Anony Mous

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Posts by Anony Mous

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  24

  “The Right to Shun: Ghent’s Misguided Jehovah’s Witness Decision“ Matthew P. Cavedon

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  https://canopyforum.org/2021/04/19/the-right-to-shun-ghents-misguided-jehovahs-witness-decision/.

  in march, the criminal court of ghent, belgium fined the congregation of jehovah’s witnesses (jw) for “inciting discrimination and hatred or violence against former members.” the case centered on the jw practice of “disfellowshipping.” while the court’s sensitivity to the individual impact of shunning is laudable, its decision regrettably assaults the freedoms of religion and association.. first, some background on jw beliefs and disfellowshipping.

  jw was founded in the united states over a century ago and is headquartered in new york state.

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  Anony Mous

  @Simon: The hate speech laws are the only way to enforce speech in a free society.

  If you don't affirm the beliefs of the gay or transgender religion in Canada, Australia and the EU, you are subject to fines and jail time for example. This is no different, if in EU you say you are JW, nobody can say, no you're not (see the recent Norway case), just like if I say I'm a women, and you say, no you're not because you have man-bits is equally hate speech.

  I'm not saying I agree with the notion that hate speech exists, you either have free speech or you don't. Coerced speech is for the left, communist and dictatorship countries. But these are currently the laws as they exist outside the US/Taiwan/Japan/South Korea (the only 4 countries remaining in this world with free speech).

  I'm not sure how one would enforce a shunning policy without some form of name-calling. If you say "all these people have their rights and have done nothing wrong and we must affirm their belief that they are still JW, so you should shun them" that doesn't really carry weight.
  
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  33

  Should Biden Have Mandated Vaccinations Today?

  by Sea Breeze in

  1. social
  2. current

  biden mandated widespread covid shots today.. "we've been patient," biden announced.

  "but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us.".

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  Anony Mous

  @shadowclone: the other vaccines have been proven over time to be relatively safe. They also deal with much more deadly disease than an average flu. Polio and MMR killed 1/3 of children before the vaccines. COVID has killed less than 0.2% across ALL age groups and 80% of those were in 65+. When talking about children it’s something like 0.01%.

  The side effects of these new untested vaccines are grave, the government hasn’t yet approved most of them and thus there is no liability or recourse if you develop side effects unlike the MMR and polio vaccine which have funding available for the costly side effects.

  Children 12-18 according to new research are 3x as likely to develop fatal heart disease than they would get hospitalized with Covid and if you’re under 40, you’re equally likely to develop side effects than get Covid.
  
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  34

  Lawsuit: I said GB member Barr that my Bethelite stepfather abused me; he did nothing

  by Corney in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  here's an excerpt from the recent lawsuit deborah hines v. watchtower bible and tract society of new york et al (paragraphs 158-180), one of 29 known cases brought against the org pursuant to the ny child victims act.

  what should be kept in mind is that gerrit lösch apparently worked in europe (the austrian branch and eastern europe) at the time when the abuse was allegedly reported to him (not a gb member then).. plaintiff was raised a member of the jehovah’s witnesses.

  she primarily attended meetings at various congregations in arizona.

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  Anony Mous

  First of all, memories are weird, especially at that age. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of it was true, the GB back then would frequently dine communally with other Bethelites.

  I remember sitting with ~20 people at a table for dinner and the table was headed by a more senior Bethelite, occasionally someone from the writing department or zone overseer, especially if there were visitors at the table would be the “captain”.

  They stopped allowing kids on these work-at-Bethel in the mid 90s and I’m not sure they even allow anyone at all at this point unless you are actually appointed, but back in the day entire groups from congregations would go only vetted by local elders.

  I am sure that if she was at one of these, she’d occasionally run into a higher up. They would do “lowly things” like volunteer to do bathroom cleaning just to show they were humble, their whole persona is staged. I never talked to them, but the story seems believable, they at least pretend that your personal issues are something they truly care about.

  You can see that in the letters from that era, if you had a question and sent a letter, they would at least pretend that the entire GB had a big meeting about it and then answered the question.
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  24

  “The Right to Shun: Ghent’s Misguided Jehovah’s Witness Decision“ Matthew P. Cavedon

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  https://canopyforum.org/2021/04/19/the-right-to-shun-ghents-misguided-jehovahs-witness-decision/.

  in march, the criminal court of ghent, belgium fined the congregation of jehovah’s witnesses (jw) for “inciting discrimination and hatred or violence against former members.” the case centered on the jw practice of “disfellowshipping.” while the court’s sensitivity to the individual impact of shunning is laudable, its decision regrettably assaults the freedoms of religion and association.. first, some background on jw beliefs and disfellowshipping.

  jw was founded in the united states over a century ago and is headquartered in new york state.

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  Anony Mous

  @ScenicViewer: Europe has hate speech laws, this is exactly what they’ve been convicted of violating.

  Nobody is making anyone associate with someone else against their will. You (currently) still have the right to shun, you just can’t say that other people are evil.

