Thank you TeeJay, that was a wonderful read. Thanks for taking it bttt.
Posts by amac
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24The Man With the Big Nose
by TMS inno offense intended for the anointed ones on this board, but ive always compared such professed ones to martin jensen, who professed nothing for himself except that he wasnt good for much.. this iowa corn farmer became a jw in the 40s, was promptly divorced by his wife, and moved to the southern tip of texas, the end of the world.
by default he became the presiding overseer of the english unit, although he never gave a public talk.
there were many unsuccessful attempts over the years to replace him with a more suitable shepherd.
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54
Update on Bill Bowens meeting with WT Reps:
by Brummie inan update on bill bowen & his meeting with the wt.....this is an eyeopener and a disgrace on the watchtower:.
i am sitting here looking out the tenth floor window of my watchtower paid for room at the manchester holiday inn.
the events of the day before are difficult to comprehend as i reflect on what happened.
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amac
I hate to be the dissenter here, but (actually, I don't mind at all) Bill seems to stick his foot in his mouth repeatedly. If I was a juror, I'd have a hard time seeing him as an expert witness, and more as a bitter ex-JW...reasons below...
For starters, I see nothing unusual about this deposition. I would have to agree with Megadude that they are not using any special tactics here, but common defense tactics. I see these as their right if they are trying to defend their assets.
They attacked my children, my parents,
According to Bill's post, all they did was ask for names, birthdays, etc. I see no "attacks."
It seemed one of the largest concerns of the Watchtower hired attorney was that I described his Lexus as a $70,000 car. I also used the word "new." He wanted to use this as a basis to say all things on the silentlambs website were untrue or exaggerated. Well I explained we try to be as accurate as possible and if something is inaccurate we gladly correct it. He stated his car only cost $38,000 new and it was three years old and he only paid $28,000 for it. So for any who may have had great concern about the Lexus of the attorney that defends the rights of a child molester for Watchtower, we are glad to make this clarification. There also was some discussion about the amount estimated of retainer fees they were being paid. I generously offered to amend the figures quoted if they would provide the actual amount.
Bill basically discredits his entire website and any facts on it here! So Silentlambs reports exagerrated and false information until the accused party corrects it?!?!? This is ridiculous! Especially since it was over something as stupid as the price of the guys car! I drive a Lexus too, it certainly doesn't mean I'm rich.
The extension of this is now perhaps his 28,000 whatever it is figure for child molesters is exaggerated as well, but who's gonna correct it?
They conveniently declined to accept my offer. So I guess I will have to stick with my original assessment.
Then Bill suggests some type of acknowledgement to his exaggerrated guess (his exaggeration of the lawyers call was over TWICE as much as reality!) at their retainer fees, simply because they won't tell him the real amount. Sorry Bill, but that is actually none of your business and I can't imagine any defendant or lawyer telling you that.
Jehovah's Witnesses leadership in my opinion are unscrupulous scalawags that will sink to the lowest level of nasty cut throat tactics to protect their money.
Did you expect them to just roll over? Are your tactics any different? Recording conversations to use against them, digging up any dirt possible. I don't think your tactics are necessarily unscrupulous, but they seem quite equivalent to the defense' tactics.
They will go after your children, parents, wife, threaten them with subpoena, depositions and the expense of making these things happen. They will attack with tactics that sink to the lowest human denominator and use World Wide Work money to finance their wickedness.
I don't know what you expected them to do. None of their tactics seem to be as underhanded as you suggest. Bill is way too emotionally troubled and biased by this to be an expert witness.
What did WWW money pay for in the last two days? See pictures-
http://community.webshots.com/album/75952879gWupNT?324How ridiculous! Posting pictures of some corner Korean restaurant and of your soup and cereal as if the society was blowing money away. They were probably afraid that if they put you in a cheap motel 6 you would complain, but instead you complained about them putting you in a run of the mill average hotel with average meals instead of economy. How absurd! And of course they can afford bigger lawyers, they're a large corporation.
