Ok, I was able to find a retraction from News Corp regarding that report ....
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5720653717045248/australia-selling-off-assets?page=3
reported in the news today - let's hope victims are duly compensated for their suffering and the org is taken to the cleaners.. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-10/jehovahs-witnesses-sign-up-to-sexual-abuse-redress-scheme/100449204.
cheeses - the wholly holey holy one..
Ok, I was able to find a retraction from News Corp regarding that report ....
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5720653717045248/australia-selling-off-assets?page=3
reported in the news today - let's hope victims are duly compensated for their suffering and the org is taken to the cleaners.. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-10/jehovahs-witnesses-sign-up-to-sexual-abuse-redress-scheme/100449204.
cheeses - the wholly holey holy one..
Can you lead me to a verifiable source please?
i’m reservations, pimo elder.
i’m in no position to leave the organisation, maybe some people will see that as weak or whatever, but we have to all go down our own path in life.. i would like to be able to wake people up in my congregation, how do you think best to do this?
any ideas?.
As an Elder, you have access. To information, to documents.
Document yourself with everything you possibly can. Anything that helps prove discriminating policies, suspicious transactions, coverups policies, changes in beliefs, etc. Elders have access to information not available to common rank-and-file. Use that access. It may prove very valuable at a later stage.
If possible, tactfully, incentive people in your congregation to be open-minded about information sources. Encourage people to be receptive to sources outside the Watchtower publications (don't ever mention WHY). But this opens a backdoor in people's minds. If they will use it or not, who knows, But it's there.
Cast doubts about the Slave's ability to correctly interpret Scriptures, by pointing out many doctrine changes in the past - but always putting a positive spin on it, like, how they are humble and willing to admit that they were wrong, or how they are always trying to let the scriptures guide them. At some point, people will start asking themselves why an organization supposedly led by God himself has to change doctrine so many times. Couldn't God get it right the first time around?
Then, when you can no longer help people anymore without attracting negative attention, resign from Elder. Don't give much explanations, say that you're burned out, depressed, whatever. They will try to squeeze you for more information (such as determining if you're a covert apostate, or if you have committed some sin secretly), but don't crack under pressure.
When you feel ready, fade out. Or disassociate. For your sanity's sake. Living a life you don't believe in anymore is truly damaging for your mental health.
reported in the news today - let's hope victims are duly compensated for their suffering and the org is taken to the cleaners.. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-10/jehovahs-witnesses-sign-up-to-sexual-abuse-redress-scheme/100449204.
cheeses - the wholly holey holy one..
I have heard an unsubstantiated comment that the Australian branch had sold all of their assents and transferred the money outside of Australia before they joined the redressing scheme. Is there any truth to it? Or just hearsay?
https://canopyforum.org/2021/04/19/the-right-to-shun-ghents-misguided-jehovahs-witness-decision/.
in march, the criminal court of ghent, belgium fined the congregation of jehovah’s witnesses (jw) for “inciting discrimination and hatred or violence against former members.” the case centered on the jw practice of “disfellowshipping.” while the court’s sensitivity to the individual impact of shunning is laudable, its decision regrettably assaults the freedoms of religion and association.. first, some background on jw beliefs and disfellowshipping.
jw was founded in the united states over a century ago and is headquartered in new york state.
Jehovah's Witnesses aren't really free self-determined agents. The very threat of disfellowshipping made to those who refuse to shun precludes that. Want to test it? Remove the mechanisms and threats of retaliation. Let's see how many keep on shunning of their own determination. And then we can start a conversation about the "right to shun".
minimus former jw, prolific poster on jwn died.. minimus.
joined 19 years ago.
started 4,139 topics.
RIP Minumus
i have a question for those more versed in biblical history than i. .
knowing that a belief in a resurrection on messianic times was a later jewish belief ... but still ... did the ot jews believe that someone served a capital punishment / death sentence would be elegible for future resurrection?.
meaning: when coding the torah, did its writers intended that the capital punishment also be understood as an obliteration for all eternity?.
It's still current. Pick up Insight On The Scriptures under entry "Expelled" and see for yourself.
The biggest flaw I find in the analogy (besides the obvious lack of compassion) is that someone executed couldn't be rehabilitated, whereas JW's allow and incentive the reinstatement of disfellowshipped people. So the rethotic is all about fear and hatred, but not really consequential.
There are, however, some details on the analogy that are worth noting: in ancient Israel, after stoning, the corpse was hung from a tree and put on public display until sunset. Hanging between earth and heaven was symbolic of rejection from both worlds. Humilliation and shame after death. Defilement of the memory of the deceased. Horror in the minds of the observers. That's what shunning after disfellowshipping is meant to accomplish to ex-JWs.
In JW land, the shunning follows the disfellowshipped person even AFTER death. Regarding funeral procedures, a "wordly unbeliever" gets better treatment than an ex-JW to whom a funeral service conducted by a minister of religion is denied. So much for "all sins are forgiven in death" ...
i have a question for those more versed in biblical history than i. .
knowing that a belief in a resurrection on messianic times was a later jewish belief ... but still ... did the ot jews believe that someone served a capital punishment / death sentence would be elegible for future resurrection?.
meaning: when coding the torah, did its writers intended that the capital punishment also be understood as an obliteration for all eternity?.
Slimboyfat, Isaiah 26:19 (composed in the 8th century BC, hence, pre-exilic) also discusses resurrection:
But your dead will live; their bodies will rise.
Those who live in the dust will wake up and shout for joy!
For your dew is like the dew of dawn,
and the earth will give birth to the dead.
And Isaiah 52:12-53:13, speaking of the "suffering servant", also seems to be speaking of some reward in an afterlife.
i have a question for those more versed in biblical history than i. .
knowing that a belief in a resurrection on messianic times was a later jewish belief ... but still ... did the ot jews believe that someone served a capital punishment / death sentence would be elegible for future resurrection?.
meaning: when coding the torah, did its writers intended that the capital punishment also be understood as an obliteration for all eternity?.
I wonder if this passage could offer a useful clue?
Deuteronomy 21:22, 23: "If a man commits a sin deserving the sentence of death and he has been put to death and you have hung him on a stake, his dead body should not remain all night on the stake. Instead, you should be sure to bury him on that day, because the one hung up is something accursed of God, and you should not defile your land that Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance."
The executed was "accursed of God ". No place in the resurrection of the righteous, then? Or ...?
i have a question for those more versed in biblical history than i. .
knowing that a belief in a resurrection on messianic times was a later jewish belief ... but still ... did the ot jews believe that someone served a capital punishment / death sentence would be elegible for future resurrection?.
meaning: when coding the torah, did its writers intended that the capital punishment also be understood as an obliteration for all eternity?.
All good references, still not addressing my question... did ancient Jews thought of people executed with death penalty as permanently obliterated, or would they hold hope in a future resurrection / afterlife?
Any Talmudic / Targumic / apocrypha sources on this?