Posts by Mephis

23

Awesome New Books on JW's, MUST READ!

by johnny depp in

hey, i just thought i let you guys know about these two books i read:jehovah's witnesses, what lies behind the truththe watchtower society, organizational misbehaviorboth books by gabriel h ibarra.

awesome!

Mephis

I recall somewhere else which got spammed with information on these two books.

Surprisingly little available on the background of the writer - he previously was offering a work called Hystory of the Gregorian Calendar on lulu, but that seems to have vanished now for whatever reason.

For £38, I'd expect an academic work from a small academic press, but no academic qualifications are given for why I should be buying these books and why such a high price on Lulu.

Not really sure what to make of this, but I'm certainly not even tempted to buy at that price.

Sorry Gabriel, you need to sell these better and give some reasons why anyone would want to pay £38 for your thoughts on JWs.

36

Elders now ORDERED by the Org to fleece the sheep

by The Searcher in

the org is now demanding money from the witnesses, via the latest letter sent to elders regarding the circuit's excess funds.

succeeded in getting elders everywhere to hand over their own congregation's "excess funds" - now their circuit's bank balances are going to be plundered.. the spineless and subservient elders will cooperate without a whimper, because they're afraid of losing their little bit of power which the org has bestowed upon them.

(john 11:48).

Mephis

Not rocket science, but it does say they have money issues. Its not big funds.

I pulled up the accounts for just two assembly halls I used to go to. £640,000 ($1m US) available, cash, in their accounts. Each year the surplus from them amounts to £150,000 ($225,000 US) which will now go straight to London rather than remain at circuit level. edit: ha, just looked for another one, and whilst they've not claimed a surplus for a while, they're still claiming £900,000 in cash at their bank account.

One question I do have is whether this is just a paper exercise to prevent the funds being reclaimed from London HQ at a future date, and the money has already been spent by mother.

It will pull in a few millions of pounds, and then the surplus which they never seem to own up to when they announce shortfalls from the platform. It's not much in comparison to the big Brooklyn sales, but then there's only 135,000 of them here and London Bethel typically operates on £30m a year.

30

New British terror attack just occured train station!

by Witness 007 in

a man yelling "this is for syria" slashed a strangers throat and was quickly tasered by police and arrested.

video avalible...looks like war is coming soon.

Mephis

There are 2,500 firearms officers in London. Another 4,000 in the rest of the country. Total police in the country is 150,000. Our police do however use tasers a lot instead. It's usually sufficient. Even now it raises eyebrows to see police openly armed in public away from high profile protection or at obvious targets. Terrorism isn't a new thing in Britain. An idiot with a knife attacking people isn't something which makes me think 'what we're really missing is our entire police force being militarised'.

35

2015 November 19, BOE! Circuit Account Balances!

by Atlantis in

delete if already posted.. .

2015-november 19, boe.

.. re: review of circuit account balances.

Mephis

£640,000 in cash in the accounts of just the two closest assembly halls to me here in Britain. It'll add up. Of course, when the next time the plumbing fails and a major refit needs to be done, I'm sure it won't be the local brothers who'll have to contribute to make it right again...

60

Watchtower's response to Royal Commission shows they have learned nothing and will do nothing

by wannaexit in

jw
friends

i've quickly read through watchtower's submission to the royal commission.

seems like they aren't planning to change policy anytime soon.

they are critical of how the royal commission handled the situation.. the tone is of the submission is shear arrogance.

Mephis

My concern would be the ability to frame legislation in a way which they would not seek to wriggle out of. Their submission makes it clear that they believe that the only legislation which they think would include them would be that which includes all ministers of religion, at all times, and which does not conflict with freedom of religion principles. One can see why the commission felt the easiest approach was to try and establish whether or not a group vote in Brooklyn could be held and 'new light' something very important for a change.

75

Australian Royal Commission Findings released

by Mephis in

will just post the general findings by counsel for the commission (angus stewart) - case specific ones are prior to them.

in short, absolutely damning.. not been through every submission myself yet.

available for download here: http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/case-study/636f01a5-50db-4b59-a35e-a24ae07fb0ad/case-study-29,-july-2015,-sydney.aspx.

