AndersonsInfo

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Posts by AndersonsInfo

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  362

  Just read that Carl Olof Jonsson died yesterday

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for newbies, who was carl olof jonsson?

  he was a jw in sweden who was challenged by a householder in the 1960s, who pointed out to him that secular history books don’t agree with watchtower that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce, but instead place the event 20 years later.

  the reason the date is important is because it is the starting date for jw chronology which leads to 1914 as the end of the gentile times, and the beginning of the last days, as jws understand it.

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  AndersonsInfo

  More information here at an Italian forum which easily translates into English:
  

  https://forum.infotdgeova.it/viewtopic.php?t=28300

  Also, see:
  

  https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/12q6m2s/carl_olof_jonsson_has_died_today_april_17_2023/
  
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  57

  Court case Jehovah's Witnesses Norway kicked off

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  https://cne.news/article/2827-court-case-jehovah-s-witnesses-norway-kicked-off.

  norwegian jehovah's witnesses are in court this wednesday and thursday.

  they are fighting the government's decision to remove their registration as a religious community.. .

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  AndersonsInfo

  For Your Consideration:

  Beginning in the updated 2012 Shepherd the Flock of God elders' manual and continuing through updated 2019, 2020, 2021, and lastly, the Oct. 2022 Shepherd the Flock of God elders' manual, it is stated that JW's can have nonspiritual association with disfellowshipped relatives and “Would not be dealt with judicially…”

  See the following information:

  2012 “Shepherd the Flock of God” Elders' Manual

  Chapter 10 - Matters Related to Disfellowshipped and Disassociated Ones

  Make yearly visits on those who qualify. Permit them to obtain personal literature at the Kingdom Hall Assist those having undue association with disfellowshipped or disassociated relatives

  6. If members of the congregation are known to have undue association with disfellowshipped or disassociated relatives who are not in the household, elders should counsel and reason with those members of the congregation from the Scriptures. Review with them information from the “God’s Love” book, pages 207-208; The Watchtower of April 15, 1988, pages 26-30; or the article “Display Christian Loyalty When a Relative Is Disfellowshipped” in the August 2002 Our Kingdom Ministry. If it is clear that a Christian is violating the spirit of the disfellowshipping decree in this regard and does not respond to counsel, it may be that he would not qualify for congregation privileges, which require one to be exemplary. He would not be dealt with judicially unless there is persistent spiritual association or he openly criticizes the disfellowshipping decision.

  FYI, the following paragraph is not found in the 2012 elders' manual but is in the 2019, 2020, 2021, and Oct. 2022 updated manual. Italicized word is found in the elders' manual.

  Willful, continued, unnecessary association with disfellowshipped or disassociated nonrelatives despite repeated counsel would warrant judicial action.—Matt. 18:17b; 1 Cor. 5:11, 13; 2 John 10, 11; lvs pp. 39-40.

  ---

  2019 “Shepherd the Flock of God” Elders' Manual

  Chapter 12 DETERMINING WHETHER A JUDICIAL COMMITTEE SHOULD BE FORMED

  17. Though this is not an exhaustive list, brazen conduct may be involved in the following if the wrongdoer has an insolent, contemptuous attitude made evident by a practice of these things:

  (1) Unnecessary Association With Disfellowshipped or Disassociated Individuals:

  Willful, continued, unnecessary association with disfellowshipped or disassociated nonrelatives despite repeated counsel would warrant judicial action.—Matt. 18:17b; 1 Cor. 5:11, 13; 2 John 10, 11; lvs pp. 39-40.

  If a publisher in the congregation is known to have unnecessary association with disfellowshipped or disassociated relatives who are not in the household, elders should use the Scriptures to counsel and reason with him. Review with him information from the Remain in God’s Love book, page 241. If it is clear that a Christian is violating the spirit of the disfellowshipping decree in this regard and does not respond to counsel, he would not qualify for congregation privileges, which require one to be exemplary. He would not be dealt with judicially unless there is persistent spiritual association or he persists in openly criticizing the disfellowshipping decision. (The word "spiritual" is italicized in this elders' manual)

  ----

  2020, 2021, Oct. 2022 Elders' Manual – “Shepherding the Flock of God.” [The material below is basically the same as found in the 2019 manual.]

