In return, could Mr. Unthank not ask the Watchtower to provide printed evidence that they have recently instructed the elders that they must never be alone with children under any circumstances? And surely it would be taken into account that any such direction, if it exists, is hardly legally binding, how could THEY prove that elders won't misuse their position of trust and authority? (I've never been in court, as a born-in have never been interested in legal matters, so I've no idea how it all works, just throwing out ideas). And isn't it the WTBTS that has to provide evidence for why they've failed to comply? Surely Unthank doesn't have to give evidence to prove that any excuses (if not supported by evidence) that they make are not valid ones?
The Quiet One
JoinedPosts by The Quiet One
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243
Victoria, Australia: Steven Unthank's Press Release: JW's Hierarchy Formally Charged Today With Child Abuse
by AndersonsInfo injehovah's witnesses hierarchy charged.
immediate press release: 26 july 2011. link to this press release: http://wp.me/p1g1hc-4o.
worldwide church hierarchy charged with child abuse.
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The Trinity
by The Quiet One ini have a question, primarily for trinitarians, but anyone's more than welcome to comment.
what scriptural basis is there for believing in the trinity?
i can understand some having the view that jesus/jehovah both can be worshipped, and the view that jesus should be, but where in the bible is the holy spirit worshipped?
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The Quiet One
Sbc- All is forgiven. You'd better be careful, though, I'll only forgive you another 76 times :) Thank you to everyone who contributed to the thread, it's a shame that it was so darn short. All sides of a debate that has raged on for centuries, shown in 9 pages with a farting nun joke thrown in for good measure.. Isn't the Internet marvellous?
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I am thinking of writing a book. Would you read it?
by ekruks ini had a nervous breakdown, growing up in a very strict, abusive religious community that you know of.. .
living throughout the world in modern 21st-century cities, we strongly believe the end of the world is nigh due to moral decline, and thoroughly follow a moral code which i respect, seeing drugs etc.
do harm people.
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The Quiet One
Ekruks- post a new thread saying 'quiet one you have a pm' whenever you need help, once you've sent it obviously. I'm now an agnostic, who desperately wishes he could believe that a God cares about us, but can't see it at the moment, so I can't help you much with your dilemma. The only thing I can think of is to say that you are whoever you choose to be from today forward. No religion or human being can define you or set your morals for you, otherwise you would just be serving man, not God (this is all for if you still believe). You sound like a thoughtful person who wants to do what is right. A Christian lifestyle, especially when it comes to loving your neighbour, can be followed without men holding threats of hell/armageddon over you. Jesus is a good example to try and follow whatever you choose to believe in. If you fear being judged by God, though, you might hold yourself back from being honest and logical. If you're still worried that the jw's have the 'truth', maybe look into mind control. Maybe ask yourself if you believe that a loving God would kill you, as a sincere truth seeker, for not believing in a particular book/doctrine if you haven't proved it to be true/inspired to yourself? Would he expect you to live a life filled with doubt, guilt and fear, or would he want you to use the gift of life in accord with your own free will? Just a thought..
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Blondie's Comments You Will Not Hear at the 07-31-2011 WT Study (TRUST/CONFIDENCE)
by blondie incomplete trust in jehovah.
complete trust in jehovah.
hits: complete trust...confidence...confidence...confidently .
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The Quiet One
Blondie- This is the best I could find for now: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=108042338699 “If we do not see a point at first we should keep trying to grasp it,rather than opposing and rejecting it and presumptuously taking the position that we are more likely to be right than the discreet slave.” - The Watchtower February 1, 1952 P 79-80 “We should eat and digest and assimilate what is set before us, without shying away from parts of the food because it may not suit the fancy of our mental taste.We should meekly go along with the Lord's theocratic organization and wait for further clarification, rather than balk at the first mention of a thought unpalatable to us and proceed to quibble and mouth our criticisms and opinions as though they were worth more than the slave's provision of spiritual food. Theocratic ones will appreciate the Lord's visible organization and not be so foolish as to put against Jehovah's channel their own human reasoning and sentiment and personal feelings,"- Watchtower Feb. 1, 1952, p. 79-8 “If some tinge of doubt about Jehovah[‘s] organization has begun to linger in your heart, act quickly to rout out of the mind any tendency to complain, to be dissatisfied with the way things are done in the congregation. Cut off anything that feeds such doubts." - The Watchtower 2/1/96 “Rather than being critical, let us maintain a spiritually healthy view of the information received through personal study and congregation meetings”. - The Watchtower September 15, 2002 P 16-18 “Strong faith, in turn, fortifies us to obey Jehovah, even when his requirements seem to go contrary to human reasoning”. The Watchtower October 1, 2002 P 16
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Thanks to Those That Went Before Us
by OnTheWayOut ini want to say thanks to those that have blazed the trail for others to become former jehovah's witnesses.. many were disfellowshipped or disassociated, some stopped going to meetings before "faders" existed.
