Posts by jordan12

56

Pedophiles in your congregation??

by ziddina in

i'm listening to the "six screens of the watchtower" broadcast from october 25, 2008 [yeah, i know, i'm waaay behind...], discussing pedophilia... that broadcast caused me to look up the current status of 'pedophilia notification' in the u.s.a..... rebel8 posted a link sometime back that gave locations of pedophiles in one's (u.s.a.) neighborhood... that portion of the link is, unfortunately, not working right now.... i decided to check out my [old] site, http://www.nsopw.gov/core/offendersearchcriteria.aspx to see if it still functioned the same way.... again, unfortunately, that site is also no longer giving out maps of one's area.... but, as pointed out in rebel8's posted link, pedophiles tend to move around.

this was also mentioned in the six screens broadcast by a lady named "lilly".... the new versions of both sites simply allow one to input the name of someone suspected to be a pedophile... not as effective, imo, but perhaps the cost of updating the maps due to pedophiles' high mobility became prohibitive.. so, here's my suggestion... using the 'name' search function, check out every name in .

your congregation, starting with the elders!!!.

jordan12

If Bill Bowen (SilentLambs) was such a lier...why hasn't the WTS used their well paid attorneys to sue him or shut his site down?

How would I know? It doesn't mean that the site isn't full of lies. You only have to take a cursory look at his site to see that it is. For instance:

"Brother Griest - MURDERER" (except the murder was committed 17 years before he converted to Jehovah's Witnesses)
"Sister West Child Murderer" (except she's not and never was a Jehovah's Witness)
"Brother Proulx kills" (except that he was not a Witness)
Ditto for Mark Barton, Christian Longo, Robert Bryant.
"Most cases that involved the murder of a family by the father in recent years have had JW connections." (Absurd. There are reportedly 500 such cases a year in the USA - Silentlambs mentions about 14 cases worldwide in a 15-year period, the majority of which did not involve Jehovah's Witnesses anyway.)
"In effect the victim is accused of lying and now he/she is guilty until he/she can prove they are telling the truth by producing either people who watched it happen or photos as tangible proof." (False and ridiculous. No publication or letter of instruction to elders has ever said any such thing.)
"The requirement for two witnesses means to the same event, not two separate occasions" (complete lie, easily refuted by looking at elders' textbook)
"Public relations representatives for the Watchtower Organization have stated to media they will now take witnesses to separate incidents and take action in congregations. This became a policy instituted when silentlambs.org pressed the issue on child abuse." (So how come the policy is written in the 1991 elders' manual, ten years before Silentlambs came into existence?)

Even the media have stopped giving Bowen a platform. Could it be that they've realized that Silentlambs isn't interested in helping children so much as discrediting Jehovah's Witnesses? Using children to pursue a theological agenda leaves rather a nasty taste...

I t's totally DISGUSTING to think that an organization who claims to be Jehovah's messengers would even put in print... " if a state doesn't make it mandatory to report the CRIME OF CHILDREN they don't have to"!

It's not as simple as that. There are legal and common-sense reasons why the Society doesn't have a blanket policy of reporting all abuse, except if legally necessary. Why do you think no other church has the policy you want? Why do you think that professional counselors' associations don't have such a policy? Why don't even child protection agencies have a blanket policy of reporting all cases?

Would you report abuse, for instance, against the wishes of victims who are now adults?
Would you report a 17-year-old boy who had sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend?
Have you considered that the policy you are suggesting would deter perpetrators (and even some victims) from telling the elders what happened? How is that going to help?

As said before...it's a clear case.....let the proper professionals handle the cases with professional investigators..and law...obey the laws of the lands.....

We do obey the laws of the land - meticulously. If victims or their parents want the case investigated by law enforcement, then they're free to report it.

in fact, it's a UNIVERSAL LAW OF CONSCIOUS, child sex abuse is not to be tolerated by anyone....the two witness, three witness DID apply not too long ago...and that applied to ADULTS...notice if a brother has something against you.....

