Those are great!!! Thank you
Lee Marsh
JoinedPosts by Lee Marsh
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Help wanted finding images
by Lee Marsh ini am working on a project that requires proofs that the wts did say it and jws believe and follow it.. i have found some but google is giving me a hard time with some things.. as i go i will post requests for various images.
they all must have a reference or at least post where i can find the reference and i will add it to the image.. both older and newer beliefs are welcome, especially flip-flops.. if you have something similar to what is already posted then more references the better.
i know there are images of the structure of the wts.
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35
Help wanted finding images
by Lee Marsh ini am working on a project that requires proofs that the wts did say it and jws believe and follow it.. i have found some but google is giving me a hard time with some things.. as i go i will post requests for various images.
they all must have a reference or at least post where i can find the reference and i will add it to the image.. both older and newer beliefs are welcome, especially flip-flops.. if you have something similar to what is already posted then more references the better.
i know there are images of the structure of the wts.
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Lee Marsh
I have been looking for this one and can't find it.
not being in submission can result in disfellowshipping.
submission could be on any level within the congregation
- wife to husband
- publishers to the WTS or elders
- elders to anyone higher
- children to parents
just as long as it shows that refusal to be in submission can result in DFing. I saw plenty on not being in subjection can result in death but not DFing
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How to Legally Dissolve a Religious Organization
by EasyPrompt inregarding the state dissolving a church organization.... .
as posted in another thread, here is what is happening in japan, filing a court order to dissolve the unification church.... .
https://www.eurasiareview.com/06092023-japan-seeks-court-order-to-dissolve-unification-church/.
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Lee Marsh
My huge awakening was to read Matthew 23. Not a verse here and there or just the parts that suited my purpose. But the whole things. "Woe to the Scribes and Pharisees..."
And I took a hard look at how the WTS stood up against that chapter.
MAJOR FAIL.
That was brutal.
It takes great courage to honestly look at that chapter and not make excuses for them. "Yes but..."
Just read what it says and compare. Since I was a JW, it made sense to compare THAT group and not others. Members of those groups can do that.
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Mandated Shunning is a Crime
by Lee Marsh inmandated shunning is on the rise around the world with devastating effects on millions of people.
shunning that is mandated by organized groups to its members is a form of both physical and psychological violence against those people being shunned and cut off from their family and life-long relationships.
mandated shunning means that the shunning is ordered from the top down.
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Lee Marsh
MeanMrMustard
There is nothing about removing an individual's right to decide who they talk to. Not one word.
It is about a group telling people that they will die if they talk to the "mentally diseased" if that isn't hate speech I don't know what is? And they are using God to coerce people into doing what they want not to protect people but to prevent them from leaving too if they find out they have been lied to.
In the WTS there is no honorable way to leave. There is no compromise. No "agree to disagree". You are the "walking dead" and if JWs have contact with us then they too are dead.
People do have the right to join any group they want and believe what they want. They do not have the right to force others to join or believe the same thing.
And the GROUP leaders do not have the right to force anyone to do things that are ethically wrong, no matter how much they want to control everyone.
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Mandated Shunning is a Crime
by Lee Marsh inmandated shunning is on the rise around the world with devastating effects on millions of people.
shunning that is mandated by organized groups to its members is a form of both physical and psychological violence against those people being shunned and cut off from their family and life-long relationships.
mandated shunning means that the shunning is ordered from the top down.
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Lee Marsh
https://www.aawa.co/shameful-shunning-in-english-and-dutch/ This is what they do and it must stop
Shameful Shunning in a Thousand Words
Original [English version] posted on November 3, 2013 by Rick Gonzalez
beginning quote --
This is a picture of my dad eating. He had just made lunch for me, but he couldn’t eat it with me. I had to eat it at another table with my four-year-old son while he sat there away from me.
Why? Because that’s what the Watch Tower Society tells him to do.
I posted this picture on a Facebook forum October 26th. The first response I received was, “Don’t know what to say. This boggles the mind; mind-control religion at its very worst!”
Minutes later a flood of comments and “Likes” followed, reminding me that a good picture can easily replace a thousand words.
For those of you who are curious, I must explain that my extended family began shunning me a year ago after I questioned the authority of the Watchtower’s Governing Body. My family’s unanimous well-meaning response to my doubts was by expressing their opinion that I “must be an apostate” and “severe shunning would surely bring me to my senses.”
After my mother died eight months ago, my dad, being all alone, went to the elders in the congregation he attended to see if he’d be allowed to visit with me. They said that since I was his son, he could visit with me at his house. But he could not discuss religion – nor could he share a meal with me at the same table.