  Chapter 12 - #16 and 17

  Brazen Conduct [Heading is Brazen Conduct for both #16 and #17]

  17. Though this is not an exhaustive list, brazen conduct may be involved in the following if the wrongdoer has an insolent, contemptuous attitude made evident by a practice of these things:

  (1) Unnecessary Association With Disfellowshipped or Disassociated Individuals:

  Willful, continued, unnecessary association with disfellowshipped or disassociated nonrelatives despite repeated counsel would warrant judicial action.—Matt. 18:17b; 1 Cor. 5:11, 13; 2 John 10, 11; lvs pp. 39-40.

  If a publisher in the congregation is known to have unnecessary association with disfellowshipped or disassociated relatives who are not in the household, elders should use the Scriptures to counsel and reason with him. Review with him information from the Remain in God’s Love book, page 241. If it is clear that a Christian is violating the spirit of the disfellowshipping decree in this regard and does not respond to counsel, he would not qualify for congregation privileges, which require one to be exemplary. He would not be dealt with judicially unless there is persistent spiritual association or he persists in openly criticizing the disfellowshipping decision.

  ---

  THE APRIL 2023 UPDATED "SHEPHERDING THE FLOCK" ELDERS' MANUAL WILL BE SENT TO ELDERS SOON.

  MOST LIKELY, THIS WILL BE OF INTEREST TO JW'S AND DISFELLOWSHIPPED JW'S TO SEE IF THERE WILL BE A CHANGE IN THE WORDING OF #17 (1) OF CHAPTER 12 THAT CAN IMPACT THE ASSOCIATION OF JW'S WITH DISFELLOWSHIPPED RELATIVES.

  
  
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  1

  Hamburg gunman wrote theological book before attack

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  https://cne.news/article/2789-hamburg-gunman-wrote-theological-book-before-attack.

  the hamburg shooter who killed seven jehovah's witnesses before he shot himself published a theological book at the end of last year.

  the german authorities issued two reports on the publication.. .

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  AndersonsInfo

  https://cne.news/article/2789-hamburg-gunman-wrote-theological-book-before-attack

  The Hamburg shooter who killed seven Jehovah's Witnesses before he shot himself published a theological book at the end of last year. The German authorities issued two reports on the publication.

  The Hamburg shooter who killed seven Jehovah's Witnesses before he shot himself probably had a narcissistic personality disorder and was religiously blinded. However, he likely acted in full consciousness. That is the conclusion of two police reports on the mental state of the 35-year-old perpetrator.

  A psychiatrist, Christoph Lenk, and an extremism researcher, Peter Neumann, both worked on separate reports commissioned by the Hamburg investigators. Their job was to carry out a psychiatric analysis of Philipp F. The basis for their reports was a book F. had published in December 2022. According to F.'s statements, he wanted to create a new theological standard work on 296 pages, which should stand at the same level as the Bible and the Koran. Read More: https://cne.news/article/2789-hamburg-gunman-wrote-theological-book-before-attack
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  57

  Court case Jehovah's Witnesses Norway kicked off

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  https://cne.news/article/2827-court-case-jehovah-s-witnesses-norway-kicked-off.

  norwegian jehovah's witnesses are in court this wednesday and thursday.

  they are fighting the government's decision to remove their registration as a religious community.. .

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  AndersonsInfo

  https://cne.news/article/2827-court-case-jehovah-s-witnesses-norway-kicked-off

  Norwegian Jehovah's Witnesses are in court this Wednesday and Thursday. They are fighting the government's decision to remove their registration as a religious community.

  The case is between the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Ministry of Children and Families, Dagen reports. The Oslo district court is to rule whether the religious community should retain its status as a religious community and the right to seal marriages. Read More:

  https://cne.news/article/2827-court-case-jehovah-s-witnesses-norway-kicked-off
  
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  9

  CBS NEWS Report: Pittsburgh woman testifies for grand jury investigation into JWs and child abuse

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/video/pittsburgh-woman-testifies-for-grand-jury-investigation-into-jehovahs-witnesses-and-sexual-abuse/#x.

  pittsburgh woman testifies for grand jury investigation into jehovah's witnesses and sexual abuse.

  kdka investigator andy sheehan interviewed a woman from pittsburgh who's cooperating with an ongoing state investigation into the jehovah's witness church, testifying before a state grand jury about being sexually assaulted when she was 12 years old and how she says church elders told her she was to blame.mar 6, 2023. .

