"back in the day people didn't know not to abuse kids"- a jw explanation for their abuse scandal

by purrpurr 49 Replies latest watchtower scandals

• 

  Finkelstein

  Joe there is plenty that can be down loaded on the Net, You Tube for example.

  These links of their URL address can be copied and pasted into e-mails
  

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLAC9kS_EqM
  
• 

  Vidiot

  Heaven - "...They will only change when they are forced to do it legally..."

  Ten bucks says not even then.
• 

  Finkelstein

  They are forced to by law only in some States and jurisdictions in the US, certainly not all around the world.
  

  In spite of child sexual abuse being a serious crime for decades in most modernized countries, the WTS, intentionally covered up these situations to protect the image of their religoius organization, similar to what the Catholics were doing.
  
• 

  Vidiot

  Finkelstein - "They are forced to by law only in some States and jurisdictions in the US..."

  Most of 'em find a way around that, too.

  An example: anonymous phone tips... which, statistically, don't get investigated by the police all that often, because they're usually unreliable, lacking in proper information, and can't be followed up on with the caller, because they're, you know, anonymous.

  Finkelstein - "...the WTS, intentionally covered up these situations to protect the image of their religious organization, similar to what the Catholics were doing."

  At least with the new guy in charge, the RCC actually seems to be owning up to and doing something about it.
• 

  ToesUp

  We have seen this before but it was well worth watching again. The hard part is watching the damage done to innocent children and the long term affects of child molestation.

  The arrogance of the 2 elders was incredible. Not one word of sympathy for the victims.

  We believe there is a sh&t storm coming for WT. I hope we are around to see it.

  Thank you for posting this purrpurr. Many new ones probably have not watched.

  Child abuse has been hidden for years within WT. Let's hope Karma will bit them in the a@s soon.
• 

  Finkelstein

  Yes the RCC has taken an aggressive stance and actions to stop these situations from happening within their organization.
  

  Good to see and witness.
  

  On the other hand the WTS idiots have taken a weakly positioned irresponsible stance, like their organization never had a real problem at all.
  

  In a matter of fact they have taken the weak position to only watch carefully upon those who may have been accused or admitted to this behavior themselves, No strong position of making this situations known to outside police authorities.
  

  So its expected that cover ups are going to continue
  

  If religions are not enforced to let these situations to be investigated by outside law authorities then they wont , their pretentious image is more important to them to protect and the WTS/JWS is good viable example of that.
  
• 

  rebel8

  I'm going to analyze each aspect of this line of reasoning:

  1. In the 50s-80s people didn't know about child abuse Although we knew and constantly preached about every other real and imagined danger to children, including dating, masturbation, pep rallies and Pac Man, and our Bible mentions rape lots of times, we had no idea it actually exists--it did happen but we weren't aware of it
     
  2. didn't know it was wrong Although our litteratrash constantly discusses how rape and sex with someone you're not married to is a terrible sin, we had no idea it was actually wrong.--it did happen but we didn't know it was wrong
     
  3. no one really believed children when they claimed they had been abused - even worldly people even though our Bible says to let the children openly express themselves--it did happen but we didn't believe the victims, which is worldly people's fault, not ours
     
  4. They said that alot of the time children lie about being abused or therapists plant false memories in their heads even though we have no way to actually quantify how often this happened to jw children, we will hang our hat on this--it didn't really happen
     
  5. apostates lie about being abused to undermine our faith--it didn't really happen
• 

  LisaRose

  While it's true that we didn't know as much about child sex abuse in the past, it was always known that it was wrong. The Watchtower claims to be directed by God, why didn't he direct them to be better than other religions at the time when it came to protecting innocent children? Is it not a "spiritual paradise"?

  And it is absolutely not true that children often lie about being abused. While it has happened on occasion, it is not the norm and anytime a child claims to be abused it should be taken very seriously.
  

  About the Borg not cooperating with the commission they said that it was probably because they wanted to protect the identities of jw's who had been abused.

  This is ridiculous. The commission would protect the identity of any child that has been abused, their names would not be released. It is the identity of the child predators and their own reputation they are seeking to protect.

  They claimed that all that child abuse stuff happened in the past and doesn't happen now. The society has never told elders not to go to the police and that elders who haven't have decided that on their own.

  So something magical happened around 1995 or so that suddenly caused child sexual abuse to stop?

  The society may never have explicitly told elders not to go to the police, but they created a culture where the idea of "not bringing reproach on Jehovah's name" was paramount, the judgement of elders was absolute and where all transgressions were considered a spiritual matter only. To this day they still ask that they be contacted before the elders talk to the authorities, what does that tell you?

  that we should trust in Jehovah's organisation and if we do then we won't pay attention to these discouraging reports

  Typical JW behavior, but how sad. This is how all corrupt organization flourish, people are unwilling to accept or act on information that would be inconvenient to themselves or require them to admit they made a mistake in choosing a religion. They are complicit in the continuing abuse.
• 

  Vidiot

  For anyone out there who insists that the problem can't be addressed because the courts would be too scared to tread on "freedom of religion", I assure you...

  ...if there were any circumstance that would enable the federal government to revoke a church's tax-exempt status (due to repeated failure or refusal to conform to certain standards) and have huge public support, it would be this one.

  It's one of the reasons the WTS is fighting so hard (and - in some instances - actually trying to play the "religious freedom" card)...

  ...the kind of reforms they'd have to initiate to meet said standards would undermine virtually everything about the Org's modus operandi, and, ultimately, its claim of being "God's Earthly Organization" * ...

  ...and from the WT leadership's POV, that simply cannot be allowed to happen.

  * IMO, they would no longer even be "Jehovah's Witnesses".
  
• 

  Vidiot

  "...we should trust in Jehovah's organisation and if we do then we won't pay attention to the man behind the curtain these discouraging reports..."

  :smirk:

  "Typical JW behavior, but how sad."
  

  Oh, yeah, I'm all broken up about it.

  Those poor, misguided JWs...
  

  I think a more appropriate word might be "mad". Easier to retype, at least.