Lee Marsh

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Posts by Lee Marsh

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  35

  Help wanted finding images

  by Lee Marsh in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i 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

  Thanks too for the link. I don't have that update.
• 
  35

  Help wanted finding images

  by Lee Marsh in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i 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

  Those are great!!! Thank you
• 
  35

  Help wanted finding images

  by Lee Marsh in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i 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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  23

  How to Legally Dissolve a Religious Organization

  by EasyPrompt in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  regarding 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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  125

  Mandated Shunning is a Crime

  by Lee Marsh in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  mandated 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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  125

  Mandated Shunning is a Crime

  by Lee Marsh in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  mandated 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

  
  

  Eating with the family

  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
  
• 
  125

  Mandated Shunning is a Crime

  by Lee Marsh in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  mandated 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

  coerce

  verb

  co·​erce kō-ˈərs

  coerced; coercing

  Synonyms of coerce

  transitive verb

  1

  : to compel to an act or choice

  was coerced into agreeing

  abusers who coerce their victims into silence

  2

  : to achieve by force or threat

  coerce compliance

  coerce obedience

  3

  : to restrain or dominate by force

  religion in the past has tried to coerce the irreligious—W. R. Inge

  coercible

  kō-ˈər-sə-bəl

  adjective

  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coerce

  Cambridge Dictionary

  coerceverb [ T ]
  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.

  formal

  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)
  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.

  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 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
  

  
  Current relevant cases
  As mandated shunning cases make their way from member state courts to the ECHR we will post updates.

  Our goal
  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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  125

  Mandated Shunning is a Crime

  by Lee Marsh in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  mandated 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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  23

  How to Legally Dissolve a Religious Organization

  by EasyPrompt in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  regarding 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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  125

  Mandated Shunning is a Crime

  by Lee Marsh in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  mandated 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