i personally feel that vaccinations are beneficial.
there has been a modern movement that vaccinations are more harmful than beneficial to which i disagree.
what is your stance as an ex jw on vaccinating your children?
Given I live in Portland Oregon, across the river from Vancouver WA which is at present in a public health crisis with a measles outbreak, I believe in vaccinations. It's proven they work. We need 93% of the population to be vaccinated for it to work. So those who can't vaccinate for legitimate reasons are no problem.
Those who don't do it because they don't believe science, should be forced to do it or isolated in some way.
Putting everyone at risk is ridiculous.
without a doubt, jw life is boring.
and those meetings!
5 congregation meetings, meetings for field service, elders meetings, judicial meetings, meetings to figure out who was qualified to clean the toilets....🤔.
Over time you are trained to cut yourself off from yourself - suppress anything you feel, think or want in service to the organization. If you are born-in, you don't even know you've done it and to what extent until you leave (if you ever do).
It is sort of like the illustration of the fish not seeing the water it swims in...or even the experience of a lobster in a pot of water that slowly warms to a boil....the level of control exerted is undetectable if you are convinced it is for a higher good.
And, most people want to be and do good. So that was the motivation for enduring things that were mind-numbing and sucked the life out of us.
this is a very good document from a law school exploring religious freedom vs an individuals right to religious freedom without blackmail, pressure, etc, and also explores why certain lawsuits did not win and what it would take to win them.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=3827&context=penn_law_review.
a person born in, and whose parents or family pressured to shun because they simply left the religion, who has evidence of damages, etc, would likely have a good case if they find a good lawyer.
I have not yet read the posted article...
I could see this becoming legal from the stance of promoting hate. The protected class that could pursue this would be the LGBTQ community. From those foundational arguments, it isn't a stretch to say that ALL shunning is religious persecution since people are either choosing another religion, or choosing to believe something else entirely. It is also true that the JWs could be seen as interfering with an individual's right of freedom of assembly and association since individuals are not free to join or leave a group without social consequence.
i heard it from someone who attended the latest wt study, and quickly posted it with - you guessed it - a picture of a lovely flower bouquet.
.
"how big is your bouquet of truth?".
It should be "How big is your pile of bullshit?"
yesterday i was looking to share a pic with a friend of mine, and i swore it was in my photo albums (i have 3).
so i start going through them, and i see so many jw pics!
i had a huge group of friends when i was 'in', and so there is just pic after pic of assemblies, dinners, game nights, rbc projects, my family and the house i grew up in, people from the hall, etc.
I have a lot of empathy for you.
I realized a couple of days ago, that as a 4th Generation JW, I grieve the life I left behind - I grieve all the negative things that happened to me, and I grieve losing all the good things - for me, it was not all good or bad. In this last year, I've just started to fully see the damage done by being a JW. At the same time, there is a lot I miss about my family ...
It's very complicated.
Be gentle with yourself, and proud of your progress.
a european jehovah's witness, who served in an important branch, has sent me the following rumor.. some serious sources are mentioned.
it clearly shake my perspective of what is going to happen in the coming months.. i'm totally shocked !.
the law firm managing all the interests of the wt has studied the problem in europe on data protection and actions on files and protocols of child abuse.
@TheFallGuy in the States, board members of non-profits usually elect for the organization to carry "Board Insurance" due to the fact that board members are individually liable for the decisions and actions of the non-profit corporation.
There is so much WT could do that would not compromise their Two Witness Rule:
Their inability to think out of the box, or to do what is best for the people in their care is becoming increasingly blatant. That is not to say that there are not good men there who sincerely care, but they are so ignorant and uneducated that they have been causing real damage for decades. It is time to put a stop to it.
the trial transcript of nunez v. watchtower (426 pages) has been made available from scaars which is the acronym for a new a 501(c)(4) lobbying corporation, sexual child abuse - advocates for reform and safety (scaars).. .
the scaars corporation was formed october 3, 2018 by barbara anderson and former elder, roger bentley and his wife, karin.
on the home page of the scaars website, scaars.org, you will find information that explains the goal of the movement - scaars: "changing laws - changing lives.".
They don't have to give up their 2 witness rule in order to report child abuse to the police. If a parent or child comes to them with that information, that is not a confession and should not fall under the cloak of clergy privilege... they need to act like mandatory reporters and call the police. The. End.
Let the police notify the congregation that an investigation is being conducted so people are warned...and put on notice....
it is not that hard to NOT protect child molesters.....
2018 service year report of jehovah’s witnesses worldwide.
see details of the global preaching work of jehovah’s witnesses from september 2017 to august 2018.. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/2018-service-year-report/.
average publishers preaching each month: 8,360,594 (2017 - 8,248,982).
From a business point of view, this is really flat. As was pointed out, their congregation numbers are down - we know they've been consolidating. Interesting too, is their publisher numbers - if you take the number baptized and add it to last year's average publisher number - it would be 8.5m publishers. This year's actual number is 8.3m which means at least 170k people died, became inactive or were disfellowshipped.
Flat. Flat. Flat. No wonder they needed to cut spending. They are outspending their growth with no new revenue streams to develop. The main "growth" is in poor countries that cannot afford to support the organization. Developed countries with all the sexual abuse scandals are experiencing a mass exodus and drop in donations.
They've got themselves in a pickle.
posted on another forum:.
c/o spoke about the israelites compliance when travelling in the wilderness.
each time the pillar of fire/smoke moved, the israelites had to pack up and move.
It's getting a little tough for survivors to track down documents and elders who have been shuffled around. Difficult to investigate congregations that don't even exist anymore.
I think this is an important point, and not something I'd really considered. They could consolidate congregations and sell off KH without doing as much shuffling around. It would seem it serves several purposes: make the KH look more full, sell off KH not needed, dissolve and/or rename congregations so they can destroy records, shuffle around elders so they cannot be tracked down....
i have to say that i’m not enjoying the xmas season.
i have no emotional ties and i’m spending money that i have not set aside for xmas during a slow work season for my trade.. i’m not happy about it, because it’s foolish to spend money when you aren’t making any.
then i feel like i’m expected to do all this, and to be happy about spending money and time on persons that i’m not that involved with.
I do not celebrate Christmas. I thought about it, but my friends don't care and it is just too damn expensive. I occasionally get someone a gift at Christmas time if I see something they really want and it is a good deal. Otherwise, I'm very generous all year round and I don't feel obligated by Christmas.
That said, the thought did occur to me that I could wait until after Christmas when all the good deals come out and get presents then....
