Activism wears many faces.
Personally, I consider participating here a form of activism.
imagine you were a leader of a "gender equality" group started as part of the 'metoo' movement?.
now fast-forward and you're the one trying to discredit victims who have come forward with accusations.
but not they are accusations against someone you work for.. it's a perfect example of how activists so often end up unwittingly (or quite intentionally) perpetuating the very problem they claim to be against.
Activism wears many faces.
Personally, I consider participating here a form of activism.
for any who can't (like me) muster the masochism necessary to sit through an 18-or-so hour commentary on a 30 minute talk from a certain famous/infamous commentator, here is a link to a transcript from splane's saturday afternoon "apostate" talk:.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/ot7z2e/splanes_apostate_rant_transcription/.
there are many topics worthy of consideration, but this particular section really stood out to me:.
Rocketman123 - "...the reason the WTS did what they did in such a irresponsibly way in situations of pedophilia within the organization is because the bible told them what to do..."
Partly, but there's more to it.
By the time it became a real problem, WT leaders and loyalists couldn't conceive that those so-called Biblical applications might be inadequate compared to the methods of "The World", let alone make the mess worse rather than better.
More importantly, though, on some level, they realized that reporting it to secular authorities would trigger further investigations that would likely reveal even more abuse...
...which ran the risk of becoming a matter of public record...
...which would, in turn, cast even further doubt (amongst the rank-and-file) on the all-important claim of "God's Exclusive Earthly Organization"...
...which, in the wake of the one-two punch of the 1975 failure and the Ray Franz defection, simply could not be permitted under any circumstances.
So they used the "two-witness" rule as a weapon to hide the problem rather than fix it.
ok, i would like to submit to the forum the following question: in abstract, do you think that there is a right to not being exposed to ideas that you don’t like or disagree with?
please think it through and its implications on both ends of the spectrum.. it’s not the right to conscientious objection to do something you vehemently disagree with; it’s not about the liberty to chose which ideas you want to embrace or advocate.
it’s something different.. given that, as exjws, we understand the importance of being exposed to different opinions in order to form our own opinion, should someone claim the right not to be exposed to opinions or ideas that they don’t like?
Technically, everybody has the "right" to not be exposed to ideas they "don’t like or agree with"...
...but good luck finding a hermetic bubble to live in.
despite the wt's and young earth creationists' teachings against human evolution (namely macroevolution from non-humans) being a reality, the evidence of human evolution keeps getting stronger and stronger.. consider for example two science news articles and one other science article, each pertaining to the fossil that is nicknamed "little foot".
below are links to three science articles, listed in order of the articles from oldest to newest (except i don't see a date for one of the articles).
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2187639-exclusive-controversial-skeleton-may-be-a-new-species-of-early-human/.
notsurewheretogo - "JW's dismiss evolution along with many folks because they think evolution is a) a theory not proved and b) is the origin of life."
Not quite.
They do use those arguments to dismiss it, but they're not why they dismiss it.
JWs and other creationists reject evolution because their religious cosmology is dependent on the assumption that the Genesis creation narrative must be literal history (particularly regarding Adam and Eve in Eden).
If life - and by extension, humanity - evolved, then the events in Genesis did not actually happen, and by extension, the historicity of the Bible - and ultimately, the legitimacy of Christianity itself - is called into question.
i’m seeing my hard core believing relatives slowly losing faith that the watchtower is the organization that “god” is using to represent him on earth.. just about all the churches in their area have opened up.. but not the watchtower.. this is having an affect on the faith of even the old timers.
now the only ones who are still holding the faith are the female jws and only those past 70 years of age.
even my old male jw relative past 70 are starting to say that it can’t be jehovah’s organization because the other churches are all open and god supposed organization who is supposed to preach the warning message is still closed with no open in sight.
Transitioning to an e-religion was long rumored, and Covid's given them all the pretext they needed.
The fact that virtually all the other churches are back up and running does nothing but support that, IMO.
You guys are right, though...
...in-person group activities like KH meetings and field service were crucial in maintaining internal solidarity, cohesion, and discipline.
Without it, the fakers, faders, and fence-sitters have virtually zero incentive left.
i have read in this forum many compelling stories of people who were sexually abused as minors while associated with the jw's.
i need to be directed to threads where victims tell their stories (preferably if these ended up in court) of abuse and where there was this key element to the story: they were intimidated with threats of excommunication to not report their abuse to authorities and/or they suffered retaliation in the form of disfellowshipping/disassociation for reporting the crime to the authorities.
i recall one story, that i really would like to find again, when someone went to the elders with a complaint of having been sexually abused, the elders confronted the abuser and he denied.
They labelled it as "unrepentent slander" or somesuch.
do you think most of what they cover is accurate?
do you trust the media , especially mainstream?.
as a youg man this stunned me when i studied the original "youth" book 97% had done it so i thought soo that's pretty much everyone i guess the 3% were witness youth!
also "awake" claimed 90% of students had accessed porn at some time.
everyone is doing it i guess 10% are the witness youth...how dumb was i?.
Personally, I suspect that all the Org's wank-related anxiety stems from one old closeted higher-up who thought all the jerking he did as a teen turned him queer.
it's pretty easy to see how current events would have any jw convinced the end is imminent, but i just don't see how there could be a major push for zealous service, pioneering, etc.
decades into the future.
even if (when) world events happen periodically that could scare the r&f, there are now countless hours of hd video of jw leaders saying how close the end is.
The only genuine "urgency" being felt is at the top.
And I'm willing to bet it's more like "anxiety".
many that have come to this forum have left the jws religion and moved on with their lives but from a outsider's viewpoint what do think makes the jws religion wrong or incorrect as a active christian faith ?.
somethings come to mind such as its long continuous end times/armageddon soon doctrine which has really been a core doctrine for decades going right back to its beginning .. maybe they should have adopted the stance as other christian based faiths and adhered to jesus's own words when he said " no one knows of the time not even he ".
.
We don't have the time, endurance levels, or server space.