Two weeks ago, I called my dad and asked if his grandson and I could visit him. He said “yes” and even offered to make lunch. But shortly before serving the meal, he said that he wasn’t going to sit at the same table with us. When I asked why, his reply was, “The organization says so.”
That confession allowed me to vent my feelings for maybe thirty minutes, describing to him about the harm caused by shunning and other Watchtower policies. He listened politely. But I could see that he was in a “cognitive dissonance mode” – so nothing I said registered with him.
After I spoke my piece, he served a nice meal to me and my son. Then he chose to sit alone in a small area of the kitchen with his back turned to us while eating his lunch. I sat there speechless, trying to figure out what was going on in his mind. That’s when it occurred to me that I had to capture this moment on my camera phone.
As I nibbled on my lunch, a feeling of pure sadness engulfed me. But as bad as I felt, I had this gut-wrenching feeling for Dad. This had to be much harder for him. Here’s an 80-year-old man thinking that he is doing this for God. He feels he has to suffer through this intuitively wrong act to be loyal to what he thinks is “God’s organization.”
But the story does not end here. My son is growing up seeing this silliness going on. Can the Watchtower be blind to the damage caused by their harmful policies, not just to us adults but to innocent kids who have “no dog in the fight?”
Tears were running down my face as I drove away from my father’s home. But I also realized that I was not alone in this situation. Today, there are thousands of us who no longer believe the Watchtower’s lies we used to feed on. We now know the truth about several Watchtower policies that sacrifice the civil rights of current and former members.
We can no longer turn a blind eye to the suffering and cries of others due to the Watchtower’s policy of shunning. I know that I can’t!
Extreme shunning is inhumane! It is a cruel and unjust punishment – a despicable act of a mind-controlling religion that’s afraid of losing its members and financial contributors. My goals are to make the non-JW world community aware of the emotional and psychological damage from shunning, for the court of public opinion to find the Watchtower guilty as charged, and to put a stop to this barbaric practice.
And yes – I think that sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words – sometimes, maybe even more! ---- end quote
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125
Mandated Shunning is a Crime
by Lee Marsh inmandated shunning is on the rise around the world with devastating effects on millions of people.
shunning that is mandated by organized groups to its members is a form of both physical and psychological violence against those people being shunned and cut off from their family and life-long relationships.
mandated shunning means that the shunning is ordered from the top down.
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Lee Marsh
You have to ask yourself though, what pushes people to do this to their family? Or their friends? This is not normal behavior. If it is totally wrong according to the JWs why don' t they stop it. Why do they do it?
Instead of the word forced what about coerced?
Merriam-Webster
coerced; coercing1: to compel to an act or choicewas coerced into agreeingabusers who coerce their victims into silence2: to achieve by force or threatcoerce compliancecoerce obedience3: to restrain or dominate by forcereligion in the past has tried to coerce the irreligious—W. R. Ingehttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coerce
Cambridge Dictionary
coerceverb [ T ]
formal
UK /kəʊˈɜːs/ US /koʊˈɝːs/Add to word list to persuade someone forcefully to do something that they are unwilling to do:
The court heard that the six defendants had been coerced into making a confession.https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/coerce
When you threaten a person that there is a penalty for not following the rules, you are coercing obedience. For Witnesses there are penalties
- Possibility that you will be disfellowshipped for just talking to a disfellowshipped person. Then you will be shunned. If you haven't read Ray Franz then perhaps now is a good time.
- Death at Armageddon
- Losing out on a paradise earth.
Coercion is a legal term and it most definitely illegal. Few parents want to shun their child or never talk to a parent or miss out on a family member's marriage or the birth of a child that you will never see. It is beyond cruel to force them to do it. And they do it because they have been coerced into thinking they do not have a choice.
The victims of shunning are alone. Many times they have no friends on the outside. They are unfamiliar with the legal and social systems that could help them. After years of warnings they are afraid of therapy. And they have been repeatedly told over YEARS that those who leave, whether willingly or not, are doomed not only to die at Armageddon but doomed to a terrible life outside the Witnesses.
On top of that they grew up in a world of immediate friendship. They know very little about how to and who to trust. And depressed, searching for some kindness many fall into bad situations.
With the internet many have learned to develop happy satisfying lives. But it is so much harder than it needs to be if their development had included how to live in the real world instead of a closed group - a cult.