The two-witness requirement basically concerns whether a judicial committee will be formed, with the unrepentant abuser disfellowshipped. Since other religious organizations don't disfellowship abusers whether there is one, two or ten eye-witnesses, I think you'd have to agree that Jehovah's Witnesses are still streets ahead of other churches.

I hear this excuse from many of you ... oh well, it happens in all the other religions. Actually, JWs are a smaller group...so of course their are going to be more among the Catholics with sex abuse....

Well of course it happens in all religions. It also happens among people with no religion. Can you propose any way of ensuring that it never happens? I can't, short of following everyone in the religion around with video cameras.

I think the evidence presented in previous replies makes it quite clear that abuse happens a lot less frequently among Jehovah's Witnesses than, say, among Catholic clergy.

Oh well, I guess the CHILD asked for it.....or dress wrong....Oh well, it's made up in the child's mind....

None of Jehovah's Witnesses' publications or internal documents has ever said anything of the sort.

Oh well, there's a cleansing of the molesters in the Cong....(there will be a cleansing from the top for not taking).Oh well, even though we have problems....we are not the worst of the worst...REALLY? You are to be unblemished among the nations.....as an example to his name! You have become like the other religions making foul excuses for many things...

You're not being reasonable. There is no way for any organization to know what its members are doing all the time. Abuse is considerably less frequent among Jehovah's Witnesses than in the population in general. Jehovah's Witnesses have an excellent child protection policy. Our policies don't apply to clergy only, but the whole congregation (unlike other churches). We have scrupulously followed legal requirements (unlike many other churches). We disfellowship unrepentant abusers (unlike most other churches). Repentant abusers are removed from all positions of trust. When there has been a case, the congregation is warned by a talk (unlike other churches). We keep a central register to prevent abusers simply moving to another congregation (unlike other churches).

I was molested by a Jehovah's Witness brother.....as a very young soul....I was victimized....my childhood damaged.....

That is appalling, but that is the fault of your abuser, not the congregation.

there should have NEVER BEEN two witness, three witness policy when it comes to CHILD SEX CRIMES, PERIOD!

Are you saying that everyone accused of child abuse is guilty? I think you'd soon change your mind if you or a loved one were falsely accused of abuse.

It's not like adultry, smoking....etc....what kind of moral, god like, concisous is this. Maybe if you knew the filthy details of my victimization, it would become more real to you.....instead of spewing your coldhearted comments.....

I'm sorry you were victimized. No-one should have to go through that. But I think your anger would be better directed toward the perpetrator rather than the congregation.

If you feel your abuser should be reported to the police, why don't you report him?

What part of...."They did not go to the authorities" do you not understand?

I understand perfectly. What I don't understand is why you don't go to the authorities, but you want them to.

What part of...."It's totally DISGUSTING to think that an organization who claims to be Jehovah's messengers would even dare put in print..." if a state doesn't make it mandatory to report SEX CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN, they don't have to"!

Please see above.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21917798/ns/night...

What is your point? That a Witness can be a child molester? Nobody disputes that. The perpetrators were disfellowshipped and the crimes were reported to the police by the victims. That is the way it should be. If someone commits a crime against me, then I am the one who should report them to the police, not my church.

Evil deeds of one person? Evil deeds on only a few? Really?

Actually, there are very few cases. Silentlambs claims to have reported 300 Witness abusers to the police in a five-year period - an average of one a week. Where are they? Having gone to all the trouble of locating them and reporting them to the police, they suddenly "forgot" to put the names and details of the trials on their website, and instead put up stories about people who aren't even Jehovah's Witnesses and never were!

In countries where the law requires a report to police (e.g. Canada), a report is always made. Have we seen a much higher incidence of convictions for child molestation among Witnesses in Canada than in the USA? I think not.

Even if cases were mishandled..do you think they (GB or Elders) would ever say anything to the victims? Do you think Elders feel repentful/sorry for mishandling the cases.....maybe they should get DF by God for mishandling cases....but I guess that's why the WTS is paying out...for settlements....and setting gage orders....

