It seems that they could be preparing for the new data protection laws..
" New EU data protection laws could be a "real headache" for UK charities if implemented in their current form, an intellectual property lawyer has warned.
Mike Gardner, head of intellectual property at the law firm Wedlake Bell, said he was telling charity clients they should prepare for the laws before they come into force, which is expected to happen between March and September next year."
"..He said these cases had already had very serious consequences for the sector from both a reputational and a financial perspective. If the new EU laws were implemented in their existing form, he said, charities would face increasing costs and scrutiny and more serious penalties if they got it wrong."
"Gardner cited the proposed obligation for any organisation with more than 250 employees to appoint a data protection officer as an example of how difficult the changes could be for charities, saying it would be an "organisational and administrative nightmare" to comply with this rule alone."
"Some of the main proposals are: introducing fines from data protection authorities of up to €1m (£780,000) or 2 per cent of annual worldwide turnover; bringing in a duty to confess, which will mean that charities will need to notify the authorities of a data breach within 24 hours of becoming aware of it and also notify the individuals whose personal data was affected; and specifying that any charity holding data on any person would have to gain explicit consent if they wished to use that data in any way."
http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/new-eu-data-protection-laws-a-headache-uk-charities-lawyer-warns/management/article/1321400
defender of truth
JoinedPosts by defender of truth
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No longer to use "house to house record" slips and "please follow up slips"!
by stuckinarut2 ina letter has just been read out indicating that effective immediately, witnesses are no longer to use the s-8 slip known as the "house to house" record slip, as well as the s-43 "please follow up" slip (usually used for foreign language people).. the letter stated that this is because of the changes in privacy laws etc that are becoming common in the world today.. i will try and get a copy of the full letter and post it asap.. .
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defender of truth
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Dammit Jim, I'm a psychopath not an all loving God!
by Coded Logic inwhen did you discover that the god of bible - and the loving god that you had worshiped your entire life - were not the same?
how did it affect you?.
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defender of truth
Cold Steel:
"In the extra-biblical Book of Jasher, it was the animals who formed a protective ring around the ark once it was loaded. The people wanted to break into the ark, but the lions and other predators prevented them. Yet they, themselves, would later die in the flood. I'd always wondered how Noah kept the people away once the ship was complete and loaded. It's a plausible account, I think."
Adding one ridiculous fairytale on top of another makes it MORE plausible?..
This 'account' only makes God seem worse.
He callously used these creatures, that were about to be murdered by Him for no reason at all.. in order to prevent people from trying to escape the slaughter with their families?
Cold Steel:
"It sounds callous to say now, but our sufferings are but a moment. The animals that died in the flood did not suffer horrible deaths, and there are many others that have suffered much more than the ones in the flood. And people."
Firstly, where you said 'it sounds callous to say'.. That is likely your humanity and sense of compassion talking. It is a shame that religious beliefs can cause people to both ignore those feelings, whilst at the same time inventing a God that embodies such a callous disregard for suffering..
Cold Steel:
"Once one conceives of a just God, the suffering is just something we have to go with for now."
Once one invents a God that is 'just', and yet sees the lives, health and emotions of living creatures as expendable or irrelevant because of the long term benefits (imagined or otherwise)...
Then any and all acts of cruelty and murder could be either justified or dismissed as unimportant.
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For some examples of animal suffering that God not only tolerated but built into the natural world, see here:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/222352/20/Theists-why-does-God-allow-suffering -
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Dammit Jim, I'm a psychopath not an all loving God!
by Coded Logic inwhen did you discover that the god of bible - and the loving god that you had worshiped your entire life - were not the same?
how did it affect you?.
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defender of truth
"6. God will reward those animals who suffer by resurrecting them to eternal bliss.
This view has been put forward by Irenaeus, Athanasius, C.S. Lewis, Jurgen Moltmann and Keith Ward among others.
While this view seems somewhat absurd to many people, it doesn't answer the problem anyway.
Just because someone is rewarded in the future for the suffering he endures in the present does not excuse the one who is responsible for the suffering.
The suffering is still a wrong no matter how much reward is later given."
http://formerfundy.blogspot.in/2010/05/christian-delusion-chapter-nine.html
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For anyone wanting to follow a logical and informative discussion on why a loving God lets animals suffer, this thread is a good read. It was what finally turned me towards atheism..
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/222352/1/Theists-why-does-God-allow-suffering -
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When Was Jerusalem Destroyed By The Babylonians?
by Smart incan someone explain in easy to understand language what this argument is all about.
i am not that clever.
i am hoping to talk to the elders about this as well as whoever is willing to talk about it on here.
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Theists, why does God allow suffering..
by The Quiet One in..specifically, the suffering of animals.
you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.
i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.
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defender of truth
Final final bump, scouts honour.. ;)
But this post was SO moving that I really HAD to re-post it from Cofty's thread.
I've edited it slightly for brevity and to just show the parts that apply directly to this topic.
What do YOU feel or think about the concept of a loving God, when you read heartfelt comments like these?..
Humbled said:
"But here is the case for me:
I have seen so much of the suffering of animals.
When I first came to live with my husband on his farm in the Ozark mountains I could not bear the ways that pain and death overtook creatures in the barnyard and woodland.
A stray dog tore through a nest of kittens, a hog waiting for his feed reached sideways to a rooster and munched off shoulder and breast of the bird whose grieving cries were hushed when the hog swallowed his first bite and then ate the rooster's head off.
I heard the strange cries a frog makes as it commences its one-way trip into a blacksnake's belly. The plaintive shriek of a young rabbit when the farm dog lays tender flesh bare with a flick of her teeth. Not to mention the torments of innumerable mice and baby birds for the amusement of generations of barn cats, and horrors more than these..."
