Posts by Listener

72

CEDARS (Again) Is it really about religious beliefs?

by Listener in

jw
friends

john cedars has posted his latest blog "the trouble with apostates (and why it shouldn't put you off becoming one)".

i acknowledge that he is entitled to his opionin just as we are ours but i am disappointed in some of his comments.. at this stage i'll try to be objective about it.

he is defending his own position after all.. what bothers me most is his comments about athiests and christians which he seems to identify as being in conflict with each other.

The watchtowers view on Rape!!! must see

by Khaleesi in

this person did a great job putting this together... i am disgusted with wt policies & them acting both judge & jurywatch "noonespecial - rapists - jw" on .

youtube.

https://youtu.be/lwufz7gyozm.

Listener

There's no qualification in any of this, the same policies would be used for child rape.

72

CEDARS (Again) Is it really about religious beliefs?

by Listener in

jw
friends

john cedars has posted his latest blog "the trouble with apostates (and why it shouldn't put you off becoming one)".

i acknowledge that he is entitled to his opionin just as we are ours but i am disappointed in some of his comments.. at this stage i'll try to be objective about it.

he is defending his own position after all.. what bothers me most is his comments about athiests and christians which he seems to identify as being in conflict with each other.

Listener

PBrow - The idea that without a god we could not figure out right or wrong is insulting.

I didn't get that when I was younger. I wondered what incentive there was for an athiest to be considerate of others. Talk about having little trust in human nature but of course it was fostered by JW indoctrination.

Under the Radar - i think this thread might be more appropriate in the Adult and Heated Debate section. I don't think it presents a very good first impression to any first-time visitors who might happen by.

You're right, the thread is not in the right section, I wasn't sure where to put it but I was hoping that it wouldn't turn into a heated debate

UTR - That said, I wonder why Listener chose to post his comments here instead of on the website more directly concerned. Is he prohibited from posting there? Or could this be a case of "forum shopping?" A less charitable person might see it as a form of evangelism or activism in itself, maybe even self-promotion.

Good question. Yes, it was a case of forum shopping. I thought this was the best place to have a reasonable discussion, both positive and negative being shared. My personal aim was to understand this idea of a war raging on and if it even exists to the extent that was suggestion. A lot of the time Cedar's knows what he is talking about and I wondered if his reactions were more emotional rather than factual. I tried to convey that in the thread title.

I don't post on Cedar's blog because I have to provide my personal email and although I could set up another one, I don't feel like doing that just so I can post on his blog.

I'm not a he, I often get referred to as a male, it's not a problem, just surprising when I have a female pictured in my Avatar.

UTR - As far as I'm concerned, Cedars can post whatever he wants on his site. If you want to take him to task, do it there. If you don't want to hear what he has to say, don't read his posts. But it seems unfair to attack him on an entirely different site. That smacks of gossip-mongering to me.

I'll take that hit but I don't really consider it as gossip-mongering when he can see everything that is posted here. As suggested previously, I didn't want to play in his playground on his terms.

I do like to hear what he has to say, he's done a lot of great work and I've added comments on his YouTube channel commending him on different aspects.

One of his most remarkable pieces of work (IMO) was an interview with a female exJW who had been abused. I think it was a little outside of his comfort zone but he put his own feelings aside and produced a very helpful video.

UTR - For the record, I don't agree with everything Cedars says and does. But he's performing a yeoman's work in exposing the Watchtower as a dangerous and mind-controlling cult. So is Simon, ApostaChick, Katie Kitten, Jakke Control, Mike & Kim, and many others, each in their own way. Some may be more to your taste than others. You might favor the approach of one more than another. You may find some cartoonish or even off-putting, but that doesn't diminish the value of the underlying message they're trying to put across . They are all to be commended for their efforts, even if you would have put or done things differently.

I agree with you and it's a great thing that there are so many activists, I don't think it is wrong in trying to understand where an activist is coming from at times, such as in the case of Cedars, particularly when it's not quite so obvious and when there seems to be so many people that think he can do no wrong. I don't see his popularity declining but I don't like to see blind worship either.

UTR - Well, why didn't you?

What can I say except repeat a previous comment you made - "A less charitable person might see it as a form of evangelism or activism in itself, maybe even self-promotion."

The self promotion part seems to be stretching it a bit too far but given that it is likely to be the opinion of a less charitable person, I needn't take it to heart.

