Posts by Juan Viejo2

15

MENLO PARK KINGDOM HALL SHOWDOWN, REVEALS "IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY STUPID!"

by Bubblegum Apotheosis in

sexual harrassment suits were running wild in american businesses throughout the 1990s, the end result was "sensitivity training" and forcing mangers to sign contracts that revealed "we understand sexual harrassment is bad!

if i touch a girl, i get sued and the company is free!".

elder's are now trained to handle every situation that can possibly come up, if a lawsuit emerges, the elders are sued and the watchtower, at their discretion can defend their elders if they feel it is to their best interest.

Juan Viejo2

Bubblegum A -

I'm glad that my efforts have encouraged you to make a decision to find your way out of the Borg.

One caution: You must remember that the Menlo Park articles have proven that the Watchtower is no different than any other so-called Christian churches that mislead and fleece their flocks. So don't be too quick about jumping into other "Christian" faiths, even those that actually do good works with their money on behalf of the poor, the sick, and the forgotten among us. Feel free to donate your time and even your money, but don't give them your soul.

Every week I get emails that thank me for the work I do with my websites Ex-JW.com and InsidetheWatchtower.com. Many of these writers tell me that something I've published by one of my many contributors (many JWN members), or one of my own stories I've shared about growing up as a JW, finally opened their eyes to the truth about the Watchtower. Many have told me that they've decided to leave - or will at least take a hard second look at their JW lives and beliefs. The fact that something I published may have helped these people break free brings me great joy.

Unfortunately, too many of these emails also indicate that the writers have "found the true Jesus," or they've "finally been born again in the Holy Spirit," or someother clue that they have may have transferred control of their free will from one false religion (WT) to another (any one of hundreds).

That possibility breaks my heart. Here I am hoping that these newly freed Witnesses will get out in the world and enjoy their freedom and take time to explore all the choices and life experiences ahead of them - only to find that so many can't do that. They simply can't break the chains. They think they have to be under the control of some religious organization or else they can't find personal fulfillment.

It's never been my goal to have my JW readers leave their Kingdom Hall behind - only to move over to some wacko Independent Baptist church or the "St. Ignatius the Holy Beekeeper" Catholic Church. That's not freedom. That's just moving from one prison to another.

So please, Bubblegum A, continue to do your charitable good works. At the same time, don't lock yourself in to another controlling religion. Give yourself some time for research, introspection, and an opportunity to enjoy life on your own terms.

JV

15

MENLO PARK KINGDOM HALL SHOWDOWN, REVEALS "IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY STUPID!"

by Bubblegum Apotheosis in

sexual harrassment suits were running wild in american businesses throughout the 1990s, the end result was "sensitivity training" and forcing mangers to sign contracts that revealed "we understand sexual harrassment is bad!

if i touch a girl, i get sued and the company is free!".

elder's are now trained to handle every situation that can possibly come up, if a lawsuit emerges, the elders are sued and the watchtower, at their discretion can defend their elders if they feel it is to their best interest.

Juan Viejo2

Moshe - that type of miracle barely registers a tick on the WTF Miracle Scale TM.

The Watchtower has much to learn from the professionals...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7e9vnwTjJA&feature=fvst

JV

37

Watchtower admits, "We are like the Catholic Church"

by Juan Viejo2 in

calvin rouse describes himself as "general counsel for the national organization of jehovah's witnesses out of brooklyn, new york.".

while representing one of the defendants during a trial held in san mateo county court in redwood city, california, on february 22, 2012, rouse made this amazing statement:.

"ordinarily, i wouldn't be here, but this is one our 13,000 congregations in the united states.

Juan Viejo2

Moshe - isn't that Ted Jaracz (on the pope's right) reincarnated as a Catholic priest? Whooda thunk it...

JV

37

Watchtower admits, "We are like the Catholic Church"

by Juan Viejo2 in

calvin rouse describes himself as "general counsel for the national organization of jehovah's witnesses out of brooklyn, new york.".

while representing one of the defendants during a trial held in san mateo county court in redwood city, california, on february 22, 2012, rouse made this amazing statement:.

"ordinarily, i wouldn't be here, but this is one our 13,000 congregations in the united states.

Juan Viejo2

00DAD-

RayPublsher used pages from the original transcripts that can be found on the original article at Ex-JW.com.

