall I attended! I was not allowed to tell anyone that they were pedophiles I was threatened with being DF'ed. These men where free to be around anyone in the hall including kids at any time, they would go out in service, hold kids, one even held a baby shower with his wife, yeh the elders were supposed to watch them. What a joke. One of the pedophiles conducted field service. Like one poster said he could easily put himself to be with kids that day. One of the pedophiles was the congregation mascot. He was always being bragged up by the elders as to how great of a person he was. One elder called him a gentle giant in his public talk which he gave over and over.
I do not think you are able to get the problem. Again Justitia Thesmis it was not the words but the Picture that truly upset me! The picture over road the words but even the words did nothing as Lady Lee pointed out.
I am just mind boggled right now at your and fleaman uk thoughts and thinking process. I know of a young women who was molested in the "truth"when she was five. She justt killed herself two years ago when she was 22 years old because of her abuse.
Guess what her perp is still interacting in secrecy in the religion. I guess that is OK because she should have just been able to hold up her hand and say STOP and so she deserved to die?????? They should have probably DF'ed her for loose conduct at the age of five because she clearly wanted it as she did not say STOP as she should have.
What about Jerry Sandsuky's victims? They were at fault too I guess, because they were in there early teens, I am so glad you were not on the jury because he would be free right now.
Justitia Thesmis I think Jerry might be looking for a new attorney now so maybe you could apply as I know you are in law school as you mention it every chance you get. You could be you in the headlines and it would give your name a public place.
I am sorry but I find the way you put my name as LITS s/he like you do not remember me. You PM'ed me and asked for a WT six months ago I thought you were not like this, I am just totally blown away.
No I am not trying to look 'hysterical.' as you claimed I am trying to point out how horrible that picture is.
I showed it to my friend who's husband at the age of 38 killed himself because when he was twelve he was rapped by a priest. She was appalled at the picture. She said her husband and his brother had both told the PRIEST TO STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He did not stop and thus her husband died and left three children fatherless because he blamed himself.
No I am not hysterical I just do not more kids to die when they grow up and think it was their fault because they did not say STOP!
I went to a CO when we had the three child molesters in the hall all at the same time, one of the pedophiles was bound and determined to work with my husband and I in field service, this man was on the internet as having RAPED A SEVEN year old CHILD!!!!!!!!!!!!! Plus he pimped out girls according to the internet.I asked the CO if my husband and I would really have to have a man who was a child molester in my car and the CO said YES!!! I just needed to get a handle on my feelings. Just like you think Justitia T I was in the wrong and I was hysterical because I did not want a man who had rapped kids in the car I paid for and bought the gas for! Oh silly me how selfish am I not to want poor brother child molester in my car I am just hysterical.
Funny thing I called Bethel last week and I asked if pedophiles go door to door and I spoke to two different "brothers" both said NO that JW's never send pedophiles door to door. I have seen it with my own eyes over and over and over. I know for a fact that child molesters, pedophiles, baby rapist, or what ever you want to call them DO GO DOOR TO DOOR. Why did Bethel lie to me last week????????? If everything is so great why the lies???
I guess you can take a person out of the religion but you cannot take the religion out of the person in your cases. JT and fleaman.
If you think I am hysterical you will think it. But please do not put words in my mouth!!!
Thanks Lady Lee for your great post.
LITS
Lady Lee I did not see you were posting as I writting my post at the same time. Thank you for understanding.
I was abused from the age of 0 till I was almost 19 years old. I tried and tired to STOP IT. I could not do it.
When that CO told me I had to have the child molester in my car because my husband was an elder, I wanted to die so bad that day. I came home from field service and I held the bottle of sleeping pills in my hand and cried my eyes out. I thought it was the truth at that time, I felt so alone in the world I just wanted to die so bad. It was like my religion had turned its back on me and sided with pedophiles which they did.
I will never forget that day and if I am hysterical so be it.
LITS
