Vidiot

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Posts by Vidiot

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  15

  They won freedom of speech, while steeling mine!

  by BackSlider in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so oftin i recall being excited about all the cases that were won in the name of jehovah.

  i would talk with my dad and ask him how could it be possible that the supreme court judges haven't become witnesses.

  it made no sense to me, that these men and women were not moved by all the wins that the organization was piling up.

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  Vidiot

  One of my "light bulb moments" was reading this (paraphrased, but fairly verbatim):

  "While JWs championed freedom of speech in the courts, they are not known for practicing it internally..."

  Damned if can remember where I read it, now.
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  8

  Boy Scouts scandal eerily similar to WTS

  by undercover in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i posted this on flipper's thread about wts' handling of child abuse cases.

  it sorta tied in with his theme, but not 100%, so i'm going to also give this it's own thread.. i'm guessing the boy scout scandal has the wt legal department working overtime right now.

  i read an article about the boy scout scandal this morning.

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  Vidiot

  wha happened? - "An organization with Christian roots and ideals..."

  Huh, I didn't know that.

  Strange; institutionalized child abuse is usually an indicator of an authoritarian high-control group.

  I was never under the impression that the Boy Scouts fell under that description.
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  14

  What if you could just walk away? No DF'ing or Shunning?

  by QuestioningEverything in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  if i could tell my mom and other family jw's that i wasn't going back, didn't believe it and wanted to move on with my life without worrying about being df'd or shunned, i'd do it in a heartbeat.. but, that is not the case.

  wonder how many the wtbs would lose if they changed their policy on this?

  how many of you would have left sooner if there were 'no strings attached' to the wt?.

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  Vidiot

  If walking away were possible without the threat of DFing or shunning, there would be only one possible outcome...

  ...a mass Exodus.

  It's doubtful the WTS would survive.
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  21

  Why is there no honorable way to leave the Watchtower?

  by BlindersOff1 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  question on yahoo answers.

  .

  http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=anclzlcycbuplqjrk3y_iw3sy6ix;_ylv=3?qid=20121025091418aazgvbn.

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  Vidiot

  Leolaia - "The irony that a policy that is supposed to 'keep the congregation clean' forces people who would rather leave to stay as members."

  Well said.

  Reminds me of that open letter posted here on JWN a few months back from a really angry conscious-classer (I think he was even an active elder, in fact), which felt for all the world like a formal declaration of fifth-column-ish civil f**king war...

  Damned if I can find that thread, now, though.
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  35

  A Couple Points about New Elders Child Abuse Letter Directions ...........

  by flipper in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  in aragon's thread which has reached 6 pages a couple of points were touched on that i wanted to bring out but thought these points deserved a whole thread to dissect and discuss them.. first off : there seems to be a total hypocrisy , arrogance, or typical speaking out of both sides of their mouth when the wt instructions in the letter says :.

  " the branch office, not the local body of elders, determines whether an individual who has sexually abused children in the past will be considered a ' predator ' .

  then this quote from the 1997 wt instructions : " and the congregation cannot read hearts to tell who is and who is not liable to molest children again.

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  Vidiot

  Flipper - "Bottom line is the new elders letter is basically a WT society leaders 'cover my a$$' letter designed to arrogantly take control away from elders and local congregations who might blow it legally for WT leaders by getting involved and opening their mouths saying incriminating things in evidence against the WT society."

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/child-abuse/239520/6/e2809cWe-will-decide-who-is-a-predatore2809d-e28093-New-Watchtower-Instructions-to-Elders-on-Child-Abuse

  (fifth post down)
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  7

  A terrible Illustrstion

  by BU2B in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  for a little background, my father served at brooklyn bethel a couple of years after the apostate purge and witchhunt.. he talks about how people said how you could see "jehovahs spirit" working to oust the korah dathan and abiram, hymanaus and alexander influences such a evil ray franz and others.

  they make it seem like he was leaving to start his own religion or something.

  anyways he was talking to a couple who were friends with another couple who went apostate.

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  Vidiot

  breakfast of champions - "...okay, they would never say 'fucking bridge'..."

  Oh, I dunno.

  Something tells me the occasional F-bomb gets dropped lately, these days...
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  51

  What is your view of miracles

  by FutureAndAHope in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i am a born again christian, not a jehovah's witness.

  i have had many experiences with god, hearing god's voice, seeing minor miracles, have seen a woman healed instantly through prayer in jesus name.

  what is your view on the miraculous.

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  Vidiot

  I'm not overly inclined to subscribe to the existence of any supernatural phenomena...