BTW - a good friend of Ex-JW.com, a reader from Germany, has reconstituted the file and reduced the size down to less than 3Mb. I'll be putting a link to that version and to the missing page 85 on the article later today (Saturday, May 12). That will make it easier for some of you to download it and share with friends.

One last note: My contact in Menlo Park has just informed me that the new federal case is being moved back to San Francisco from San Jose, CA. Apparently none of the judges in San Jose want to deal with the case. More on this later.

JV

37

Watchtower admits, "We are like the Catholic Church"

by Juan Viejo2 in

calvin rouse describes himself as "general counsel for the national organization of jehovah's witnesses out of brooklyn, new york.".

while representing one of the defendants during a trial held in san mateo county court in redwood city, california, on february 22, 2012, rouse made this amazing statement:.

"ordinarily, i wouldn't be here, but this is one our 13,000 congregations in the united states.

Juan Viejo2

Thanks, RayPublisher for that graphic. Pretty much sums it up, doesn't it?

JV

37

Watchtower admits, "We are like the Catholic Church"

by Juan Viejo2 in

calvin rouse describes himself as "general counsel for the national organization of jehovah's witnesses out of brooklyn, new york.".

while representing one of the defendants during a trial held in san mateo county court in redwood city, california, on february 22, 2012, rouse made this amazing statement:.

"ordinarily, i wouldn't be here, but this is one our 13,000 congregations in the united states.

Juan Viejo2

Section 4 and 5 are working again. Not sure why they went missing, but they are back. Sorry for the technical problems. This is very rare for one of my sites, so I have to check to see if someone is messing with my coding.

JV

29

Are the Watchtower HQ washing their hands of congregations?

by uk_ex_jw in

it seems more and more from what i read that if there is problems in congregations (i.e.

paedophilia) the wtbts are washing their hands of any wrongdoing and leaving the congregation and its elder's to carry the can.. is that how it is now?.

Juan Viejo2

This definition conflicts with the [now] official position of the Society that it is just like the Catholic Church and everything is controlled "from the top down."

See http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/scandals/225582/1/Watchtower-admits-We-are-like-the-Catholic-Church

JV

37

Watchtower admits, "We are like the Catholic Church"

by Juan Viejo2 in

calvin rouse describes himself as "general counsel for the national organization of jehovah's witnesses out of brooklyn, new york.".

while representing one of the defendants during a trial held in san mateo county court in redwood city, california, on february 22, 2012, rouse made this amazing statement:.

"ordinarily, i wouldn't be here, but this is one our 13,000 congregations in the united states.

Juan Viejo2

My apologies to the court reporter. My contacts located the missing page (page 85). Apparently it was mishandled during the copy/conversion process to PDF.

I'll try to get it back into the mix in the correct sequence.

Kurtbethel - Thank you for reminding me of that point. That is extremely important on several levels. Here's why:

When I was old enough to register for the draft (1961), I was told to go to the office of the local draft board and fill out my registration. At that time, you simply had to register (no war was in progress) and state if you were married, had any children, or required corrective lenses. If you had any significant physical issues, I think you were supposed to list them. I had very bad knees at the time.

A couple of months later I got my draft card. I was classified as 1-A (eligible for the draft). In early 1963, I had to appear before the draft board (actually just a clerk) to update my status (we'd just been through the Cuban missile crisis and Viet Nam was heating up). My congregation servant provided me with a sheet of paper that explained how to request a ministerial exemption as a concientious objector. If you were interviewed by a draft board clerk, you were to say that you were a minister, a conscientious objector, and you would not serve. If the subject of how you could be a "minister" and not be leader of the congregation, you were to explain that Jehovah's Witnesses did not have "clergy-laity classes," that all JWs who participated in the door-to-door preaching work were "ministers" and qualified for exemption. Needless to say, I did not get my exemption and was still classifed 1-A.

A month before President Kennedy was assassinated (November 22, 1963), my wife gave birth to our first daughter. Six months later, US troops started moving into Viet Nam and the draft boards started pulling numbers. I went to the draft board in our town to update my status to show that I was now married and had a child. I also reaffirmed my status as a minister. Two weeks later I got an updated card showing my status as 3-A (eligible, but deferred due to having underaged dependents). Our draft board was ignoring all requests by JWs for ministerial exemptions. Two of our young men went to prison during that time and both were pioneers. The draft board wasn't buying our ministerial status.

We'd often state (while preaching door to door) that we were "all ministers," and that "Jehovah's Witnesses do not have a 'clergy-laity' class like the Catholic Church."

