Posts by bemused

24

Why I believe in God. Why I don't believe in God.

by The Rebel in

jw
friends

hi i am delighted to be apart of the community.. having left the witnesses one of my first challenges was my believe in god.

naturally.. i have concluded that i am alive and conscious.

now my intuition tells me god exists, but my analytical thinking tells me god does not exist.

bemused

Hi Rebel. I was never a Witness but I was brought up as a Christian (Catholic). I left that faith because I didn't believe in a god anymore. This is fairly typical of ex-Catholics but it seems that many Witnesses leave their religion but, initially at least, remain as Christians.

I agree with freemindfade that it's key to accept that humans don't know everything, but are learning more and more. Don't be tempted to attribute things we don't understand yet to god.

Regarding intuition - our sun is one star in a galaxy of at least 100 billion stars. The total number of galaxies has been estimated as up to 10 trillion. How likely is it that any god would take a personal interest in our lives? My intuition says very, very unlikely.

40

Is the two-witness rule really unreasonable?

by stillin in

i'm picturing a situation in which a savvy 12 year old doesn't like the house rules that mom's new husband has put into place.

or something along that line.

i can certainly agree that protection of children is paramount, but who protects the real victim in those cases?

bemused

Law enforcement agencies are well aware of the problem of false allegations. They have the expertise to assess that possibility, elders don't.

22

Dissent on JW-Archive

by bemused in

in the posts about the australian royal commission there have been several references to discussions on jw-archive.

i'd not heard of that site, so checked it out.

it seems to be used by many active jws - its tumblr style archive is full of pictures of jws doing their thing.

bemused

My OP was inspired by following this link that was provided by Mad Sweeney on a thread about the Australian Royal Commission.

http://www.jw-archive.org/post/125203559728/jworg-under-attack-by-gog-of-magog-first-russia#disqus_thread

I was just intrigued to see that there seems to be at least some genuine discussion on what, as far as I can tell, is a site used by active, believing JWs. There's a fair bit of apostate name calling as well, of course.

22

Dissent on JW-Archive

by bemused in

in the posts about the australian royal commission there have been several references to discussions on jw-archive.

i'd not heard of that site, so checked it out.

it seems to be used by many active jws - its tumblr style archive is full of pictures of jws doing their thing.

bemused

In the posts about the Australian Royal Commission there have been several references to discussions on jw-archive. I'd not heard of that site, so checked it out. It seems to be used by many active JWs - its Tumblr style archive is full of pictures of JWs doing their thing. However the discussions contain a lot of dissent, some apparently from active JWs.

A brief exchange that caught my eye:

Post: I'll let my friends know this site is apostate

Response: Speaking the truth is NOT apostasy.

Does anyone know the background to this web-site?

11

Highlight this fact: Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

by Lemonp in

i have discussed this with a few jw relatives.

all have tried to pass this off as a case to review a few bad cases.. highlight to them the name of the inquiry:.

royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

bemused

Indeed - it's easy to forget what the focus is. Thee Org's appalling practices are being held up for all to see,

Many of the 1006 cases in Australia led to dis-fellowshipping, so presumably the elders were convinced in these cases at least that criminal activity had taken place, but not once did they inform the police. The abusers were left to carry on their activities in wider society. Absolutely shocking.

15

Why are none of the 'Governing Body' being summoned to any of the abuse commissions?

by GodZoo in

i'm not sure if this has been covered but i'm wondering why none of the gb are being requested at or formally summoned to any of the australian abuse commissions or other investigations that are taking place around the world?

they after all are the ones single handedly responsible for making and enforcing all the rules that are the sole cause of all these abuses and problems.. why are they just keeping their silent distance and leaving all the ill-equipped and sadly incompetent local elders exposed to take the full public blast, criticism and humiliation for all that is now being brought out in these investigations?

how are they seemingly able to sit cosy in their ivory tower immune and unaccountable?.

bemused

The Royal Commission is investigating the activities of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia, which appears to be a corporate entity. The Commission therefore has no mandate to call in GB members.

However as a corporate entity (and assuming Australian law is similar to the UK), the local officials will be fully and wholly responsible for the WT's actions in Australia. It won't be an acceptable defence to say that the GB told them to do something.

23

Uh-Oh, JW's are confused by the news reporting... Getting texts from active members

by thedepressedsoul in

you can refer to me as a still in mole.

anyway, i've been getting texts from jw's about the australia news.

the general census is that the jw's are very, very confused.

bemused

'I've had a few even say that this is the same thing that happened to the Catholic church!'

Perhaps you could point out (in a very confused and upset way of course) that there are over 5 million catholics in Australia but well under 100k JWs, so relatively the problem for the WT is much worse!

27

Australia Evidence List is public and contains Elders Book

by Skidmarks in

there is so much information on the website of the hearing.

you can find the full transcripts of each day there as pdf.. but also the evidence list is very interresting.

it contains many confidential letters from congregations but also from the hq to branch offices.. the full list can be seen here: http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/exhibits/636f01a5-50db-4b59-a35e-a24ae07fb0ad/case-study-29,-july-2015,-sydney.

bemused

As a never-in, I think the opening submission contains a great summary of the religion - I'm going to keep it for reference.

43

Extrapolation of the Australia child abuse numbers

by sir82 in

(let me know if anyone thinks my assumptions are way out of line, or if i've forgotten anything).

basic facts:.

the australian royal commission has 1000+ documented cases of child abuse over 65 years.

bemused

The opening submission to the Royal Commission says that there are 817 congregations in Australia.

It's hard to say how many of the alleged abusers will still be active - less than half? If we guess 400 then there would then be one alleged abuser per two Australian congregations. How many unknown abusers there are is anyone's guess.

39

JW Reaction to Royal Commission Reports

by maksutov in

has anybody confronted any jws with the royal commission reports on the news yet?

i showed my 8-year old daughter a newspaper headline about it, and when she told my jw wife that the jws in australia were in trouble for not reporting over 1,000 child abusers to police, her response was "oh, really?

well, i don't know what the rules are over there.

bemused

It's on the BBC web-site. I imagine UK newspapers will pick up on the story too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-33673240