many had no internet or any way of gathering with others who left the jw's.
later, the likes of randy watters and ray franz gave many a sense of a group conscience with their efforts and writings.
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The Quiet One
My limited vocabulary cannot express how much that I owe to Mr.Grundy for making jwfacts.com and saving me many hours of research that I would never have had the time/motive to conduct to such a degree myself. As I've mentioned before, my initial reaction to 'apostate' views expressed on the internet was anger, and with my reasoning and logical thinking abilities thus clouded, I didn't consider any of the views to be of any worth, I thought 'you' were 'all' wicked, selfish people trying to exact revenge on those that had hurt you in the org by drawing jw's away from Jehovah. I'm sorry for that.. To cut a long story short, my many surpressed doubts all came to a head when I finally realised that I didn't even know why I believed the FDS were who they said they were, but as a born-in their word was on a par with the Bible itself. Any questions that couldn't be answered directly from the Bible, or confusing or contradictory statements in the magazines that I had trouble with were dismissed as ''well, that's what the FDS says''. After googling FDS I found the page on jwfacts, the name appealing to me as I thought it would be unbiased. Which turned out to be true as to the wording of the articles. I wasn't convinced at first by what was written there, I was still under the 'fog' of dissonance as it were, but I found I had to respect his clear and logical articles and especially the way he used watchtower quotes, if it wasn't for those I could have swept my doubts back under the rug. But a defense cannot be made when someones own words conflict and prove them to be false. The mental walls I had erected began to crumble, and the 1914and organisation articles (as well as the mind control page that made me feel as though I finally understood why I had ignored what had been staring me right in the face) proved beyond doubt that the walls were not worth rebuilding. A line that especially helped me to conquer my fear of '' where else is there?'', in the organisation article I think, was where he pointed out that Peter actually said ''To WHOM shall we go away to..'', that any hope of an afterlife of some kind was not based on belonging to a certain group. That very week an elder answered from a paragraph with the common misquote of ''WHERE shall we go..'' . And the 'beware organisation, it is unnecessary' quote from Russell himself was just a small part of the icing on a well frosted cake. I owe my mental and emotional freedom to Mr. Grundy, and I scarcely think that I could write a cheque large enough to repay him. So this will have to do. Thank you for jwfacts.. And thanks to all on jwn for keeping me going.
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Why Some Cannot "See" that the Bible is NOT the Word of God
by AGuest into the household of god, israel, and those who go with... may you all have peace.
some of you may have recently observed some discussions regarding what... or rather, who... the word of god is, truly.
in those and other threads, some participants weren't able to grasp the difference between discussion vs. contention... and defending their own faith... and love of god and christ... vs. ramming their [mis]assumptions as to the "vengeance of god"... down others' throats.
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The Quiet One
Shelby: I always read through long posts, unless they're total drivel, which yours don't seem to be. Just keep being yourself, if people can't be bothered reading all of what you have to say, then it's either their loss or nobody's loss (seeing that you so clearly enjoy expressing yourself in your long-winded fashion), depending on how you look at it. I had trouble understanding you at first, but I'm becoming accustomed to your style of writing. Watchtower comments are expected to be over and done with in 30 seconds or less, but here there's no such restriction. Your comforting words helped me when I first posted here at JWN, even if you came across as a bit overenthusiastic, and I won't forget that. Hope you are well.