Mephis

That's a good point AudeSapere. Think those of us who've been inside see how the WBTS uses words and how what things say isn't always quite what they mean. Classic case is the use of the word 'freedom'. To be told one is free to report sounds at least neutral-ish. But in the context of a religion which teaches 'freedom' is relative and uses examples such as 'one is free to jump off a cliff' then it takes on a very different meaning. Amusingly, Stewart, quite rightly, points out the GB's role in interpretation. The JW amendments change it back to 'the bible'. 'What Jesus evidently meant was...' vs 'What the GB currently think Jesus meant was...'.

Absolutely agree that there's no room for such silliness within child protection policies. They need to be clear, to the point, and if elders are not capable of following simple directions then education needs to be given so they know what they're meant to do when a child comes to them and reports abuse, or if they suspect abuse is happening.

9

Deborah

by berrygerry in

i, like many others, was furiously emailing about deborah when the issue of only male elders came up.. it seemed curious that angus didn't address deborah, as he surely knew of it.. thankfully, ol' geoff, and wt, cannot resist trying to get in a last word, which opened the door for angus.

(he's one cool customer.).

341 in his written statement provided to the royal commission following the close of thepublic hearing, mr jackson offered the relevant scriptural references to which headverted but was unable to provide during the hearing.

Mephis

The problem they have with trying to spin it that way is the context of women being part of a process where allegations of abuse are being made isn't really equatable to 'leading the tribes into warfare'. So a 'general sense' and 'a measure of judging' are perfectly adequate grounds for finding ways to take onboard what the commission are telling them.

The reality is that these are men who include Herd, who genuinely does believe that women are biologically incapable of making decisions when a man is present. So no matter how inconsistent and nonsensical the reasons they come up with for their view on this, the decision will stand because they can't get it into their heads that women aren't disqualified from decision making because they lack a penis.

9

Deborah

by berrygerry in

i, like many others, was furiously emailing about deborah when the issue of only male elders came up.. it seemed curious that angus didn't address deborah, as he surely knew of it.. thankfully, ol' geoff, and wt, cannot resist trying to get in a last word, which opened the door for angus.

(he's one cool customer.).

341 in his written statement provided to the royal commission following the close of thepublic hearing, mr jackson offered the relevant scriptural references to which headverted but was unable to provide during the hearing.

Mephis

Makemeanunbeliever - the point being raised by counsel for the commission is in response to a later letter Jackson sent. He had plenty of time to prepare that. The holes are there because the JW position is internally inconsistent, not from the pressure of being under cross-examination.

11

What happened with Dr. Applewhite's supplementary report? Mistery solved

by Viva la Vida in

jw
friends

542 on 16 august 2015, dr applewhite wrote to the legal representative of watchtower.

australia and advised that she was unable to prepare a supplementary statement due.

to other commitments.

Mephis

It's from p.117 of counsel's submission to ARC ttdtt.

60

Watchtower's response to Royal Commission shows they have learned nothing and will do nothing

by wannaexit in

jw
friends

i've quickly read through watchtower's submission to the royal commission.

seems like they aren't planning to change policy anytime soon.

they are critical of how the royal commission handled the situation.. the tone is of the submission is shear arrogance.

Mephis

steve2 - they've been specifically directed to go away and consider the problems raised during the hearings and to find solutions to propose, courses of action to take to prevent the issues identified during the hearing from arising again. Their answer has been "we don't have problems" and "we need you to write us a law to tell us to do what we already know responsible adults should do". Agree there's face-saving going on, but until they accept there are problems then the response and culture internally will continue to put children at risk. And that's the bottom line which needs addressing, and won't be based upon their response here. They have the opportunity to work with experts to create policies and procedures which will help, but there's not a hint of them even considering that direct recommendation already made by a commissioner. They're willfully negligent because they want to dictate to people whilst refusing to accept responsibility for what they say.

edit: Just something to keep in mind, even the one thing which they say they've stopped has actually given cause to a Charity Commission investigation in Britain dating from events last year. It's actions and practice as well as the blizzard of letters sent out which matter.