Marked
Shunning: The Watchtower's Self-Inflicted Wound
by slimboyfat 99 Replies latest members campaign
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Vanderhoven7
Mark Jones writes
For legal reasons they don't disfellowship people for accepting a blood transfusion. Instead the person is regarded as having “disassociated” from the cult. The same punishment of shunning follows.
As regards to shunning children, let's take the following example…
Little Sally is 6 years old and gets baptized. (This is actually the youngest age I've actually heard of someone getting baptized).
A year later, Sally celebrates Christmas with someone from school and actually thinks its OK.
She is then disfellowshipped as an “unrepentant sinner".
Her parents and siblings living in the same house as her would not be forced to shun her. However, every other Jehovah’s Witness, including family living outside her home would literally pretend she's invisible. That means in her own congregation they'd ignore her, not even look at her. Her 6 and 7yo friends would also shun her.
You know the way Jesus shunned little children?… oh, no, wait…
Can you imagine how psychologically damaging that would be to a little child?
Welcome to the whacky world of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
You know, like a cult?
EDIT: Seeing as Theodore Tsistinas in the comments section has claimed that I lied about the 6 year old baptism thing, I refer you (as usual) to their own publications:
In the summer of 1946, I was baptized at the international convention in Cleveland, Ohio. Although I was only six years of age, I was determined to fulfill my dedication to Jehovah. The Watchtower, 1992 3/1 p. 27
In 1934, Mom and Dad were baptized. I too wanted to get baptized, and I kept insisting until Mother asked an older Witness to talk with me about it. He asked many questions in a manner that I could understand. Then he told my parents that I should not be prevented from being baptized; it might harm my spiritual growth. So I was baptized the following summer, when I was still six. The Watchtower, 1996, 8/1, p. 21
A survey of the publishers in Ghana showed that 12 percent of the more than 50,000 publishers were between 6 and 20 years of age. Yearbook, 1998, p. 14
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DesirousOfChange
Let's review: It's A Cult!
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Bill Covert
Enclosed is a letter to the U. S. Attorney's Office written on Fathers Day 2023.
It asks the question as to what is the legal requirement for a church to inform it's adherents that it employs deception to fabricate policy, when they require forfeiture of human life enforced by shunning thru their blood policy.
U. S. Attorney’s Office
Enclosed item #1, is the Jehovah Witness church informant policy. It is dated 1987, it and three other policies were part of a church reinventing its self in the mid 1980’s due to their predictions blowing up in their face in 1975.
This article was based on a real event that happened to Sharon Garig who married my uncle. She was a nurse in Oakland Ca., saw a married JW scheduled for an abortion, she tried to talk her out of ending a life, went to church elders they tried to talk the woman out of ending a life. The abortion was preformed, Sharon was black balled out of medical profession.
The real problem in this article is the deception perpetrated in paragraphs 5 & 6. You will notice the “witness” in par. 5 has to bring forth testimony, failure to do so would be a sin, hence why in Leviticus 5:1 needing to offer up a sin offering. But in par. 6 it is switched to being an informant. The man doing public cursing is a crime victim. This is unique in that in all other JW writings he is presented as a sinner that needs to be informed on [see Barbara Anderson’s essay “Flawed Decrees Conceal Criminals”]. Please Google ‘commentary on Levicitus 5:1 go to Bible Hub and read about court procedure in Jewish society [as lawyers you should find this interesting]. So, the scriptural Lev.5:1 Jehovah Witness informant policy is a deception.
Item #2; is the new 2013 Revised New World Translation JW Bible. The revision of Lev.5:1 is a high quality scholarly craftmanship. Yet to this day the church has cloaked its revision in silence. In 2013 I taught Barbara Anderson the true meaning of this revision. She was a researcher in the JW writing dept., please read her essay “Flawed Decrees Conceal Criminals” “Watchtower Documents.org. The reason for keeping it a secret is item #3.
Item #3; is the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society form “Notification of Disfellowshipping or Disassociation” Both disfellowshippings and disassociations carry the same sanction of “shunning” the complete cutting off from interaction with family and friends. Notice in disassociations the “unrepentant failure to abstain from blood”. So, to receive a blood transfusion will result in being cut off from family and friends.
The question to you is what legal responsibility does the church have to inform its membership that the church uses deception to fabricate church policy. In finance law fraud can either be the falsification of a fact or the omission of a fact. So here in the JW church where forfeiture of human life from abstaining from blood transfusions is enforced by the sanction of being shunned, is a church policy. Is not that some sort of a murder crime??? Don’t the families of patients in situations where death is a real issue entitled to the knowledge that the church uses deception to fabricate policy?