If they've mishandled the cases but are sorry, Jehovah will forgive them.

With regard to settlements, there have been a handful -- tiny number compared to the figure of over 1,100,000 Witnesses in the USA. These concerned isolated cases before 1997, when the tighter policy on child abuse was brought in. I don't think we'll be seeing many more.

56

Pedophiles in your congregation??

by ziddina in

i'm listening to the "six screens of the watchtower" broadcast from october 25, 2008 [yeah, i know, i'm waaay behind...], discussing pedophilia... that broadcast caused me to look up the current status of 'pedophilia notification' in the u.s.a..... rebel8 posted a link sometime back that gave locations of pedophiles in one's (u.s.a.) neighborhood... that portion of the link is, unfortunately, not working right now.... i decided to check out my [old] site, http://www.nsopw.gov/core/offendersearchcriteria.aspx to see if it still functioned the same way.... again, unfortunately, that site is also no longer giving out maps of one's area.... but, as pointed out in rebel8's posted link, pedophiles tend to move around.

this was also mentioned in the six screens broadcast by a lady named "lilly".... the new versions of both sites simply allow one to input the name of someone suspected to be a pedophile... not as effective, imo, but perhaps the cost of updating the maps due to pedophiles' high mobility became prohibitive.. so, here's my suggestion... using the 'name' search function, check out every name in .

your congregation, starting with the elders!!!.

jordan12

That sample is probably quite accurate, unless the CO was misleading to me. I don't know why he would.

I don't doubt that the CO would tell the truth. I do doubt whether you would, in view of the way you misrepresent what I wrote (see below) But even if what you say were true, how on earth could you possibly know that the one circuit was representative of the whole country? Incidentally, even if it were, it would still be less than half what Silentlambs claimed and about a quarter of the rate amongst Catholic clergy.

It would be wonderful if we could say that there are never any cases among Jehovah's Witnesses, but unfortunately that is impossible to achieve. We have no way of knowing what is going on in people's minds and what they do in private, when other congregation members aren't there. I do believe, though, that it happens a lot less frequently than among the population in general.

I would agree with your assessment that there might be as many as 12,000 'unreported' molesters in the USA congregations.

You're putting words into my mouth. I didn't say that there might be that many. I merely said that if what you said was true and the circuit you describe was a representative sample, there would be 12,000 persons on the child-protection list. I also said that I thought the true figure was likely to be much less.

Furthermore, I did not say that I believed those cases to be unreported. Many cases have already been reported to the police, since that is what is required in most US states. Failure to report is illegal in those places and yet no elder or congregation has every been found guilty of a crime like that. Additionally, some on the list were convicted of child molestation before becoming Witnesses. What would there be to report?

I've also pointed out that it isn't a list of proven molesters. It could include the names of persons who are the object of unverified accusations. It could include people who, as teenagers had sex with an underage girlfiriend a couple of years younger.

So I most certainly did not say that there might be 12,000 unreported molesters among Witnesses in the USA, as you claim.

When I read your first post, I was willing to suspend disbelief about what you said. First, that there would be that many persons on the child protection list in your circuit, and second that your CO would tell you about it. I thought well maybe, it's just possible. But when you distort my words, I'm afraid you lose credibility. If you can't get something straight when it is right in front of your eyes, then you either have serious difficulties in understanding English or you're being dishonest. Either way, I see no reason at all to take anything you say seriously.

You know as well as me, why I can't reveal more information on that congregation I mentioned.

I'm not sure I do. What would happen if you did? And whatever would happen, isn't it worth it, if protecting the children is your only real objective?

I certainly don't know why you can't tell us how you know this while claiming that only the elders know about it. Are you an elder? If you are, what are you doing serving as an elder if you don't agree with the Society's policies?

The WTS advised the Elders not to report it.

How do you know? Why should I believe that?

The point is, the person was DF'd and NO investigation by the proper authorities was inacted to confirm if anyone else was molested.