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  AndersonsInfo

  https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/video/pittsburgh-woman-testifies-for-grand-jury-investigation-into-jehovahs-witnesses-and-sexual-abuse/#x

  Pittsburgh woman testifies for grand jury investigation into Jehovah's Witnesses and sexual abuse
  

  KDKA Investigator Andy Sheehan interviewed a woman from Pittsburgh who's cooperating with an ongoing state investigation into the Jehovah's Witness church, testifying before a state grand jury about being sexually assaulted when she was 12 years old and how she says church elders told her she was to blame.MAR 6, 2023

  
  
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  13

  Article: The Crypto Ponzi Scheme Avenger - [A former JW]

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  (this article is available by subscription only so i copied and pasted it below.).

  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/11/business/crypto-ponzi-scheme-hyperfund.html.

  here's part of the information about mr. de hek's past as a jw:.

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  AndersonsInfo

  Here's an email I received from a friend with some interesting food for thought, especially for Jehovah's Witnesses to ponder over:

  "It was a new thought to me that the Witnesses are a similar type of Ponzi scheme. They have no actual product, it is all illustrations and spin. And like crypto schemes, the Witnesses claim that they are growing (they are not) and that followers can please God more by buying in deeper (monthly giving and estate planning). The cracks are beginning to show and I doubt that WTC can keep it from collapsing entirely. There are too many lawsuits, too much negative publicity, and too many disgruntled ex-JWs sharing their stories."
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  13

  Article: The Crypto Ponzi Scheme Avenger - [A former JW]

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  (this article is available by subscription only so i copied and pasted it below.).

  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/11/business/crypto-ponzi-scheme-hyperfund.html.

  here's part of the information about mr. de hek's past as a jw:.

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  AndersonsInfo

  (This article is available by subscription only so I copied and pasted it below.)

  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/11/business/crypto-ponzi-scheme-hyperfund.html

  Here's part of the information about Mr. de Hek's past as a JW:
  

  ... To understand that passion, and his mission to wipe out crypto Ponzi schemes, you need to know something about Mr. de Hek’s childhood. Like everyone in his family, he was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness.

  "From the age of 5, I was knocking on the doors of strangers, telling them that fires and earthquakes were happening for a reason, that the world was ending soon,” he recalled, describing being taught that only believers will survive the imminent destruction of earth."

  The Crypto Ponzi Scheme Avenger

  From his home in New Zealand, the YouTuber Danny de Hek assails what he calls a dangerous and deceptive scheme, one rant at a time.

  By David Segal

  Nov. 11, 2022

  Last year, Danny de Hek was a social media guru badly in need of a social media guru. A buoyant New Zealander with geeky glasses, he dispensed advice about how to vastly expand your online audience, to a group of just 350 subscribers.

  He earned a living by drop-shipping electronics as he searched for ways to make serious money. Then, in February, the husband of a friend sent the 52-year-old Mr. de Hek an email crowing about a company that somehow guaranteed outsize and clockwork returns. Investors in what was then known as HyperFund — it has since been rebranded twice — could triple their money in 600 days.

  “It’s the best passive income retirement plan I have ever seen,” the acquaintance wrote. Get in now then sit back and watch the cash roll in.

  The message changed Mr. de Hek’s life, though not in the way his friend might have hoped. After a few days of looking into HyperFund, Mr. de Hek concluded it was a scam, one that he estimates has attracted at least $1 billion by recruiting thousands of participants, some of whom put up as little as $300 or as much as $50,000 or more.
  

  By March, he had crafted a new online identity: crypto Ponzi scheme buster. Mr. de Hek has since denounced HyperFund in more than 130 videos posted to YouTube, some of them nearly two hours long, lecturing viewers in a style that toggles between goofball and scold.

  “When I looked into HyperFund, to me it just seemed black and white,” Mr. de Hek said during one of several interviews from his home in Christchurch. “Then I thought, I need to warn people about this.”

  Mr. de Hek is one of the few voices flagging crypto-based Ponzi schemes, which U.S. investigators say are a severely underpublicized scourge. The past week has shown just how volatile the market is: One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, FTX, collapsed and the industry, is in meltdown.‌

  Amid that kind of uncertainty, many investors have decided that if their tokens won’t recover from the steep drop in value that began last November, why not take a flier on a company that sounds crypto-adjacent?
  

  “People are desperate, and out of desperation they’re giving it a go,” Mr. de Hek said. “It’s depressing because this is often a last-ditch effort.”

