OneEyedJoe

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Posts by OneEyedJoe

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  15

  Small (tiny) victories

  by disposable hero of hypocrisy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i had a conversation with my wife today about child abuse as it's in the news, and i managed to slip in the fact that wt (not an individual, but the .org itself) has just been ruled against in the states to the tune of 13 million or so.

  she knows i'm opposed to the procedures we have in place, and she can definitely see that it makes sense to go straight to the police, and said she would do immediately if it were our children.

  we had a fairly local case where the elders positively marched the offender to the station themselves, and good for them for doing so, but she most likely thinks everyone would do that out of common sense.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Progress is progress, take what you can get. Sounds like you're doing a better job with your wife than I am with mine.
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  17

  Lets hope the G.B.never learn from their mistakes , refusing to comply with court instructions.

  by smiddy in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  with the recent case of the watchtower hierarchy defying the court to either produce documents relating to child sex abuse claims within their organisation, and also refusing to produce a governing member to appear in court to answer questions , not only shows their arrogance and defiance of the law , they also show their contempt of the judicial system of the usa .. arent they supposed to be obeying the bible injunction ?

  " pay back ceasers things to ceaser ?".

  "when you are hailed before the courts , i will put words in your mouth ?".

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  OneEyedJoe

  JV - in the interview with the lawyer from the 13.5mil San Diego case, the lawyer demonstrated that he had in-depth knowledge of the current and previous elder's manuals. I suspect that was used when they presented their arguments.
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  443

  Zone Visit: An Announcement That Will "Test Your Faith"

  by breakfast of champions in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this is the scuttlebutt in one of the "bethel congregations" by us.. no details as to exactly what this "faith-testing" announcement might be.. anyone else hear any of this pre-zone visit hype?.

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  OneEyedJoe

  I sure hope so, I'm quite ready to have my faith tested! Especially if they enact some form of enforced tithing - I could easily draw a line there and have my wife at least understand.

  In the end, though, I suspect that the only thing that will be tested will be my ability to remain awake for 3 hours of the ramblings of old men. JWs are always inventing rumors to keep themselves going. About the last convention, someone said to me "The theme is 'Let your kingdom come!' - they've never had a theme like that before! maybe it means the end is close!" When I (still blind to TTATT at the time) replied that only a few years prior they'd had a similar theme and they'd said the very same thing about it, they couldn't seem to remember. This is probably the same thing - JWs whipping themselves into a froth only to be let down because if they don't they might realize it's all a scam and that's something they're not ready for.
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  17

  Lets hope the G.B.never learn from their mistakes , refusing to comply with court instructions.

  by smiddy in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  with the recent case of the watchtower hierarchy defying the court to either produce documents relating to child sex abuse claims within their organisation, and also refusing to produce a governing member to appear in court to answer questions , not only shows their arrogance and defiance of the law , they also show their contempt of the judicial system of the usa .. arent they supposed to be obeying the bible injunction ?

  " pay back ceasers things to ceaser ?".

  "when you are hailed before the courts , i will put words in your mouth ?".

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  OneEyedJoe

  Honestly, I think they may have the best strategy for their situation - they're screwed either way but they're just trying to make the best of a bad situation. They have documented and OCR'd (thus easily searchable) lists of known pedophiles in their possession that they cannot give up to be made public record. Right now there may be 20, even 100 cases in the pipeline against them, but if they have a list of a thousand pedophiles that they've protected and failed to do anything about, they're better off taking the blows that they get from the victims that come forward.

  If a lawyer gets a hold of the list and it becomes public record, they immediately have ammunition for countless more lawsuits, possibly a class-action law suit. A lawyer could easily make a lifelong career off of picking a name on the list, finding his victims (especially those victimized after the WTS was made aware of his pedophilia) and encouraging them to sue. what's 200 million in settlements and rulings when it could easily be in the billions?
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  47

  preface question:

  by mohrb in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  order of operations is important, so, i'll ask a question before i make assumptions and start "fixing things.".

  obviously, the site heavily encourages the viewpoint of former j-dubs and others who have disagreements with the political posturing of the wbts.

  i get that, and see your points.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Apognophos: [...] Only a few posters here are promoting tin-foil hat theories about the Society. [...]

  I'd just point out that this may not be true from the perspective of an active JW. A large number of us here are well aware of the UN NGO stuff, as well as the way in which the organization protects child molesters and knowingly allows them to exist in the congregation without so much as a word of warning to parents. In some cases it seems they actually assign a known/confessed pedophile to study with a child one-on-one. Then, of course there's the mexico/malawai disparity, etc, etc.

  To the eyes of an active JW, all this seems like crazy tin-foil hat ideas that couldn't possibly have even a grain of truth to them. The problem is that they're ALL TRUE (and just the tip of the iceburg). So, yes, the folks who post crazy theories on here are certainly a small minority, to an active and fully indoctrinated JW, it all seems like insane ramblings of bitter appostates (I should know, that's what I thought at first until I saw black-and-white evidence from the WTS and independant sources).
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  15

  Rick Simons vs Irwin Zalkin

  by Calebs Airplane in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  they're both doing an excellent job... but which lawyer do you believe is currently best equipped to expose the watchtower's child sex abuse scandals and cover-ups?.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Why do we need to choose?

  This.

