Posts by West70

39

I was shunned today in the post office.

by outoftheorg in

well this poor jw walked to the table to sort out the throw aways just as i headed there also.. i saw him and smiled, then he dropped his head to not look at me.

we both sorted out the things for the trash bin and were only about 20 or so inches apart.. i remember him coming to my house when my daughters were young girls and he wanted to get aquainted.. maybe i should have spoken to him but i just looked at him and he refused to even look back.. how sad.

he always has this really sad disappointed look on his face.

West70

JWs can shun you ONLY IF YOU ALLOW THEM TO.

The shunning will bother you ONLY IF YOU ALLOW IT TO.

First, there are some "JW shunners" who you barely knew previously, never liked anyway, or for whatever other reason, -- you could care less if they ignore you, or as one poster states: You would sue them if they did NOT shun you. The following doesn't apply to these JWs.

However, for relatives, neighbors, old friends, or even for those mentioned above who make a "production" out of their shunning, I HAVE DONE AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO THE FOLLOWING:

If in a public place, I go right up to them and start talking. I don't ALLOW THEM to shun me. So far, it has never failed. I guess such a JW might run off - but it has never happened - and if they did, they would look and feel like an idiot.

Years ago, I yelled at a MS who walked by me without speaking in a public building. I made him turn around and walk back to talk to me.

In parking lots, I have walked in front of their car and made them stop to talk to me.

I go to relatives houses and visit.

I do other similar things which NEVER GIVES THE JW THE CHANCE OR OPTION TO SHUN.

14

To our Mason experts?

by skyman in

i can see the similarities between the masons and the jw's but i think the similarities are benign.. .

russel was a mason that i have know doubt about.

he brought some of his old thinking into the new religion and used some of the symbolism to give credence to the new religion so other people that where masons at that time might take a peek at what his new religion was about.

West70

For those who wish to treat this topic seriously, I will repeat what I have stated on this forum previously:

The answer is in Russell's infamous sermon recorded in the 1913 Convention Report. Some get excited about Russell's "I am a free mason" statement. Other's then quote various other parts of the speech to show that Russell was speaking figuratively so as to embrace Masons in the audience.

What both groups overlook are Russell's statement(s) in that same speech that he did have "friends" who were both current and former Masons. "Friends" means "followers".

If you study Russell's quotes in the ZWT magazine, you find Russell to be deadset against Masons for the first few decades.

However, after 1900 you sense that Russell is softening somewhat, and by the time of the 1913 speech, Russell views Masons as a "field" ripe for the harvesting. Russell considers Masons good prospects because he has in fact been successful in drawing some Masons into his fold.

As a matter of fact, if you want to find WatchTower personnel who had previous Masonic ties, then you should start researching the various PILGRIMS who joined up from about 1895 through 1913.

Russell was not a Mason, but he did have followers who were, or at least were prior to joining the WTS. So, why not stop beating a dead horse, and go "beat" one that is actually "alive and breathing".

23

Possible baptism loop-hole

by vomit in

jw
friends

i am a fader... actually i probably would be considered fully apostate for my views.

but i will do almost anything to avoid shunning.

well thinking over my life, i got baptised at 15 or 16. so i think it rules out getting an annulment.

West70

Sounds like a job for a superhero --

33

"A Time to Speak"----When? (with scans).

by Atlantis in

(adds found on pictiger are not associated with jwd) urls for watchtower scans can be found at the bottom.

(from kent's old archive).

this was the title on an article in the watchtower 1987 9/1, pages 12-15. this article should scare any employer that do have employees that are jehovah's witnesses.

West70

Well, I finally found my html copy of the 1985 Bullock article, but no point in posting it here given that I had to search back through 8-10 or so pages just to find this day old thread.

No interest?

Then, I'll let someone else post their copy.

10

Nation of Islam 1914 belief

by Oroborus21 in

.

i did not know before that the nation of islam had a 1914 belief that was akin to that of jws.. i thought this was interesting is all.. does anyone know whether this is a current teaching of theirs?

(googling it myself now...) but just thought i would throw it out to the knowledgeable crowd here..... -eduardo

West70

FIRPO CARR addresses this topic in his book: "Jehovah's Witnesses: The African American Enigma -- A Contemporary Study".

