under74

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Posts by under74

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  16

  Which three books would you have taken?

  by MungoBaobab in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  at the end of george pal's 1960 classic "h.g.wells' the time machine," the main character returns from 1899 to the year 802701 to rebuilt civilization.

  mankind has forgotton about science, religion, technology, art, agriculture, everything.

  after he has left, his housekeeper notes that the only things the time traveller took with him are three books.

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  under74

  hmmmm...
  
  1.Origins of species ....is good
  
  2.One Hundred Years Of Solitude
  
  can't decide on the third....
  
  -A Man Without Qualities
  -The First Man
  -A Confederacy Of Dunces
  -Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
  
  
  
  
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  26

  What are you doing for Christmas?

  by Elsewhere in

  1. jw
  2. friends

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  one of my co-workers asked me that and i realized that i haven't made any plans for anything.

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  under74

  I'm heading home this weekend. So I'll be with the family for Christmas and we'll have a bunch of arguments but it'll be fun...and on the 26th if I'm able to I'm gonna try to drop by and say hi to all you forum people gathering up there.
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  1

  Looking for...

  by under74 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i know these kind of threads don't get a lot of responses because it's a great big world but i thought i'd try anyway.

  i'm looking for robin dunning.

  she was from seattle.

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  under74

  I know these kind of threads don't get a lot of responses because it's a great big world but I thought I'd try anyway.
  
  I'm looking for Robin Dunning. She was from Seattle. Heard she was inactive a few years back but not sure about now...
  
  If anyone knows her whereabouts please PM me.
  
  Thanks
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  78

  Do you know of any "baptized" JW's that committed suicide or attempted?

  by booker-t in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i remember one of my childhood friends was found dead and the police said he committed suicide.

  i just could not believe it because my friend was a "devout" jw almost franatical about it.

  now years later since i have seen both sides of the coin i am beginning to wonder if my friend did indeed kill himself.

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  under74

  "Do any of you out there know of any JW's that committed suicide or attempted suicide?"
  
  I knew a few personally. I was aquainted withe a couple others.
  
  
  
  
  
  I only know of one suicide where they refused to do the service...it was in the late 70s.
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  11

  Love in my heart finally achieved!!!(kinda long)I

  by Neophulis in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this is my first post and i wanted to say that i've been reading this site for about 2 or 3 weeks now on and off.

  my experiences are nowhere near as deep as many of people on these forums but i did study the jw/watchtower material for about 2 1/2 years starting when i was like 15. i kept many of those beliefs with me even after i stopped studying on a regular basis around the year 2000. i'm 22 now and it wasn't until very recently that i was finally realizing the grim reality of the jw religion.

  i guess you could call that "new light"... .

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  under74

  Welcome to the forum Neophulis. Thank you for sharing. I hope to see more posts from you...and it's okay if your posts are long.
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  25

  Let's play 'Devils Advocate'. . . . . . . . . .

  by nicolaou in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for the purposes of this thread i am a dub.

  a 2nd generation, dyed-in-the-wool, sincere and genuine jehovahs witness (just like i used to be).

  well i just feel the need to hone my debating skills after having been in a 'faded' state for quite a while.

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  under74

  "sometimes God's requirements are like that. We just don't get it at first but we should nonetheless trust that Jehovah loves us and that while his requirement (shunning, no blood etc) may seem harsh, they are in fact for our own good."
  
  Interesting. But you need the Governing Body to tell you what Jehovah's requirments are? Otherwise you're lost?
  
