Fade or DA one will decide what's best for his circumstances and situation.
QUITTING QUIETLY here is the Canadian version of the document
by gone for good 84 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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gone for good
Phizzy - As always my friend, your intellect and compassion still shine on this forum.
Sadly the concept of any novel approach to leaving a cult goes straight over the heads of armchair critics and back porch haters.
While we await their superior solutions, we wade through post after post of "...can't, never, worthless, won't, not me, nope, haha,..."
Not a single original idea from even one of them...waiting....still waaaiting...
"It is not a letter of DA, nor a letter to the elders, it is a persons' private exercise of their Human Rights.-"
The sentence above is from that older post you found.
It is a complete explanation of what our signed document is and is not. In all the intervening months not a single naysayer-not one.... even figured out why you might want to avoid the use of a Letter of Disassociation or whether or not 'Human Rights" means anything at all at an actual Human Rights Tribunal. (yes its' a real thing)
On one of todays posts I suggested that our little document of emancipation might spark some positive "..self- awareness among the elder body.." The reply was, and I quote "-uh?"....talk about lack of self-awareness !
I remember this forum as a hotbed of humor, sarcasm, wit , intelligent banter and serious discussions.
I followed and read ever page of Coftys' 120 page challenge to defend 'Natural Evil' - Classic Cofty.
It was on this forum I learned the phrase "intellectual dishonesty" and realised that was the term which applied to my first inklings that the WT was 'not as advertised', I had been 'inkled' at a district convention years earlier.
This forum (Cofty again?) ran a series of posts regarding logical phallacies, and introduced me to critical thinking.
Now it galls me to introduce an original idea that may have broader application to just Jws - rabid evangelical families, Mormons, Muslims ,Scientologists all need a clearer quicker path for those who wish to leave.
If '-uh?' is now an indication of the standard of communication here,.. there is not relly much more to say.
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gone for good
DesirousofChange-
Elders will be fully aware that they have exactly zero ecclesiastic authority over non-members.
To disfellowship a non member would be a greater violation of that persons religious rights as to demand a Jew eat a ham sandwich.
Does not their own policy state that a DFing is effected upon an elders' announcement?
Failure to follow procedure would embolden families to not shun their kid or kids to not their parent.(sad,sad)
No announcement = no DF = no shunning is the logic that members can apply.
(More chaos for elders to manage is good)
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gone for good
Neatbluedog -
Precedence will be established when a blameless 'Rosa Parks' emerges from among those who sign-up to test drive this approach to leaving - I think many youth will sign as THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO LOSE but much to be gained if their name is never read out .
As far as I am aware there is no precedent for an actual written invoking of ones' Human Right to Freedom of Conscience to escape a church.
The very notion of even needing to this is absurd -- but this is not an ordinary c--t,
I think WT/JW fear Freedom of Conscience claims in the same way employers fear racial discrimination claims.
The ARC is a perfect example of what happens - that was a demonstration of a tribunal at work in the Australian system and you should know that the same processes apply to tribunals of Human Rights abuses claims.as to the Rights of the Child claims
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Anony Mous
Where do you get the notion that freedom OF religion means freedom FROM religions? The document means absolutely nothing to the WTBTS, they will still go through their procedure of disfellowshipping you. And you cannot stop them, because legally that would interfere with their freedom OF religion, and that has been established as a legal matter the US, the EU and Canada.
In the letter you are basically stating that you have Human Rights, but having those rights does not mean Disfellowshipping has been made illegal. It has been made illegal in places like Russia and China though, so if you can make claim to that nationality and jurisdiction, you can actually claim that it would be illegal to DF you based on local laws that affect the family union.
The only way to stop a DF is to get a restraining order, but you need to have actual legal grounds, but that is very technical and dependent on what happened before. You still can’t decide you can stop them from speaking though, but a restraining order will hold them back. I was able to stop them from disfellowshipping me because the elders were family members of my ex, the elders stalked me to catch me in “wrongdoing” and I got a temporary restraining order against the organization doing “anything to affect the relationship with my child”, so they simply gave up.
Eventually though they simply circulated I was an apostate but never went through the process of inviting me to a disfellowshipping meeting, so technically speaking, I was never DF’ed or demoted from my position, since that was never announced, I’m sure my record is in a red folder though (provided they still use red folders for legal issues).
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gone for good
Jeff
.We want people to be able to leave without being disfellowshipped - that's our only goal here
sign your emancipation document now, (before you fade or leave or draw any attention to yourself)
You are now emancipated - now a nonmember (see how easy that was?)
.Ecclesiastic authority can not be exerted on non-members.
You (now emancipated) can not be disfellowshipped because you are not a church member
Their ecclesial authority has been preempted by your having already exercised your right to emancipation
They are no longer your elders so NEVER MEET WITH THEM AGAIN.
That is no longer your church - you are now just a visitor..
Our emancipation doesn't stop them from practicing their religion on their members-
Our emancipation has stopped them from practicing their religion on us - by claiming our right to be free of their religion.
And we have a signed and witnessed document to prove all of this.
We have nothing to lose by doing this, but much, so very much to gain.
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MeanMrMustard
@gone for good:
This is getting a bit painful. Having a document signed some time before you appear “on the elder’s radar” won’t change the outcome one bit. You say:
Their ecclesial authority has been preempted by your having already exercised your right to emancipation
And conclude that they can’t DF you. They really don’t care to DF you because you are informing them that you don’t consider yourself one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It doesn’t matter that you made the decision one month ago or ten years ago. Once they know that you have decided to leave, then they will inform everyone about your choice to leave. They will announce you have disassociated yourself. There won’t be a committee. There won’t be a disfellowshipping. They will announce you have disassociated. The elders are not exercising any authority over you. Actually, they are doing the exact opposite and acknowledging your free choice to leave. Congrats! You are out. Now they will shun you.
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gone for good
Longhairgirl - good to hear from you again.
As JWs we were conditioned to be cowards and those who truly are will shun without question
We aren't trying to stop shunning -we are trying to stop the disfellowshipping of voluntary leavers
If WT/JW goes ahead and takes ecclesiastic action against a nonmember they leave themselves open to a claim of violation of that persons' human rights. That will lead to a human rights tribunal, Jws will lose as they have zero right s to enforce their doctrine and practices on nonmembers
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MeanMrMustard
We aren't trying to stop shunning -we are trying to stop the disfellowshipping of voluntary leavers
You are basically saying “We are trying to stop the disfellowshipping of the disassociated.” Congrats! That’s the current state of affairs. Nobody gets DFed if they DA.
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LongHairGal
GONE FOR GOOD:
Hi. I’m sorry if I misunderstood as I thought your intent was to stop shunning by submitting this signed and dated document. I see where you are coming from in that you want to stop the disfellowshipping of voluntary leavers.
However, if you were able to do this, what would it accomplish as far as the religion is concerned? Whether DFd or voluntary leaver: they see you as Out. It’s a distinction without much of a difference. It’s sort of like saying I quit so that somebody can’t say they were fired. Once somebody submitted this written document there would be a private meeting about the person and it would be put in their file. Even though there would be no formal announcement, the gossip would start and the person would be the talk of the town. There would be gatherings where the person is the topic of conversation and the whole circuit knows.
Having no announcement made does not mean a person will retain their friends and family there. I don’t think you can win here..Even if somebody retained one friend, this person would be your friend secretly and would not broadcast it because then THEY would be judged.
Of course, none of this matters if a person wants to leave and not have anything to do with anybody there. The problem arises if somebody hopes to defeat the JW system in general to avoid being shunned or gossiped about because this would be a lost cause. I would say just Move On with your life!