How do you know?

The Elders and the WTS should not have made that choice for the authorities.

The way I understand it, the elders are instructed by the Society to comply with reporting requirements. If the state makes a law on reporting, the elders will comply with it. Do you know the reporting requirements for your state? What state do you live in? We can look it up.

I know of no religious or professional counselling organization that has a blanket policy of reporting all cases to authorities when not legally required to.

Furthermore, the victims are adults now. They could have made a report if they wanted one made. If someone commits a crime against you, then if anyone should make a complaint to the authorities, it is you. It's not your church's job to make the report for you. And, if the victims don't want to make a report, should the elders really go against their wishes?

He is now re-instated, and no one in the congregation is aware of his past problem, except for the Elders. How is that protecting the flock? Its not. That's the problem with the confidential reckoning of the WTS.

I think you know very well that the elders can't just tell everyone what he did. What legal or Biblical basis would they have for doing so? They have to protect the congregation by monitoring the person closely and ensuring he has no unsupervised access to children.

I was speaking of the WT policy of keeping it confidential, as a cover up plan, which does more to protect the WTS than potential victims.

I'm not aware of anyone having been molested by a reinstated former child molester. I think it's more a product of someone's fertile imagination than a scenario that actually happens. Apparently, then, the policy works perfectly well in practice.

And I agree with you, we are all culpable in this cover up.

Except I didn't say that we are all culpable in this cover up. You're putting words into my mouth again.

If you confess a crime to your lawyer or your therapist, it isn't a cover-up if they don't go to the authorities. It's their professional duty. Even child protection charities don't always report what they know to the police. That isn't a cover up. They have to balance a number of factors, including their legal responsibilities of confidentiality, possibility of defamation cases, and other factors.

That's one reason why I'm here, to expose this and do my part to change it.

So, to get this straight. You know a crime was committed, and instead of reporting it to the police, you're campaigning for the Watch Tower to change its policies and report it. If you want them to do it, why won't you do it?

This is only one reason why the WTS has had to pay millions in settlements to victims, with probably more to come. I guess you were not aware of that fact.

I'm aware that there have been a few out-of-court settlements. Maybe a couple of dozen. Out of a million Jehovah's Witnesses in the US. It's hardly the pandemic that it's been made out to be. In any case, the settlements all concerned cases that took place before the more rigorous procedures were introduced in 1997. I don't believe that there's been a settlement made in any claim relating to alleged cases after that time. I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong ...

It's not a "fact" that the Society have had to pay millions; that is pure conjecture. Saying that there is "probably more to come" is also an opinion, rather than a fact.

I also understand that so far everyone who has refused an out-of-court settlement and taken their case to court has lost.

In both of the congregations I mentioned, NO ONE knows anything about the molesters, except for the Elders and those families affected, let alone the public.

Well, if you report it then presumably that will rectify the situation.

The WTS policy of ' keeping it quiet' is a very effective tool, no? That would explain why few have heard about these covered up atrocities. Multiply that by the 1,000's of other congregations and you can see why few JW's know much about this, nor the general public.

I'm not sure what exactly you want the Society to do. You mean you want them to announce that someone has been accused of child molestation? I do not know any religious or other organization that has a policy like that, for very good reasons. Not even Silentlambs do that! Apart from the legal problems that would entail, there are practical concerns too.

Suppose a man wants to get baptized. He has committed some form of sexual offence in the past. If he tells us, we're going to announce it to the congregation ... do you think he's going to tell us?

Do you think that someone who has become involved in that type of crime is going to tell the elders about it if they can't be sure that it will be kept confidential? Isn't it better that someone in the congregation knows rather than no-one? The elders can't monitor things if they don't know about them.

As for victims, it is hard enough for them to come and talk to someone as it is. Wouldn't it discourage them from coming forward if they thought that the elders were going to broadcast the facts to the congregation and go to the authorities?

I really don't think you've thought this through sufficiently.

