I cryed today...

by silentlambs 114 Replies latest watchtower scandals

• 

  dedalus

  As a student of literature, I can affirm that very few Witnesses can actually read.

  Dedalus, BA, MA, MFA, PHD, NFL, CBS, ATT, ETC
• 

  Wayne

  Hi Stephen20

  What you are saying is that the confidentiallity of all who turned to the elders, in the past, should be made available to the authorities.
  I hardly think this is fair. The purpose in contacting the society's legal department is simply to safeguard the records that do not have any bearing on the case. And remember, when a case of true child molestation hits the papers it is the family of the molested child as well as the child that suffers most in the community. In many instances the society can arrange to gag the papers until the case is actually tried.

  Once again I appeal to balance and due proceedure--not ignorance of the details.
• 

  Wayne

  Sorry, but there is a vast body of research to show that not all pedophiles are child molestors. My word, why do you think child beauty apgeants are so popular. There are many people who hav pedophilic tendencies who never engage in child molestation. The child molester is seldom sexually motivated but is motivated by a desire to hurt and deflower innocence and exploit weakness.

  PAX
• 

  stephenw20

  Wayne,
  how do you know so much about pedophiles....share with us PLEASE all your INSIGHT as to where all your inforomation is derived from?
  S
• 

  Wayne

  Naturally you are correct. However, I will stand by my statement regarding there overall adjustment as a group. There has been more than one study. Give me some time to pull one out of my hat. My email is open to all. Email me and I will do my best to accomodate you.
• 

  Wayne

  Actually, JT, the answer is an emphatic YES!
• 

  dedalus

  Wayne,

  Glad to see you are still participating in this thread. I have a question I hope you can help me with. As a student of psychology, can you tell me where I left the remote control?

  Thanks.

  Seriously:

  There are many people who hav pedophilic tendencies who never engage in child molestation.

  This is sort of like saying that someone with homicidal tendencies never kills anyone.

  Not that it matters. Your remarks are nothing but a pretentious semantic smokescreen by which you hope to detract from the problem of child molestation in the Organization.

  Dedalus, who is made uncomfortable by non-sequiturs and illogical syllogisms that function to preserve pedophilia
• 

  stephenw20

  "In cases of serious criminal wrongdoing (e.g., murder, rape, etc.), or where the criminal conduct is widely known in the community, the body of elders should contact the Society before proceeding with the judicial committee process.

  Contact the society ......not the local authorites?"

  Wayne, Can you not understand this....serious wrongdoing, murder , rape...if the congregation has any prior knowlege or records , is that not OBSTRUCTION of justiceif it is not shared.

  "What you are saying is that the confidentiallity of all who turned to the elders, in the past, should be made available to the authorities.
  I hardly think this is fair

  fair , this isn't fair?, but having a pedophile go door to door with my child is fair.......I am sorry Wayne..... go back to school! learn something
  confidential for whom are these records..........THe PUBlisher never sees them...its only for the society..which begs another question ..........WHY DO THEY NEED THEM. GOD sees all ....maybe the society has forgotten this!
  if they shared law enforcible items with the authorities their hands would be CLEAN!

  Wayne, I wish you well, I wish you peace, i wish you enlightenment....... But I really wish TR would send that picture to you!

  S
• 

  AlanF

  To Wayne:

  Sorry, bro, but as my teenage daughter would say, "you have issues". It seems to me that your smoking problem has caused you to defend the JW organization -- even though you claim that not to be so -- much as any abuse victim often defends the abuser. Your defending posture is proved by the mistakes in logic that you've made, that a more objective person would not make.

  What difference does it make whether enough information was posted to allow you to evaluate the validity of the child's complaint? Either you accept it or you don't. Either you think the child is lying, or the poster is making all up, or you don't. All information eventually becomes "third hand". Do you discount newspaper accounts of a murderer's conviction because the information reaches you "third hand"?

  Your assertion that the incidence of child molestation among JWs shows that you have no idea what you're talking about. No one has done a definitive study -- indeed, such a study could not be made because everyone knows that a lot of people, including victims, who know about such molestation would cover it up even if they knew that they would not suffer personal consequences for revealing it. JWs have been trained to "avoid bringing reproach on Jehovah's name". That's why the cover-up of abuse among JWs is common. On the other hand, plenty of ex-elders have revealed that abuse is common enough among JWs that they've had to deal with a number of cases. All in all, it doesn't appear that the frequency of abuse among JWs is much different from that in society generally.

  Having been "out" for some time pretty well disqualifies you from making any judgments on this matter, wouldn't you say?