  And also what Simon said. Their goal isn't to take down the WTS, that's just a nice windfall for us if it happens. For our purposes, going after individual congregations/elders has a place too because it will reinforce the apparent shortage of "qualified brothers" to "reach out" when they start to see that this results in liability on their part. Going after the entire org (and winning) hits them where it hurts and forces further consolidation and shady business practices that will only serve to wake up more of the R/F. Also, for the few who actually will find out about the abuse lawsuits, by winning against the WTS it shows that the problem is systemic, not just a few "imperfect men."

  Both are great, and I have a feeling that once a few of these cases are completely closed out and money is paid to the victims (and the lawyers) there's going to be more victims and lawyers taking shots at the cult. Normally I'm the first to jump on the lawyer-bashing bandwagon as there's too many frivilous lawsuits and exorbidant payouts being thrown around these days, but in this case I'm happy to make an exception.
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  28

  ARE JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES CREATIONISTS OR EVOLUTIONISTS?

  by Viva la Vida in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the answer to this question is not that easy or obvious as you might think.

  if your answer is "creationists" you are wrong, they are evolutionists a rare breed of evolutionists, but evolutionists at last .. at this stage of my argumentation you might think i have lost my mind for stating jehovahs witnesses are evolutionists, but this might be because you are thinking as the wt has taught you to think.

  the wt has presented a distorted view of the theory of evolution.

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  OneEyedJoe

  They're not so much creationist or evolutionist as they are throw-crap-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks-ists.

  The problem with that is you tend to end up with an enourmous pile of crap at the base of the wall.

  Their view that evolution happens within "kinds" is not unique to the JWs. This is commonly called microevolution by many fundamentalist groups and is primarily the result of how slow evolution happens. It can be observed happening on a small scale, and folks who claim to deny "macroevolution" just lack the imagination (or are willfully ignorant) to see how small changes ("microevolution") might add up over time to create a wholy new species.
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  47

  preface question:

  by mohrb in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  order of operations is important, so, i'll ask a question before i make assumptions and start "fixing things.".

  obviously, the site heavily encourages the viewpoint of former j-dubs and others who have disagreements with the political posturing of the wbts.

  i get that, and see your points.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Mohrb:

  Welcome to the site. Your posts reflect a lot of what I myself thought internally at one point. However, after a little research I realized that it was I who had been mislead and the JW religion is hopelessly broken, and always was. It's not an old car that just needs to be fixed up, it's a hunk of metal that never drove in the first place.

  That said, if you think you can defend the truth, I invite you to head on over to this thread and enlighten us all. I've always said I'd much rather lose an argument than win one, because I'd rather not spend any more time being wrong than necessary. If you think you can provide evidence that the JW religion is the way to go, I invite you to do so.
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  10

  Even if the WTS wins its appeals, it loses

  by sir82 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the thought occurs to me that even if the wts wins its appeals, it loses.. suppose that conti, lopez, the other 8 cases tied to campos, and even dozens more cases to come are overturned on appeal.. (1) the wts will have built a reputation of secrecy & mishandling.

  a lone crackpot or 2 might file a case against a big corporation in hopes of getting something out of a settlement, but if there are dozens & dozens of litigants, most of whom prefer to go to court to air the "dirty laundry" instead of seeking a settlement, what does that say?.

  (2) it's not exactly an appealing message for the wts to say "ha ha!

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  OneEyedJoe

  If half of what the lawyer said about their behavior is true, I don't see how they can possibly win the appeal. At this point they're throwing good money after bad.

  They're definitely earning a reputation for secrecy and obstinance that is unbecoming of the position that they claim to hold, though I somehow doubt that many JWs will be affected personally by the news. Even if they see it, they'll just assume its "imperfect men" in the congregaion and won't bother to read enough to realize that it's a systemic problem, or that it's their donation money that's going to pay these victims (and indeed their money helping to fight against compensating the victims). Sadly, I well know that if I had seen the headline "Jehovah's Witnesses to pay $13.5M to sex abuse vitim" I would've just assumed that it was a civil case against an individual in the congregation and the reporter made a mistake in using the plural "witnesses." I certainly wouldn't have bothered reading the article.

  I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think the average JW is sufficiently keyed into the goings-on of the world that they'll notice this at all. Sure, they'll lose some due to this, but I don't think the loss in membership will hurt as bad as the loss of money. I think these lawsuits need to win and bleed the org dry of money to have any hope of resulting in a rapid decline of the cult. Maybe I'm just in a pessimistic mood, though.

  Edit:

  I just thought of one caveat that might make all this have a much bigger effect. If the late-night shows pick up this news and make jokes about it, that will personally impact a lot more JWs than just having it on google news or CNN or whatever. People will turn off the news if they're not interested, but a 20-second long joke on letterman (that's over before you know it) will hit home and plant seeds.
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  44

  New JW Podcast Show - Amazing Interview with Irwin Zalkin!

  by God_Delusion in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hello guys & gals!.

  we've just launched our brand new episode, s01e01 - irwin zalkin, which we recorded last night.. you can listen to it right here - http://www.jwpodcast.org/2014/11/03/s01e01-irwin-zalkin.

  in this ground-breaking bumper show, we interview irwin zalkin, the lawyer who filed and won this new child abuse case against the watchtower organisation, which saw the victim, jose lopez awarded $13.5 million.. i think you'll agree with me (after listening to the interview) that irwin really knows his 'watchtower' stuff!.

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  OneEyedJoe

  So I guess you guys stumbled upon the only thing that they'll never get noo lite on - pedophiles are to be protected at all costs!