How could they?
Child molesters in the WTS Congregations is one dirty little secret we need to get out, wouldn't you agree?

I don't believe that it's a secret at all. Everyone knows that child molesters exist in the community and that they sometimes join religious organizations. Sometimes they manage to control their proclivities, sometimes they don't. I know it's sick, but it's a reality. A number of articles in The Watchtower and on the Society's website have frankly acknowledged that these situations exist in the congregation.

Furthermore, the Society's policies on how matters are handled have been published in The Watchtower and on the website, as well as in letters to the congregations. There's nothing secret about that either.

Admittedly, some Witnesses may be a bit naive about the subject, particularly if they have not read the Watchtower articles about the subject.

But is it really about helping Witnesses and protecting their children? Some who are critically inclined might think that your real agenda was to try to use isolated cases of child abuse within the organization to try to discredit the whole religion. They might think that if you were really interested in helping Witnesses and their children, you would do so in a way that shows greater respect for their chosen faith and religious sensitivities.

56

Pedophiles in your congregation??

by ziddina in

i'm listening to the "six screens of the watchtower" broadcast from october 25, 2008 [yeah, i know, i'm waaay behind...], discussing pedophilia... that broadcast caused me to look up the current status of 'pedophilia notification' in the u.s.a..... rebel8 posted a link sometime back that gave locations of pedophiles in one's (u.s.a.) neighborhood... that portion of the link is, unfortunately, not working right now.... i decided to check out my [old] site, http://www.nsopw.gov/core/offendersearchcriteria.aspx to see if it still functioned the same way.... again, unfortunately, that site is also no longer giving out maps of one's area.... but, as pointed out in rebel8's posted link, pedophiles tend to move around.

this was also mentioned in the six screens broadcast by a lady named "lilly".... the new versions of both sites simply allow one to input the name of someone suspected to be a pedophile... not as effective, imo, but perhaps the cost of updating the maps due to pedophiles' high mobility became prohibitive.. so, here's my suggestion... using the 'name' search function, check out every name in .

your congregation, starting with the elders!!!.

jordan12

A CO disscussing a child molestation case with me in my congregation mentioned that every congregation has at least one and some two in our circuit. Of these, he was relieved, none had been made public. That's 18-20 in our circuit alone.

Following this average, how many exist in the USA alone? Hard to say, but it would be signifigant and would probably destroy the WTS as we know it, if it ever became public.

Assuming for the sake of argument that this is true, which I have no way of knowing, I'm not at all sure that that would be a representative sample. I think the true figure is likely to be much less. Of course, even if it is true and a representative sample (about 12,000 names) it would be an incidence of about 0.8% - a fraction of the figure of 4% of Catholic Priests that have apparently been accused of child abuse. (http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/PriestAbuseScandal.htm)

In any case, not everyone on the list is a child molester. A number of other categories are included on the list. Not all of the allegations are substantiated. It looks as though the frequency of pedophilia is actually way lower among JW's than in the population in general.

There are apparently 700,000 registered sex offenders in the US. Statistically, you'd expect about 2,700 to be active Witnesses, maybe about 3,500 if you include inactive/disfellowshipped. I doubt the true figure is anywhere near that. That's corroborated by the extreme scarcity of reports of Witnesses' committing these crimes, even in places where reporting is mandatory. And, let's face it, groups like Silent Lambs would be more than willing to publicize these cases if they existed.

What's really bad about keeping this quiet, so as not to bring about 'reproach on JG's organization' a convenient euphanism, is that many of these child molesters are going unchecked and probably are abusing others.

You're assuming too much. First, it's pretty well established that we scrupulously observe the reporting laws. I understand that pretty much every state in the US has mandatory reporting laws now ( http://www.smith-lawfirm.com/mandatory_reporting.htm ). I don't believe there's a single case of a congregation or an elder being found guilty of failure to report.