Things have really changed in the past 50 years. The current crop of elders clearly see themselves as above the rest of the congregation, and therefore see themselves in the same way as most Protestant clergy do now. They don't wear Roman collars or robes when they lead the congregation, but they clearly are set apart as something special within the congregation. JW ministerial servants are basically like altar boys and neophytes.

JV

37

Watchtower admits, "We are like the Catholic Church"

by Juan Viejo2 in

calvin rouse describes himself as "general counsel for the national organization of jehovah's witnesses out of brooklyn, new york.".

while representing one of the defendants during a trial held in san mateo county court in redwood city, california, on february 22, 2012, rouse made this amazing statement:.

"ordinarily, i wouldn't be here, but this is one our 13,000 congregations in the united states.

Juan Viejo2

Calvin Rouse describes himself as "general counsel for the National Organization of Jehovah's Witnesses out of Brooklyn, New York."

While representing one of the defendants during a trial held in San Mateo County Court in Redwood City, California, on February 22, 2012, Rouse made this amazing statement:

"Ordinarily, I wouldn't be here, but this is one our 13,000 congregations in the United States. We are a heirarchial religion structured just like the Catholic Church..."

After making that amazing admission, he then goes on to almost brag about that fact:

"And when the order from the Pope comes down defrocking a priest and kicking him out, he no longer has any say in any matter in the local parish priest...in the parish."

"We brought our organizational bylaws book, our rule book here, and we are prepared to present witnesses that this is a hierarchial organization. It is governed from the top down..."

So the matter is settled. After all these years, the Watchtower finally comes right out in court and under oath, one of their own attorneys clearly states that they are just like the Catholic Church. Whatever goes on, even at the local levels, is completely controlled by the headquarters in New York state.

So all those times they said that they were not responsible for what happened in local congregations - the Watchtower leaders and legal representatives were lying. They knew that they were lying and they did that under oath too.

You can read this amazing statement and even more surprising information on my latest post at Ex-JW.com:

Menlo Park Kingdom Hall: The State Lawsuit

Article includes PDF segments of the entire trial transcript (except for one page that was left out by the court reporter).

Feel free to comment. Second federal court case continues in San Jose, California. I'll publish more on that as it becomes available.

JV

56

A Brief History of Racism in Watchtower Publications

by cedars in

i've just completed a lengthy article on the history of racism in the society's publications.

many people (including myself, until recently) aren't aware that the society's early publications were brimming with racist rhetoric, and this only calmed down as the public mood towards racism changed, most notably with the civil rights movement in the 50s/60s.. a few "headliners" from the article are:.

russell segregated blacks from whites for viewings of the photodramarussell believed that the skin of a black man would turn white during the millennial kingdomunder russell, the society's publications portrayed the black races as "degraded" and the white race as "superior"rutherford viewed the blacks as a "race of servants", and spoke of "sobering the southern negro" in an article against prohibitionunder rutherford, the golden age slammed uncle tom's cabin (a work that helped end slavery) as being "the work of satan"; the same article branded spaniards a "backwards race"rutherford accused "jewish business men" of "oppressing the peoples of many nations"in 1929 the golden age (acknowledged by the society as essentially the same magazine as the modern awake!

Juan Viejo2

BTW - I forgot to finish my story. My wife and I did get married at the Kingdom Hall and it had more attendees than a Sunday evening talk by the CO. It was packed. My wife eventually was baptized and remained a JW for a few years after I left the religion. We were together for almost ten years and have three daughters.

But the whole controversy surrounding our Kingdom Hall wedding was one more straw on the stack that eventually led me to leave a few years later. Norvell and his sister's family moved to Georgia to serve where the "need was greater." I'm sure they saw a lot more discrimination in Athens, GA then they ever did in Riverside, CA - but still - discrimination is wrong no matter where it is practiced or how it is applied. A little bit of discrimination is just as bad as a lot of discrimination in my book, no matter who practices it.

If the Watchtower was truly "God's nation," it would not have allowed discrimination due to ethnicity or race in any of its Kingdom Halls or as far as who they chose to be among their leaders. Good for Samuel Herd, but there should have been several on the Governing Body by now. We've have Australians and Germans and even (God forbid) and Irishman. With blacks, hispanics, Southeast Asians, and Pacific Islanders making up most of the growth in the organization, I would hope that they find their way to the highest ranks of the WTBTS soon.

JV