(Talking here about having to kill animals at times)
"....But I, I make that end swift and painless.
So that is my case--The dog does not do the same for a chicken. And sadly, he cannot gainsay me.
Obviously it is only fair to say on the dog's behalf that he doesn't have the same resources as I do-- even if he had a disposition toward the chicken as kindly as my own.
But God doesn't have the dog's excuse, does He?
...I am far from a saint. My failures depress me-- but it has served this: to make me all the more suspicious of claims of an all-powerfull all-loving God, who supplies no evidence of a concern equal to my own."
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/experiences/269000/127/The-Pastor-of-my-Old-Church-Tried-to-Re-Convert-Me-Yesterday -
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Jehovah's Witnesses child abuse and judical comittees, YLE TV1 News 11/1/2014
by tunnistaja.ee inhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnoslbdatzc.
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defender of truth
[From a news article I found. Notice that there are 28 other documented cases.]
"This would have been a matter for the police, but the elders banned me from going to the police because the name of Jehovah couldn't be dragged through the mud,” Aho says.
“It was really cruel. A young girl under fire in front of three men,” she says. “The men asked confusing questions, such as whether I had indulged in group sex. The Committee emphasized that I had done wrong and that I was wicked and adulterous. No one defended me.”
...'The Victims of Religion Support Association has documented 28 such human experiences under the Jehovah's Witness legal committee.'
http://yle.fi/uutiset/abuse_victim_jehovahs_witnesses_refused_to_report_rape_to_the_police/7592733 -
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Update today on Candace Conti vs Watchtower case
by Watchtower-Free inhttp://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/case/dockets.cfm?dist=1&doc_id=2025979&doc_no=a136641.
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defender of truth
The letter was from Joseph Herrera.
Feel free to read the links provided :) -
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Update today on Candace Conti vs Watchtower case
by Watchtower-Free inhttp://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/case/dockets.cfm?dist=1&doc_id=2025979&doc_no=a136641.
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defender of truth
Back to the topic..
This is the only info I could find.
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(Outlaw found Joseph Herrera on LinkedIn and posted it here)
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/child-abuse/253934/9/Candace-Conti-v-Watchtower-Society-June-3-2013-Respondents-Brief-prepared-by-Rick-Simons-A136641
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(and Joseph Herera's contact details, as well as an explanation of unsolicited letters being submitted in court cases, are posted here on the next page)
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/child-abuse/253934/10/Candace-Conti-v-Watchtower-Society-June-3-2013-Respondents-Brief-prepared-by-Rick-Simons-A136641 -
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Dammit Jim, I'm a psychopath not an all loving God!
by Coded Logic inwhen did you discover that the god of bible - and the loving god that you had worshiped your entire life - were not the same?
how did it affect you?.
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defender of truth
Cold Steel said:
"[God] was loving, compassionate, merciful, but He also knew the evil in the hearts of men and their secret deeds...
The Lord then shows him the coming flood and the people who would die. At first, Enoch entreats God to spare humanity, but then the Lord shows him the wickedness of the people and their deeds...
The day will come when every knee will bend and every tongue will confess that Jesus is the Christ. Why? Because, like Enoch, you will have the same insight that the Lord had and realize that He did what had to be done in the context it was done."
(end quote)
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COLD STEEL, what evil deeds did the animals commit (who were killed in Noah's day)? What secret sins had those creatures carried out that would impel a loving God to drown them all, in the supposedly justified mass murder known as 'the Flood'?
Even looking at the situation in the context of every person on earth being violent and perverted except Noah and his family...
God DID NOT merely 'do what had to be done'.
You would have to admit that God had the power to (I'm borrow wording used in your post) 'surgically remove' all of those wicked people from the earth.
He could have done that, couldn't He?
No collateral damage is necessary if you have the power to selectively kill whoever you choose whilst sparing the innocent and 'godly' people, which your God clearly does.
God chose to mercilessly drown all of those innocent, and sinless, living beings.
Please explain why God 'did what had to be done' in the case of those animals...
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Genesis 7:21
" And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark."
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/222352/23/Theists-why-does-God-allow-suffering -
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Theists, why does God allow suffering..
by The Quiet One in..specifically, the suffering of animals.
you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.
i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.
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defender of truth
As my final contribution to JWN, I just found this excellent article. I think it sums things up nicely, here are a few of the key points..
"[1. Animal suffering is due to the fall of Adam]
...The problem with both of these variations is why should animals be punished for what man did? It seems grossly unfair and unkind to subject them to such terrible suffering for something that was totally beyond their control.
[2. Animal suffering is due to the evil influence of demons and Satan.]
...The problem with this view is well expressed by Richard Kingston:
If God entrusted to fallible angelic beings such absolute control over creation that it was within their power to "brutalize" the animal kingdom for all time, then he cannot be exonerated from all culpability for what allegedly happened. Must we not go further and say that such action would indicate either incompetence or the fact that the sufferings of the lower creatures are unimportant in eyes of the Creator? (Animals and Christianity, p. 74 cited by Loftus, p. 251).
[3. Animals really do NOT suffer]
...Science has conclusively shown that animals do in fact feel pain and experience the emotions of fear and anxiety as well. An omniscient God would have known this when he created the animal kingdom so the only conclusion one can draw is that he simply doesn't care about their suffering.
[4. and 5. God is indifferent to animal suffering]
...The problem with this view is that it is repugnant to man's moral sensibilities. It would make God no different from those, like Michael Vick, who run dog-fighting rings. If what Vick did was morally disgusting, then what the Creator has done on a much larger scale is even more disgusting."
http://formerfundy.blogspot.com/2010/05/christian-delusion-chapter-nine.html