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98
Why Some Cannot "See" that the Bible is NOT the Word of God
by AGuest into the household of god, israel, and those who go with... may you all have peace.
some of you may have recently observed some discussions regarding what... or rather, who... the word of god is, truly.
in those and other threads, some participants weren't able to grasp the difference between discussion vs. contention... and defending their own faith... and love of god and christ... vs. ramming their [mis]assumptions as to the "vengeance of god"... down others' throats.
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243
Victoria, Australia: Steven Unthank's Press Release: JW's Hierarchy Formally Charged Today With Child Abuse
by AndersonsInfo injehovah's witnesses hierarchy charged.
immediate press release: 26 july 2011. link to this press release: http://wp.me/p1g1hc-4o.
worldwide church hierarchy charged with child abuse.
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The Quiet One
"I suppose the WTS could still just simplify it ... and state to rank and file that JW children in the future can go only go door to door work or travel in any 'ministry' forms only with one of their own parents"- http://jwnewsnetwork.wordpress.com/magistrates-court-of-victoria-criminal-list/ ''The case is a Criminal Case. The alleged offences are Indictable Offences. There is no such thing as an “out-of-court-settlement” in relation to Indictable Criminal offences. Only the Prosecutor has the authority to consider a “plea bargain”.'' ''At any given time a nolle prosequi (no further prosecution) may be submitted to the Court and the charges can then be referred to as “dropped”. Neither the Magistrates’ Court, nor the Department of Justice, nor the Working with Children Check Unit, nor Victoria Police, nor the State Government of Victoria have the authority to issue a nolle prosequi in relation to the criminal cases listed below. Only the Prosecutor, Mr Steven Unthank, has the authority to enter a nolle prosequi in relation to these criminal cases.''- This seems to say (not that I know what I'm talking about, feel free to correct me) that only Mr.Unthank could decide whether that would be enough to drop the charges.. Thank you Barbara.
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A Point Djeggnog Missed...
by Cameron_Don ina while back djeggnog said to me.... "evidently you want the readers of your book to believe what jehovah's witnesses believe[d] (down till 1919) to be a matter of embracing the beliefs of these dead men (russell and rutherford).
but jehovah's witnesses embrace[d] the teachings of jesus christ, our living lord.".
"captives of a concept" presents 48 examples where jehovah's witnesses (bible students) did in fact embrace the beliefs of the now dead men russell and rutherford.
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The Quiet One
I've just made my last post on the 'spiritual paradise' thread. I'm not clever enough to engage someone like him, I almost never explain myself clearly..
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A concerned JW wrote "mistakes will happen."
by InterestedOne inin the thread http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/213523/1/feeling-a-bit-alienated, concerned jw wrote:.
mistakes will happen.
concerned jw, if mistakes will happen, i was wondering what mistakes you feel the jw organization is currently making?
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The Quiet One
These are just quotes/links, I've no idea whatsoever personally... http://user.tninet.se/~oof408u/fkf/english/furulirev4.htm ''When it comes to Babylonian chronology,Josephus is of highly questionable reliability. For example, in the same passage in which he assigns 18 years to Evil-merodach ( Antiquities of the Jews 10.11.2), he also assigns forty years to Neriglissar; however, in accordance with the accepted dating, we have early Babylonian records that refute Josephus' suggestion, as I cited previously.'' ''Furuli's discussion of Flavius Josephus' information about the Neo-Babylonian chronology is notreliable because it is partially based on an obsolete text of Josephus' works. He starts by quoting Josephus' distorted figures for the Neo-Babylonian reigns at Antiquities X,xi,1-2: "Nabopolassar 29 years, Nebuchadnezzar 43 years, Amel-Marduk 18 years, Neriglissar 40 years." (p. 69) Furuli got these figures from William Whiston's antiquated translation of 1737, which was based on a text that is no longer accepted as the best textual witness.'' http://onlytruegod.org/jwstrs/WT-App.htm ''the January 1, 1965 issue of The Watchtower had an article entitled "The Rejoicing of the Wicked Is Short-lived" that stated on page 29: " Evil-merodach reigned two years and was murdered by his brother-in-law Neriglissar , who reigned for four years''-