  ...that being said, I'm pretty sure that weird, hard-to-explain shit happens from time to time...
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  104

  “We will decide who is a predator!” – New Watchtower Instructions to Elders on Child Abuse

  by Jaime l de Aragon in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  must read on jehovahs witnesses watchtower arrogance in failure to warn of congregation pedophiles.. http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/we-will-decide-who-is-a-predator-new-watchtower-instructions-to-elders-on-child-abuse?fb_action_ids=10151270345663993&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582.

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  Vidiot

  XBEHERE - "While I will agree with the statment above and others on this thread, I think that one of the reasons that the WT is making this a policy to eliminate the possibility of any reporting to any authorities. Pretty much they are saying if any of you elders want to be preumptuous and report this to the police then you will be sanctioned because it is the branch that decides if someone is a molester/pedophile and not you. The legal and service departments at Bethel know that there are many "rogue elders" out there who could possibly ignore them and go directly to the police. This is a direct threat to these elders that you will be dealt with if you do. Its part of their pyschological terror program and yes many elders will not go with their conscience and report abuse to police. Why go through that, why put your family through that. You could be deleted or worse disfellowshipped for brazen conduct."

  So you're suggesting that - whilst giving the appearance of relieving the BOEs of responsibity and liability - it's actually a closing of the ranks and a litmus test of organizational loyalty?
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  24

  A VERY BAD YEAR FOR WATCHTOWER PUBLIC RELATIONS

  by iclone in

  1. jw
  2. friends

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  Vidiot

  cedars - "2012 is definitely the year it was first confirmed to me that the Governing Body doesn't have a clue."

  Not to mention that they almost certainly really do subscribe to what they say.

  Up 'til now, that's been kinda iffy; a while back, there were a few pretty compelling arguments made by some on JWN that the WT Top Dogs "must know it' s all horseshit", but a number of authentic former Bethel insiders insisted from first-hand experience (Ray Franz notwithstanding) that the GB were full-on True Believers (TM) .

  Looking back at the past 35-ish years, and c onsidering what's been going down lately, it sure looks like virtually every action they've taken is based on the assumption that a) God's got their back, b) they have the moral high ground, c) the End of the World has gotta be really close by now, and d) God's gonna fix any pesky little embarrassments afterward, anyway, so e) why would long-term solutions (that might smack of "worldly wisdom", anyway) be neccessary?

  With the institutionalized suppression of any dissent within the R&F, an ideological filter that shields them from any information contradictory to their assertions, and the bias inherent to their own exclusive echo chamber so far removed from both, there's nothing left to dissuade them of that, either.

  Only one thing remains that gives me pause regarding the certainty of the GB's convictions; their knee-jerk, cover-their-asset reactions to any percieved threat (real or imaginary) to the WTS.

  That's an almost perfect textbook response for a person or group of people who privately and subconciously know that, deep down, they're all kinds of f**ked up and terrified anyone will find out.
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  29

  The WT proves again that it does not understand Child Psychology

  by Christ Alone in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i posted this elsewhere, but wanted to create a thread about this specifically.

  here is one way that i think the wt is absolutely wrong in it's advice on raising children:.

  in the 1/13 awake they talk about mistakes that parents make with their children.

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  Vidiot

  Christ Alone - "One of them was so off that I was actually shocked (couldn't believe they could still shock me). It was on how parents overpraise their children. It really showed how little they know about human psychology."

  Christ Alone - "While a few years ago the worry was that overpraising leads to narccisism, it has now been shown that a narccisistic person usually does not have proper self esteem and to compensate puts on a show of being entitled in order to survive."

  This is just a symptom of a larger problem with the WTS, and it's not unique to them.

  Most conservative groups are extremely uncomfortable with rapid change or new ideas, and often proceed from the assumption that the latest scientific theory or medical discovery is probably, at best, just a fad, or in extreme cases, a shady and (in the case of fundamentalist goups) diabolical ploy to undermine their convictions.

  Coupled with internal bias in favor of academic (or more often than not, pseudo-academic) assertions that reinforce said convictions, this inevitably results in the tendency to subscribe to concepts that are often years out of date, superceded by more recent and accurate findings, and/or easily refuted as just plain wrong.

  Sometimes, it takes decades for a group to shed some of its bigger misconceptions.

  In the event that an idea's fundamental wrongness becomes more and more apparent, the leadership will often try to leave the issue ambiguous (rather than disavow the older, and usually wrong ideas) by reasserting just enough to reassure old-school members that - for example - the "Creative Days" are still 7,000 years each (according to WT canon), whilst paying just enough lip service to the fairly established fact that the progression of life alone on this planet was way, waaaaaaaay longer, which the majority of youngbloods are more comfortable with (even if they're still "Old-Earth Creationists").

  It's a fairly successful technique that lets the leadership have its cake and eat it too.