Posts by Madame Quixote

7

Quotes mirror

by Shazard in

hi.

i managed to get qutoes mirror on a bit more stable server --- http://www.baznica.lv/ro/mulders/wachtowerquotes/ --- you are welcome

Madame Quixote

Is it a very involved process to create a mirror website like that? I would like to know how to do it. Any suggestions? Never tried anything like it before.

1

Open Letter Re: The Tort of Misrepresentation; Use this if you want

by Madame Quixote in

<div>if you want to cut and paste this and use it in your own campaign, promoting the "big news," please feel free to use it in any way you wish.

i'm sharing this with as many people as possible for whom it may have some impact.

i think i'm going to tweak it as an open letter to the medical community and put it in some local papers, too.

<div>If you want to cut and paste this and use it in your own campaign, promoting the "big news," please feel free to use it in any way you wish. I'm sharing this with as many people as possible for whom it may have some impact. I think I'm going to tweak it as an open letter to the medical community and put it in some local papers, too. Good luck everyone!

January 11, 2006

Reference: "Jehovah's Witnesses, Blood Transfusions and the Tort of Misrepresentation" by Kerry Louderback-Wood in the Journal Of Church And State, Vol. 47, Autumn 2005
Dear ______________________________________,
You may find Kerry Louderback-Wood’s article, “Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Tort of Misrepresentation” useful and important, both from a legal and medical standpoint. I have reviewed the essay, and I recommend it to all medical facilities and to their legal departments. I will be happy to share my personal copy with you, if you do not mind the distractions of my own margin notes and underlining. If you prefer to have your own copy, it can be obtained at:
Baylor University
P.O. Box 97308
Waco, TX 7698-7308.
I cannot recommend strongly enough sharing the information in this article with anyone who may be in contact with Jehovah’s Witness patients and their families. I stress this because, as the aforementioned article attests, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, (WBTS), the parent company of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, has a history of disseminating misinformation on secular matters that may deceive its relatively under-educated members, and that may influence them, especially in times of duress, to make decisions that can cause death and unnecessary suffering, especially to their children.
Additionally, as Kerry Louderback-Wood's essay demonstrates, the WBTS has suppressed information regarding its own life-saving policy changes, and has likely caused confusion, (if not unnecessary suffering and death), for its members; and it has probably created some confusion within the medical community regarding what types of treatments are acceptable to Jehovah’s Witnesses. I find this particularly reprehensible. That is why I think it would be an excellent idea for hospitals, clinics, and especially pediatricians to obtain and keep a copy of "Jehovah's Witnesses, Blood Transfusions and the Tort of Misrepresentation."
Ms. Louderback-Wood’s article documents many instances, where the WBTS has used very selective, cut-and-paste "research" to deliberately misinform its members, with whom it appears to have a fiduciary relationship. As I see it, the WBTS has established such a fiduciary relationship by:

discouraging its members from pursuing higher education, and from reading outside literature that disagrees with the WBTS agenda;

using secular information to promote its religious policies;

and establishing Hospital Liaison Committees, composed of elders from local congregations, specifically chosen to promote the cult's policies, and chosen to interface with the medical community on behalf of their cult members, who place great trust in the elders, and in the WBTS.

It therefore, follows that the WBTS, and individual elders who serve on the HLCs, have a responsibility to fully inform members of salient facts regarding the risks of refusing blood transfusions and to dispense accurate and complete information regarding the efficacy of using blood fractions. They certainly should also never omit important information regarding these issues when quoting secular sources in their literature. In my view, the WBTS ought to also openly and completely inform the medical community about changes in its blood policies. However, they have failed to act in such a fiduciary manner by instead misrepresenting secular facts, by virtue of both omission, outright mis-information, and by failure to disclose their own life-saving policy changes in a timely and public fashion.

If you or your colleagues ever must contend with an emergency or a surgery involving the Jehovah's Witness Hospital Liaison Committees or with individual Jehovah's Witnesses, I hope you will keep these facts in mind. And I hope that you will have access to the well-researched information provided in Ms. Louderback-Wood's essay.
Sincerely,
</div>

1093

THE NEWS IS BIGGER THAN DATELINE, BBC, CBC, ETC.

by AndersonsInfo in

if i told you that something bigger is on the horizon than dateline, bbc, cbc, sunday (australia), and all other tv programs which exposed the sexual child abuse cover-up by watchtower in 2002-2003, would you believe me?

have i ever misled you?

i'll answer that--no!

Madame Quixote

I'll post this somewhere else. It's not working here.