72

CEDARS (Again) Is it really about religious beliefs?

by Listener in

jw
friends

john cedars has posted his latest blog "the trouble with apostates (and why it shouldn't put you off becoming one)".

i acknowledge that he is entitled to his opionin just as we are ours but i am disappointed in some of his comments.. at this stage i'll try to be objective about it.

he is defending his own position after all.. what bothers me most is his comments about athiests and christians which he seems to identify as being in conflict with each other.

Listener

Yes, sorry, there wasn't a reply when I deleted it. I should have left a comment that it was edited. This was the deleted comment

I feel like I am harping on about this point but finding religion largely redundant is not the same as finding obsolete.
I wonder if that means there will be no Christmas Tree in the Cedar household? Yes...I know....even a Xmas Tree doesn't have a religious meaning in some homes these days.

Obsolete - from the dictionary - no longer produced or used; out of date.

Redundant - not or no longer needed or useful; superfluous.

In my own terms, obsolete - gone and redundant - no longer needed.

Even if you were to take the words to mean the same (and they likely do), you qualified your thoughts with 'largely' whereas Cedars did not.

You are right about Xmas, however I don't think there are many people that continue to celebrate it because it has pagan roots. But point taken in that it possibly isn't Christian either. I guess it comes down to how people personally view it and what it means to them and their families.

72

CEDARS (Again) Is it really about religious beliefs?

by Listener in

jw
friends

john cedars has posted his latest blog "the trouble with apostates (and why it shouldn't put you off becoming one)".

i acknowledge that he is entitled to his opionin just as we are ours but i am disappointed in some of his comments.. at this stage i'll try to be objective about it.

he is defending his own position after all.. what bothers me most is his comments about athiests and christians which he seems to identify as being in conflict with each other.

Listener

It would seem theret is a downward trend with religion but the radical side of it is of great concern to many.

72

CEDARS (Again) Is it really about religious beliefs?

by Listener in

jw
friends

john cedars has posted his latest blog "the trouble with apostates (and why it shouldn't put you off becoming one)".

i acknowledge that he is entitled to his opionin just as we are ours but i am disappointed in some of his comments.. at this stage i'll try to be objective about it.

he is defending his own position after all.. what bothers me most is his comments about athiests and christians which he seems to identify as being in conflict with each other.

Listener

Slimboyfat - Cedars says that he finds religion obsolete, and you respond by saying that is untrue. Excuse me, are you the authority on what's going on in Cedars' head? If he says he find it obsolete then he does. End of story.

No, I'm not an authority on what is going on in his head but it's what he wrote, He didn't qualify it by saying that he feels it is obsolete to him personally. He didn't qualify it in explaining in what way it is obsolete to himself. Another view would be that it is evident he doesn't believe it is obsolete because much of his work is all about religion. He'd have no activist work to do if religion was obsolete.

To be honest, I included the statement to point out that his article is not as well thought out as many of his other articles.

72

CEDARS (Again) Is it really about religious beliefs?

by Listener in

jw
friends

john cedars has posted his latest blog "the trouble with apostates (and why it shouldn't put you off becoming one)".

i acknowledge that he is entitled to his opionin just as we are ours but i am disappointed in some of his comments.. at this stage i'll try to be objective about it.

he is defending his own position after all.. what bothers me most is his comments about athiests and christians which he seems to identify as being in conflict with each other.

Listener

I agree Ruby456. That is why I titled it as 'religious beliefs' and not religious and atheist beliefs.

Daniel - Sadly some ex jws (christian AND atheistic) are still trapped in this JW thinking that their view is the truth.

Cedars makes a point of this but didn't consider it from the angle of an atheist as far as I can see.

Cofty - I would love to have a rational debate with such a person if they exist.

It could only be a rational debate depending on your own point of view. A Christian may feel they are being very rational and you would never agree with that.

It's not something I like to debate about because it's not productive I prefer to discuss it but I don't know that there is much to discuss, probably because the basis of it is a matter of faith and a deep setted belief.

Jookbeard - no chance at all that we can just try and get on with our activism together, their stupidity and childishness is breathtaking at times

I think there is a chance, we see it here a lot of the time but you are correct that when stupidity and childishness comes into play then there's little hope, but it works both ways.

72

CEDARS (Again) Is it really about religious beliefs?

by Listener in

jw
friends

john cedars has posted his latest blog "the trouble with apostates (and why it shouldn't put you off becoming one)".

i acknowledge that he is entitled to his opionin just as we are ours but i am disappointed in some of his comments.. at this stage i'll try to be objective about it.

he is defending his own position after all.. what bothers me most is his comments about athiests and christians which he seems to identify as being in conflict with each other.

