Posts by Mephis

11

Jehovah's Witness spared jail over grooming girl

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/crime/jehovah-s-witness-spared-jail-over-grooming-girl-1-7551106.

a jehovah's witness who groomed a girl has walked free from court.. .

richard ogilvie was given a suspended prison sentence after a judge ruled his conduct was 'bad, but not as bad as some cases we see before these courts'.. the victim's father said he 'understands and accepts' the sentence and hopes the sex offender treatment ogilvie receives will prevent another child and family suffering at his hands.. .

Mephis

falseprophet - as I said in the very first words of the post you quote from, "keep in mind the crime he was found guilty of".

If you have information which can protect others in the future, which would lead to a stronger sentence for a convicted sex offender, then it's on you to report that to the police.

If this is ongoing abuse, then you can contact the NSPCC too. 0808 800 5000 is their number. They can also advise you on the proper course of action even if it is just suspicion.

The safety of children and teens has to be the priority over whatever dispute you have with Simon, surely?

35

Seems odd that the Bible never mentions Pryamids?

by dropoffyourkeylee in

doesn't it seem strange that the bible never mentions the pyramids?

how could someone go to egypt at that time and not even so much as mention the huge monuments?

Mephis

There isn't really much directly referencing the pyramids at Giza in any written sources until the Hellenistic period and Herodotus' account.

That's not really unusual for ancient buildings. The largest tomb known in Greece, and what appears to be a major cult site, is currently under excavation at Amphipolis. Nobody seems to have bothered mentioning it in any works about Macedonia or Thrace or Greece or even the city itself. People didn't write travel guides til much later. Your best bet for references to buildings is when someone has a trumpet to blow about what part they played in its construction or in its maintenance. 'I did that' sort of thing in an inscription somewhere around the building itself etc.

The one thing which the Israelites are meant to have built in Egypt which can be identified with some certainty is the city of Ramesses (Pi-Ramesses). Sadly it doesn't fit the biblical chronology, it was built a century and more after the Exodus is meant to have happened, nor was it a store city - it was actually a royal summer city and then the capital for a period. Someone was likely aware of the ruins to create the little backstory for them at a later date though.

49

Forgiving Loans the Watchtower Way

by cofty in

bank - thank you for maintaining your loan repayments for the past 3 years.

to show our appreciation we are forgiving the balance of your loan.

borrower - yeah!.

Mephis

You'd get a deleted body of elders for not following theocratic direction. At best another court case where the organisation will argue they're just like the Catholic Church and local congregations do what they're told. They've mentioned recently that congregations should consider kingdom halls as belonging to 'Jehovah' and therefore to shut up when told what to do with it.

Would have to fully split from them to be free of their control.

11

Jehovah's Witness spared jail over grooming girl

by Researchedandenlightened in

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/crime/jehovah-s-witness-spared-jail-over-grooming-girl-1-7551106.

a jehovah's witness who groomed a girl has walked free from court.. .

richard ogilvie was given a suspended prison sentence after a judge ruled his conduct was 'bad, but not as bad as some cases we see before these courts'.. the victim's father said he 'understands and accepts' the sentence and hopes the sex offender treatment ogilvie receives will prevent another child and family suffering at his hands.. .

Mephis

Keep in mind the crime he was found guilty of, rather than the headline of 'walks free'. He sent texts over a period of a week, and has been found guilty of grooming. A suspended prison sentence, which is only suspended because he now has 2 years of mandated sex offender treatment and supervision. He's also now on the sex offender register. Whilst the judge has made a judgement call on whether to send to prison or to try a rehabilitation, this guy isn't getting off easy. He has to inform the police every time he leaves the country, every time he changes address, whether he's living with anyone under the age of 18, details of bank accounts etc. And if he doesn't, it's 5 years in prison just for not doing that.

10

Damn Satan at it again tampering with evidence!

by notsurewheretogo in

jeepers...we all know that humans have only been on this planet for 6,000 years...stupid scientists getting confused again...must be that satan bloke who goes round fiddling with all the evidence that humans have been on this planet longer than 6,000 years!.

http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-can-t-explain-who-made-these-huge-8-000-year-old-glyphs-in-kazakhstan?.

back in 2007, a series of huge, mysterious geoglyphs were discovered in the grasslands, or steppes, of kazakhstan.

Mephis

Most amazing if they can make the dating stand up. This is the area where one would expect to find Indo-European culture developing, if one of the main theories of human language/culture development is correct, so this is huge really for that.