53

BIG NEWS I recieved my pamphlet WOW

by skyman in

the baylor university has a potential time bomb for the society all i can say is wow i can see how now.

you better get a copy.

use this link and get you a copy http://www3.baylor.edu/church_state/ordering_publications.htm

Madame Quixote

I received mine a few days ago and just now read it. I made myself stay away from home - (too many distractions) - and sat at the coffee house from 8:30 this am til 1:00 pm, reading and making notes, tallying up total number of misrepresentations by virtue of ommision, inaccuracies, mis-applied quotes from secular sources, and ideas for my letter-writing campaign.

I'll share it here and with the local papers, lawyers, medical establishments, etc. asap! Just can't wait to share my synopsis, and referrals to the Journal of Church and State. If Kerry Louderback-Wood did not already make a name for herself, I sense that she has now.

Congratulations, Kerry, and keep up the great work!

Yes, it is worth way more than five bucks, to be sure! Good luck to all of you on your campaigns. I'm off to Typing Land. C-U.

5

Do elders get selected because they buy a lot of literature?

by Madame Quixote in

jw
friends

i was just wondering today about who buys the bulk of the lit from the jw org.

i got to thinking that the most jw literature i ever saw anywhere was in the kh book store/library, and in our house.

my dad became an elder when i was pretty young; i think it had something to do with all the lit he used to buy at the kh, but can't be sure.

Madame Quixote

I was just wondering today about who buys the bulk of the lit from the JW org. I got to thinking that the most JW literature I ever saw anywhere was in the KH book store/library, and in our house. My dad became an elder when I was pretty young; I think it had something to do with all the lit he used to buy at the KH, but can't be sure. Does anyone else see or suspect any correlation between amount of literature bought and status within the local KH? I think there is one, but then again, the most devout people will be likely to want to buy the lit and pass it on in field service. Anyone else have an opinion on this?

31

Did you criticise/expose the WTS after leaving?

by greendawn in

after leaving the jws as df/ed or disass/ed were you willing to expose them for what they are to others, or were you unwilling to do so because you still felt respect for them for being the "truth"?

Madame Quixote

The kindest thing I have to say about the Witnesses is that most of them sincerely believe all that they preach; the rest of what I have to say is simply the truth, and it is scathing; so that makes me an apostate. Oh, well.

2

Can you help me tweak my press release?

by Madame Quixote in

<div>i've left off my private info, but wonder if any of the press-releasing pros can help me tweak this?

puhleez?

i would like to refer to a specific mirror site in my press release.

Madame Quixote

<div>I've left off my private info, but wonder if any of the press-releasing pros can help me tweak this? Puhleez? Thanks, if you can. I would like to refer to a specific mirror site in my press release. Can anyone send me to it, please?

I know it's a little late, but I doubt that anyone locally has bothered with this. I've been trying to find ex-jws locally and can't find a one. I doubt there are any activists here, so, I'm going to go ahead and start distributing this to all of the local news outlets; and maybe I'll just post copies of the press release at coffee shops here and there. Anyway, here is the text:

Jehovah's Witnesses Fearing Damage From Their Own Words, Receive Large Settlement

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, (WB&TS), parent corporation of the Jehovah's Witnesses, has accepted the terms of a $100,000 law suit against a whistle-blower website, operated by Peter Mosier in Canada.

Mosier's Watchtower Quotes website, formerly available for perusal by the general public was found at:
http://quotes.watchtower.ca, until Mosier was forced to close down the site as part of the settlement terms.

Mr. Mosier does not admit any error on his part, and states that he had little choice but to settle with the Watchtower Society, due to the prohibitive costs of continuing to fight the multi-billion-dollar organization in court. Consequently, a number of "mirror" sites of Mosier's Watchtower Quotes are popping up around the web, in response to what his supporters view as the hypocrisy of the Jehovah's Witness organization.

In his own press releases regarding the initial law suit filing, Mosier points out that the "Society" has fought for freedom of speech on behalf of Jehovah's Witnesses for decades; however, now that the internet is available to expose previous Watchtower fallacies, the WB&TS prefers to quash accurate dissemintation of its own words. Mosier maintains that his site contains "their own printed words," directly from WB&TS literature. He says that the website merely "documents years of their failed prophecies, constantly changing Bible chronology, flip-flopping doctrinal changes, bizarre medical advice, and dogmatic teachings that many consider physically and emotionally harmful."

Apparently, using quotes from the Witnesses' own literature, and displaying it on a public website was emabarassing to the organization, as suggested by Mosier's quote from paragraph 31 of the WB&TS own court filing, available at :
http://www.pressbox.co.uk/detailed/Legal/Jehovah_s_Witnesses_file_100_000_suit_to_Silence_Embarrassing_Whistle-blower_Website_36319.html

</div>

58

If You Had Internet Access Years Ago----Would You Have Gotten Out Sooner?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i don't know if i could've 15 years ago because of having nowhere else to go, but now i know i couldn't stay.

what about you??

