Posts by Chaserious

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Has anyone heard anything about Elders being a separate entity and WTS not helping them in court cases legally?

by Newly Enlightened in

i just heard a rumor and trying to verify it.

a current jw just told us that the elder's are now a separate entity and that when brought into court hearings and they try to use the 'clergy confidentiality clause' that the wtbt$ backs off and says the elders are their own separate entity.. anyone heard anything like this?.

Chaserious

ArbolesdeArabia - Yes, I'm graduating from law school this spring. So what happened with the brother who sued for slander? Did they announce his disfellowshipping anyway? My feeling is that they generally defend elders and congregations when it is their own policy/doctrine being attacked, like a general attack against the blood doctrine or disfellowshipping, but not when it's a result of elders following routine orders or making business decisions that middle managers just have to make sometimes, where in society in general one would expect their employer to come to their defense.

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What Could Cause the Watch Tower Corporation to Loose Its Non Profit Tax Status?

by frankiespeakin in

just throwing this idea out in hyperspace to see what comes up..

Chaserious

Chas, good points so maybe a bunch of child molestations lawsuit that they loose in court, might be the thing that causes them to loose tax exempt

status

No, I don't think that would be the trigger. Federal law allows all religious organizations and churches to get 501(c) (tax exempt) statuts. The IRS can't revoke the status because they don't think an organization is "deserving." It would take a change in federal law to make additional requirements to keep the 501(c) status. As I mentioned, there is not going to be political support anytime soon for this kind of change. I doubt you could find 5% of members of Congress who are in any way interested in picking and choosing what religions get the tax exemption (or eliminating it all together), much less any kind of majority. There is too much risk (being labelled as "war on religion", etc) and not enough public support. Plus there is a significant risk that if they change the law to favor some religions and not others, it could be invalidated as unconstitutional.

It would be far more likely to be some kind of financial wrongdoing that could bring a change about. Things like enriching insiders, private benefit, political activity, not paying taxes on unrelated business income, and other financial wrongdoing are all part of the already existing law that nonprofits must follow and can get in trouble for not complying with. I don't know how much of this is going on, if any, and what the chances are of airing it publicly, but it's just so much more likely because it wouldn't require passage of new laws.

16

At what point do the individuals in the ORG need to take responsibility for their actions?

by vajeni82 in

so, i'm sitting here, being pissed about my family.

both of my parents and my only sister are jws.

i haven't had a relationship with them since they i left in 2002.

Chaserious

I don't blame you. I feel the same way about my family. I know of other parents who play a little loose with the DF rules and my family doesn't. So, not only do they choose to follow the policy but they follow it strictly, and that's on them.

I feel pity for them in a sense, in that they let such an organization cause them to sever normal human family ties and lose out on a relationship with their son for no other reason than not agreeing on religious doctrine, but I hold them just as responsible too. Some things are just natural -like loving your family - and you shouldn't need anyone else to tell you that it's okay or not okay.

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What Could Cause the Watch Tower Corporation to Loose Its Non Profit Tax Status?

by frankiespeakin in

just throwing this idea out in hyperspace to see what comes up..

Chaserious

To me this is very political in its nature even though the government they support and tell other to support is only in their imagination it still opposes the

right of a country to get it citizens to bear arms in its defence, a very serious political stand.

Maybe, but as long as the federal goverment is not going after churches that explicitly call for election of certain politicians from the pulpit they are not going to go after anti-military religions. They'd probably have to go after the Quakers and Amish too if that was the basis. As long as Westboro Baptist Church still has tax free status despite hateful and much more overtly political speech than the WTS spouts, the WTS status is not going anywhere.

I don't discourage people from petitioning their member of Congress about this or any other issue they feel strongly about, but that is unlikely to be the way this kind of thing would happen. There is little to no political capital to be gained from such a move. People in general just don't care much, and there is always the risk that some voters would wonder if their church is next. If they did get a little too greedy and some fraudulent conduct could be shown, that would be a more likely trigger. Even then, I suspect they would try to somehow find a "fall guy" to take the hit and carry on unscathed.