  Mr. de Hek has denounced HyperFund in more than 130 YouTube videos from his home in New Zealand. Credit...Tatsiana Chypsanava for The New York Times

  A Ponzi scheme, for those in need of a refresher, is an age-old fraud in which inflows of new money pay off earlier investors. Using cryptocurrencies does little more than lend the whole plate-spinning contraption a patina of the cutting edge — Hey, it’s on the blockchain — and makes it harder to pin down who is in charge. But the story ends the same way: champagne for those at the top, tears for everyone else.

  U.S. investigators have busted a handful of crypto Ponzis over the years. Among them is OneCoin, which was based in Bulgaria and which prosecutors allege brought in roughly $4 billion from investors around the world. The charismatic co-founder of that fraud, Ruja Ignatova, disappeared after the fund closed in 2017 and is the subject of an 11-part BBC podcast, “The Missing Cryptoqueen.”

  “We’ve worked multiple cases that involve more than $1 billion, and those are only the ones we hear about,” said Jarod Koopman, the acting executive director of the Cyber and Forensic Services section of the Internal Revenue Service, which spearheads crypto-Ponzi investigations, in a phone interview. “These are traditional Ponzi schemes that have been adapted to the digital landscape, recruiting investors through social media to make them look great. And they’re completely bogus.”

  Mr. Koopman would not comment on cases other than those that are already public, and he declined to discuss HyperFund. The company has attracted the attention of regulators in Britain, where the Financial Conduct Authority has a webpage warning investors to “be wary of dealing with this unauthorized firm.”

  Dozens of HyperFund investors have left withering takedowns on the company review site Trustpilot. One person who said he had lost $10,000 wrote, “For the love of God — stay away from this scam.” A Facebook page called “HyperVerse Scam — Now What!?” has 6,200 members.

  “So that’s my money gone,” read the top comment in mid-October. “Lesson learned.”

  To Mr. de Hek, everything about the Hyper empire seems suspicious. On its website and in promotional videos, HyperFund explained that investors could buy “memberships,” starting at $300, and earn “rewards” that would accrue daily in their account. Those rewards took the form of “HU,” the internal trading currency, said to have parity with the U.S. dollar.

  And why would everyone’s HU triple in 600 days? Because the putative founders of HyperFund — Ryan Xu and Sam Lee, described on promotional sites as a pair of superstar blockchain entrepreneurs — were going to pour all that cash into promising and profitable crypto projects, which they claimed would eventually serve 30 million customers. They also said the company would go public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

  It sounded plausible to many. Whoever ran HyperFund exploited the craze for crypto, which to most people at the time was a bafflingly complex technology that seemed to mint millionaires. But HyperFund never went public, and the only product it sold was memberships to HyperFund. Members who recruited new members got a cut of their recruits’ rewards, a perennial feature of pyramid schemes, and an occasional feature of Ponzi's.

  To Mr. de Hek, this sale of memberships, in the absence of any product, was a blazing red flag that he had seen all too often. Before the pandemic, he had created Elite: Six, a company that hosted twice-a-week, in-person networking meetings for small-business owners in Christchurch. Those who paid $60 a month could introduce themselves and pitch their company. Mr. de Hek vetted every pitch, and in more than a few cases the main product was a joining fee, which earned the right to recruit others and get a cut of their joining fee. And so on.

  “They were basically multilevel marketing companies,” Mr. de Hek said. “I hate them with a passion. I never let them in.”

  To understand that passion, and his mission to wipe out crypto Ponzi schemes, you need to know something about Mr. de Hek’s childhood. Like everyone in his family, he was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness.

  “From the age of 5, I was knocking on the doors of strangers, telling them that fires and earthquakes were happening for a reason, that the world was ending soon,” he recalled, describing being taught that only believers will survive the imminent destruction of the earth.

  He eventually started questioning some of his beliefs, and at 23, when he confessed to a romantic fling — premarital sex was forbidden — church elders “disfellowshipped” him, as ex-communication is called.
  

  Only later did Mr. de Hek conclude that he had been raised in a cult. (The church disagrees. “No, Jehovah’s Witnesses are not a cult” is an answer to a frequently asked question on its website. “Rather, we are Christians who do our best to follow the example set by Jesus Christ and to live by his teachings.”)

  To Mr. de Hek, the way that HyperFund investors talked about the company, in chats, and on YouTube videos, was an eerie echo of what he had experienced as a child.