?

Madame Quixote

If I had access to an internet, I suspect it would have been hard to resist, but it's hard to say for sure if it (the internet) would have influenced me or not. I left the borg at 15 while still living at home with an extended, devout JW family, a father who was an elder, etc. I was rebellious, to be sure. Bohemian life style was more appealing to me than intellectual or biblical arguments. The arguments for atheism just made it easier to choose the worldly things over a friendless, dull, insipid, tedious, and lonely JW lifestyle. Preaching the "good news" on the weekends had to be the dullest. I guess, if I had access to the web before I got baptized, I might never have gotten dedicated in the first place, and would never have had to cope with the ramifications of getting disfellowshipped. If one can do nothing more than to minimize the number of JW baptisms with the info provided on the net, I think that's very important. People in the cult need to understand how devastating it is to be disfellowshipped after a baptism; and how easily it can happen, even if one is not "headstrong" or "rebellious." It's much harsher than not being baptized, no matter how much social pressure is put on one to "dedicate" oneself "to Jehovah." Sure, the "real Witnesses" who took the dunk can avoid you if you don't get baptized; but they also have no claim on you, on your beliefs or on your business if you don't take their silly dunk. Anyone can dedicate themselves to god in any way they wish, any ole time of the day or year. For that matter, I think I'm going to start calling myself a Witness again, just to piss some people off. (Yeah, right). Imagine what would happen if all the people disfellowshipped from every cong in the country started showing up and proclaiming that they were still devoted and dedicated to Jehovah and started preaching door-to-door, right behind the "real" Witnesses! Imagine that! That would put a serious damper on their so-called ministry and on their disfellowshipping practices. I think it would be great to start going door-to-door with that article on the tort of misrepresentation. And, by the way, it's a free country. Who can prevent it? If they can go knocking on doors, so can the apostates, LOL!

103

REVIEW OF JCS "BIG NEWS" ARTICLE

by Oroborus21 in

note: the catholic molestation cases have mostly been evaluated under employment law theories not the tort of misrepresentation or under non-fraud related tort claims]; fails to address important legal considerations such as standing and statute of limitations; and finally and most importantly, the essay fails to address in any meaningful way the inevitable constitutional arguments that would be raised by opposing (watchtower) counsel.

supreme court justices do not have the time to browse through law journals and the implication that they would be interested in an essay is even more deceptive.

the society does not cite a 1960 study as evidence that blood transfusions are hazardous.. here is the actual quotation in context:.

Madame Quixote

I hope that you will all find this site as useful as I have. It deals with legal explanations on tort law, misrepresentation, and precedents, without a lot of bickering: http://www.lexisone.com/legalresearch/legalguide/practice_areas/personal_injury_tort_law.htm As a paralegal student, I found this site useful from time to time. Glad you guys had it out on this board; it was actually kinda fun (although sometimes tedious, which the law and discussions about it can often be). I think I have to go with Auld Soul, in that this particular situation (tort of misrepresentation by the JW organization) merits very careful legal scrutiny; it could create a precedent if the JWs are "taken to task" for misrepresenting secular facts and for using such "facts" to influence people "UNDER DURESS," such as when elders from a congregation show up as the HLC (Hospital Liaison Committee), when a JW congregant is faced with the possibility of death (for not having a blood transfusion which the Society pressures them to choose) or disfellowishipping (for choosing to have a blood transfusion which educated medical professionals may request). I believe that it could be established that such duress, coupled with misrepresentation of secular facts, did indeed cause injury or death, and that there may be a very actionable case or two out there. Not only do the individual elders who participate in HLCs need to be very nervous about the possibility of a lot of major litigation, but so does the bOrg; and I suspect they should be nervous both with regard to civil and criminal litigation. Regardless of whether it turns out to be win, lose, or draw, I think they have a tough row to hoe. It won't be easy to set new legal precedents in this regard, but it probably should be done.

78

WTS Letter to Congregations re. HLC

by doinmypart in

.

the christian congregation of jw sent a letter to all congregations regarding hospital liaison committees.

this letter will be read the week of january 30, 2006. i can email a pdf of the letter to someone willing to post it here.

Madame Quixote

Elsewhere, thank you for posting that 1995 letter. I read it and saved it to disk. It could be important in light of its wording, esp. where they seem to be suggesting that elders in the cong and only members of the HLC be privy to certain info and that their names be kept confidential among JWs only.