Half banana

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Posts by Half banana

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  9

  UK The Times: "We need to do more to tackle sexual abuse among JWs"

  by darkspilver in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  article written by kathleen hallisey appearing on the website of the uk's times newspaper - the article does not appear (yet?

  ) to be in the print version.. kathleen hallisey is a senior solicitor at bolt burdon kemp, specialising in child abuse.

  she acted on behalf of the claimant in the landmark case of a v watchtower [2015] ewhc 1722 (qb), the first judgment against the jehovah’s witnesses in the uk for historical sexual abuse.. in the article she refers to the wt uk child safeguarding policy - click here for a side-by-side 2012/2017 comparision of the document.

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  Half banana

  @ The Searcher, it's not usual but by no means unlikely that super zealots with shun d/f people in the same house. My JW wife shunned me because I had left the org. She stopped talking with me-- it was very inconvenient dealing with the children.

  @ Darkspilver Unfortunately most JWs don’t read The Times. Nevertheless when the same information filters through to all media forms, it will become clear that all is not well in Watchtowerland.

  This negative publicity should discourage new converts and be the last straw for many captive doubters in the ranks.

  As you say Heaven it is unlikely that the GB will change because their power comes from their smug delusion that they are the only ones who are divinely inspired. They imagine that doing God’s will involves being known as the people who quote the Bible and champion literal applications of it, as with the “two witnesses” rule.

  Here’s the rub: to capitulate to secular law over the child abuse issue would expose a glaring inadequacy of Biblical wisdom... and Biblical wisdom is the premise for their existence.

  I think the JW org can only lose out.
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  63

  Is it possible to decline preaching in the carts?

  by Skepsis in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hi folks,.

  i have a difficult dilemma.

  since i'm not pioneering any more, i'm reducing my hours wasted at that artifact known as cart or trolley.

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  Half banana

  Go for it skepsis, just sit there with your cart and read Crisis of Conscience and if anyone's interested recommend they read it as well.
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  28

  A problem for believers

  by Bugbear in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a problem for believers!.

  a majority of the world’s population acknowledge that they believe in a superior god or in their creator.

  they also claim that they have got this special understanding and knowledge of his will and his law.

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  Half banana

  Some thoughts on your comments Bugbear. You mention that a majority of people are religious believers and indeed that is true... but 51% would make a majority.

  In a world survey in 2015 by Win /Gallup interviewing nearly 64000 people it was found that only 63% are now religious.

  Among the least educated the figure is 80% believing in God.

  I don't know where you live but in the UK and western Europe the fascination with God is conspicuously less than in the USA.

  The figures I read were 4.7% of people in England attend church, In USA 40% are attenders but only 20% on a weekly basis.
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  8

  Attention all leaders of corporate organisations under threat!

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  imagine you are on the governing board of a religious organisation with around eight million subscribers and an annual income of approximately a $billion (well it used to be!).

  you are about to be handed a mass of legal cases against you for concealing your negligent practice of concealing paedophiles in your congregations---followed by the prospect of a cascade of damning publicity?

  do you admit you were wrong and apologise unreservedly?.

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  Half banana

  @ schnell, perhaps Samuel Herd is the first 'awake' GB member but they won't let him leave.
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  10

  JW.org website and Matt 6:1-4

  by NikL in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  saw the news story on jw.org this morning about all the help they are sending to congo after flooding there.

  yay for them!

  oh wait!.

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  Half banana

  The JW org have to blow their own trumpet since no one else will. But why give to the Congo? Why, it is their star performer in terms of publisher increase!

  Not surprising they have a resonance with this country as it stands at the seventh from bottom in the league of backward countries, on the verge of civil war and therefore ideal new JW growth territory.

  When things look hopeless the Watchtower is like clutching a straw to save a drowning man.
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  70

  Pseudo history in Watchtower today 😂

  by Gorbatchov in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  gorby went to the kh for family reasons today.. and landed right away middle in a pseudo history watchtower article.

  just that aspect of the jw belief he is so sensative about.. so 1918 and 1919 are changed with one mark of a pencil.

  the argument of change was in the past the argument of the doctrine.

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  Half banana

  Why bother about WT events from a century ago?