Listener

John Cedars has posted his latest blog "The Trouble with Apostates (and why it shouldn't put you off becoming one)"

I was put off by some of the comments that he has made on his blog. I acknowledge that he is entitled to his opionin just as we are ours but I am disappointed in some of his comments.

At this stage I'll try to be objective about it. He is defending his own position after all.

What bothers me most is his comments about athiests and christians which he seems to identify as being in conflict with each other. These are some of his observations

He identifies a second spectrum of Activists - the Evangelical Activist and the Athiest Activist.

He states this is his attitude in regards to religionists

I understand that some people need religion in their lives, and though I find it both obsolete and in most cases repulsive,

Neither of these statements are true. Religion is not obsolete, it is very much a part of our culture and structure today, it affects nearly all of us in one way or another. As to whether religion is in most cases, repulisive, is a bold claim and one that has caused much division and serious difficulties within society, both in the past and continues today. Rather than viewing it as repulsive, aren't many of us trying to encourage a confined level of tolerance?

JWsurvey has, and always will have, a “religious neutrality” policy displayed in our comments section...though I try to be as respectful and accommodating as possible towards believers, there is an evangelical Christian faction within the ex-JW movement, and it does not play by the same rules. While some Christians jumped to my defense over last year’s aggressive activism debacle, rightly acknowledging that harassing cult victims is anything but loving and Christlike, they were worryingly few in number. Aggressive activism and evangelical Christianity, it seems, usually go hand in hand.

He is making an assumption that evangelical Christians are generally aggressive activists. This is extremely offensive and I believe baseless. Why has he jumped to this conclusion? Simply because he seems to have few friends that are evangelical Christians. He seems to not even consider that not all ex JWs want to be friends with him, christian or otherwise.

as of this moment I can probably count on one hand the number of friends I have who are both Christian and genuinely respectful of my lack of belief

There appears to be no such conflict on this forum. If anything, there is less tolerence for anyone who chooses to 'push' their views on others, whether they be atheists or christians.

The strange thing about this is that many discussions take place here where we don't know if the poster is Christian or Atheist. A lot of the time it is not important in our goal to help and support others who are victims of the JW cult. This suggests that Cedars is either going around and asking people what their position is or they are all volunteering that information to him, but surely in being Activists, is that important? He seems to think so and he believes it is a basis for causing a division.

for some time now the evangelical Christian faction has adopted a troubling new approach: stamping out the fledgling ex-JW atheist faction wherever it manifests itself.

This is truelly alarming if this is true but I haven't seen evidence of it and I do fear that Cedars has infected his own mind with these thoughts. If he sees a problem personally, then I think he is looking in the wrong area. But it is an offensive statement. Unfortunately, he uses this idea to explain away attacks that are made on him, calling them 'acts of war', underhanded', 'barely tolerable of unbelievers' and so on. Then it gets worse

The Christian evangelical faction has, to my knowledge, always been mostly populated by demonstrably-eccentric conspiracy theorists, obsessed with freemasonry, subliminal images and the illuminati, who are almost a parody of themselves.

To him, there is a serious problem that apparently exists but all this name calling and labelling is not normally a part of Cedars more journalistic type reports. It is far from balanced.

the elephant in the room. Whether I like it or not, a bitter war between the evangelical and atheist factions in the ex-JW community is raging – and it has just escalated.

How can a problem escalate when it doesn't exist, to the proportions claimed, in the first place? If anything, it would be isolated to the people that he knows and has had personal dealings with.

He has chosen to deal with it by the following means

I wanted to let my readers and YouTube subscribers know that, from now on, I will be more open than ever about my atheism, and my channel will feature more videos specifically on that subject

I don't understand why he would do this on his YouTube Chanel but not his blog but that's his choice and he must see some benefit in it.

Well done Cedars, adding fuel to the fire and encouraging this hate is not good. It only proves that being an Evangelical Activist rather than the Atheist Activist has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

How many more leads are we likely to see from Cedars in the future, will those who have previously leaked information to him still have the same measure of confidence in him?

31

2015-11-18-BOE--Credits to jwfacts!

by Atlantis in

thanks to mr. jwfacts we now have a copy of this letter.

i would have posted it on his thread but there was already 2 pages of replies and i didn't think the link would be seen.. thank you again mr. facts!.

.. click the green download button.. http://wwwb.fileflyer.com/view/bbduxaa.

Listener

DOT, I telephoned the OAIC this morning, it didn't take long to get through and the lady was very helpful with an excellent understanding of the issues.