The pop singer Prince Rogers died from pain killer abuse. Because he was a JW with worn out hip joints, but prohibited from sugary by church policy prohibiting blood transfusions.
The deception of Lev.5:1 real exitance was to fabricate a hunting license to ferret out apostates!
The cornerstone of the JW preaching was the Bible verse Matthew 24: 34, “a generation”, that blew up in their face in their 1975 predictions. 1980 thru 1983 the church was a ship without a rudder. They did not have the mental talent to concoct a line of BS to keep their preaching work with in the confines of “a generation”. So, in 1983 the church formed a RICO conspiracy to actually shut the minds down. In 1984 they brough in the “obedience to the Organization mantra”, they created a brand-new enemy the “APOSTATE” and they brought in a new ‘sanction ‘SHUNNING’.
The church was now demanding absolute and unquestioned obedience to their Governing Body leadership! Anyone questioning anything now becomes an apostate and is to be kicked out and shunned! So, to ferret out apostates they had to create a deception as being there is no informant policy in the Bible.
There was also some financial scheme of loaning money at commercial interest rates for the building of Kingdom Halls, which got shut down by government 15-18 years ago. After the Kingdom Halls were built, they were dedicated to Jehovah God aka the WTB&TS. To where the church has a worldwide real estate portfolio the only cost was the paper to write the contracts on.
My situation
In the late 1980’s a couple of swindlers moved into Redding forming the “Dale and Colombo Financial Planning Firm”. They were swindling my mother-in-law see item #4. Item #5 resulted in Shasta County Superior Court Case # 109555 a $4.250,000 unregistered securities fraud. Both Ray Dale and Leonard Schappert were Board Members of bankrupt company and both were responsible for the unregistered securities. I protest the church’s sins of ‘simony’ and bribe taking Isaiah 1:23. And local Redding elders being terrified of “wolves” Acts 20: 28 – 30 and their refusal of forwarding letters in criminal investigations which resulted in court case #109555, per the instruction in the 1987 Watchtower article “A Time to Speak When?”.
Wife left in May 2004 due the pressure of the church policy “that having a mate deemed being a threat to the spirituality of a faithful JW constitutes grounds for separation of mate. In December of 2004 I was hauled before church judicial committee on grounds of being a “reviler”. They did not like me emulating the “cursing man” in par. 5 of their commentary on Lev.5:1. During the Appeals process I had mentioned a court case, Joe Moore the chief judiciary on the appeals committee responded with the name Brenda Becker, quickly put the cat back in the bag. In 2007 I hired a private investigator who uncovered Shasta County Court Case #149893, item #6. Where Ray Dale was swindling another JW widow out of $100.000. So, the church thru malic destroyed my family by concealing the swindle of another widow.
Ray Dale has had a 20+ years career of swindling seniors with in the JW Church because the church has another policy based on 1Corithians 6:1-6 prevents JW brother from taking JW brothers to court. Ray Dales victims are told “god will handle it”!
On December 26 2007 I taped court case #149893 to the church doors [just like Martin Luther] on Dec. 31 the main cowardly elder had a heart attack. My #5 son was on the fire truck that responded did CPR on the man, he said he saw sheer terror on the mans face to see the son of the man he refused to protect. Turns out that church elder tried to get my son to suck his penis, when my son was young.
Since 2004 I have been “shunned”; lost my 5 sons, don’t even know the names of some of my 10 grandchildren, I have never seen any of them over a dozen times. I was saddled with $36,000 annual alimony, of which I still pay. Currently I am being taken to court on ex wife wanting payment of house as community property. I am 77 years old, a self-employed truck mechanic, I got torn rotator cuff muscles.
How is it that a fucking church is exempt from human and civil rights violations because it is protected by the US constitution?
If you want to check out one billion dollars of Jared Kurshner’s making its way down Argentina check YouTube clip” Lorens Reibling in Argentina offering multiple multi million dollar funding for development funding>
William S Covert
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slimboyfat
I look back on what I wrote in this thread a few years ago
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TonusOH
I wonder if shunning sometimes contributes to a person deciding to walk away. Knowing what the policy is, is one thing. Experiencing it must be jarring for a person when they watch as long-time friends pretend that they do not exist, and family offer only terse comments and create a frigid atmosphere at home. The pressure is constant, especially for someone who did not build any relationships outside of the organization. Even the meetings are no respite, just a reminder of where you stand as everyone makes a concerted effort to ignore you.
When 'worldly' people become your only option, you might get to know them better and discover that they're normal folks. Just like the people in the congregation, but without the same threat of judgment hanging over your head. At least in terms of scale. At that point, the judgment and opinions of your former fellow JWs begins to matter less and less.
