article written by kathleen hallisey appearing on the website of the uk's times newspaper - the article does not appear (yet?
) to be in the print version.. kathleen hallisey is a senior solicitor at bolt burdon kemp, specialising in child abuse.
she acted on behalf of the claimant in the landmark case of a v watchtower [2015] ewhc 1722 (qb), the first judgment against the jehovah’s witnesses in the uk for historical sexual abuse.. in the article she refers to the wt uk child safeguarding policy - click here for a side-by-side 2012/2017 comparision of the document.
The entire JW foundation based on Patriarchy where there are weak criminal sanctions for pedophiles, repressive ideals about sex, inequality for women, and social powerlessness of children, to name a few, needs to be abolished for a real, positive outcome to occur in tackling the sexual abuse problem. This is fundamentally how the JW religion is defined. I find it hard to believe the kind of change needed will ever happen.
one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.
it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.
christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.
I can accept that God is love, afterall, isn't love 'divine'? We have all known, felt, and given love. That is where it should end.
But inevitably, the pronoun 'He' (or 'She' as some do) is attributed to 'God' at some point by believers and this alters the metaphor, bringing gender and therefore some sort of personhood or 'being' into the definition. At some point, original sin/'you are a sinner', judgment, and punishment enters the fold. I particularly find this occurs when believers aren't winning a non-believer over to their delusional faith argument and they begin to get annoyed or angry.
The Bible defines God as more than love. It defines God as male, warrior, creator of light, dark, peace, and evil, creating things in an incorrect/impossible physical order, 'Heavenly Father', misogynist, abuser, mass murderer including baby killer, condoning slavery, and exhibiting parental favouritism to name a few traits. Whatever the Jewish faith defines as God, its Torah includes some of what I just listed.
If we define God as love, why is the Bible or any other holy book required? Why is religion needed? I don't see these as requirements to have love. I actually find them to be a detriment in a lot of cases ... and not just JW ones either.
i hope this can give everyone a little laugh!.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnebua39mni.
This was on my Facebook feed today. It is hilarious!
hi folks,.
i have a difficult dilemma.
since i'm not pioneering any more, i'm reducing my hours wasted at that artifact known as cart or trolley.
LOL @ tepidpoultry! Keep up the good work.
hi folks,.
i have a difficult dilemma.
since i'm not pioneering any more, i'm reducing my hours wasted at that artifact known as cart or trolley.
"Sorry, can't do it. I have a < insert nasty medical procedure here eg prostate exam > at that time".
someone decided to make their avatar almost identical to my old one so i changed mine to avoid any confusion.. <- so lookout for this anytime you want to read some "amazing words of wisdom" from now on :d.
You can fool some of the people some of the time... um... but... you didn't fool me before. However now... well...uuuuhhh... maybe. I have no idea what your Gravatar is.
imagine you are on the governing board of a religious organisation with around eight million subscribers and an annual income of approximately a $billion (well it used to be!).
you are about to be handed a mass of legal cases against you for concealing your negligent practice of concealing paedophiles in your congregations---followed by the prospect of a cascade of damning publicity?
do you admit you were wrong and apologise unreservedly?.
Anyone remember the Ford 'Pinto'? It's all about market competition and the money. The Pinto is the reason I will never buy a Ford product.
Case: The Ford Pinto - Business Ethics
Excerpt from article: "Ford knew that the Pinto represented a serious fire hazard when struck from the rear, even in low-speed collisions. Ford officials faced a decision. Should they go ahead with the existing design, thereby meeting the production timetable but possibly jeopardizing consumer safety? Or should they delay production of the Pinto by redesigning the gas tank to make it safer and thus concede another year of subcompact dominance to foreign companies? Ford not only pushed ahead with the original design but stuck to it for the next six years.
How exactly did Ford reach that conclusion? We don’t know for sure, but an internal report, “Fatalities Associated with Crash-Induced Fuel Leakage and Fires,” reveals the cost-benefit reasoning that the company used in cases like this. This report was not written with the pinto in mind; rather, it concerns fuel leakage in rollover accidents (not rear-end collisions), and its computations applied to all Ford vehicles, not just the Pinto. Nevertheless, it illustrates the type of reasoning that was probably used in the Pinto case."
it is our experience that love of money brings action towards accumulating abundance of wealth which ultimately convinces the owner that “i was wasting my time” which in turn motivates him to turn into philanthropy (like bill gates and co did).
this is a perfect design (designed to work independently of god) like a journey of which the first half is wasteful and the second half is fruitful, and it is to be viewed as a whole.
hence it is unlikely that jesus would say: “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of god.” (mathew 19:24) verse is obviously attributed to jesus by later writers.. this means question of morality is not complicated if viewed as a whole process.
never a jw, just FYI... while oppostate's Gravatar is similar in colour to Simon's, it is not the same picture.
Simon's Gravatar =
oppostate's Gravatar =
As to the OP, Jesus wrote nothing down, the Jesus myth was verbally/orally passed down over decades and centuries before being committed in writing, the actual authors of the Gospels never met Jesus, and these 4 books contradict each other leads one to the only conclusion that what is claimed to be a quote from Jesus is highly suspect and quite likely someone else's statement.
one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.
it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.
christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.
There are many examples, past and present, where religion fails the morality test. Most believers are ignorant and have no idea of the ugliness within their own religions until they experience it for themselves. Catholics, in particular, have an enormous blood trail legacy their religion has caused (examples include the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and Witch Burnings just to name a few. I could go on but I leave it up to the individual to do their own research). Even when stories come out, those unaffected make up excuses such as "well it was only one case" kind of bull shite - as if this makes it ok.
One only has to look to the Catholic and Jehovah's Witnesses religions, to name just 2, where we find a mountain of immorality in their many pedophilia cases being just one example. And these cases, among other abuses, continue to occur. If religion was truly moral, these things would not be happening.
I am not sure why Christian believers take offense when their very own foundational holy book speaks to where evil comes from at Isaiah 45:7: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. - KJV Note: I find it interesting that certain translations have altered the word 'evil' to be 'calamity' or 'disaster'. It strikes me as an attempt at softening the gravity of the word without actually being successful. Just one more example of the disingenuousness of religion
i've always wondered about this.
when a person believes they made a spiritual connection with god and proclaims themselves as anointed, how do they determine whether this person is anointed or not.
does a group of elders look at the person's spiritual resume and check off the person's pioneer stats, bible knowledge, attendance, work ethic, personality, etc and then believe in the person if they have a good track record?
Like zeb said, when I asked this question I was told "You just know. A feeling comes over you and... you just know."
Uh huh. So like everything related to religion, it's hocus pocus, vapourware, smoke and mirrors, presto chango.