When there is no mandatory reporting, there are still other legal considerations (confidentiality, possibility of false accusations, law on fiduciary relationships, etc.) It's not about 'bringing reproach on the organization'. No publication or letter has ever said that crime shouldn't be reported to the authorities. And of course, the victim or the victim's parents can report. Or anyone else who knows about it for that matter.

As an example, in the congregation next to mine, an Elder woke up one day with a visualization that he was molested as a child. He feared his sister, a Special Pioneer was molested by their father, a long time Elder. He called her and she confirmed she was as well.
They decided to bring this to the Elders attention who inturn admonished them to go to the father and confront him. They didn't want to, but at the insistance of the Elders, they went with two Elders. He at first denied the charges vehemently, but the mother confessed she had witnessed it.The result? He was removed and DF'd. No one in the congregation knew why he was DF'd.

I agree that it's sickening that people do these things, particularly people who lead a double life and pretend to be exemplary Witnesses. I'm glad the man in question was disfellowshipped, as that's a very powerful protection for the congregation's children. I wish other religious organizations would do the same.

But it was also decided not to go to the authorities, because they felt that was all there was. But how do they know he didn't molest others? How could you trust him? And how were they protecting others in the future? They didn't
The one in my congregation was completely unkown to everyone except the Elders.

I'm not sure how you could really know all this. How do you know what they decided or what they felt? Did they tell you? And how could it be unknown to everyone if you knew about it? And how do you know it wasn't reported to the police? Didn't the victims report it? Didn't you?

That is not a confidential matter, that is a cover up.

But surely you can't say that other people are covering it up if you know about it and you haven't told the authorities. That would make you part of the cover-up too.

The elders will always comply with the law on reporting abuse. Where elders aren't required by law to report, then it's better if the victim or their parents make the report. They are the ones who are most directly involved.

If all of these became public, on a registered list, the JW Kingdom Halls would be lit up like a Billboard. No one would attend, no one would study with them, no one would contribute, and everyone who was 'encouraged to keep quiet' would sue the WTS.

But isn't the whole point of this thread that they are already public? I thought that was what the first poster was saying. Maybe I misunderstood. As I've already pointed out, the expected discovery of numerous pedophile elders hasn't materialized.

Some have tried to sue the WTS. I don't think any of them have won their cases though. Yes, I know a handful of plaintiffs settled out of court - a tiny number considering the total number of Witnesses in the US.

42

Turning in time?

by crazy2try in

jw
friends

i have a problem.

my hubby and i are tying to fade out completely, but we ran into a snag.

my in-laws showed up with a stack of time slips and said that they will turn them in for us if we fill them out.

jordan12

LoL. Ad hominem is Latin for "toward the person" or "against the person" and is used to describe a response that attacks the person rather than the person's point, which is what you did. But you're not stupid. Sure.

It matters little what it means in Latin. When someone encourages others to lie, that inevitably tells you something about his trustworthiness. Pointing that out is not an ad hominem.

Furthermore, I didn't attack the person's point. How could I? He didn't make a point. He simply made a recommendation (that someone else should act deceitfully). Someone with that standard of honesty is likely to lie about other things. That is all I said and it is a perfectly valid inference.

I didn't say it's ok to do it because the Watch Tower does it.

So why bring up Theocratic War strategy then? Most Witnesses have never even heard of it. And yes, I've read the articles from 50 years ago, saying that you don't have to hand your brothers over the the Gestapo or the KGB. Big deal. You make it look as if Witnesses lie all the time in quite trivial things to promote their religion. That is false. But since you apparently approve of lying, I don't expect you to acknowledge that.

So they're courageous victims of cult mind control. I guess that's something to be proud of.

Pure rhetoric, sarcasm and nothing else. It takes very little intelligence to be sarcastic.

This is the sort of stuff that people on this board get used to taking for granted because no-one ever questions it.

People become Jehovah's Witnesses because they study the teachings, believe them and decide to join. No-one makes them join and no-one stops them from leaving. "Cult mind control" is a fantasy accepted by hardly anyone except ex-members of religious groups trying to justify their former religious affiliations.