Gobekli Tepe has already re-written the textbooks on ideas of when humans began to shift into settled communities, and the ability to order a labour force to create something of significant size, so there's plenty of room for other things to chip away at once established ideas.

Very exciting, but they need to establish the dating first. So far it's guesswork from everything I've seen, and evidence has to drive theory.

32

Being interviewed by police tomorrow

by moley in

well tomorrow is a big day for me.

i'm finally going to be interviewed by the police about what happened to me as a kid.. im running the whole gamut of emotions at the moment.

sad, anxious, angry, guilt, fear and many more that cannot be quantified.. i feel physically sick, cannot sleep, have lost my appetite and i am desperately trying not to self harm.. i've got my sister to thank for getting this far.

Mephis

All the best for tomorrow moley. Sure you have the strength to do it, and that the police will show sensitivity and kindness for what they know is a very difficult thing to do.

Please look after yourself. If you're not getting any help with some of the thoughts and feelings you have, may be worth seeing if there's some available for you so you have a wee bit of support there for yourself right now. (GP, Community Mental Health Team, as you're in Britain the police may offer some support too via victim support, so it's there if you want and/or need).

12

Say goodbye to privacy in the UK..

by GodZoo in

internet firms to be banned from offering unbreakable encryption under new laws.

companies such as apple, google and others will no longer be able to offer encryption so advanced that even they cannot decipher it when asked to under the investigatory powers bill.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11970391/internet-firms-to-be-banned-from-offering-out-of-reach-communications-under-new-laws.htmlso.. david cameron and the conservatives have decided that because of a handful of potential terrorists and some people exchanging nude photos of kids that the remaining and innocent 64 million united kingdom residents are no longer allowed to have any privacy..

Mephis

It's an argument for proper scrutiny of legislation more than anything. Councils acted unlawfully using RIPA like that. Wasn't the solution for magistrates and judges to have oversight of its use, as should have been the case in the first place?

12

Say goodbye to privacy in the UK..

by GodZoo in

internet firms to be banned from offering unbreakable encryption under new laws.

companies such as apple, google and others will no longer be able to offer encryption so advanced that even they cannot decipher it when asked to under the investigatory powers bill.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11970391/internet-firms-to-be-banned-from-offering-out-of-reach-communications-under-new-laws.htmlso.. david cameron and the conservatives have decided that because of a handful of potential terrorists and some people exchanging nude photos of kids that the remaining and innocent 64 million united kingdom residents are no longer allowed to have any privacy..

Mephis

The current law in Britain allows for you to be sent to prison for refusing to give an encryption key to law enforcement. Surveillance in Britain has been present since means were available to do it. Not sure where the right balance is with this for us in Britain. Just to give perspective to the terrorism argument, it is real and we've got teenagers trying to get hold of bombmaking stuff. I know of four individual cases within a few miles of where I live over the past three or four years. And that's just one city, where a bomb not so long ago led to the whole city centre being rebuilt.

Difficult one really because the protections and safeguards should be in the use of powers to intercept and open, not in the ability to do it once judicial permission has been given. Need to see more details of what's intended and the checks and balances which are going to be present. Conservatives have in the recent past been a bit stupid with their thinking on the internet generally, so they don't start from a particularly good place.

25

Bethel layoff question

by CookieMonster in

hi,.

with the layoffs of bethelites and special pioneers, does anyone know if they get some sort of "redundancy" payout?

.

Mephis

Ah found it.

In December 2007, the Spanish authorities decided that any Witness, regardless of a vow of poverty, who worked in their printing facilities in Spain would be eligible for a pension from the organisation. The organisation's response was to move the printing out of Spain.

That pretty much summarises their attitude towards social responsibilities and provisions for Bethelites.

16

Don't lie with a beast. Leviticus 20;15,16 and 18:23

by James Mixon in

are we sure this is talking about a four-legged beast here.. if it were, god would not demand the death penalty for a dumb animal.

with no reasoning power that was raped.

call it what you want but.

Mephis

Mindful of Simon's caution above.

Bestiality is attested to in Egyptian and Greek sources, which would be two major cultural influences for the Jews when things were being written down, and there's even depictions of it from Egypt too. Some debate over how far things did go, as opposed to them being symbolic, but it's not a stretch to imagine it being something which did happen and therefore the commandments addressing that.