  
  Reporting child abuse-
  
  By Torcuil Crichton
  Sunday Herald
  
  Scottish branch of world church alleged to have sheltered abusers and kept information from police The Jehovah's Witnesses Church in Scotland stands accused of sheltering child abusers and keeping secret files of known paedophiles within the organisation which it refuses to share with police. After a successful prosecution over child abuse within a Jehovah's Witnesses family in Ayrshire, Scottish police are understood to be preparing to bring a further case to court in the northeast.
  The Jehovah's Witnesses church, which has six million members around the world, has been convulsed by revelations that its elders have protected sex offenders, failed to report accusations to the police and even punished children and families making accusations.
  The Watch Tower, the church's worldwide head quarters in Brooklyn,is struggling to regain its battered authority after a string of child abuse cases stretching from the US to Scotland. An investigation by the BBC's Panorama programme has discovered that the Watch Tower Society keeps a worldwide database of members accused of child abuse. The list,which is claimed to contain more than 20,000 names, is based on details held by each Jehovah's Witnesses congregation and many of the names on that list have never been reported to the police.
  Allegations of child abuse within the church first emerged in Scotland in the quiet seaside town of Stevenson in Ayrshire when 19-year-old Alison Cousins went to the police after being branded a liar by church elders to whom she had turned for help.
  Cousins, who was brought up in the Jehovah's Witnesses, went to her church elders three years ago with the shocking allegation that her father, a respected member of the congregation, had been sexually abusing her. Cousins, who followed the strict church rules that any allegations of wrongdoing must be dealt with within the congregation, broke down as she told her story to the men who dispensed moral guidance to the flock. In return she was told that she should do nothing.
  'They told me that one of the scriptures in the Bible was that you should never take your brother to court,' Cousins told Panorama. 'And I said to them, 'Well what are you meant to do then if he's doing something wrong?' And they said, 'Come to us and we'll deal with it.''
  The church law which dictates that members must turn to elders rather than the police also demands that there must be two witnesses to a crime before taking any action. The biblical citation for this is found in Deuteronomy 19:15: 'No single witness should rise up against a man respecting any error or any sin. At the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses the matter should stand good.'
  In instances of child abuse, where there are no witnesses other than the child involved, critics of the church say the guide lines amount to a 'paedophile paradise'.
  Eventually, because she didn't have corroborating witness statements for the elders, Cousins went to the police last year and as their investigation began, she made a shocking discovery. Church elders had known for three years that her father had been abusing her older sister, that he had confessed to the church but that no action had been taken.
  Her father, Ian Cousins, who has since been prosecuted and sentenced to five years in jail, had merely been reprimanded by the elders and sent home where his abuse simply shifted from one sister to the other.
  The way Cousins's case was dealt with by the church is not an isolated incident. The Jehovah's Witnesses are now reeling from a series of scandals worldwide and allegations that its self-styled Child Protection Policy does nothing but protect abusers and fails to ensure allegations of abuse are reported to the authorities.
  According to its critics, child abusers within the organisation are protected by its strict biblical laws and the threat that any member disregarding the advice of elders by going to the police faces the prospect of being denounced and cast out of the congregation.
  The organisation insists that it has a strict child protection policy and defends the database of self-confessed offenders as part of its strategy of dealing with abuse without referring to the judicial system.
  The church keeps the existence of the list a closely guarded secret.Watch Tower states that it uses the list to monitor the activities of the men who stand accused of raping and molesting children. But former members of the church claim that keeping the list secret effectively shields abusers and allows abuse to continue. In the American Bible belt of Kentucky, Bill Bowen, who has spent his lifetime as a Jehovah's Witness and more than 20 years as an elder, claims the organisation covers up abuse by keeping this database secret.
  According to Bowen, who has become a thorn in the flesh of the organisation, his sources inside Watch Tower indicate there are 23,720 abusers on the secret list -- who are protected by the system.
  'Every detail is written down about what happened ,' said Bowen. 'If this man moves anywhere, then if any allegation surfaces again, this is the way they monitor these people.'
  The church in the UK and the US refuses to discuss the list or its details with anyone not personally involved in a case. It was that wall of anonymity that allowed Cousins's father to remain at home and unchecked with his daughters at risk.
  Bowen began his campaign to expose the church after having to handle an abuse case in his own congregation and becoming disturbed by the pressure it puts on the victim.
  'When an allegation of abuse happens, parents are required to go to the elders first,' said Bowen. ' If the abuser denies the charge, they will turn back to the child and say, 'Do you have two eye witnessest to what happened?' That means the child and one other witness .'
  According to Bowen, if there is not a basis to establish the allegation with two witnesses, the pressure is then turned on the accuser. If there is no corroborating evidence, the members making the allegations are warned not to repeat them against an 'innocent' or cause division in the church on pain of being 'disfellowshipped' -- effective lifetime exile.
  'They're told if they don't obey these elders that God will kill them,and how God kills them is that when you're disfellowshipped, you're viewed as being dead,' said Bowen. 'It's like the biblical edict of stoning. Your own mother and father will not acknowledge you in public. Your own children will not speak to you.
  'And they have a choice, they can be silent and retain their family and every friend they've known for the last 40 years, or, if they speak out, they will lose all that overnight.'
  The wall of silence around abuse cases and the stipulation that there must be two witnesses before any action is taken has prevented thousands of prosecutions, according to US police.
  Jack Zeller, a US police officer who dealt with several child abuse cases sees the irony. 'Unfortunately, most kids don't have several witnesses observing them get raped,' he said.
  The same levels of obstruction and unco-operativeness have been encountered by police in the UK tackling allegations of child abuse within the church.Police investigations into allegations of sexual abuse within the Jehovah's Witnesses community in Birmingham were frustrated for a long time by elders in the church.
  Steve Colley, an investigating officer with West Midlands police, was shocked by the determination of elders not to co-operate with his inquiriey into allegations of abuse in a Birmingham congregation.
  'I was surprised,' said Colley. 'They actually said to me unless I could provide two Jehovah's Witnesses who'd actually seen the offence,then as far as they were concerned the offence hadn't taken place.'
  Despite this, each congregation keeps copious records regarding any spiritual infraction or wrongdoing committed within the church. Records of Ian Cousins's abuse of his eldest daughter were lodged but were only obtained by Cousins under data protection legislation. The papers show that the Jehovah's Witnesses in Ayrshire and in the organisation's headquarters knew for three years before she asked them for help that her father was a self- confessed paedophile. Instead of enabling elders to monitor him, the records showed they twice turned a blind eye to his abuse of his daughters.
  'It is a paedophile paradise created by Jehovah's Witnesses,' said Bill Bowen.
  'An abuser can go into any congregation, remain anonymous, have access to more children through activities in the church, and all he has to do is just keep denying it and he will have the confidentiality clause in Watch Tower policy to enable him to continue .'
  
