Posts by Scully

102

Bill Cosby - too much smoke for no fire?

by Simon in

it seems like the list of people who are accusing him of rape and sexual assault is growing every day.

i'm skeptical of single accusations but the number of people and the similar stories seem overwhelming now.. it's not a conviction but to the court of public opinion ... guilty?.

.

Scully

It's very likely that each woman was intimidated into silence - the old "do you really think they're going to believe you? or Dr Huxtable?" and I'm sure his lawyer can be very intimidating if an alleged victim even *thought* about pressing charges. Maybe the victims believed their experiences were anomalies and not part of a predatory pattern of behaviour.

How many women who were sexually abused by Elders™ or Ministerial Servants™ questioned their experiences? It's easy to believe that you are the only person this happened to, that nobody is going to believe you if you say anything or try to stop it. Or worse, blame you somehow for "seducing" a beloved man who is Appointed By Holy Spirit™ - who's going believe you making such allegations against *him*?? A victim is made to feel shame and embarrassment, they are intimidated into silence, and they feel utterly ALONE. Alone, that is, until they realize that they were not alone. That validation, in itself, is liberating. It is reassurance that you aren't crazy, you didn't imagine it, you are NOT lying about what happened, and that it isn't your fault - you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, in the path of a predator in the act of predation.

I'm glad these women are coming forward. They deserve justice, even if it means taking down a once beloved public figure. If he is guilty of the allegations, he doesn't deserve to be a beloved public figure. He deserves public ridicule and jail time if he is guilty. Zero tolerance.

55

Meeting for not paying assembly fees???!!!!

by Kool Jo in

jw
friends

hey folks......has anyone else heard of, or experienced this before?.

i visited by parents over the weekend and accompanied them to their assembly....same rubbish spoken about since ive been born....obey the gb, donate your last penny, no education and be a pushover.. anyways, our assembly hall has lush vegetation and scenery, so i was more focused on that....i started dozing off after lunch, so got up and went walking, saw some older folks from the congregation i grew up with.. upon the conclusion of the assembly, wed normally leave out right after the prayer ends so as to avoid the traffic.

however, for this assembly he told me that hes gonna be a few minutes with the elders and branch representatives...so a few minutes turned into an hour..

Scully

What really bugs me about this story is that the Assembly Hall™ construction was originally funded by donations from the Congregations™ to purchase the land, and the WTS likely offered a mortgage to the collective users of the Assembly Hall™. Once the loan was repaid, the WTS charges user fees/rent to the Congregations™. The building itself has probably been paid for multiple times, with the WTS soaking up the profits on the backs of JWs who can't fathom the thought that they are being bilked out of millions of dollars.

They bought it. They paid for it. The WTS collects the cash, and guess who is going to get the money from the sale of the property? It ain't going back to the folks who paid for it with their own money and labour, that's for sure.

59

Does The State Have The Right To Quarantine Someone Because They Might Have Ebola?

by minimus in

jw
friends

no doubt you have heard about the nurse that thumbed her nose to the state and went out of the house in spite of being ordered to stay at home.

what is your opinion on this?.

.

Scully

Ebola is contagious when the infected person exhibits symptoms, which develop within 8-21 days of contracting the illness. It is not airborne. You have to physically come in contact with the blood or body fluids of an infected, symptomatic person to be at risk of contracting Ebola.

16

Throw Out Your Blood Cards!

by Coded Logic in

ex-jehovah's witness bled to death after surgery .

in 2006, riddell signed a declaration that she did not want to be given blood during any medical procedure because of her jehovah's witness beliefs, even if healthcare providers believed that it was necessary to preserve her life.. she later stopped practising the religion but her brother told hill she maintained the declaration because she had researched the use of blood transfusions and made an informed decision not to receive any blood.. riddell opted for the surgery after being diagnosed with symptomatic gallstones, hill said.. parry met with riddell before the surgery but did not discuss receiving blood with her as he told hill the chances of someone bleeding during the surgery were less than one per cent.. that meant the surgery began at wairau hospital at 9am without parry knowing about the declaration, although his anaesthetist did.. it was originally supposed to be a keyhole only surgery, but parry made the decision to go to an open surgery as he could not access the gall bladder through the keyhole technique.. during the surgery there was a small amount of bleeding, which parry was unconcerned about.. the surgery finished at 11.15am and parry went away to perform another surgery.

during that time, riddell's blood pressure dropped and fluids increased.. the anaesthetist visited parry during his surgery and told him "we have a problem, she's bleeding.

Scully

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.

If you have *ever*, at any time, made a declaration to a physician/hospital that you are a JW and you do not want to receive blood transfusions, and you now wish to rescind that declaration, you need to follow-up with them and very clearly state that you no longer subscribe to these beliefs and that you will accept a blood transfusion if deemed medically necessary.