  “Everyone in the Jehovah’s Witnesses loves other members, and it’s that sense of community that is the most precious thing to them,” he said. “Everyone in those HyperNation Zoom chats keeps talking about how much they love each other. And in both cases, there is no talking anyone out of their faith. For the Witnesses, it’s faith in the Bible and in end times. For HyperNation, it’s faith in the blockchain.”
  

  Since the end of last year, the HyperFund faithful have been severely tested. In December, the company rechristened itself HyperVerse, an apparent attempt to cash in on the vogue surrounding all things metaverse. (“Open a space factory,” it says in the Galaxy Pioneer section of the HyperVerse home page.) The internal currency was changed, too; everyone’s HU was suddenly called HV.

  The new packaging didn’t solve a larger problem. Last November, Bitcoin began an epic decline, from about $64,000 apiece to roughly $16,000 today. Thousands of other coins are down 95 percent or more. With a crypto winter underway, it seemed impossible for HyperFund or its successors to keep paying rewards if they were truly the fruits of crypto-related investments.
  

  By late last year, members had started to howl online that they could not withdraw their rewards. One of them was Mike Lucas, 61, who lives in Paterson, N.J., and spent much of his working life in the shipping department of A.&P. supermarkets. He was introduced to HyperFund through a friend of a friend.

  “He’d invested in it, and he said, ‘Give it a try,’” Mr. Lucas said in an interview. “He showed me this chart of how much I’d earn in 600 days if I invested $50,000. Then I looked into Ryan and Sam, and they were real people who did crypto stuff.”

  Last year, Mr. Lucas put $25,000 into HyperFund, all of it from an individual retirement account. A few months ago, when he tried to make his first withdrawal, nothing budged. At first, he thought it was a technical problem — the instructions are fantastically complicated. At some point, he realized that his money was gone.

  “I was hoping to use it to spend more time somewhere warmer, rent a place south, maybe North Carolina,” Mr. Lucas said. “Those plans are on hold, and I’m furious. At a loss for words.”

  Over the summer, as the anger mounted, HyperVerse pivoted yet again and became HyperNation. Again, the rules changed. Members could transfer their rewards to the new platform only if they bought one of several bespoke nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, such as a “purple box,” which cost $10,000. Large returns were once again promised.

  In his videos, Mr. de Hek treats all of these and other twists in the Hyper plot with a light touch, one befitting a farce. That’s especially true when the topic is Mr. H, a figure who now appears on HyperNation videos as some kind of spokesman, wearing a gold mask and a black hoodie and uttering slogans — “HyperNation will be an equal, fair and transparent platform that can solve the pain points of today’s society” — in a variety of slick studio settings. It’s like getting lectured about utopia by a character in “Squid Game.”
  

  Who is actually running HyperNation is a mystery that Mr. de Hek continues to plumb. In September, a man with a British accent named Keith Williams announced in a Zoom call of HyperNation elite — an insider sent Mr. de Hek a link to the recording — that he had been named “by corporate” as the global head of sales. He didn’t identify anyone in corporate, and Mr. de Hek has theorized that Mr. Williams is now in charge.

  “Keith Williams has put his neck on the chopping block,” Mr. de Hek said in an interview. “Regulators will be looking for him.”

  Mr. Williams could not be reached for comment through his LinkedIn page, Facebook account, or phone numbers in online databases associated with him. He did not respond to emails sent to Future in Safe Hands, a personal coaching company where he is a director, according to Companies House, the British government’s business registrar. One recent evening, a woman at a residence that Companies House listed as Mr. William's address, in a London suburb, said he was not home and offered to pass along a reporter’s business card.

  In a recent HyperNation video, Mr. Williams described Mr. de Hek as a guy in a cheap suit looking to pay the rent through a YouTube audience.

  Mr. de Hek’s suit is cheap, he says. But with a mere 2,500 subscribers, his YouTube audience remains tiny, and so far his labors on that platform have yielded a total of $1,200, after taxes, which works out to pennies per hour.

  Without that drop-shipping business, he’d struggle. This doesn’t seem to bother him, in part because he is a born optimist and thinks this online scam-busting thing could one day catch on. Viewers have sent him dozens of links to likely online Ponzi schemes, and he plans to name and shame them all. If that creates enemies, fine.

  “I’ve already had my life threatened,” Mr. de Hek said, with a smile. “My saving grace is that I live in New Zealand. I’m a long way from everyone.”

