australia branch sent Vin Toole to law school...
still the legal eagle at bethel i believe?
oz
Hypocrisy 101 - Watchtower has Payed for College/College Courses for Bethelites!
by Crisis of Conscience 43 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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shepherd
"No you did not read the title wrong."
Payed?
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Crisis of Conscience
Correction noted. I meant PAID and not PAYED. Thanks shepherd. I spell checked myself and missed the most important part - the title! I can't even blame the computer. I sense a weakness. LOL
CoC
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Lady Viola
In the Netherlands a few Bethelites went to Universitity to get a degree in Sign Language. They're not on Bethel anymore, but serve as CO's in the sign language field.
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Band on the Run
I'm a lawyer. It is a disciplined system. Hard questions are asked in the Socratic method. I don't see how anyone with honed legal skills can function as a Witness. You would have to compartmentalize your life. Lawyers are an integral part of government. We could have no government as we know it without them. I mean any lawyer, not only lawyers who represent government. You are heavily regulated by the state. Yet there are JW lawyers. I assumed some nutty lawyer converted to JWs but I am wrong.
Do they pay or encourage select ones to study in other fields? I've worked on several landmark cases before the Supreme Court in the civil rights field. My mom was expelled from high school b/c of flag salute and my father was a drinking body of Hayden Covington. I was going to write my senior thesis about the landmark Witness caases and interview Covington. I thought the personal angle would come in handy. The Witness stuff upsets me. I decided to pursue a neutral topic since I needed good grades to be admitted to law school. Lawyers at this level are very bright, analytical and creative. I just can't see a Witness lawyer calling the law accurately. When I have strong interests in the outcome of a case, it is hard for me to read and analyze cases and facts in a dispassionate manner. Knowing my weaknesses is essential to preparing a good product.
There is much debate within the profession of the role of legal counsel. In house counsel work directly for a company and interact with key executives. Large corporations are required to have outside counsel, law firms who handle many clients and industries. The SEC and the ABA Model Rules of Ethics have slightly different standards of conduct for the different functions of a lawyer. When I practiced, certain clients can sink a law firm if they leave. Many times partners became too entwined with the clients' wants.
Equal protection is not a JW concept. It strikes me as fundamentally unfair that most Witnesses are consigned to menial, often part-time jobs so they can do the glamorous work of going door to door. There seems to be an elect class that can use whatever abilities God gave them. It establishes classes within the Society, which is exactly what Paul wrote about and Jesus addressed. This topic affects me greatly. I only attended college b/c my teachers were adamant that I go. My parents were out of the loop. I had to compete with kids who were prepared from before they were born. College was consistently derided. While I was at Columbia on a generous scholarship, my grandmother bragged about my cousin working as a janitor at a community college. When he was fired, it was just as well b/c he had to deal with those wacko, crazy, immoral college students. This was said to my face. The added burden I carried with me was difficult. Now I can dismiss it. It is not easily dismissed at 18 when you are the first person you know, aside from teachers, to go to college. I thought there was some magical difference between other students and myself.
The lack of education is striking when you go door to door in middle class neighborhoods. The arrogance and presumptions that a few hours of not reading the Bible entitles you to class yourself as a Bible student who can instruct others is striking. It was my further misfortune to attend a mostly black, poor KH. The geography in my neighborhood caused de facto segration. Whites lives on the hill, blacks below it. The Witnesses called my immediate neighborhood "goat hill."
Ah, what else is new? This site has proved to be valuable to me. It is merely a cult.
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alias
Do as we say, not as we do.
Isn't it interesting how man can determine who is and who is not "faithful in their service."
While Sister Single Parent sits at the Thursday night meeting feeling guilty about taking nursing courses to support her family, Bethel Powers get to cherry pick the best of the best to build their army for Theocratic Warfare.
I guess the best answer to prying noses would be to say, "I'm taking courses/going to college to better support my service to Jehovah." What could they say to that?
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Jim_TX
It doesn't surprise me a bit.
I remember, long ago, when they would announce from the platform that they were seeking JWs to sign up for Bethel who had college degrees. That was a small prick in my mind - it was kinda like... "We discourage college education, but need people with college degrees."
Of course everyone in the audience thought nothing of this, and all applauded - as usual.
Also... an irony, there were usually none who would qualify that could 'sign up' (including myself).
Regards,
Jim TX
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Joliette
Wow hypocrisy at its finest.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
CoC,
Phil Brumley comes to mind. I think he's still the overseer of Legal at Patterson. I think he came in to Bethel as a regular recruit, but somebody recognized his talent. They got some kind of commitment from him to stay, and they paid for him to go to school. I also think his wife is in very poor health, so they have an off-site house and he drives in to the office.
Here's a listing of lawyers for the town of Patterson... http://lawyers.justia.com/lawyers/new-york/patterson#lawyers
I don't know how many of the other lawyers were paid for by Bethel. I think most were like Erna Neufeld and their family paid for their education and they got the fast track into Bethel. If anything, Bethel might have paid off their student loans.
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Joliette
@ Billy
I've never understood the whole lawyer thing. It seems that they would have non-JW's lawyers.