In Chapter 3, "Shadow Nation - Witness Influence On The Nation of Islam", CARR discloses that every major figure in the history of the Nation of Islam has had intimate contact with Jehovah's Witnesses at some point in their lives:

Muhammad Fard, founder of the Nation of Islam, was a fan and student ofJoseph F. Rutherford, the second President of the WatchTower Society. Fard openly encouraged his NOI followers to read WatchTower literature and listen to "Judge Rutherford's" radio tirades against all societal institutions. NOI doctrine was heavily influenced by WatchTower doctrine.

Elijah Muhammad, the second NOI leader, openly praised Charles Taze Russell (WatchTower founder) and J. F. Rutherford, as well as WatchTower doctrine.

Malcolm X'sformative years were shaped by WatchTower doctrinewhen he attended Kingdom Hall meetings with his Mother and siblings. Malcolm later renewed his relationship with the WatchTower Society when he studied with a JW while in prison.

Louis Farrakhan's mother was a JW, and he regularly attended meetings at the Kingdom Hall as a youngster. Farrakhan's doctrine is heavily shaped by WatchTower doctrine.

Khallid Abdul Muhammad, one time NOI spokesman and New Black Panther Party leader, was reared by a JW aunt, who took him to meetings at the Kingdom Hall.

33

"A Time to Speak"----When? (with scans).

by Atlantis in

(adds found on pictiger are not associated with jwd) urls for watchtower scans can be found at the bottom.

(from kent's old archive).

this was the title on an article in the watchtower 1987 9/1, pages 12-15. this article should scare any employer that do have employees that are jehovah's witnesses.

West70

Thanks rebel8 for confirming, but the JWs who I have heard of doing such "at-home" transcribing have been JWs in both small towns and larger cities in the lower midwest.

I don't doubt that there are large nationwide contractors who use Indian subcontractors, but I'm guessing there are a lot of smaller operators using local subs who get business from the one and two man PSCs who prefer to do business with local folks they know.

Again, correct me if I'm wrong.

--------------

It would be nice if someone who has the main "Bullock" magazine article would post such in his thread for those folks who have never read it (and those people who will later find this thread "googling" this topic).

I have it saved in some dormant email account somewhere, but I don't really want to spend several hours looking for it if someone else on one of the lists has it at their fingertips.

87

To: Barbara Anderson -- Re: First WatchTower President

by West70 in

i am primarily posting this to barbara anderson, but obviously everyone is welcome to correct or comment on my remarks as they see fit.

mrs. anderson, i realize that trying to cover all bases in your pending russell bio would be impossible, but i do hope that you will be able to include a section on the first president of the watch tower society, william h. conley.

i hope that you have had a chance to research conley with some degree of thoroughness, so as to dispel some of the half-truths that some bible students and jws try to promote (such as that conley's age and health caused his inactivity with russell after 1881).

West70

.

33

"A Time to Speak"----When? (with scans).

by Atlantis in

(adds found on pictiger are not associated with jwd) urls for watchtower scans can be found at the bottom.

(from kent's old archive).

this was the title on an article in the watchtower 1987 9/1, pages 12-15. this article should scare any employer that do have employees that are jehovah's witnesses.

West70

Those in the medical industry can speak more specifically on the issue, but it is my understanding that over the past dozen or so years that "medical transcription" of doctor's records (and maybe hospitals) is being done more and more by "outside" independent contractors - and those firms then in turn use "office-in-home" subcontractors.

I have heard of a number of JWs who are doing such "medical transcription" out of their homes.

The danger is that a JW or XJW can purposefully select a Doctor who is not a JW, and who has no JW employees, but unbeknownst to the patient, their confidential records are then made available to a JW "subcontractor" "transcriptionist".

Industry folks -- is this accurate or not?

33

"A Time to Speak"----When? (with scans).

by Atlantis in

(adds found on pictiger are not associated with jwd) urls for watchtower scans can be found at the bottom.

(from kent's old archive).

this was the title on an article in the watchtower 1987 9/1, pages 12-15. this article should scare any employer that do have employees that are jehovah's witnesses.

West70

The following 1987 BIG NEWS newspaper article has been emailed around so much over the years that the title, author, date, etc. are missing from my copy. Maybe someone else can check their copy and see if their version has the pertinent attributions.

At any rate, the wording seems to indicate that this article was originally written by an author in southern California. Like the recent AP Blood Issue article, this 1987 article also had "help" from folks working behind the scenes. I don't know if this was a wire service article, but it probably was, which means it too was probably re-published by newspapers across the country.