Making mandatory shunning a crime might not make sense to some of you. But we have to start somewhere. Courts are listening.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)
Its judgments are binding on the countries concerned and have led governments to alter their legislation and administrative practice in a wide range of areas. The Court’s case-law makes the Convention a modern and powerful living instrument for meeting new challenges and consolidating the rule of law and democracy in Europe.The European Convention on Human Rights is an international treaty under which the member States of the Council of Europe promise to secure fundamental civil and political rights, not only to their own citizens but also to everyone within their jurisdiction.
The European Court of Human Rights is an international court set up in 1959. It rules on individual or State applications alleging violations of the civil and political rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1998 it has sat as a full-time court and individuals can apply to it directly. The Court examined hundreds of thousands of applications since it was set up.
The Convention secures:
• the right to life
• the right to a fair hearing
• the right to respect for private and family life
• freedom of expression
• freedom of thought conscience and religion
Our goal
Current relevant cases
As mandated shunning cases make their way from member state courts to the ECHR we will post updates.
Our ultimate goal is to set the legal precedent for mandated shunning as a hate crime, by funding international legal cases that highlight the issue and get it enshrined and enforced in law. We already have a major case in the Belgium Supreme Court. If successful, this will set the necessary precedent for prosecutions of high-control groups for mandated shunning. [Bold mine] -
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Mandated Shunning is a Crime
by Lee Marsh inmandated shunning is on the rise around the world with devastating effects on millions of people.
shunning that is mandated by organized groups to its members is a form of both physical and psychological violence against those people being shunned and cut off from their family and life-long relationships.
mandated shunning means that the shunning is ordered from the top down.
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Lee Marsh
Just a thought I posted on another thread:
One recent question in many countries, however, is this: Are the rights of a religion or any group, above the rights of an individual? And if they are violating the rights of individuals, should they maintain their non-profit status?
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How to Legally Dissolve a Religious Organization
by EasyPrompt inregarding the state dissolving a church organization.... .
as posted in another thread, here is what is happening in japan, filing a court order to dissolve the unification church.... .
https://www.eurasiareview.com/06092023-japan-seeks-court-order-to-dissolve-unification-church/.
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Lee Marsh
Every non-profit has to report yearly on their finances. If they fail to do this they lose next year's money.
If they are not using what they get for the reason they got it they lose next year's money.
Non-profits are required to report ALL their income from other sources. They are required to report what they got the money for and what they did with it. Failure to do this will cause them to lose next year's money.
The US has religious rights written into the constitution. Not all countries have this. In fact, I expect very few of them do.
One recent question in many countries, however, is this: Are the rights of a religion or any group, above the rights of an individual? And if they are violating the rights of individuals, should they maintain their non-profit status?
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Mandated Shunning is a Crime
by Lee Marsh inmandated shunning is on the rise around the world with devastating effects on millions of people.
shunning that is mandated by organized groups to its members is a form of both physical and psychological violence against those people being shunned and cut off from their family and life-long relationships.
mandated shunning means that the shunning is ordered from the top down.
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Lee Marsh
Granted my examples were all about religion. But hey Amway (does that still exist?) they practice shunning. Gangs, the sex trade (heck they often kill the ones who leave and I had a client that was stabbed by her pimp for trying to leave.) . Even some companies shun when someone jumps ship and goes to work for the competition.
Individuals - personal choice.
Groups of any kind, political, financial, social, companies, even big publishing companies - no - immoral and unethical to force people to do this.
This is an ex-JW board and well those are the examples for here. For the WTS that uses mandated shunning not to protect the flock as they claim but rather to prevent people from learning what we find out and then leaving. it is used to stop the bleeding of members. It is used solely to control both the ones on and the ones who leave.
Do we need to change the laws? In sone cases, many listed above, yes we need laws. And please remember just because there might be laws where you live doesn't mean there are laws everywhere.
And let's be honest, JWs/WTS ignore the law whenever it suits them. A parent that throws their kid out of the house or forces them to stay in the bedroom all the time, including for meals (yes I have read the stories) should be punished. Kids deserve better than that.
There was a photo posted everywhere of a man who had his son and I think grandson over for a meal. Nice. Until they found out grandpa would be eating in the next room so he would not be guilty of "even eating" with what the WTS called an evil man. I felt bad for everyone in that situation and the WTS forces this on people. Yes you could say it was the man's personal choice. No one would know if he sat at the table with his family. But for decades he has been force fed the belief that if he sat down with them he would be committing a great sin against God.
True if you are leaving your old religion to join the JWs.