  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/11/business/crypto-ponzi-scheme-hyperfund.html
  Credit...Tatsiana Chypsanava for The New York Times
  
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  3

  Excellent Article: The Jehovah’s Witnesses cult tears families apart. Here’s how it tore mine

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  https://businessday.ng/columnist/article/the-jehovahs-witnesses-cult-tears-families-apart-heres-how-it-tore-mine-1/.

  subscription only so i copied it and posted the article below.the jehovah’s witnesses cult tears families apart.

  here’s how it tore mine.

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  AndersonsInfo

  https://businessday.ng/columnist/article/the-jehovahs-witnesses-cult-tears-families-apart-heres-how-it-tore-mine-1/

  Subscription only so I copied it and posted the article below.
  
  The Jehovah’s Witnesses cult tears families apart. Here’s how it tore mine

  David Hundeyin Nov 9, 2022

  In April 1974, a final-year university student nearly made a decision that would have changed the course of history for dozens of people.

  While studying at the University of Ghana on an American-sponsored OAU scholarship, 23-year-old David joined an interesting new Christian group called Jehovah’s Witnesses.

  Since he joined the group, he had stopped smoking and the feeling of accomplishment had convinced him that he was in the right place, despite his fiercely Anglican and Traditionalist upbringing.

  Party like it’s 1974

  The Jehovah’s Witnesses believed that the end of the world – Armageddon as they termed it – was going to happen sometime in 1975.

  As he attended their meetings three times every week, the message was hammered in with increasing urgency, with articles in their literature and messages from the American HQ explicitly urging members to stop their regular pursuits and prepare for the end of the world.

  David decided to drop out of university and spend the rest of 1974 serving as a Jehovah's Witness missionary, preaching the word about the impending end of the world.

  At the time, David was using part of his generous scholarship grant to fund nursing school programs for two of his sisters back home in Lagos, Nigeria, and dropping out would have meant sacrificing their education. But none of that mattered, after all, who needs nurses in paradise? Armageddon was coming in 1975!

  By luck or providence, he happened to mention his plan to quit school to an American Jehovah Witness missionary, who unknown to him had started having doubts about the “1975 doctrine” and the JW faith as a whole.

  This missionary told him, “David, the Bible does not say that students will not be saved. The Bible also says that you should finish what you start.”

  These words from the mouth of a stranger from Ohio were what stopped my father, David Fakunle Hundeyin from dropping out of university in 1974.

  Without them, I probably would not be here, and the lives of my cousins – among them doctors, pilots, engineers and management professionals – would probably be very different today.

  Gaslighting, obfuscation, and diversion: The JW Masterclass

  Of course, 1975 came and went. We had the coup that removed Yakubu Gowon; we had the end of the Vietnam War, but there was no Armageddon.

  My dad finished his program with First Class Honours and came back to Nigeria, which was then going through an oil boom.

  Within a decade he got the wife, the children, the cars, the house, and all that good stuff that was never supposed to happen in our pre-Armageddon world, but through all of this, he never stopped associating with the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

  He got off very lightly with his own 1975 saga. In Nigeria and around the world, thousands of JW adherents sold their property, quit their jobs, left school, and even took out massive loans before December 31, 1975.

  When the promised end of the world did not come, you might imagine that the group would have faced an internal crisis. That did not happen.

  A few people left, but most JWs like my dad remained, and simply moved on from the event. “God’s True Religion” could never be wrong after all, so it was only a test of their faith.

  Within a few years, the JW organisation itself began to edit its official history of what happened.

  By the time I was born in 1990, the story was that its 1975 prediction – which it repeatedly printed in its literature and disseminated through public lectures – was not in fact its official position, but was merely a rumour carried by some members.

  The organisation even began using the story as a cautionary tale, portraying itself as the victim of excited predictors, as against the sole instigator that it blatantly was.

  Those who left were “apostates,” and anyone within the group who liked to ask questions was very quickly identified and shut down.

  One of the most defining memories of my childhood was sitting in a JW Thursday night “Service Meeting,” pretending not to be thoroughly disgusted with the ongoing question-and-answer segment on an article titled “Beware of the trap of independent thinking.”

  The reason I chose this story to lead this article is that before talking about Jehovah’s Witnesses, it is extremely important to understand the underlying psyche of the group.