It is estimated that one day of depositions cost $5,000-$10,000. Two days of depositions were taken this week, so around $10,000-$20,000 of Jehovah's Witnesses WWW money just went to finance the defense of the Watchtower child abuse policy.
What on earth could be your point? They are trying to defend $3 million. $20K doesn't even compare.
Does this make anyone that is a JW proud to know that hard earned money they send for donations is being used to ultimately defend child molesters?...We promise to use every penny to assist and support JW abuse survivors and you can be certain that not one cent will be spent on behalf of child molesters.
Another exaggeration, they are defending themselves in a civil case. Paul Berry does not benefit from this at all. No one benefits from this, except for the victims if they win.
I have no problem finding fault with the WT, but this is ridiculous.
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12
Labeling - generalizations - my struggle today
by Billygoat inwhy is there a basic human need to categorize people?
one is a jw or not.
athiest, agnostic, christian, or wiccan.
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amac
You're a caterpillar?
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22
Who of you here know someone in Bethel who is leaking information?
by truthseeker indo any of you here have direct contacts with bethel, or one of the branches?
do any of you have family that is in bethel?.
not too long ago one of you posted that bethel asked for 1000 volunteers to be laid off, but only 6 repsonded.
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amac
when new publications were published was it common knowledge among the less senior Bethelites what the new releases were? Or did you have to take a vow of secrecy until they were given out at the District Convention?
It was pretty common knowledge, although you weren't supposed to ruin the surprise for anyone who didn't know (i.e. outside of Bethel, or bethelites who made a point of not finding out.) In the bindery they were semi secretive in making them, just so the people on tour wouldn't see.
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53
What weird habits do you have?
by JH ini always go to bed naked, even in the winter.
i eat at odd hours, whenever i'm hungry, and that happens fast.
breakfast at 6:30am, dinner at 10:15 am (i'm hungry) supper at 3:30 pm (still hungry).
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amac
JH, you are really weird.
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182
Watchtower to pay for Silentlambs trip
by Dogpatch infrom silentlambs (bill bowen):.
on thursday of this week world wide work money will again be spent to protect a pedophile.
in addition it will also be spent to pay money to a disfellowshipped person in order to find a way to prevent them from assisting the court case of abuse survivors.
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amac
Because regardless of the strength of their belief in the WTS teachings, they had authority over this women vested in them and were duty bound by the dictates of their own conscience to search their hearts before they gave Sarah Berry advice.
But didn't the mother also have authority over her children and isn't she duty bound by the dictates of her own conscience to search her heart before acting on advice?
I understand your points about climbing the ranks of authority and increasing culpability, but where does the buck stop? Eventually, you could cast blame on the Bible and God for their "influence" on the matter.
Is it unfair that they are being sued for holding to similar beliefs as the mother? Perhaps it is, but that is beside the point.
That may beside your point, but it is exactly my point.
The designers of the drug Thalidomide felt that they were doing a service for mankind in manufacturing this drug. It came to blight the lives of many of the people it was designed to help. Perhaps they should not have had to pay for their error because after all, the outcome was unexpected? This is of course nonesense. They had authority over the user and even though their motives were unimpeachable and their belief in the product absolute, they had to pay for the misuse of this authority.
This example could also aptly apply to the mother and her authority over her daughters.
Again, I'm sure we will have to agree to disagree.
In conclusion, I'd like to make known that I do not mean to harp on the mother, nor do I think she should be punished. I think she was wrong in her decision on reporting and made a tragic error, I think the elders were wrong in their decisions and made a tragic error, I think the father is evil and deserves what he got (assuming justice prevailed and he wasn't an exception to the system, I don't know much about the case.)
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182
Watchtower to pay for Silentlambs trip
by Dogpatch infrom silentlambs (bill bowen):.
on thursday of this week world wide work money will again be spent to protect a pedophile.
in addition it will also be spent to pay money to a disfellowshipped person in order to find a way to prevent them from assisting the court case of abuse survivors.
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amac
6of9 -
Good point. I can agree with that.
Here, here! on both 144,001 and Rev's posts!
