Being the promoter of the program, I felt I needed to answer the legitimate questions asked by participants to the forum of the Swiss TV Program “Temps Présent” of November 11th, 2010 and to add certain observations, opinions and conclusions.
ANSWER TO QUESTIONS AND ALLEGATIONS OF SOME FORUM’S PARTICIPANTS:
Clarifications:
To avoid any misunderstandings, I need to distinguish first a few notions such as, Jehovah Witnesses as individuals, their moral teachings, their internal problems, their beliefs and what we could call their internal regulations.
1. Jehovah’s Witnesses as individuals: My opinion is that they are honest, sincere believers, firmly engaged in the tangible expression of their faith, but surely not the only ones on Earth.
2. Their moral teachings: They are, in general, Christian teachings, of which they do not have neither the exclusivity nor the monopole.
3. Their internal problems: My opinion is that they suffer, neither more nor less, of the same problems as other religious movements, such as divorce, suicide, tax and social fraud, depressions and metal diseases, rebel children, addiction, fornication … As far as pedophilia is concerned, exposing the problem Jehovah’s Witnesses have with it, and not the assigning of the hit parade award, was the real intent of the program. The problem is not the presence of pedophiles within their own members. Logically, they probably and proportionally have a similar number of pedophiles as any other religious group. The problem Jehovah Witnesses have are their internal regulations which govern all aspects of the daily life of their members, not least, the handling of cases of child abuse.
4. Their beliefs: Jehovah Witnesses, as any other religious movement, have the right to have their own beliefs, as long as these do not hinder public order or violate the Law. Their beliefs can include, such as those they had , the resurrection of the faithful men of the past, such as Noah, Moses and David in 1925, that Jehovah resides in the constellation of the Pleiades, that the creation days are six thousand years long or, still a current belief, that none of the billions people who will be resurrected after Armaghedon, according to their teachings, will have a chance to marry, since this is what Christ said and, contrary to the previous teachings, that the stillborn now have the right to be resurrected. This to mention just a few examples.
5. Their internal regulations: These are not the moral Christian principles already mentioned above and about which there is no discussion. These are the countless civil rights which are limited, discouraged, negated or clearly condemned, by applying the extreme discipline of ostracism, that is to say the social death sentence.
Many of these rules, written or not, are surrounded by ambiguity, the preferred technique used by the leadership to impose their line of conduct without having to bear the legal responsibility, as, for example, the multiple cases of death caused by blood transfusion refusal which are, supposedly, a free individual choice, not the teachings imposed on the cult members by the ungodly interpretation of the Bible by their leadership. If it really were the case, how can they explain that, only about them, Jehovah’s Witnesses, have such a collective conscience but none of the members of other religious communities, who base their beliefs on the Old Testament, such as the Jews, nor those who base themselves on the New Testament, as the majority of the Christians? How is it possible that, from one day to another, seven million people or so, who up to then refused any trace of blood in both their food or the medical treatments, start to accept some specific fractions of blood but not others, on the day the leadership publish this new position in their official magazine? One cannot pretend that this sudden and unexpected change in policies is not the trigger of the new “free individual choice” on the matter.
All these internal regulations are nothing else but fallacious interpretations of God’s Word for who, life is sacred!
Hereafter, now, I would like to comment on the following subjects: Why I left the Jehovah’s Witnesses Organization, what is my current mission, and what do I have to say about the allegations and defamatory accusations of certain TV forum participants.
Why I left the Jehovah’s Witnesses Organization:
This is a legitimate question when one happens to know that I spent therein the first 59 years of my life, and almost 30 serving as an ‘elder’, that is to say a spiritual pastor.
Being born in the cult, I would have never questioned the legitimacy of the spiritual authority same as no one would, in his sane mind, and without any serious reason, the parental legitimacy of his parents.
Same as I accepted and practiced Jehovah’s Witnesses teachings and, as an ‘elder’, enforced them on those assigned to my responsibility, I expected the same from their leadership. When they refused abide by their own principles, I started to question the spiritual legitimacy of the leadership who claims to be the sole communication channel with God. The Bible clearly says “do you, however, the one teaching someone else, not teach yourself? You, the one preaching ’Do not steal’, do you steal?” - Roman 2:21
That is when, for the first time in my life, I took the time to examine the leadership’s claimed evidences demonstrating the legitimacy of their position of authority and I finally came to the conclusion that, their own arguments delegitimized their claims on this subject.