We follow the Bible’s advice to “respect everyone”—regardless of their religious beliefs. (1 Peter 2:17, Today’s English Version
https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/tolerant-of-other-religions/Not true if you are leaving the JWs even if you don't join another religion
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Mandated Shunning is a Crime
by Lee Marsh inmandated shunning is on the rise around the world with devastating effects on millions of people.
shunning that is mandated by organized groups to its members is a form of both physical and psychological violence against those people being shunned and cut off from their family and life-long relationships.
mandated shunning means that the shunning is ordered from the top down.
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Lee Marsh
There are certain laws already regarding shunning. Governments and agencies that give money to any group that practices mandated shunning should not get funding.
Example 1: A couple with 2 children. The husband commits adultery, is disfellowshipped and the wife chooses to divorce him. She gets custody of the children and he gets visitation rights.
She immediately begins demonizing him. Instead of helping the children maintain contact with his children, whom he had a good relationship with before, they are now refusing to see him. The law says he has rights. he hasn't abused the. He pays child support. But she won't let him near them and has made them too scared to go. She is actively teaching the children to shun their father because he now serve Satan. This is called "alienation of affection" and it IS against the law in many places.
Example 2: Due to the court seeing the above, the judge decides that it is in the best interests of the children to place them with the father and she now has visitation rights. When she has them, she takes them to meetings and out in service. She studies with them and yup demonizes Dad again. alienation of affection The judge now insists on the wife not taking to the kids about the religion or taking them to meetings or out in service. So she gets her mother to study the Bible with them. You see where this is going?
Example 3: A 15-yr old boy doesn't want to go to the meetings. He isn't doing anything wrong or hanging out with a bad group of kids. He is just fed up and doesn't want to go anymore. His parents insist and he digs in his heels. Arguments gets worse and the elders are called. Publications and the Bible is read but nothing is going to change this boy's mind. So the parents throw him out of the house. he has no where to go. They don't find another place for him. They don't try social services for a foster home. Just throw his things out of the house and let him figure it out.
First of all this is against the law. Parents have a legal responsibility to care for their children, generally as long as they are minors. That includes giving them a home and the things they need to physically and emotionally survive. It includes a formal education generally until they graduate high school. And if you can't do it, find someone who can. You don't just throw them out of the house like yesterday's garbage.
Second, this is your flesh and blood that you are supposed to love more than anyone else. Where exactly is the love? Threats of punishment, isolation, shunning. This is emotional abuse and it is wrong. Period.
Example 4: A couple has a baby and the DRs say t needs a blood transfusion. The HLC is right there to make sure the no blood policy is enforced. The parents, believing this rule comes from Jehovah (not the WTS) are devastated. One parent, caves in and signs the papers for the baby to get the care it needs. She is disfellowshipped and then shunned for saving the life of her child. She continues to go to meetings but no one talks to her. Her husband barely talks to her about anything to make sure he isn't crossing a line. With all of this, plus her hormones going wild she is suffering from post-partum depression and attempts to commit suicide, believing everyone will be better off without her. neglect = emotional abuse
Example 5: A sexual abuse survivor grows up and decides to go to the police about sexual abuse that happened when she was a child. She went to the elders at the time but they covered it up and forbade her from talking about it or she would be disfellowshipped for causing divisions in the congregation. She has suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder since the abuse and got no help for that. Because the elders did nothing when the abuse was reported, they are arrested. She is disfellowshipped. they very thing she was most scared of. Now she is alone to fight through the past and get through a daunting legal process. And yes everyone is shunning her for doing the legal, moral and ethical things. And since she did go to the police other victims of the same abuser are coming forward. Now they are all shunned but heck at least they have each other. Right? denial of legal rights and emotional abandonment
Example 6: A JW finds out that her daughter who was disfellowshipped is dying of cancer. She has been shunning her daughter for 12 years. The mother desperately wants to see her daughter again but her elder husband keeps reminding her that he will shun HER if she goes to the hospital.
All this shunning. The anguish, the isolation, the sheer cruelty of it. Any agency or government that gives money to any religion that does this to people doesn't deserve the money. They get it because they are supposed to be doing "good works" with the money. Not treating people like garbage that you toss away.
JWs pride themselves on showing love for each other, for their neighbors that they preach to. But heaven help the one that says I don't want what you are offering or I want out or that broke a rule.
ALL groups have a legal right to decide who can be part of the group. Who is in and who is out. That isn't in question.
But how you treat people who don't want to follow your rules or don't agree with them is a whole other story.