  
  
  
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  25

  Let's play 'Devils Advocate'. . . . . . . . . .

  by nicolaou in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for the purposes of this thread i am a dub.

  a 2nd generation, dyed-in-the-wool, sincere and genuine jehovahs witness (just like i used to be).

  well i just feel the need to hone my debating skills after having been in a 'faded' state for quite a while.

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  under74

  "...sometimes the wisdom of such a position may not be readily apparent."
  
  Not good enough. But I thought in the "Truth" God's laws were always apparent. You leave it wide open for your own benifit. You say you now the truth but then you say the wisdom isn't always apparent. Are you saying you're not sure what the truth is?
  
  
  "As for the second part of your question, the elders do indeed inform the local authorities if they recieve accusations of child molestation."
  
  
  No, you're wrong. If this were true there would not be so many cases of child molestation gone unreported until much later when someone other than the elders are able to tell or report. Name one case where an elder has reported a case of suspected child molestation to the authorities.
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  25

  Let's play 'Devils Advocate'. . . . . . . . . .

  by nicolaou in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for the purposes of this thread i am a dub.

  a 2nd generation, dyed-in-the-wool, sincere and genuine jehovahs witness (just like i used to be).

  well i just feel the need to hone my debating skills after having been in a 'faded' state for quite a while.

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  under74

  Okay-
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  55

  Elders raid a SDA church!

  by ozziepost in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  is it true what we're hearing?

  it's been reported to us that two elders burst in to a sda church service about a month ago seeking to trap a witness man there.

  the man, a witness for 14 years, had become disillusioned with the affairs of the wts in australia after viewing the "sunday" program on channel nine which exposed the cover-up of paedophilia in the witness movement.

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  under74

  Ozzie- LOL!
  
  That's crazy...good to know there's people looking out for that guy though...and that he saw a sign and got out.
  
  Man, wonder what'll happen with those elders? Wait--let me guess............nothing.
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  31

  A "first-timers" ponderings...

  by upside/down in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i accidentally posted this improplerly so i'll try again.... i'm a "first-timer"- so please be gentle ( or at least use lube).

  can we try and look at the bible's message without any preconcieved notions that we've been fed?

  read it as if we've been lost on a desert island our whole life- what would we come away with?

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  under74

  Hi upside/down. Welcome to the forum.
  
  I don't personally believe in many things from the Bible but I understand what you say about Jesus. I don't consider myself a believer or a Christian but I appreciate certain teachings. I understand what you say about the kingdom halls. My first inkling toward rejecting the "Truth" was because of the lack of love, friendship, and understanding from others in my family's congregation....and this was at a very young age.
  
  It's good to think out loud...except when you're on a public bus.
  
  I'm glad you found the forum and hope to see more posts from you soon.