The two-witness rule is supposed to apply to deliberations and actions taken by elders regarding accusations of wrongdoing and investigations of 'sinful behavior.' That should not stop anyone from contacting the police if there is an accusation of a crime, especially something as important as child abuse. It should not stop elders from encouraging the rank and file to report a crime to the police, regardless of whether the elders can or cannot get involved. The idea that the police should not be contacted unless there are two witnesses to a crime makes no sense. It is not a legal requirement. It is not a typical behavior in a community.
TonusOH
JoinedPosts by TonusOH
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33
Regional convention 2023
by sove inany streamed content from this years regional convention available with any of you guys?
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Link between relationships and health/happiness
by ExBethelitenowPIMA ineven though i’m agnostic so will not commit to either intelligent design or chance, i love being part of the congregation for the close personal relationships.. there is such a great atmosphere inside the congregation it really is like a family and you don’t get this anywhere else.. a real friend is someone you can rely on when you are in need.
if things go wrong for you and you are going through a hard time you know real friends will be there for you.
as long as you didn’t bring it on yourself by going against gods law then you have to prove you are repentant first of course.. there is a lot of research now saying that good friends is essential for healthy and happiness.
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TonusOH
If you can wait until the very end before making a commitment, and god is okay with that, then isn't that actually the best course of action? Live how you please, wait for clarification, then make a choice. It sounds like the most logical option. If god was to punish people for doing otherwise, that seems unfair.
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Dr Heather Ransom's Story in the Daily Mail newspaper
by LostintheFog1999 infollowing on from the rebekah vardy tv programme last week, dr heather ransom's story is in the daily mail.. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12097861/my-family-friends-rejected-fled-jehovahs-witnesses.html.
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TonusOH
1% of 8 billion would be 80 million. 8 million would be one-tenth of one percent.
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What would Watchtower Corporation(tm) do?
by punkofnice inwhat would watchtower corporation(tm) do in compromise of their 'north korean style rules' if by publicly removing them, they could get more money and power?.
if each governing body(tm) member (pee be upon them), were offered a few million quid/bucks each to rescind the barbaric 'no whole blood' rule?.
i know what i think these fake religionists would do.
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TonusOH
I agree, LUHE. I think that what would get them to drop it is if you could demonstrate that they would gain a lot more converts as a result. More converts means a steady stream of income, instead of just a lump sum. And it also means you have power over even more people, which I figure counts for something to the members of a 'governing body.'
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Normal people don't give a darn if you're a witness
by XBEHERE inthis was posted on exjw reddit, check it out if some of you never have.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/13q6k5l/normal_people_dont_give_a_darn_if_youre_a_witness/ .
i find this to be the case, people in general are so not interested in religion that they really could care less about jws.
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TonusOH
Most people only know JWs as the people who knock on doors to preach, or who are next to the stands with WT magazines and tracts. JWs tend to be pretty mild and approachable in general, so people who know a JW or two will usually tell you that they're nice people.
The other stuff --especially about birthdays and holidays-- probably seems weird to them, but since it doesn't affect them directly, it's not a big deal. At my old job, they actually offered to change the name and description of the annual Christmas luncheon and office party, because they felt bad that I would not take part. I explained that it was still, in my mind, a holiday occasion. I think they admired my willingness to take a stand, but also it did not affect them-- they were able to enjoy both, whether or not I was there.
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What would Watchtower Corporation(tm) do?
by punkofnice inwhat would watchtower corporation(tm) do in compromise of their 'north korean style rules' if by publicly removing them, they could get more money and power?.
if each governing body(tm) member (pee be upon them), were offered a few million quid/bucks each to rescind the barbaric 'no whole blood' rule?.
i know what i think these fake religionists would do.
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TonusOH
Cognitive dissonance also plays a part. I've known brothers who were definitely 100% in, even though they knew things that should have made them at least stop for a moment and question themselves. I don't think that they were faking it, I think they were genuinely convinced, and were willing to bury anything that might cause doubt. When we want things to be true or false, our minds can work hard to help us fool ourselves.