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careful
I look back on what I wrote in this thread a few years ago
SBF, in your other recent post to BurnTheShips you said you have changed your views on many subjects. What would you change in this OP on DFing? Indeed, it looks like the brief above words contain an incomplete thought.
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LongHairGal
TONUS OH:
Of course their opinions and judgments would matter less and less, until they don’t matter at all.
That’s why the JW religion wants its members not to have association with non-JW relatives and friends. Then when they want to shun somebody, that person will be all alone.
They tried to trick me into separating myself from my non-JW family and friends, telling me they were ‘bad association’. A lie. I knew later it was to ‘isolate’ me.. [Thankfully, I had a ‘worldly’ secular job so I was in reality versus other JWs with cleaning jobs who were only exposed to other JWs.]
I remember realizing it all for the first time one Thanksgiving season when I was all alone.. All the pieces came together.. I started searching online. This was the start of my waking up from the Witness religion and I knew I had to plan to get out of there.. Then the 1995 Generation teaching came out and I started my ‘Fade’. It was Over.
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Vanderhoven7
What is your opinion on the stories that ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses post on Quora? Do you believe these accounts are true? Please provide reasons for your stance.
Gilles Gray writes
Anecdotal accounts should be viewed with a level of caution regardless of who is doing the telling. Some people exaggerate their experiences, others weave a few tall stories in with the facts, and there are also those who try to maintain a level of objectivity when they relay their subjective experiences. This of course applies to former as well as current members of the Jehovah’s Witness religion.
Considering the nature of leaving a religion like the Jehovah’s Witnesses which is a moderately controlling, hierarchical ideology, it should come as no surprise that there are a few ex JWs who over exaggerate the negative aspects of their affiliation with their former religion.
Some who leave are damaged and vulnerable individuals who need a lot of help to overcome their issues. Add to the equation the fact that there is no way to leave this organisation with one’s dignity intact, even when one leaves for conscientious reasons.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are indoctrinated to automatically conclude that anyone leaving their organisation HAS to have done something wrong. Their minds are totally closed to the possibility that the Organisation could be bogus or at fault.
This toxic mindset can lead to terrible injustices and many sincere ex members suffer great harm as a result, often leaving them feeling angry and frustrated.
Unfortunately, a few former members seem to think that venting their emotions towards current members is an acceptable way of expressing their anger. When they meet resistance, they have the tendency to express themselves and their experiences in a hyperbolic, exaggerative manner. There are close parallels here to the language used by someone who has recently left a toxic romantic relationship.
Sometimes, especially on Quora, Jehovah’s Witnesses who confront these emotionally damaged ex members tend to be rather fragile individuals themselves. This naturally leads to a lot of unnecessary friction which benefits no one, when two opposing sides talk past each other whilst closing their ears to the viewpoint of the other.
Jehovah’s Witnesses unfortunately tend to make a blanket conclusion that ALL ex members articulate their experiences in the same hyperbolic manner. In addition, Watchtower propaganda convinces JWs that everyone who speaks out against their religion is motivated by hate and only wishes to spread lies and falsehoods against ‘God’s true congregation’. JWs fail to test these assumptions using sound reasoning, which then allows them to justify their disregard of ANY criticism made against the Organisation, valid or otherwise.
The result creates an extremely unhealthy mindset for JWs. They are left with no ability to objectively consider any legitimate critical analysis of their faith. It inhibits their ability to reason rationally using a proper and impartial application of logic.
A classic example can be seen when an ex member is presented with data from their own organisation, such as membership growth statistics. When the Organisation’s statistics contradict the notion that Jehovah’s Witnesses are doing as well as apologists like to believe, they simply ignore the facts, claiming that the damning data is ‘apostate lies’.
There are countless other instances where Jehovah’s Witnesses are confronted with obvious logic which contradicts their convictions. When they are unable to reconcile these discrepancies, they resort ‘shooting the messenger’, i.e. vilifying the individual presenting the facts. They never admit they are wrong let alone accept that they have no justifiable reason to believe that their religion is true.
Anecdotal accounts from the experience of ex members are not the most effective or reliable means of exposing the flaws of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but it should be noted that even if it could be shown that all the negative anecdotal stories against Jehovah’s Witnesses were over-exaggerations, that would in no way diminish the fundamental flaws integral to the beliefs of the faithful members and their leaders.
People who have been hurt may be prone to exaggerate their experiences, but it does not follow that they don’t have a justifiable reason to speak out and warn people of the dangers and the negative aspects of being one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.