Carl Olof Jonsson wrote:
TO FOCUS:
Hi Focus!
Hi Carl! Welcome to Apostate Central (Mild and Calm Division).
I remember very well our vain attempts to help "Joshua92" back to reality!
The mathless Messiah, surely.
You also know me as compiler of The List of Watchtower Quotations, found on Freeminds and many other websites. It is a small subset of the whole List, which I shall publish one day in one form or another, which comprises approximately 10,000 Watchtower quotations analyzed, cross-referenced - and exposed for what they are. It is a not an attack but a demolition.
I have checked your post as referred to, where you say:
"May I first say that no sensible person has suggested that the two witness policy had originated with Ray - and conceptually origination is somewhat akin to authorship (which is what you and COJ have been discussing)."
And which is my opinion.
Below, the emphasis is mine:
But here is what Bill Bowen stated in his original post: > Ray Franz supports the WT policy on child abuse. He is the author of the two
> eye witness rule. [snip]
So what do you say?
If only all questions were so simple!
Answer (I was waiting for this): I have to say just what I have said to Bill, i.e.;
THAT BILL WAS NOT SENSIBLE TO HAVE SAID THAT, OR TO HAVE THOUGHT THAT.
And Bill NO LONGER thinks that.
It was his original post, clearly not made in a moment of tranquility. His baby - for which he has sacrificed much - was not receiving the support which is felt by many to be its due.
That is no longer his opinion, and his subsequent post(s) have made that clear, and have held out an olive branch.
Bill and Ray are very different persona. One is a crusader and showman, the other reflects and chooses his words with enormous care. One is a man of physical action and energy, the other (even when much younger) one of mental agility and calm, armchair rebuttals - a man of words. One values tact, form and discretion, and one believes they have their place.
If Bill was not Bill, he would not have got the media rolling as he did. He gave them the soundbites, not essays as Ray, or I (and I dare say you) might have. He K.I.S.S.'d it for them, as they needed it.
If Ray was not Ray, Crisis of Conscience would have turned into a Rabble-Rousing Focus post (and have been binned by so many who needed a gentle kindergarten phase).
Bill sometimes chooses the wrong words (possibly trying to oversimplify or to dispense with ?). Had he used "expositor" instead of "author", what would you now say, Carl? Perhaps to Bill there was but a small difference therebetween. To men who set store in their precision of expression - men such as Ray, and some others, including (blush) perfectionists such as myself - there is, of course, a whole world of difference.
For example, I have also pointed out privately to Bill (and to others on this board, who made the same error when trying to "correct" me) that he should use the phrase "sexual absuer of a child" in almost all cases where he uses "pedophile". A pedophile is one who has the desire, the need - in some cases the urge may not be acted upon. The set of pedophiles is a superset of the set of such abusers.
Bill's figure (~23,720) relates to the number of alleged sexual abuse cases involving a "jW" child that were reported over an unspecified period and which reports actually got through to Bethel. The number of abusers involved would therefore be smaller (some being multiple-offenders, and some being false charges). However, many cases will have been unreported (partly for the usual reasons that suppress numbers of rapes and sexual abuse reported among the population at large, and additionally since the poor victim learns she - it is usually a she - will have no chance against the two witness policy, it never even gets to be reported to the elders, and of course the police are not generally considered at all), doubtless more than compensating for the above. And of course the number of pedophiles "within" the WT umbrella is larger still, because "pedophiles" includes many who have not (yet) abused, but know they have the appetite.
It is hard to work out accurately how this compares with figures for the population at large - let alone for other cults. The Watchtower's stonewalling (claiming privacy considerations, which of course do not apply to statistical aggregates) prevents analysis - and that stonewall will only give way at the order of a court. And there has been ample time to tamper with the data in the interim, not of course that I suggest for one second that Bethel is populated other than by entirely honorable men (you may have encountered my little quotation from Julius Caesar in another thread)!
I have, however, attempted some computations (not successfully challenged as yet) which suggest that, in North America and Europe, Bill's data is consistent with a PEDOPHILE (note: not sexual abuser of a child) RATIO as high as 1 in 10 adult male jWs. I am not at all saying that it is this high. There is an enormous margin of error, given the imponderables. But an error of an order of magnitude or even more would still yield results that place the Watchtower at the forefront of the major religions/cults in this most highly undesirable league table.