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For those following the JW headquarters reaction to the UK documentary - Rebekah Vardy: Jehovah's Witnesses and Me
by jwleaks inin addition to the jws false and misleading denial that rebekah vardy was ever a jehovah's witness, a few other interesting developments occurred that are worth noting:.
1. an article in the last days newsletter reporting on how the jw[.
]org website scrubbed clean its jw 'news' page and produced an entire new glossary of jw terminally meaning for the media:.
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TonusOH
There are times when they can defend a controversial or unpopular practice, such as refusing to serve in the armed forces. Even for people who disagree with the stance, they can admit that there is a rational explanation for why they take that position. Shunning is very difficult to defend. It's a pretty extreme practice, plenty of religions do not practice it, and there are always going to be examples of how it harms families and friendships.
I think they are trying to have it both ways- keep the practice, but imply that they don't really do it. So they won't just come out and renounce the practice of shunning. They might hope that it fades from public attention so that they won't get hassled over it anymore, while they keep doing it.
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Meaning of Elder from the horses mouth as contrasted with Clergy
by Longlivetherenegades inmeaning of as captured in one of their publications.... .
elder: a spiritually mature male witness appointed to teach and to provide pastoral care for the well-being of congregation members.
an elder must meet the scriptural qualifications as outlined at 1 timothy 3:1-7; titus 1:5-9; james 3:17, 18; and 1 peter 5:2.. elders are not paid ministers and are not employees of their respective congregation or any corporation associated with jehovah’s witnesses.
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TonusOH
When I was in, turning down an opportunity to become an MS or elder would have been a red flag, unless the man in question had a really good reason to turn it down. But back then there wasn't a shortage of people available, so the ones who were invited were people who clearly wanted to serve. I can't imagine being in a congregation where the atmosphere was that apathetic!
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And the lion shall eat straw like the ox
by Anony Mous inthe above verse is often quoted by jws both in general as a response to the idea of a deathless paradise and/or those promoting vegetarianism or veganism.. a letter in animal frontiers co-signed by nearly a thousand scientists is now warning that meat is crucial for a healthy lifestyle and livestock farming is too important to 'become the victim of zealotry'.. they stated the fact that most humans require the nutrients from eggs, meat and dairy and that plant based alternatives are at least 4x more expensive (which implies much higher energy consumption in the process) and not scalable and outright dangerous to global health to support a large population shift towards them.. they also called out several recent papers for misleading information and even called for the outright retraction of one that said meat substitutions are a viable alternative.. not sure what the modern jw view on this is, i know many people in the borg promoted it back in the day.
just goes to show that science does not support the notion of a global vegan diet..
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TonusOH
Almost any concept regarding the origin of the universe is unintuitive. Can something come from nothing? No one intuitively thinks this, it makes no sense. Could the universe have no beginning, and always just existed? I don't think this makes intuitive sense to us either, the notion that there wasn't a beginning and that the universe extends forever into the past.
Same for god. How could a being simply always exist and never have a beginning? We can comprehend the notion of something existing forever into the future, once it has begun. We cannot comprehend the notion of something existing forever into the past, with no beginning.
And yet, here we are. Something (or many things) that is unintuitive to us has to be the case, because the universe exists and we exist. If we give more weight to one of the options without any logical reason to, then we might end up ignoring or rejecting information that gives us reason to assume the other options are possible. Wanting god to be real isn't a path to discovering god, it's a path to inventing him.
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Do you agree with this?
by vienne innew post to the history blog: https://truthhistory.blogspot.com/2023/05/typical-nonsense.html.
i agree that in the russell and rutherford eras there was little actual scriptural refutation.
fine!
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TonusOH
There was a site that detailed a lot of Russell's business dealings, and those did not put him in a good light. I wish I could find it again, it was pretty detailed. It did cover his divorce proceedings as well. It was jarring to find that he was so different from the person the WTS makes him out to be, in that it is difficult to believe that he was as sincere in his faith as I once thought.