Have you seen too many lies to point out a few? Go ahead, join the discussion.

I already have, in other threads.

Here are some lies: "Jehovah's Witnesses don't acknowledge that rape is a violent crime" (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/189257/1/jw-blamed-her-daughter-when-grandaughter-was-raped);

"Former/Active District Overseer Arrested for Child Porn" (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/scandals/189875/1/Former-Active-District-Overseer-Arrested-For-Child-Porn-on-Laptop-In-The-UK);

"you can get df'd for masochism but not for beating your wife and children" (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/190879/1/Disfellowshipped-for-masochism);

JW man circumcised son at home (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/190870/1/One-year-in-jail-for-JW-man-who-circumcised-son-at-home)

Speaking of lying, I don't believe that you don't know what the "borg" is. Pot, meet kettle.

I think you are intelligent enough to recognise when someone is using a figure of speech.

First, I AM A DUB myself, so get off the high horse and quit taking offense with a little nickname.
Second, I've been A DUB for a LONG time. I know how folks operate.

It's not just a nickname; it's a term of contempt. You aren't capable of respectful discussion; you are a ridiculer, pure and simple. It's pathetic.

And there is no way you can possibly have any idea what millions of Witnesses put on their reports. You're slandering a whole group of people without any proof at all ("I know" is not proof) just so you can defend the indefensible: a poster here encouraging others to tell bare-faced lies.

What I have learned from your thread, by your own admission, is this: it's perfectly OK to tell people lies and call them names.

42

Turning in time?

by crazy2try in

jw
friends

i have a problem.

my hubby and i are tying to fade out completely, but we ran into a snag.

my in-laws showed up with a stack of time slips and said that they will turn them in for us if we fill them out.

jordan12

jordan12 = recently welcomed to the board, now randomly attacking the board.

?????

Some people don't like being disagreed with, do they?

What are you going to do, disfellowship me?

10

Fading

by bohm in

jw
friends

here is the thing.

as mentioned earlier i have been fading for almost 2 years now.

i moved to another congr.

jordan12

How about telling them the truth?

12

Why is it that abuse is so prevalent among the religious?

by dgp in

i'm not trying to sling mud at anyone, but, while i am aware that pedophiles are to be found in all walks of society, why would it be that they seem to be so many among the religious?

as a former catholic, i often heard people say that priests would abuse children because a) they couldn't have a woman themselves (an outright lie) or b) because the catholic church gave them an "honorable" way to stay single and be in the company of many men and children.

but then the jw's don't have such restrictions, and abuse still happens.

jordan12

Someone asked why the JW paedophile scandals have not generated as much publicity.

I think mainly because the Watchtower organisation compared to the Catholic Church are nobodies. There is no publicity value in a JW brother,who is some janitor or window cleaner, being exposed as a child molester.
Compared to a Priest in a high profile church.
Where you can drag in Bishops, Cardinals and a Pope.

I disagree. Of course there is publicity value in a Witness committing a crime. Newspapers routinely mention that a criminal was a Witness, even if it was just a 'rank and file' member rather than an elder.

In fact, they frequently say that the person was a Witness when they were only studying or had been inactive for years, or were ex-Witnesses.

We all know very well that there are opposers who would give their right arm to make sure any wrongdoing committed by Witnesses is publicized to the maximum extent possible.

When a JW is caught he is dropped like a hot potato by the WT organisation.
Who will deny having anything to do with him.

The Watchtower can't do anything right, can it? If they disfellowship a wrongdoer, that's wrong, because they're "dropping the person like a hot potato" to avoid negative publicity. If they don't disfellowship the wrongdoer, well, that's wrong as well because 'the elders just stood by and did nothing and the person is still a Witness in good standing"

The truth of the matter is that some wrongdoers have been disfellowshipped even when there was no publicity, and that some have not been disfellowshipped even when there was. The determining factor isn't how widely the offence is known, but whether the person is deemed repentant.