  I guess it may be irrelevant to the rank and file but for the GB it is like a holy dried pea buzzing around the insides of their empty skulls desperately searching for some justification for their existence.

  All they can do is mythologize their history to make it sound as if something significant was happening in the early days of the religion. ("Came out of Babylon the great" = portentous nonsense)

  As it happens there isn’t any justification for their existence. The reason for starting the Watchtower cult was to announce that by 1914 God’s kingdom will have made the earth a paradise. This means their sell by date has passed by 103 years.

  Wouldn't it be fun if they were honest and sincere and were able to openly discuss how terribly wrong they have been right from the start!
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  8

  Attention all leaders of corporate organisations under threat!

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  imagine you are on the governing board of a religious organisation with around eight million subscribers and an annual income of approximately a $billion (well it used to be!).

  you are about to be handed a mass of legal cases against you for concealing your negligent practice of concealing paedophiles in your congregations---followed by the prospect of a cascade of damning publicity?

  do you admit you were wrong and apologise unreservedly?.

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  Half banana

  I think resigning would we one option and leave the others to sort the mess out.
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  8

  Attention all leaders of corporate organisations under threat!

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  imagine you are on the governing board of a religious organisation with around eight million subscribers and an annual income of approximately a $billion (well it used to be!).

  you are about to be handed a mass of legal cases against you for concealing your negligent practice of concealing paedophiles in your congregations---followed by the prospect of a cascade of damning publicity?

  do you admit you were wrong and apologise unreservedly?.

  1. 
  2. 
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  Half banana

  Imagine you are on the governing board of a religious organisation with around eight million subscribers and an annual income of approximately a $billion (well it used to be!)
  

  You are about to be handed a mass of legal cases against you for concealing your negligent practice of concealing paedophiles in your congregations---followed by the prospect of a cascade of damning publicity?

  Do you admit you were wrong and apologise unreservedly?

  Make private compensations to the victims?

  Make public statements that you were “caring” all along?

  Change your beliefs with sudden “new light”?

  Or what?
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  21

  God wants to remain unidentified

  by anointed1 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  1) books supposedly written by god contain errors.

  2) people supposedly appointed by god make human rights violations.

  and god does not prevent those things from happening.

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  Half banana

  Thanks for posting a1. Hostile bunch here sometimes!

  As we depart the grip of the JW religion we drop the old “imperatives” but are then confronted with attractive fresh beliefs which we often wrangle with to fit into our new and evolving perceptions. This is a positive thing to do.

  I can see that you are indeed exploring good ideas and long may that continue. Putting thoughts out on this site is often met by being slapped down in a ‘pavlovian’ response to particular errors! Partly it is the reaction of those of us who once were fooled by some of these very notions.

  Don't lose heart, it takes determination to get to the root of some things such a as who or what God is or isn’t. What I find encouraging is that all ideas do ---like plants--- have roots. Some ideas have flowered for thousands of years!

  Once we imagined we had the one and only definitive “Truth” and on escaping from this trap we often imagined there was another body of doctrines which serves as an alternative and monolithic “Truth”. We often defend to the hilt those things we would like to retain such as the hope of paradise or the almightiness of God. But these are matters of emotion not tangible reality.

  Instead of absolutism or belief because it sounds good; there exist myriads of testable evidential "factoids" which are assembled within an evolving scientific frame of perception and these form the only useful information for the progress of humanity. It’s not a case of new light, more a matter of ever getting a sharper focus on the cosmos and all it contains.

  Scent and colour in flowers and insect mimicry in orchids for that matter, whilst fascinating cannot be linked to a creator, if you can demonstrate otherwise do let me know.

  It can however be shown scientifically that preferential selectivity by pollinating insects would give rise to these charming aspects of the flora .
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  13

  Leaving story

  by leavingeverythingbehind in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i've been following this forum for a couple of years now, but it's only just now that i've decided to register.

  it's been quite a long and strenous process leaving the org, having been borned and raised in and spent so much time in.

  i'm so gratefull there's the internet these days which helps new people find their way out of this and other religions.

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  Half banana

  LEB I share your delight in the idea of studying epistemology. If only the leaders of the JW religion understood its meaning, they would have to pack their bags, dissolve the corporation and remove their nasty stain from the world.

  But a serious question; can you say what constitutes scientific epistemology?