by crawdad2 41 Replies latest watchtower scandals
amac,
whew!!!!!.......that's the kind of comments that little girls get asked by elders, after they have been molested.
do you think sabine and her husband mac don't know why their daughter, a pioneer, commited suicide?...........she left a suicide note explaining why...........and the elders involved did not accept responsibility.
then sabine an mac were "marked".....for speaking out about it!
I'm sorry, I have a critical mind. There's always more to every story, and I was immediately curious if that was the sole reason.
amac,
I understand your critical mind. I have a tendency to be like that at times too. But I've personally met Sabine and she is one of the kindest women you could ever meet. Her and her family have been to hell and back with their experiences. People have no idea what grief means until they lose a child. Especially when it's preventable, like it was for Sabine's daughter. Just be careful when inquiring about situations as this...a little compassion never hurts and goes a LONG way!
Andi
I read all the past post, and yes not all elders are bad, but when I was 14 I was raped by an elder who was also a family member, only after it all came out after it was found out he was raping others,cheating on his wife and using drugs. The elders told my mother that it would all be taken care of.... He was Disfellowshipped was was aable to return after one year! when there was a protest we were told he express how sorry he was about all he had done and he had turned his life around. and all we had to do was to stay from around him.
My Life has been a mess and someone I trusted done it do me. So when I got disfellowshiped I was told my actions were unlady like and I shamed my mother.Having premaritail sex was wrong, I told them I never had sex unitll an elder had sex with me I was put out!
When I started having more issues as an adult I was told by another group of elders that I needed to get over it that the matter was handled and unless I had two new eye wintness and new info the matter was closed!
and the issue of women beating their children in the lady's room..Yes it true. They want children to sit for hours and when they play they take them to the bathroom and beat them my mother did it her friends did it.
Quote: "the percentage of BAD elders is very low, while the percentage of GOODS elders is very high"!
My vote goes here. I served as an Elder many years and have known many, many others. The ones I've known were good men with good hearts.
The reason for the intimate questions they ask is NOT for selfish gratification (though perhaps some like it)
The REASON is because they are SUPPOSED to! Where were you touched? This is to find out if "pornia" is involved, or "sexual misconduct"
If the Genitals are involved...it's pornia...a disfellowshipping offence. If it's the breasts....sexual misconduct.
Then they have to find out ....how long you touched there?....who initiated it?....
All of these questions determine the decisions they will make on the individual.
These matters are covered in the "Elder Books"
So not all Elders are bad nor perverts.
They are merely victims of brainwashing but "thinking" they are doing the right thing.
If you want to get mad at anyone....get mad at the sick old bastards that wrote these sick rules......I think they live in N.Y.!
amac,
This has already descended beyond any use. I'd like to sum up my beef, then I'll leave the last word to you.
I think you've been guilty of what you're accusing crawdad of. Sure there were implications in his post. But you're the one who took it to such an extreme. He didn't say, nor by my reading imply, that ALL elders were like those described. Yet you've repeatedly taken his argument to that extreme in order to debunk it.
You call his post a generalization, and I'd agree to that. Then again, you'd have a hard time finding a thread on any DB with no generalizations. I disagree that he is accusing ALL elders of this conduct or attitude. I called you an your exagerration, and you repeated it. Perhaps we should just agree to disagree on that point.
I understand that you're the skeptical type, but to decry his implications (by adding implications of your own--not to mention a nifty littly implication to Sabine's post) seems unfair.
The rest of our posts feature increasing (or descending, depending on one's perspective) levels of sarcasm and don't really deserve comment.
Hmmm
This is very scary.
Most elders are not therapists and should not be dealing with the emotional state of anyone who has been abused or otherwise.
I understand this post as being a very possible scenerio. Most people with common sense know that not every elder is terrible person. We are all aware though that the elders have to conform to the society and cannot defend an innocent person or advise them to get professional or legal assistance without the risk of being disfellowshipped themselves.
Xena,
On abuse.
Guess you didnt go to my kingdom hall near Detroit Mi.
We all got big whoopins in the bathroom. Not to mention hair pullings, soap in the mouth and so on. My mom once broke the wooden spoon over my sisters rear end. I remember when I was about 14 my mother raised a metal spatula to me and I took it out of her hand. She never hit me again after that. She was a single mother dealing with heavy stress. At the time the W.T.S. had strict rules on scriptural freedom. My father disappeared and abandonment was so vague. She needed proof of adultery in order to to be scriptually free to remarry or she would have been disfellowshipped. Anyway, getting off track there but I believe many things like stress can contribute to abuse and it probably didnt help that it was pretty much socially acceptable with most members at our local congregations. We attended about 4 different halls since our family lived in nearby areas but didnt attend the same halls. We would often visit theirs. This was mostly in the 80's though but my J.W. cousin does currently slap her son around quite a bit and she is a very active witness. She makes no secret of slapping him in the face just for fidgiting in his chair at the dinner table. When I first saw it I was so shocked I talked to her sister about it. She told me that it bothered her too but she was afraid to say anything. She said she saw her drag him to the bathroom at the hall by his ear more than once and nobody said a thing.
I agree that abuse does occur pretty much everywhere but not every religion or organization forbids their members from seeking outside help. It like, even if they suspect the abuse is continuing, they encourage the victim to just do nothing?!
This is just so wrong.
I can somewhat attest to that. I was called into a judicial committee once when I was about 18 because I was being forced to tell about having committed fornication. I had confessed this to my brother-in-law because I thought I might be pregnant and didn't know what to do. I felt safe confiding in him because he was DF'd himself at that time. Well, then about 6 months later he got reinstated and was at an assembly where the point was brought up that if you knew something about someone else and didn't make it public, then you would be held responsible too. So he came to me and said that either you tell or I will. So I had to tell the elders who then formed a judicial committee. I was asked to describe in detail everything single thing that I had done, over and over and over again. I was so humiliated by the time it was over, I wanted to die. I told my parents and my dad was very angry that they had wanted so many details and he told my uncle who was the presiding overseer that he thought it was wrong. He got counseled on following the elder's lead and that he shouldn't say any more about it. So I definitely believe all that stuff goes on. Anyone who doesn't has their head stuck in the sand!
A powerful illustration.
Bangalore
Proof?
Link?
Anything other than opinion?