I have also presented data as to why I believe the position within the high-control group of the WT, and taking all factors into account, may be empirically expected to be worse. You will find all these arguments presented in threads started by me and found BY CLICKING HERE. The descriptive "Subject:" make navigation easy.
While I will not repeat their detail, I show therein that there is a synergistic (from the point of view of the pedophile planning "action", that is) relationship between the "two witnesses" and the "no outside involvement until DF'd" written and unwritten rules. Together, they mitigate against the provision that the witnesses may be to different occurrences of the same type of alleged wrongdoing. Do read my posts, please.
Bill is faced with some extremely nasty realities - fruits of the application of the policies of the WT - right up close to him. Bill would have to be a cold and heartless fish indeed if he was not to be affected thereby - and he is far from being either, as his posts reveal.
In contrast, Ray has been isolated and insulated, in relative terms. His childhood, early to middle life within the WT and then - skipping aside the era of his crisis of conscience when he could no longer contain all those doubts, and his crucifixion and cutting-off - was followed by an era of relative tranquility. To me, Ray - while certainly considering the WT to be other than the right religion - still appears to have somewhere a soft spot for it, believing that there is some good in it and that it is capable of reform. Possibly this reflects the sort of kind man he is. He finds it hard to feel there is no good at all in something. Of course it is hard to accept something to which one has dedicated years and love is an utter, total scandalous and wicked sham. Try to write - with absolute cynicism and lack of morality - rules from scratch to design a money-making, life-ruining "religious" cult. You end up with something that closely resembles the Watchtower. There are many worse cults in terms of per-capita (member and collateral i.e. loved ones) damage - but they are small organizations. IMHO there is no worse cult/religion in terms of aggregate damage in modern times than the WT. The worst point is that it attracts many of the kindest and most selfless people - who simply cannot believe that such a giant hoax could possibly be. And it also attracts the worst sort of wolf.
I share a few qualities with each of these giants (probably borrowing only from their less-than-perfect sides)l accordingly, I understand exactly how this fiasco has developed.
Read my thread on the Parable, please, of the slave with two masters who tries to do the bidding of one. While Caleb might in some ways be Ray, and Fookus is myself, the other characters in it have no precise parallels. But the unparalleled parable does illustrate some of what is at issue.
Bill was trying to change Ray's mind. Bill absolutely did not know how. Techniques of bombast or pressure, useful in changing or influencing the "mind" of an entity like CNN or the BBC, and of the general public, will be singularly ineffective with people like Ray. Obvious with hindsight, I am sure, to all concerned.
I do believe Bill has a little time for me, and a rapprochement of some nature should be possible.
Can we work together to arrive at some more refined estimate of the extent of the pedophile problem, which I believe (but cannot prove) is of near epidemic proportions within the WT? Two minds...
I am sure that if my estimates, reduced even by an order of magnitude, stand up to scrutiny, Ray and others (Jim?) will change their minds.
Your considered reply is awaited eagerly, Carl.
My motive is always simple. [b]Focus's focus is on the Tower.
But I do not believe the Ends justify the Means, for I do not wish in any way to become that which I battle. A danger which faces us all, and I know one of which you are conscious.
Best wishes!
--
Focus
(Math Class)
ps: Simon, I appear to have been partly muzzled here, as in restricted to one new thread per 24 hour period. No warning was given. Since upto that point I had made fewer than 20 posts here in the preceding 3 months, and started only 4 new threads there in the same preceding 3 months (2 of them within a 24 hour period, so I know something was changed when I got the "Barred" message), I guess more bandwidth must have been badly needed to discuss, with illustrations, the latest uncontroversial favorite flavor of ice cream or something. Or is the board robot ALSO counting abortive post attempts (I post via a chain of anonymous proxies, a most ponderous and unreliable route, and which prevent online chat or personal messages)? Ah, the persecution, the persecution!
Edited by - Focus on 2 November 2002 19:9:13