She believed that it was within the scope of the Act that the WTBTS could collect the sensitive information however they are not permitted to do this without the consent or knowledge of the individual. They are required to notify the individual of this information gathering and advise what is being collected and for what purpose, unless it was impracticable. Given the circumstances - that a letter was being sent to all congregations, she felt that their organization would not view it as impracticable because they had already demonstrated that they were able to communicate easily by sending out a letter to all congregations and taking that one step further by sending it to all individuals was possible (I did mention that their were over 60,000 members and she saw no reason thy it would be impractiable or unreasonable for individuals to be informed).

She went on further to explain that the Elders collecting this information could also be in breach.

The Act generally applies to organizations with a turnover of over $3 million. The WTBTS Sydney used to claim that their turnover was under this amount as it didn't include donations. Paul Grundy did a lot of research on this and information can be found on his website and includes this comment

In 2009, after a period of 3 years, the Commissioner received legal advice that for a certainty the definition of turnover in the Privacy Act was intended to include donations.

http://jwfacts.com/watchtower/experiences/personal-files-privacy-act-1988.php

I said to her that I understand that the individual congregations were established as separate legal entities and that their turnover was likely to be under $3 million each. She said that this did not mean that the Commission would view them as separate and if not, the Elders were subject to the Privacy Act.

She advised that they would investigate the matter if an individual to whom this would affect, wrote/emailed in with the details. If another person wanted to write in they would need to specify to which individual/s this affected and show evidence that they have their permission to write in on their behalf.

-----------------------------------

DOT, notice the clause that I quoted was specifically addressing 'sensitive' information which includes such things as gender, religious and philosophical beliefs and as that it could be argued that activities of the org. are centred around the promotion of specific religious beliefs. The OAIC Officer indicated that the type of information being requested was likely to be within the guidelines.

The area that the OAIC Officer indicated that they could be in breach is found in this section

3.6 An APP entity must collect personal information about an individual only from the individual unless:
(a) if the entity is an agency:
(i) the individual consents to the collection of the information from someone other than the individual; or
(ii) the entity is required or authorised by or under an Australian law, or a court/tribunal order, to collect the information from someone other than the individual; or
(b) it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so.
Solicited personal information
3.7 This principle applies to the collection of personal information that is solicited by an APP entity.

It seems to be a general practice with Australian Government Departments that they want factual cases to be identified for them to take further action. They want names of people who may be affected or of those involved.

31

2015-11-18-BOE--Credits to jwfacts!

by Atlantis in

thanks to mr. jwfacts we now have a copy of this letter.

i would have posted it on his thread but there was already 2 pages of replies and i didn't think the link would be seen.. thank you again mr. facts!.

.. click the green download button.. http://wwwb.fileflyer.com/view/bbduxaa.

Listener

DOT, If you continue on from Sect 3.3 that you quoted from the Privacy Act it appears that it doesn't apply. I've highlighted and underlined the sections that may be applicable.

3.3 An APP entity must not collect sensitive information about an individual unless:
(a) the individual consents to the collection of the information and:
(i) if the entity is an agency—the information is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to, one or more of the entity’s functions or activities; or
(ii) if the entity is an organisation—the information is reasonably necessary for one or more of the entity’s functions or activities; or
(b) subclause 3.4 applies in relation to the information.
3.4 This subclause applies in relation to sensitive information about an individual if:
(a) the collection of the information is required or authorised by or under an Australian law or a court/tribunal order; or
(b) a permitted general situation exists in relation to the collection of the information by the APP entity; or
(c) the APP entity is an organisation and a permitted health situation exists in relation to the collection of the information by the entity; or
(d) the APP entity is an enforcement body and the entity reasonably believes that:
(i) if the entity is the Immigration Department—the collection of the information is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to, one or more enforcement related activities conducted by, or on behalf of, the entity; or
(ii) otherwise—the collection of the information is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to, one or more of the entity’s functions or activities; or
(e) the APP entity is a non‑profit organisation and both of the following apply:
(i) the information relates to the activities of the organisation;
(ii) the information relates solely to the members of the organisation, or to individuals who have regular contact with the organisation in connection with its activities.
Note: For permitted general situation, see section 16A. For permitted health situation, see section 16B.

A JW is not a member of the WTBTS Sydney Branch but as to whether they have 'regular contact with the organization in connection with its activities' could possibly be argued. I would think that the WTBTS would argue that letters are regularly read out that have been sent by the Branch and most of the publications would come from there also.