45

Deteriorating content of the WT

by His Excellency in

jw
friends

has anyone noticed the recent deterioration in the quality of wt's contents lately?..

the spiritual food seems to be getting more and more shitty these days.

i have given a thought to what could really be going wrong, and if it is likely that some on the wiriting committee is consciously dishing out those nonsense to facilitate more poeple seeing ttat.

Chaserious

No matter how talented the doctor may be, he needs to ask questions and listen to what your symptoms are before he can give any meaningful help.

The other irony of this is that they do think they have the answer before they hear any information, exactly like the doctor they are warning against. The answer for everyone is to become a JW. In JW teaching, when they go door to door, there is no such thing as a person who doesn't "need the truth", no matter how few symptoms the person has and no matter how happy the person may profess to be. In the parlance of their illustration, the asking of questions is just a charade to formulate a reason why to tell the householder they need the treatment that has already been decided in advance to be best for them

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Has anyone heard anything about Elders being a separate entity and WTS not helping them in court cases legally?

by Newly Enlightened in

i just heard a rumor and trying to verify it.

a current jw just told us that the elder's are now a separate entity and that when brought into court hearings and they try to use the 'clergy confidentiality clause' that the wtbt$ backs off and says the elders are their own separate entity.. anyone heard anything like this?.

Chaserious

Actually, the franchise analogy is about the size of things, but it's not an analogy they would actually welcome. They want to create a fiction to present to the outside world where everyone (not only elders) does everything, not because the parent company told them so, but because their "bible trained conscience" directs them to. They spin blood, DFing, you name it, in this light.

As to legal defense of the elders, I am pretty sure that they have not been defending elders for quite some time where elders are sued as individuals, except in certain situations where they decide on a case-by-case basis that it's in their best interest to do so. They probably just made this more explicit in recent communications with elders.

Someone mentioned agency, which it should be pointed out is a separate issue from defending elders in individual lawsuits. Agency is a theory where someone would seek to recover from the parent organization for the elders' actions, which is a situtation where they certainly would get their legal team involved since it is their checkbook that is being pursued.

79

I Got disfellowshiped..wana die!

by Chichi89 in

jw
friends

i jus got dissfellowshiped at th last week..i feel like dying..i attended th meetings yesterday and ita ws jus horrible..came back home in tears....... people i used to cal my friends nw cant look me in the eye..so heartbroken confused and giving up on life !.

Chaserious

Chichi - so sorry to hear you're having it tough right now. It's hard at first, but being DF'd was the best thing that ever happened to me. After a few years, it all seems like a bad dream. Not just being DF'd - but everything that you did to try to please all of the other JWs. It sounds like you at one time had friends on the outside. Here's one thing that I bet you'll find - people whose friendship you turned down over the years because they are "worldly", like coworkers, extended family, classmates, will often give you another chance at friendship. I found that to be true in my case. It's not conditional on what you believe. On the other hand, your friendship with your witness network is 100% condititional on what three men (who admittedly can't read hearts) decide about your "heart condition". Who do you really want as friends?

19

What Could Cause the Watch Tower Corporation to Loose Its Non Profit Tax Status?

by frankiespeakin in

just throwing this idea out in hyperspace to see what comes up..

Chaserious

In the U.S., it would probably take either a wholesale stripping of tax free status from all religions or some kind of fraud/conspiracy prosecution. I don't see an across-the-board change in the religious tax exemption for at least a couple of generations, if at all. And I wouldn't get hopes up about the fraud/conspiracy angle either. Even if everything that has been alleged with some reasonable basis in fact on sites like this is true, I don't know if anything rises to the that level. It seems like countries in Europe are more likely to take such a stance against WTS in the foreseeable future than the U.S.

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