Posts by Simon

posted

32
Kneel before me, for I am an ... Activist!
by Simon in
1. watchtower
2. scandals
i thought it was just me that had a negative view of people who proclaim themselves to be activists.. but no, it seems i'm not alone!.

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Simon

I thought it was just me that had a negative view of people who proclaim themselves to be activists.
But no, it seems I'm not alone!
11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened in
1. watchtower
2. scandals
original reddit post (removed).
Simon

It's a shame that some people seem to be totally dependent on others.
If I could recommend anything, it's that YOU be responsible for your own life. If you have people in your life that love you and / or that you love, that's great. But you shouldn't be dependent on others for your emotional well-being.
The danger is that when you're at a low point, you end up depending on the wrong person who will just see you as an opportunity to use.
11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened in
1. watchtower
2. scandals
original reddit post (removed).
Simon

I'm sorry that this is so long. I hope it is clear enough to read. I think the discussion about morals is very interesting. I hope it could make the people who defend Lloyd Evans understand a bit better why people want him to step back from is activism.
That was an excellent summation of the key component of all this - why Kim had a duty (qualified privilege) to reveal what he was doing, to protect the vulnerable, and why he has no business being around vulnerable young women.
21
Lloyd has taken his video down: has anyone got a copy of it?
by raymond frantz in
1. watchtower
2. scandals
lloyd has taken his video down: has anyone got a copy of it?.
Simon

The Wayback machine works for web pages only, and doesn't capture every page anyway (so don't rely on it for anything important)
21
Lloyd has taken his video down: has anyone got a copy of it?
by raymond frantz in
1. watchtower
2. scandals
lloyd has taken his video down: has anyone got a copy of it?.
Simon

I'm a few days late to this - I have a copy if you still need it.
11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened in
1. watchtower
2. scandals
original reddit post (removed).
Simon

Probably National Health Service - the public / taxpayer-funded socialist sometimes-health-care system in the UK.
11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened in
1. watchtower
2. scandals
original reddit post (removed).
Simon

I doubt "cheating on wife with prostitute" makes up a very large percentage of disfellowshippings for 'immorality'.
No, it's definitely further along on the "immoral" spectrum than say, cheating on your spouse with someone you know or arranged to meet in a car-park online. Both are immoral, one is worse. Are you genuinely finding these things challenging concepts or surprising? You seem determined to misunderstand what I say or add some unnecessary spin to it as though I've said something I haven't.
11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened in
1. watchtower
2. scandals
original reddit post (removed).
Simon

you have to spend the night with one to win $1,000,000 or €1,000,000. Choose.
Is this the Office meme where it's Pam or Jim saying "it's the same picture ..." ?
11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened in
1. watchtower
2. scandals
original reddit post (removed).
Simon

What he believes is way off. You get kicked out for suggesting child abuse is being covered up. Or telling the elders they are behaving in an unchristian manner and being cruel. Or saying WT's 1914 doctrine is wrong.
You do, but I think the vast majority who are df'd are for more traditional human failings of sexual immorality. So no, I don't think I'm "way off" if you were referring to me.
The mistake people who leave because they stopped believing is to think that everyone else who left also thought the same way.
You only get disfellowshipped for wrong doing if it is affecting the status quo. If you want to stay in you just say the right words to the elders.
Well, there is the "sincere repentance" thing and you know what they say about sincerity - once you can fake that, you can achieve anything. But it's complex - some people may be genuinely sorry but quite rightly unwilling to submit to intrusive questioning, others aren't sorry at all but play the game or have elder daddy to clean up their mess and get to do it again (we had some who were stuck in the revolving door of membership like that)
Something else to remember: just because someone was kicked out of the WTS doesn't make them a good or nice person that we should want to be around. This is another mistake people make. Not everyone is like us.
Some people are snakes and take advantage of others. There are lots of naive, overly-trusting, inexperienced people in the WTS. Some will take advantage of those people. Sometimes the people being taken advantage of will be underage with parents who are also too trusting of others in the congregation because of their propaganda. I doubt the WTS has a blanket 100% record of covering up abuse, but the ones that are rightly shown the door don't get the same publicity by people seeking to show the evils of the WTS.
Imagine if someone was regularly cheating on their wife with "girls" and was eventually shown the door ... we wouldn't want to make a hero of such a person would we?!
11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened in
1. watchtower
2. scandals
original reddit post (removed).
Simon

This demonstrates my earlier point, that some believe that to reject the WTS means they have to act opposite to everything the WTS said.
It's basic set theory - they have lots of do's and don'ts, some of them are invented but others overlap with general society. Cheating on your wife, killing people, stealing money - these are all widely recognized bad and "immoral" things, and don't make you a JW or WTS adherent. Likewise, you don't have to do any of these things to demonstrate how non-JW you are when you leave.
You can be a good, decent, honest, loyal person when you leave the WTS. The people who claim you cannot, that it's some unreachable level of perfection (e.g. suggesting someone who doesn't visit prostitutes has "saintly mastery of their penis"), are simply bad people.