I've never heard the organization comment on any criminal case.

Disfellowship him so they can say he is not a JW.

No, disfellowship him because that is what the Bible says they should do. A policy that virtually no other religious organization has had the courage to implement.

Unless you get some persistent journalist who will dig into the WT.
Writes a damning article or book, then the WT will carry on as usual.

I don't like conspiracy theories. I have a simpler, if less exciting, explanation.

Could it be that reports of crimes committed by Jehovah's Witnesses are relatively rare because Jehovah's Witnesses as a group really are more law-abiding? I know that's heresy to most Watchtower-haters, but that is definitely the conclusion that objective observers come to.

27

Does the new Catholic scandal help or hurt in exposing the WT abuse scandals?

by undercover in

with all the attention being paid to new allegations of abuse cover-up in the catholic church i wonder:.

1. does this take the heat off the wts and are they hoping to slide through less scrutinized while the pope gets skewered by the media?

will the wts be stupid enough to try to capitalize on the catholics problems by printing articles critical of them?.

jordan12

So in this latest scandal my bet would be that Witnesses who are NOT aware of similar issues within the Society would say something along the lines of "it just proves that Catholics are a false religion" (ie #1), and Witnesses who ARE aware of similar issues within the Society would say something along the lines of "oh, all religions are made up of imperfect humans" (ie #2).

I don't think that's reasonable or fair at all. The point is not whether pedophilia takes place in a church, it's what the church does about it.

Of course pedophilia can happen in any religion. But Catholic priests were simply transferred to other dioceses, whereas every Witness in a position of responsibility proved to be doing anything immoral with children has lost his privileges, if he was not disfellowshipped.

By the way it handles child-abuse cases, the Catholic church has proved to be morally bankrupt. Jehovah's Witnesses, on the other hand, have the strictest child protection policies of any religious organization and probably much lower rates of child abuse too.

31

One year in jail for JW man who circumcised son at home

by behemot in

jw
friends

one year in jail for metro vancouver man who circumcised son at homeby andrea woo, vancouver sunmarch 25, 2010comments (46)metro vancouver -- a metro vancouver man who circumcised his four-year-old son at home with a razor blade and blood coagulant meant for horses has been sentenced to one year in jail followed by two years probation.

in april 2007, the man, identified only as djw due to a publication ban, gave his son, dj, honey wine before placing him on garbage bags on the kitchen floor.

djw then cut away the boy's foreskin with a razor blade.. .

jordan12

First of all, he wasn't even a Jehovah's Witness.

"Court has heard that D.J.W.'s mother raised him as a Jehovah's Witness, but he left the church. Court has heard he believes circumcisions are required for religious reasons." (http://www.theprovince.com/health/bungled+circumcision+should+jailed+Crown/2722398/story.html)

Secondly, even if he was, so what? It's blatantly obvious that Jehovah's Witnesses don't require circumcision, (especially not do-it-yourself circumcision at home) and therefore this man's actions contradict Jehovah's Witnesses teachings.

Posting something like this just reveals how bigoted some people are. Some are so like their own distorted caricatures of Jehovah's Witnesses that it's almost spooky.

And then to comment that it was the congregation's responsibility because "there must have been some kind of warning signs that the dad wasn't the full picnic". What were they supposed to do? Take the kid away from the father?

Like many who post here, this guy was an ex-Witness. Should I tout it as proof of what weirdos ex-Witnesses are? Would that be reasonable?

12

Why is it that abuse is so prevalent among the religious?

by dgp in

i'm not trying to sling mud at anyone, but, while i am aware that pedophiles are to be found in all walks of society, why would it be that they seem to be so many among the religious?

as a former catholic, i often heard people say that priests would abuse children because a) they couldn't have a woman themselves (an outright lie) or b) because the catholic church gave them an "honorable" way to stay single and be in the company of many men and children.

but then the jw's don't have such restrictions, and abuse still happens.

jordan12

What makes you think that abuse is more prevalent among the religions than anywhere else?