the witnesses lodged a counterclaim against their lawsuit on the 30 march, 2017.their argument is that the actions of the ministry of justice against them are 'political repressions'.the following link states "in the lawsuit numerous instances are cited testifying to the fact that prosecution of jehovah's witnesses is politically motivated."http://www2.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/170402a.html.
it is a contradiction to what they have written in their "political neutrality' leaflet which states.
jehovah’s witnesses do not involve themselves in political issues or governmental affairs.
Yeah I could see the letter writing campaign as lobbying but to be fair, I can't see they have done anything hypocritical beyond that. They are counterclaiming on a point of law which already exists and requests that it is adhered to.
The actions of the Ministry of Justice possess the indicators of political repressions, from the point of view of Russian and international law. They violate articles 18, 9, and 6 of the Convention on Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Liberties.
the trial has begun.
the crowd on the street (see photo) is now inside and the gallery is packed.. yesterday jehovah's witnesses presented a written legal argument - "objections to the administrative claim of the ministry of justice of the russian federation" - to the supreme court of russia which, in paragraph 254, argued that if the ministry for justice liquidates and bans the activities of jehovah's witnesses then this will force individual members to renounce or abandon their religion for fear of persecution.. download legal argument (russian).
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Thanks for that link Drearyweather. Good to be able to follow along. It doesn't seem to have gone the JW's way thus far.
dear all,.
it has been a while since my last update and i first of all wanted to reassure you that our inquiry into the watch tower bible and tract society and manchester new moston congregation of jehovah’s witnesses (mnmcjw) are still progressing.
as you can imagine we have gathered a large amount of evidence and we are now focused on analysing this information to ensure that we use it in the most effective way.. this is not to say that we will not accept any new evidence from anyone that wishes to provide it and i would once again like to thank all of you who have helped us in the past for the invaluable information you have provided.. secondly i wish to draw your attention to a press statement we will be making later today.
Jehovah's Witnesses congregation's efforts to block inquiry squashed
it appears like the wt's bible is no longer to be used in russia.
king james version only.
from this forum: .
April fool stuff is really nuisace to me.
Agree. Don't think we need days devoted to fake news in this days and age.
just when you thought you've heard it all, out comes some new information on the russian hijacking of our election.
former fbi agent clint watts testified about the full extent of russian interference.
it goes back further than we thought; more extensive and broader in its reach (marco rubio was in their sights); and with greater planning.. even russians who were in charge of this fake news operation have mysteriously died.. watts told the committee to “follow the dead bodies” to learn more, referring to several russians connected to kremlin fake news who have died in the past few months.. what else can we expect from such a murderous thug who expresses such gratitude to his own men?
'Follow the dead bodies' is surely a nod to the famous 'Follow the money' line from Deep Throat in the Watergate scandal.
atheism = self defeating.
first may we define our terms.
the word atheism comes literally from the greek, alpha the negative and theos [for god], therefore “negative god” or there is no god.
It seems that many want to be under the umbrella of Atheism but do not agree on its definition. Atheism is affirming the nonexistence of deity.
There is an umbrella. Google atheism and you get a box defining it as:
disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.
Atheism incorporates both ways of thinking. An atheist may make a positive statement about the non existence of a deity. Personally, I will say that I have a lack of belief in a God in the absence of any evidence. It is a rational approach to demand evidence to be provided before accepting something as true. It is up to the believer to produce that evidence before assuming that thing's existence.
My position is that it is more technically accurate to state a lack of belief in God. Just like it is more technically correct to say, I have a lack of belief in Santa Claus. But I have no issue really with saying Santa Claus doesn't exist because without any evidence why should I even consider it?
since the angels that followed satan could take on human form and even have sex and bear offspring to females of earth why would satan not have used this avenue instead of talking through a snake .?
which really makes no common sense ?.
why wouldnt eve question how a snake could talk?
Wow Study buddy. That is a lot of reality contortion to maintain your belief in a literal talking snake.
since the angels that followed satan could take on human form and even have sex and bear offspring to females of earth why would satan not have used this avenue instead of talking through a snake .?
which really makes no common sense ?.
why wouldnt eve question how a snake could talk?
If you want to get at why a snake was used in Genesis, its illuminating to look into what snakes meant in Near Eastern culture of the time. Mesopotamian culture thought of snakes as immortal due to shedding their skin. There is the famous Epic of Gilgamesh which features a trickster snake stealing the plant of immortality. The Epic of Gilgamesh is much older than the bible and was well known, and there are a lot of resonances and parallels with the Genesis story, with the tree of everlasting life and the flood story.
The Sumerians apparently had a snake god, and bronze age Canaanite culture from which the Israelite culture grew out of, had a snake cult according to the wikipedia article i just looked at. The bible fable can't be taken in isolation, it is using the imagery of the snake with the associated meanings of the time that would have made sense and taken for granted by the people in that time and culture, and resetting it in a new context to make a point.
atheism = self defeating.
first may we define our terms.
the word atheism comes literally from the greek, alpha the negative and theos [for god], therefore “negative god” or there is no god.
I have a lack of belief in God just as I have lack of belief in a million other things there are no evidence for: santa clause, fairys, leprechauns... I really don't need to be wasting my time on leprechauns.
i often wonder if the current crop of witnesses, especially the youth and younger ones simply don't care about facts?.
i mean for some, even with knowledge of the past scandals, misleading teachings, mistruths, etc etc, they simply don't care.
"it is the truth after all".. they are so intertwined in the operations and activities of the society, that they cant see anything outside of it.
Ignoring facts is the only way they can continue to believe the Lie.