  There is a surfeit of starched shirts, bright smiles, and social graces whenever Jehovah’s Witnesses are in the conversation, so to the uninitiated, this must mean that they are just another harmless, quirky, pseudo-Christian group in a society that is already punch-drunk on religion.

  That would be a deadly mistake. These guys are really bad news.

  You don’t have to take it from me, despite my roughly 20 years of experience of life as a member of this group. You can look at the story of 22-year-old Tega Esabunor and draw your own conclusions.

  “Thank Jehovah you’re alive. Now let’s sue the doctor for saving your life”

  Tega was born to Jehovah's Witness parents on April 19, 1997. According to court records, within a month of his birth, he fell severely ill and his mother Rita Esabunor rushed him to the Chevron Clinic where the doctor diagnosed him with anemia.

  To save his life, he needed a blood transfusion, but his parents insisted that this was a no-no. Jehovah’s Witnesses are not permitted to accept blood transfusions on the pain of being disfellowshipped, which is apparently based on a Bible scripture where Moses orders the Israelites never to eat blood.

  Putting aside the cockamamie doctrinal position for a moment, meant that under JW policy, it would be preferable for Tega to die an avoidable death than to receive a blood transfusion.

  Choosing to respect his Hippocratic oath over a crackpot religious belief, Dr. Tunde Faweya obtained an ex-parte order permitting him to administer a life-saving blood transfusion on Tega.

  The one-month-old baby lived, and his parents took him home. Now the story enters Jehovah's Witness levels of unbelievable.

  A few days later on May 15, 1997, Tega’s parents sued Dr. Faweya and Chevron Clinic at the High Court for giving their son a blood transfusion that saved his life. They lost the case.

  Then took it to the Appeal Court, Lagos Division. This dragged on for years, and then they lost that too. So they took the case to the Supreme Court. Through all of this, Tega was growing up from a child into a teenager, then a young adult.

  His version of normal was to spend his entire life as the subject of a legal battle between parents insisting that he should have died, and a bunch of strangers replying, “Are you people mad?”

  Finally, in April 2019, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Dr. Faweya and Chevron Clinic, finally drawing a line under a 22-year legal saga.

  Growing up as the child of a prominent JW, I often heard about this case, though I never met Tega in person, unfortunately.

  I clearly remember the feeling of shock and dread when I realised that Tega’s parents were not crazy outliers, but were just normal Jehovah’s Witnesses.

  In other words, given the right circumstances, my parents would do the exact same thing to me.
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  11530

  It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

  by Newly Enlightened in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  original reddit post (removed).

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  AndersonsInfo

  Hi DerekMoors. You said to me in your post: “Sorry but I don't see Lloyd's actions as ‘shenanigans’ and ‘controversies’ anymore than I see WT's coverups as mere ‘shenanigans.’”

  Your post is interesting and food for thought. I certainly respect the points you made about the importance of speaking out about Lloyd’s confessed decadent proclivities. However, my use of the word, “shenanigans” was purposely done. In an informal sense, it means secret or dishonest activity or maneuvering. I contend that’s exactly what he’s been doing for decades.

  I’ve been on this discussion board from its beginning. I was part of the old community of posters when Lloyd made his first post. I have heard of his pugnacious behavior for years but didn’t want to take part in the “controversies” he started that never ended amicably.

  Regarding Lloyd’s “shenanigans,” for years I as well as many XJWs were disgusted with his antics, but it was obvious that one day, his undoing was bound to happen and it sure did thanks to the posts on this board.

  In conclusion, I want to say that it’s a shame that so much money belonging to former JWs went to Lloyd to spend recklessly on himself and not to someone like Ergali who has actually been doing something quietly but significantly to expose across political Europe the harm of Watchtower’s policies and practices which is now having positive results. More on that later.
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  11530

  It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

  by Newly Enlightened in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  original reddit post (removed).

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  AndersonsInfo

  Hi Vintage. I had no idea that statement "Your donation will benefit Barbara Anderson" was on my GoFundMe page. Apparently, the owner or operator of GoFindMe designed the website where the name of the individual the money was going to help would be listed. In this case, it should have been Ergali Abishev that would benefit, not me. I'm the "volunteer" who organized the fundraiser.

  So I apologize for thinking you were responsible for that statement. In all the years I've been involved with exposing the harm of the Watchtower's policies and practices, I've never asked for a donation to help support my activities so that's why I was so concerned when you stated, "Your donation will benefit Barbara Anderson."