Jehovah's Witnesses are being told for the first time that they should violate confidentiality requirements in medical, legal and other professions when one of their own members is discovered to have committed a serious sin.
"The objective would not be to spy on another's freedom but to help erring ones and to keep the Christian congregation clean," says the Sept. 1 issue of the Watchtower magazine, an authoritative publication of the Witnesses' Brooklyn-based Watchtower Society.
The 3.3 million members worldwide, including 745,000 active U.S. Jehovah's Witnesses, are advised to confront the sinner first, but if he or she is unrepentant, the sinner's elders should be told "because of the superior demands of divine law."
Warnings of Armageddon
Jehovah's Witnesses, best known for their warnings of a world-ending Armageddon, have clashed in the past with governments for refusing to pledge allegiance to the flag or to serve in the military-out of a greater loyalty to God. But both sect officials and critics of the movement say this is the first published advice to members that they breach oaths of confidentiality when they learn of serious violations of their faith.
The Witnesses' stance goes beyond anything practiced in conservative churches, said Charles Teel Jr., professor of Christian ethics at Loma Linda University. "I know of no evangelical or fundamentalist community that has that kind of understanding of being faithful to the congregation or breaking pledges in the workplace," Teel said.
The magazine used a hypothetical case of "Mary," a medical assistant, discovering that a fellow Witness had had an abortion. "Did she have a scriptural responsibility to expose this information to elders in the congregation, even though it might lead to (Mary) losing her job, to her being sued, or to her employer's having legal problems?" the article asked.
The answer was yes, and Witnesses were advised to determine, before pledging confidentiality in their jobs, "what problems this may produce because of any conflict with Bible requirements."
One critic of the Jehovah's Witnesses said the opinion will have "frightening" consequences for members already working in certain professions. They may find that requesting transfer or resigning is "the only honorable and responsible thing to do," said David Brown, spokesman for Alpha and Omega, a self-described "counter-cult" ministry in Phoenix.
Regarding the confidential client relationships required of attorneys and physicians, William Van De Wall, a Witness headquarters spokesman, said Wednesday that "in the majority of cases" both the professional and the client could protect themselves.
"At the community level, most patients who seek out an attorney or doctor would know if they were of the same religion. If a Witness wanted to avoid telling him something, he would seek someone else. And as long as the doctors and attorneys make known their positions when they get the client, that should eliminate the problem," Van De Wall said in a telephone interview.
Van De Wall confirmed that someone who contracted venereal disease or AIDS through sexual promiscuity would be considered to have sinned. Other serious offenses, he said, could include drug abuse, contributing to a sperm bank or receiving artificial insemination, or, if unmarried, obtaining a vasectomy or prescription for birth control pills.
Both Van De Wall and the published guidelines suggested that reporting on an erring member can have a happy ending-with the offender confessing the sin and receiving counseling.
Similarly, Frank Kavelin, an elder with the Beverly Hills congregation, noted Wednesday that the guidelines say that minor transgressions should be overlooked. "While the organization promotes zeal for doing things that are righteous, it also promotes discretion," he said.
Kavelin also said that he was not worried that members would be upset over the guidelines in the Sept. 1 magazine, which has been available to members since mid-August.
But some ex-Witnesses predicted that members will be subjected to increased scrutiny in a church that last year expelled one member for every six it took in.
Raymond Franz, a nine-year member of the Watchtower Society's governing body until he resigned under pressure in 1980, said: "The governing body knows that some little statement made by it will be converted into something mammoth by the time it gets to the elders. No area of personal life is beyond their reach and rulings."
Franz, who lives in Winston, Ga., also disputed the idea "that those people going to the elders are going to be treated lovingly. So often people find they were dealt with in demeaning ways." Franz was disfellowshipped at the end of 1981 in a case involving his changed views of the organization's theology.

33

"A Time to Speak"----When? (with scans).

by Atlantis in

(adds found on pictiger are not associated with jwd) urls for watchtower scans can be found at the bottom.

(from kent's old archive).

this was the title on an article in the watchtower 1987 9/1, pages 12-15. this article should scare any employer that do have employees that are jehovah's witnesses.