  The Watchtower most certainly is responsible for how elders handle cases of abuse, unless the elders fail to implement the Society's policies. Those policies include what is written in publicly available literature, the semi-secret Flock book, letters to bodies of elders, oral statements given to elders by COs and DOs and other Watchtower officials, and last but not least, the overall attitude towards dealing with anything that could "bring reproach on Jehovah's name" engendered by Watchtower practice over the last fifty years. All of those things figure in what elders do in specific cases. If you don't know what the real story is in each area, then you just don't know what you're talking about.

  The Watchtower is responsible because it itself appoints the elders who do its bidding. It is responsible for training elders to act on its behalf, so if the training is so bad that elders often don't uphold actual WTS policy, or if the WTS appoints elders who are unwilling or incapable of implementing its policies, then they are still responsible. The only way to avoid responsibility is simple: institute a blanket policy of reporting all abuse cases to secular authorities.

  Your words about establishing proof for allegations of abuse are at the heart of one of the biggest complaints lately voiced against the Society: its standards of proof are nearly impossible, in practice, to meet -- unless the abuser confesses. Absent a confession, the basic standard of proof for a judicial committee is straightforward: two or more witnesses for a given incident. For certain kinds of wrongdoing, the Society explicitly spells out that two witnesses to different incidents are acceptable, but these are with respect to wrongdoing that obviously pushes the buttons of Watchtower leaders much harder than child abuse does. Actual "case precedent" shows just what these hot buttons are: smoking and fornication. Child abuse is not covered in any written examples showing how two witnesses to separate incidents might be handled. And actual practice shows that both the Society and local elders will often not convict a man of child abuse even when two or more witnesses to separate incidents of abuse come forward. Since actual practice brings mixed results, it shows that the basic policies are flawed. Actual practice is what defines actual policy, is it not?

  As for abuse victims not being discouraged from reporting to authorities, that happens to be largely a paper policy. Only within the last few years has publicly available WTS literature allowed that it is ok for abuse to be reported to secular authorities rather than being handled in-house. The Society's tradition has been strongly to avoid reporting anything like that to secular authorities, and this tradition is alive and well in the JW community. The Society knows this perfectly well, and has taken no clear steps to get rid of the tradition, so the result is that sometimes a victim may be encouraged to report, but other victims are discouraged. Actual cases show that the discouragement may range from mild suggestions like, "are you really sure you want to report this and possibly bring reproach on the congregation?" to outright threats of disfellowshipping.

  Your discussion of who is a pedophile or molester is insane. Yes, the precise legal definition of "pedophile" as opposed to "predator upon minors" depends upon the particulars of local law. The age cutoff varies according to local law, but so what? In everyday speech, a pedophile is someone who sexually preys on children. Are you claiming that a 15-year-old is not a child? Perhaps according to some local laws, but not according to others. Are you claiming that a sixty-year-old man who uses guile and/or threats to have sex with his 15-year-old grandaughter is not a pedophile? What kind of idiot are you?

  Your statement that "not all pedophiles are child molesters any more than all heterosexuals are sexual predators" is completely ridiculous. You're comparing apples to oranges. Heterosexuality is the norm among human beings. That's why men and women are attracted to one another. Pedophilia is defined as the abnormal attraction of adults for children; therefore a pedophile is by definition a child molestor.

  Your excuses are exactly those that a practicing pedophile often makes to excuse his perversion to himself. "It's not really so bad. Besides, she likes it or she wouldn't let me do it."

  As for your 'finding' "Jehovah's Witnesses to be an unusually well adjusted group", that proves that you've not carefully examined them, or you're just fooling yourself. JWs as a whole are somewhat worse adjusted than society as a whole, at least, in the well-developed areas of the world. I've spoken to a number of psychologists about this and they concur. Some psychologists make a very good living treating exclusively JW patients. Of course, because going to a psychologist has traditionally been condemned by the Society, not many JWs will admit to it. You're simply naive if you believe what the Society tells you. JWs have unusually high rates of those ill-defined and hard-to-diagnose problems related to depression, such as chronic fatigue syndrome. Not surprisingly, these things often go away when a person quits the JW religion and starts living a normal life, free of the pressure to "do more" and to conform to strict, pharisaic rules.

  AlanF
• 

  JT

  wayne says:
  . It is too easy to cause far ranging decisions to be hastily made and to perhaps be found to be actually a worker against the interests of God.

  James ask: so do you consider the wt as working in the interest of God?

  Wayne says

  Actually, JT, the answer is an emphatic YES!

  I want to thank you for your honest heart felt answer- while I disagree with your view I fully understand why believe what you do- if you continue to be open to examining different points on the issue of the role that the WT claims it plays in the out working of god’s purpose I’m sure you will find it very enlighting

  As you will see the very Core Belief of WT is put to the test here namely:

  “ WE SPEAK FOR GOD AND NO ONE ELSE DOES DON’T LISTEN TO US AND YOU DIE”

  THIS basic teaching of the WT has failed to stand the test for many of us

  But I encourage you to at least take the test and see how you do

  Welcome to the board

  james