This may mean going to the hospital registration desk and having your patient information revised to DELETE any indicator of religious affiliation as a JW. I have personal knowledge of JW Elders™ using their Pastoral Care Team privileges to routinely obtain a print-out of all JW patients admitted to the hospital. They pay a visit to each individual on the list (Counting their Time™, naturally) showing up unannounced and uninvited to patient rooms to check on each JW patient, even when a Pastoral Care Visit was declined in writing.

If there is any chance that you will be hospitalized for elective surgery, and you end up accepting a blood transfusion while your JW status is still active in your patient demographics, you could be Unfortunate™ enough to have a surprise visit from an Elder™ who is not even anyone you know personally, while your transfusion is infusing.

You also want to appoint a Power Of Attorney for Health Care Decisions or have a binding legal document in your patient chart expressing your wishes to accept medically necessary blood transfusions, so that "helpful" JW relatives cannot override your wishes while you are unconscious.

26

JW.ORG REPORTS THE WATCHTOWER RESPONSE TO EBOLA

by NAVYTOWN in

jw
friends

i just checked the jw.org website and noticed an article about the jw response to ebola.

as i suspected, the entire focus was on alerting and educating jw members about ebola.just like in other disaster situations, the jw organization almost exclusively assists it's own members, ignoring the general public.

it seems their main concern is keeping their members healthy so they can continue to spread the jw message door to door!!!

Scully

I wonder if there are any cases of someone being a carrier of Ebola without showing signs of illness, like Typhoid Mary was. Imagine if it was a JW who was a carrier, unwittingly spreading the virus while Spreading The Good News Of The Kingdom™.

19

New teaching! ...the end is NOT near by GB Steven Lett

by apocalypse in

have you watched some 'dub tv' yet?

it's very interesting.

steven lett of the gigglin brothers, put his foot right in watchtower's big mouth.

Scully

alanv,

I think you meant to say:

The tv broadcasts are just another way the society will keep JWs misinformed.

7

JW.ORG logo tattoos

by LogCon in

jw
friends

Scully

The artist who did my tattoo specializes in invisble tattoos that only show up under UV light. I can see JW kids doing *that*, because they're all about having the double life and flying under the radar.

27

Atheists and Anger...

by new hope and happiness in

are you an angry atheist?.

personally i wish i could say anger is to strong a word, but from my point of view :-.

a)i am angry that religion teaches children to hate " worldly people" at least that was my experience ad a j.w.

Scully

Nobody likes to have a label slapped on them. When people find out that I'm atheist, the automatic assumption is that I'm "angry" and "bitter" toward religion. While it's true that I've had numerous personal experiences as a JW that angered me, at its roots, the anger and bitterness comes from having been denied basic human rights as a person by the JW belief system.

As a consequence, I'm highly sensitized to any trampling on others' human rights. I'm just as bothered when I hear about atrocities against Muslim women in Islamic countries, and supremely frustrated when I see Muslim women in my community accepting their belief system's maltreatment of them - wearing the hijab, for instance, or Muslim women immigrating but being forbidden to learn English by their husbands, or not being permitted to drive or have jobs. It isn't limited to Islam and JWs either. I used to regularly see Mennonite and Orthodox Jewish people, compelled to dress in a certain manner in order to satisfy religious ideologies, not opening up to medical personnel and knowing they had been taught to regard outsiders with distrust.

It's very hard to see other people in the same kind of mental prison I was fortunate enough to escape from.

5

Interesting, being a parent - pre- sonogram

by Gregor in

my wife and i teamed up and had 5 children between 1966 and 1978 (she did the hard part) we never knew the sex until the the little sweety was born.. now days, we know if we're having another grandson or grandaughter months before they're born.. big difference.. names = male or female?

better have one or the other ready for the birth cert.

info.. clothes are not that critical.

Scully

I've had both experiences and it really doesn't change the experience - it's still a surprise whether you find out at 4 months or at 9 months. Finding out earlier makes planning a bit easier. But it doesn't help with everything that happens after they're born.

34

Kid charged over $500 to a game

by skeeter1 in

yesterday, i got our credit card statement, and looked at the charges.

over $500 to itunes.

questioned everyone, and it's for "jewels" for a kim kardashian game my 13 year old charged.

Scully

Hey Skeeter,

Several years ago, my then-13-year-old found a loophole to the long-distance block I'd placed on her cell phone. She racked up over $600 worth of charges in one month.

I called the cell phone company, livid with them that there was a loophole that circumvented my expressed limits on the account. The agent I spoke to about refunding the charges made some snarky remark attempting to put the blame on me. I lost my $h!t on the guy, and he finally apologized for criticizing my parenting. I had done my due diligence in adding restrictions to the service and it was up to the company to ensure that my expressed wishes were carried out.

As it turned out, the company was not aware that the loophole existed, and when they tested the sequence of steps my kid had used to work around the block, they realized there was the potential for a lot of people to abuse the loophole and circumvent an oversight in their programming. In the end, they were happier to refund one customer (me!) "before [my kid] announced to all her friends [and they to their friends] what the glitch was and all your parents have to do is complain to the cell phone company and get a refund."

That was one of the fastest fixes I've ever seen done by a cell phone provider.