  I don’t think hate speech laws are good, because they limit speech, and will be abused, but the EU has them because they don’t guarantee free speech or freedom of religion.
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  24

  “The Right to Shun: Ghent’s Misguided Jehovah’s Witness Decision“ Matthew P. Cavedon

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  https://canopyforum.org/2021/04/19/the-right-to-shun-ghents-misguided-jehovahs-witness-decision/.

  in march, the criminal court of ghent, belgium fined the congregation of jehovah’s witnesses (jw) for “inciting discrimination and hatred or violence against former members.” the case centered on the jw practice of “disfellowshipping.” while the court’s sensitivity to the individual impact of shunning is laudable, its decision regrettably assaults the freedoms of religion and association.. first, some background on jw beliefs and disfellowshipping.

  jw was founded in the united states over a century ago and is headquartered in new york state.

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  Anony Mous

  I do believe in freedom, so in the context of US or UK common law, this would obviously never fly. But note that the EU, Australia and Canada does not enjoin the US or UK in the right to freedom of speech.

  They have put the right to not be offended above the right to religious freedom. This is a choice voters made.

  “inciting discrimination and hatred or violence against former members" is protected speech in the US, not in the EU, WTBTS has to comply or lobby to have US-style freedom of speech.
  
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  16

  Even if God exists…….

  by snare&racket in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i’m an atheist.. let’s assume i am wrong, i am willing to be.. let’s give people a god, let’s even make him the god of the bible…... does he deserve to be worshipped and obeyed?

  if so, why does his abhorrent actions not morally make you question allegiance to him?.

  does his authority alone allow him to murder and drown and order war, to throw people into a lake of fire?.

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  Anony Mous

  Every God invented has human qualities. If you believe human qualities are always resulting in bad things, then God is by definition evil. Basically whether you believe in God or not is a question on whether you believe in the good or evil of humanity. Both versions are valid in my opinion.
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  56

  If God exists, what would be a good reason why he never communicates or helps his creation by intervention?

  by pistolpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  you have probably heard all kinds of excuses why god doesn’t communicates with his creation or why he doesn’t intervene.. some examples.. no one can see god because he is a spirit.. but we can hear god---yet he chooses not to talk to humanity.. god only communicates with certain people.

  moses, samuel, abraham, etc.

  but there are many people today who also claim that god spoke to them yet we ignore them but believe god spoke to people who lived thousands of years ago and we can’t really verify if that was so.

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  Anony Mous

  Given the stories in the Bible, do you really want a god like that intervening in human affairs. Let’s say it’s all true, then god is the one thing you don’t want.
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  16

  Is the Bible of extraterrestrial origin?

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  highly illuminating video.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkhdyhmolmw.

  i thought these bible cryptologists were all nuts.

  this guy changed my mind..

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  Anony Mous

  So these aliens were here from approx. 1500BCE to 500CE, a period of about 2000 years without leaving any evidence except for a contradictory book that has nothing about space travel or advanced medical or scientific value and at many points says the earth is a flat plane. Then these guys just disappeared right before the period of reason begins.
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  4

  Liberal idiots now want victims to help those who attacked them.

  by mickbobcat in

  1. social
  2. current

  so this liberal asshat actually wants rape victims to work with the rapists.

  lmao.

  you really have to be brain dead to be a liberal.

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  Anony Mous

  This is the logical result if you go along with the notion that your sexual preferences are inherent and not a choice.

  Basically if it’s genetically baked in to be gay, transgender or a child molester, then the expression of that is a natural right, just like being male/female or your skin color. And we are just moving across that track to justify child molestation, because some people are inherently attracted to children, and limiting something that is inherent to nature is just you being a *-ist or *-phobe. The people at the root of the transgender movement and the modern critical theories were all child molesters.

  Personally I am of the notion that if it doesn’t harm anyone and it’s amongst consenting adults, then go nuts, but don’t say you have no choice in these matters.
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  35

  Jehovah Witnesses lost in Court. Disfellowshipped Sister Reinstated by Court Order?

  by pistolpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  imagine the "faithful" jws who are now having to talk to this person by court order or face the consequences----legally.. exjws are spreading the news and now some exjws who have been disfellowshipped for years are starting to research to see if this is an option in their country.

  here are the articles, you need to translate in google.

  https://www.nrk.no/norge/gry-nygard-ble-ekskludert-fra-jehovas-vitner-_-vant-i-lagmannsretten-1.15570621.

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  Anony Mous

  @Corney: Not sure what you're going on about, the decision is pretty clear, the WT is able to set the rules within their congregation, however the rules aren't legal (which many EU courts have found) or weren't legally followed to comply with Norwegian law.

  Note that the EU does not have such concepts like freedom of speech or freedom of religion in the way the US does, the government has significant involvement and restrictions on speech and religious affairs. Sure that may be a travesty, but that is an entirely different discussion.

  Not only that, but apparently the court also found the elders lied to the courts about what happened in the judicial committee meetings, with the elders having significantly different stories about how they reached their decision, presumably to divert the attention from the organizational rules set forth in the elder manual (theocratic warfare). One elder for example said a judicial committee does not go into details in these cases, which is an outright lie, while the other described the judicial committee going into extreme detail about the types of intercourse and how much of her body was naked.

  Every elder seemed to indicate that they believe she was indeed raped, but that this constitutes 'porneia' because she put herself in the situation, yet they didn't council her on the fact this was in fact rape and she had the option of going to the police. The judges didn't even interpret this, they just held that it was illegal to hold someone accountable for their own rape.