West70

BUSINESS INSURANCE Magazine

January 5, 2004

By Michael Bradford

When an employee's religious beliefs clash with an employer's privacy rules, the temptation to tattle can sometimes be overwhelming.
As a result, employers are left with a hard-to-handle exposure: the possibility that a devout employee will break privacy regulations in the name of a greater good.
Dr. Gerald L. Bullock, who practiced medicine in Denison, Texas, in the 1980s, said he was stunned when a bookkeeper at his office released patient information to her church elders. As a Jehovah's Witness, the woman admitted that she was following what she perceived as her obligation to her church to report on a fellow church member's perceived sinful behavior, the doctor explained.
The patient had been treated by Dr. Bullock for a sexually transmitted disease. The Sunday after his employee released that information to church elders, the patient was expelled from the church, he said, and told not to communicate with friends and relatives in the church. "It had a major, major impact on her life," Dr. Bullock said.
The patient threatened to sue. Dr. Bullock's attorney advised the physician to immediately fire the bookkeeper and then "call this lady and do whatever she asks because you've got no defense," the doctor recalled.
After the firing and an apology, the lawsuit threat was withdrawn.
While such privacy breaches by Jehovah's Witnesses are not frequent, "it does happen," according to Gerald Bergman, a former member of the society who has written extensively on the church's practices. He teaches biology and chemistry at Northwest State Community College in Archbold, Ohio.
"Their responsibility is to the church, not to the employer," Mr. Bergman said of the approximately 1 million Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States. "The employer is secular, and, therefore, second."
Such privacy breaches, of course, could be committed by anyone who feels morally obligated to do so, noted George Head, director emeritus of the Insurance Institute of America in Malvern, Pa.
"You've got to be careful not to pick on just Jehovah's Witnesses," he said. And no matter why someone feels obligated to release private information, the consequences could be dramatic for the entity that was responsible for that data.
"The ramifications of this are horrendous," said Catherine H. Gates, senior training specialist with Montgomery Insurance Co. in Sandy Spring, Md.
Ms. Gates, who teaches ethics workshops for Montgomery's agents, said, "Think of the damage if an insurance company had a lawsuit against them for the release of private information. Whether it was successful or not, they are going to lose their clients."
Even though it seems obvious that "the right thing to do is keep your mouth shut and the wrong thing to do is share the information with others," Ms. Gates said it's not hard to see the ethical dilemma for someone who would want to be loyal to a church as well as his or her employer.
For others, though, the dilemma is not so clear.
"It is definitely not appropriate to release (private information) no matter what the outside religious obligation is," said Sanford M. Bragman, Dallas-based vp, risk management at Tenet Healthcare Corp.
The Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, the body that directs church affairs, says there is no policy forcing members to report sinful acts or divulge private information. That choice is up to members, according to Phillip Brumley, general counsel for the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based group.
"They should study the scriptures, and what they do is up to them," said Mr. Brumley. If there is a conflict, he said, a member should "think that through and decide what to do."
A 1987 article in the church's Watchtower magazine, which the church says is its most recent on the subject, advises members to consider the ramifications before taking any oath that would put them in conflict with biblical requirements. Doctors' offices, hospitals and law firms are businesses where privacy problems could arise, the article states. "We cannot ignore Caesar's law or the seriousness of an oath, but Jehovah's law is supreme," it reads.
The article further states that if a "Christian feels, after prayerful consideration, that he is facing a situation where the law of God required him to report what he knew despite the demands of lesser authorities, then that is a responsibility he accepts before Jehovah."
It is an employee's promise, though, that appears to be an employer's only protection against the release of private information on moral grounds.
"Even if you have everybody sign something, it isn't going to stop the behavior" if a zealous employee feels obligated to release information, Ms. Gates noted. "The only thing it can do is keep the employer from being held liable," she said.
Dr. Bullock said he now hires only workers who make such promises, and, when interviewing, wants to know whether there is "anything about you that would cause you to tell on a patient," he noted. If so, the applicant isn't hired.
Nancy Hacking, director of safety and risk management at Concord Hospital in Concord, N.H., said hospital employees each year sign a confidentiality agreement stating that they will not release confidential information. Workers who violate the agreement, she said, "are subject to termination."
Apart from educating employees on what information is private, the hospital also runs "audit trails" on its electronic systems to keep tabs on who accesses such information, Ms. Hacking said.
At Tenet, ongoing training, much of it online, keeps employees aware of what information should be kept private, according to Mr. Bragman. The training covers regulations contained in the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act that govern privacy, he said.
Adam G. Linett, associate general counsel with the Jehovah's Witnesses, said employers shouldn't fear HIPAA penalties for unauthorized disclosures because sanctions in the act are aimed at employees.
And, Mr. Linett said, he "can't think of a single case where this has happened and resulted in a lawsuit."
'Think of the damage if an Insurance company had a lawsuit against them for the release of private information. Whether it was successful or not, they are going to lose clients.' -- Catherine H. Gates, Montgomery Insurance Co.