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32
The WTS, Downsizing and Contributions.
by hillary_step inas most of you may have gathered, the past couple of years have seen some major downsizing in wts expenditure, not just overseas but in the us and canada, including the sale of some buildings.
building projects have been shelved, some half-way completed.
every congregation around the world was instructed to upgrade kindgom halls, probably for the purposes of asset protection, as the trustees of khs are only trustees *for* the wts.
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amac
HS -
It actually bought in outside accountants *not* JW's who looked at the WTS books and running operations and advised a dramatic restructuring of the WTS, its finances and its corporate structure.
Are you suggesting this MIGHT have happened or did it actually happen? I wouldn't be too surprised with all the other modernizations.
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182
Watchtower to pay for Silentlambs trip
by Dogpatch infrom silentlambs (bill bowen):.
on thursday of this week world wide work money will again be spent to protect a pedophile.
in addition it will also be spent to pay money to a disfellowshipped person in order to find a way to prevent them from assisting the court case of abuse survivors.
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amac
AlanF -
Amac, I don't believe you have a very good understanding of the JW religion and how it works. It appears that you were once a JW, but you don't seem to have absorbed the nuances of the culture.
Actually, despite your assumption, I was raised as a JW by an elder, baptised for 17 years (in the faith nearly 30), pioneered for 6 years, served at Bethel, served as a MS and gave Public Talks for 6 years before stepping down. Not only did I absorb the nuances of the culture, but I had them shoved into every orifice.
I am not near as good at writing or expressing thoughts as you are, so I will not attempt a treatise of similar fashion. But here are a few short replies...
Elders themselves, however, are perfectly well aware of this notion "in effect", and are not deceived into thinking that they themselves, or any of their fellows, are literally appointed by holy spirit. Getting up to the GB level, these men are perfecly well aware ...
I disagree. I think the difference of understanding and belief is minimal between the average elder and the average publisher. Understanding that there are obvious contradictions in many JW teaching including apointments by Holy Spirit and Spirit Directed organization vs Inspired prophets, etc, I believe that any JW when pressed for details would have to admit that mistakes could be made in appointing elders and that in time Jehovah will sort it out. I think Elders believe the same. I disagree that elders are generally privy to some knowledge that frees them from the bounds of the JW belief structure just a little more than the average JW.
Since no Watchtower official such as a GB member claims to be inspired, and most of them know perfectly well that they can rarely even claim to be "spirit directed", they also know that the laws, commands and doctrines they promulgate to rank and file JWs are at best their own personal interpretations of the Bible.
I don't know many GB members so it is hard for me to say what they believe. Do you have a personal experience where a GB has expressed this belief to you? Perhaps all the GB truly believe that if they pray to Jah he will make them say and write the correct things because they truly believe it is His organization. Perhaps they are held to the same misunderstanding as most JW's. That is what they teach at least and I have no proof or reason to show otherwise.
They knew that their advice was not from God, but was from their own interpretations and from the Society, which they also knew was not getting direction from holy spirit about the girls' abuse.
Again, you are basically saying that all elders and GB members are knowingly deceiving the rank and file. That they are privy to knowledge that differs from what they teach the members. Deceiving? Yes. Knowingly? That's a little harder to prove and I've never seen proof of it.
Just as with HS, I think we will both continue to think differently on this.
However....for the sake of argument, even if I was to agree with you that the elders are more culpable than the mother, I would still have a couple arguments. 1) are they 3 million dollars more culpable? 2) if they are more culpable for what the mother believes she should have done, who of the two has more direct responsibility of the children. In other words, it could be argued that although the elders had the greater responsibility between them and the mother for the mother's beliefs and actions, the mother has greater responsibility for her children than the elders. I'm not sure if that even makes sense to myself...better stop at this point.
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Watchtower to pay for Silentlambs trip
by Dogpatch infrom silentlambs (bill bowen):.
on thursday of this week world wide work money will again be spent to protect a pedophile.
in addition it will also be spent to pay money to a disfellowshipped person in order to find a way to prevent them from assisting the court case of abuse survivors.
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amac
I agree that we should agree to disagree about any agreement.
Thank you, as well.