One could dismiss the subject classifying it as a simple theological opinion, which should not influence the rest of the beliefs of the cult, but we are talking about the core doctrine of the cult, since, once you reject it, you delegitimize it, as I did, all their other teachings are mere human random interpretations of the Bible. The constant change of interpretations of their key beliefs, such as the meaning of ‘generation’ which would have witnessed the last days of this world, which has changed six times since the foundation of the cult; the eschatological calculations which gave 1914 as the year of the end of the world, postponed to 1925 and finally expected in vain for 1975, are nothing else that the result of pitiful flights of human fantasy and not God’s revelations through his only communication channel.
What is my current mission:
No, I am not heading a dissidents’ movement, and, all the less, I consider myself the guru of a new cult; I have already wasted enough time on this kind of adventure!
To the contrary, as Observer and Critic of the religious movement of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I claim for myself the same rights as Jehovah’s Witness claim for themselves to divulge the results of my researches on the movement. It is my constitutional right and I intend to use it fully. I simply asked the local leadership and the leadership in Thun (where the Swiss branch office is) to leave me alone. They did so for about five years and I respected their silence but, they couldn’t resist the temptation to eliminate me socially and the moment they wanted to clamp me down by announcing publicly my official expulsion (disfellowship), preventing me to say a simple hello to those I had associated with during a whole life, I couldn’t anymore stay still.
The intransigent and discriminatory attitude assumed by the leadership of this organization, who ignores the fundamental freedoms granted by the Universal Declaration of Human rights, subscribed the 10th of December 1948 by the representatives of the civilized world , an organization which claims for itself the respect of its religious rights, but steals the individual rights of their members “to change [their] religion or belief” (article 18) or to exercise their own “freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” (article 19). These facts cannot remain undisclosed - http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
Ostracism and shunning, in violation of human rights, must be denounced!
What about the defamatory and insulting allegations made by certain participants to the TV Forum?
I deplore the hate and aggressiveness of certain Jehovah’s Witnesses and ex-Witnesses who participated to the discussion forum of the Swiss TV program “Growing up with Jehovah” which tarnish the reputation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. No true Witness would ever dear attacking personally an individual in such a sick way instead of discussing courteously the arguments. Their interventions denote a dishonorable morality which has nothing to do with the ethical principles taught by the Witnesses who, usually, apply the apostolic rule expressed by Peter in his first epistle chapter 3 and verse 15 which says be ‘always ready to make a defense before everyone that demands of YOU a reason for the hope in YOU, but doing so together with a mild temper and deep respect’.
The program did not attack anyone personally. It only presented the facts and, in certain cases, opinions, but never has it attacked any individual in particular in the way many of the members of the forum have done, vomiting their venom against the participants to the program, in violation of the human fundamental rights, in particular article 8 of the Convention of the European Court of Human Rights, which states that “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life” - http://www.echr.coe.int/NR/rdonlyres/D5CC24A7-DC13-4318-B457-5C9014916D7A/0/ENG_CONV.pdf
As for the accusation of ‘apostasy’ that certain members of the forum have launched against the program participants, they forget that changing religion or belief is a constitutional right. Negating this right, by calling them ‘apostates’, is a demonstration of intolerance and a violation of the human rights that we just considered and which state that ‘no one should interfere with his opinions’.
Jehovah’s Witnesses should be honest, and respect their own principles as when they state in their “Awake” magazine article of July 2009, page 28 titled “Is It Wrong to Change Your Religion?” which claims that “No one should be forced to worship in a way that he finds unacceptable or be made to choose between his beliefs and his family”. Or is it only a one way argument valid solely for those who leave their previous beliefs and enter the Jehovah’s Witnesses cult, but not the other way round?
If the right to leave their cult is an ‘apostasy’, according to the terms used by Jehovah’s Witnesses, then they should stop their activity of proselytism which prompts people to become ‘apostates’ by using the same right of abandoning their previous faith.
Not having been the object of a personal attack, they attack simply to defend their ‘clan’. Their reaction reveals their intimate feelings that are nothing else but the feelings of fanatics, as we know many of them, who are ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their clan even if this means appering as the worse people on earth (see the definition given by Lee Harris in his book ‘The suicide of reason’). This is what is most appalling!
Conclusion:
I hope I have given, although only briefly, an answer to those who ad legitimate questions.
However, I will not waste my time embarking in any sterile discussion with those who do not have the courage of their opinions and hide anonymously and vilely behind a screen giving a pathetic spectacle of themselves.
Roberto di Stefano: Promoter and participant to the TSR Swiss TV Program of November 11th 2010, ‘Temps Présent’ on the subject “Growing up with Jehovah”.
Watch the video here (French only, for the time being) - http://www.tsr.ch/emissions/temps-present/
