But they would still have the freedom to practice their religion. Taking away benefits that have no impact on their freedom to practice doesn't seem like tyranny. How is that the same as jail or restraining orders?
TonusOH
JoinedPosts by TonusOH
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57
Court case Jehovah's Witnesses Norway kicked off
by AndersonsInfo inhttps://cne.news/article/2827-court-case-jehovah-s-witnesses-norway-kicked-off.
norwegian jehovah's witnesses are in court this wednesday and thursday.
they are fighting the government's decision to remove their registration as a religious community.. .
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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TonusOH
BORG OFF: Nicoloau if that was true of ray franz would you want Cof C taken off the shelf so no one can read it?
I don't think people have been asking for Evans's book to be restricted or his videos taken down. We want people to know who and what he is so that they can make decisions about him with a full understanding of what they are getting into. If Ray Franz was anything like Evans, I would want to know that before offering to promote his work or support it financially.
Helping people is great, and deserves some gratitude. Being a terrible husband and father is awful, and deserves some condemnation. Treating fellow exJWs like garbage is awful, and people should know about that if they are thinking about giving him money. None of that means that his book or videos need to disappear. Or that he needs to stop producing books or videos. But I think it's fair to temper the good with the bad, and in his case the bad is really, really bad.
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57
Court case Jehovah's Witnesses Norway kicked off
by AndersonsInfo inhttps://cne.news/article/2827-court-case-jehovah-s-witnesses-norway-kicked-off.
norwegian jehovah's witnesses are in court this wednesday and thursday.
they are fighting the government's decision to remove their registration as a religious community.. .
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TonusOH
The court won't force the JWs to end the shunning practice, will they? They are taking away some benefits (including a healthy amount of annual money) but they will not ban JWs from meeting and preaching and baptizing converts, right?
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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TonusOH
"Show me on the doll where Lloyd Evans touched you" might be just a bit too on the nose, there.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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TonusOH
BORG OFF: Going through someone’s accounts without them there to give an explanation is a total waste of time
I wouldn't call it a total waste of time. Business/finance reporting is meant to be structured in such a way as to provide some level of transparency. So you can get at least a few answers. And while it helps to have someone there to explain any discrepancies or provide explanations, I would not trust Evans to be honest or forthcoming.
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57
Reading the Watchtower and Awake! is like getting a college education!
by kairos inanybody remember hearing this?.
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is that comment in print anywhere?.
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TonusOH
A real education is, in part, about teaching you how to learn. How to research, how to measure information and compare things you discover and learn, how to assemble disparate bits into a conclusion, and so on. The WTS does not teach people to do this, and they sometimes warn against it. I can remember a couple of times when they warned against critical thinking ("higher criticism" I think they called it), seeing it as a way that a university education could lead one astray.
If your beliefs cannot stand up to scrutiny then they must be revised or abandoned. The organization should never take the approach that some avenues of inquiry are to be avoided. Instead, those should be investigated and judged. That is not what they want. They want you to accept what you are told, and then limit who you listen to so you only accept their claims. That is not a proper way to teach people.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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TonusOH
ozziepost: Frankly, it seems like a whole lot of wasted effort for the small amounts involved.
I don't know what the laws are like in Croatia, but there are usually legal and tax benefits to incorporating, even if you are a very small operation. And if you plan to grow into an international conglomerate that has revenues in the billions from making exJW videos, you have to start somewhere. 😉
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How far has Watchtower and the GB of Jehovah's Witnesses gone to stalk and silence critics?
by Balaamsass2 inwe have all watched some of the documentaries about the church of scientology hiring detectives to stalk and harass their former members,( their "apostates").
i have heard of individual cases of rabid jw elders stalking ex-jws, and of course, one would expect some enforcement of corporate copyright infringement on anti-jw websites.. what were the most outrageous jw "stalking" or investigation stories you remember?.
tonight's 60 minutes into ebay stalking a middle-aged couple who writes a newsletter reminded me a lot of the menlo park congregation watchtower "takeover", closure, and stalking of local elders to mind.
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TonusOH
There are many sites run by people who will give in when challenged by a larger and better funded opponent. The WTS knows that many of its legal challenges will not stand up in court, but they are counting on people not wanting to spend money (or not having enough money) to fight even frivolous actions. And the WTS knows that, if it can draw out any legal action, the financial pressure grows even for those who want to fight.
AvoidJW has info on the McFree case, and what the WTS did and tried to do to him:
https://avoidjw.org/news/usa-lengthy-legal-struggle-ends-in-victory/
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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TonusOH
I don't know what the frequency of his uploads is, or how current the content is. I think the former is more important than the latter. If you are paying him a monthly fee and you are getting less and less in return, the value for your dollar goes down. Either you look for a lower tier of support to switch to, or you cancel for a month or two to see if he gets back on track. If the amount of content is going down and he is also talking about reducing it to a trickle, or stopping altogether... that is the start of a death spiral.
And that is just talking content and value-for-your-dollar. How many of his remaining supporters are wondering what he is referring to when he mentions misinformation campaigns and internet bullies targeting him? How many of them will seek out information that he is not giving them, and learn things about him that will make them question their support? More than 500 of them so far, it seems to me. And so the number will keep dwindling until the only ones left are that core of hardcore supporters who cannot let him go. But I don't think they will be enough to prevent the ship from going under.
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England v Ukraine
by BoogerMan inso nice to see thousands upon thousands of fighting-age ukrainian men managed to escape the war and reach wembley to support their national football team yesterday.
things must be improving, eh?.
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TonusOH
Nations and governments will always look to do things that put them at some advantage and make it easier to gain the resources they want or need. And they will always attempt to make their efforts seem humanitarian. Or at the least, they want to claim that they had no other option. They don't care if you see through it, and they are perfectly well aware that the main players see through it. They are doing it for the support of the masses, since that still matters if you want to run a country instead of being executed as a traitor or failure.
Putin cares not one whit about the pedigree of the people or who the land belonged to. He sees that NATO has grown and pushes up against his borders. Anything he wants or tries to get, NATO will always stand in his way. What to do? Grab up the last remaining bits that NATO has not collected. And Ukraine is rich in many resources and gives him more bargaining chips. And a much better position in the event of war in the future, whether initiated by NATO to rein him in, or initiated by Russia to grab more land.
NATO sees Ukraine as the last piece that they would need to effectively box Russia in. And having them on the NATO side also means that those resources (oil, natural gas, arable land) are not under Russia's control. A weaker Putin is useful to the West. It can help to weaken China a bit, and they want that as well. It is no accident that there has been a fervent push to get more countries to join NATO as a result of the Russian invasion, and it seems to have paid off handsomely, with Finland (an old enemy of Russia) agreeing to join. I think that alone might be worth the money they are throwing (and will keep throwing) at Ukraine.
Neither side sees Ukraine from any other angle, IMO. It is an important piece of land, and control of it (or influence over it) makes one side stronger at the expense of the other. The USA does not expect that Ukraine will ever fully pay them back for all of the weapons and money. What the USA is buying is a stronger position in Europe and a weakened Putin/Russia. I think Zelenskyy is smart enough to understand that he's a pawn in a much larger game, and that if he plays his cards right he might walk out of this with his neck intact and the 'undying friendship' of powerful and wealthy nations.
Politics has never been anything different. When we study the actions of powerful nations over the course of history, we always see the same thing- they do anything and everything they can to get what they want, while trying to put forth a good face to the world. What do they care that we will finally learn what they did, a hundred years later? They had a lot of power and they got to use it, and even to be cheered as they did so.