This doesnt sound like an "oh-I-was-weak-and-couldn't-help-myself-in-the-moment-around-these-hot-gay-jewish-black-dudes-from-Thailand" sort-of scenario.
Sounds like he planned the trips. Think of all the opportunities someone would have to turn away from that course of action - the car, the airport, the other airport, hotel. There's nothing sudden about it. The decision stretches out over weeks, including planning.
MeanMrMustard
JoinedPosts by MeanMrMustard
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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MeanMrMustard
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It begins norway no money for wt because of shunning
by Yomama inorganized shunning will stop when money stops.
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MeanMrMustard
It would be better if 1) he just states he was wrong, with a little mea cupla, 2) owns it, and 3) and this would be the ultimate in awesomeness - publish a book along side of Carl Olaf Jonsson.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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MeanMrMustard
@vienne:
That would be the icing on the cake - a full confession (Thailand, leather chaps, elephants, circus music, and elderly transgender gay Jewish black dudes) at the end of his book, in the last few paragraphs. Nobody ever made it that far, so he was safe.
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It begins norway no money for wt because of shunning
by Yomama inorganized shunning will stop when money stops.
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MeanMrMustard
Furuli maintains in his blog My Beloved Religion that 32 of the 43 disfellowshipping offences mentioned in Shepherd the Flock of God are made up by the GB and have no Bible backing. He also maintains that neither shunning nor disassociation are based on the Bible. Whether or not he enforced shunning and towing the WT line before being disfellowshipped I do not know.
I have to admit, I don't keep up with the latest from Furuli. But thanks for pointing me toward his blog.
But I can see by the dates on the articles (late September 2020), he published well after being DFed. So either his experience of being dfed led him to examine other doctrines and he changed his mind on those too, or these were held prior to being to dfed.
And on his blog, he still claims that he believes the WT is still the one true religion.
"Its the Truth!, except for these 50+ things"
As I have stated, I don't agree with the government getting involved. But it's interesting to see how fast he ran to the government to gain leverage. I think a lot of people have that reaction because they want their family to behave differently. I think Furuli wants to force them to listen to his doctrine. He's so concerned now, but he could have sent that letter long ago. He didn't because he was in the organization and wanted to climb the ranks.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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MeanMrMustard
Because nobody goes abroad to screw old hags.
Have you seen TLC lately? Some people have crazy freak flags. How do we know he went to screw women?
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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MeanMrMustard
Boy, this thread really took off.
I wasn't involved with the original shenanigans from cedars. The whole thing has that mid-afternoon soap feel to it.
...not going abroad to screw young women.
How do we know they were young?
But it is true - for the JWs following him, it only confirms that they should definitely stay clear of those horrible DFed people.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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MeanMrMustard
Looks like the post was taken down?
Not sure what this is about. Juicy gossip?
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It begins norway no money for wt because of shunning
by Yomama inorganized shunning will stop when money stops.
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MeanMrMustard
Woe, woe.. hang on there. Putting aside the greater issue here, did I catch this correctly???:
The County Governor has received a letter from Rolf Furuli in connection with the exclusion and expulsion of members. The Ministry of Children and Family Affairs has asked the County Governor to consider whether the inquiry from Furuli seems to be information of importance for registration and government grants for Jehovah's Witnesses, cf. Section 6 of the Religious Communities Act, and possibly assess the need to make further investigations, cf. Section 10 of the Religious Communities Regulations.
So it was Furuli, after getting DFed himself, that got this ball rolling? My oh my, after decades of enforcing shunning and towing the WT line, he does this?
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It begins norway no money for wt because of shunning
by Yomama inorganized shunning will stop when money stops.
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MeanMrMustard
According to the State Attorney, they will now miss out on NOK 16 million in support. A little extra poking around and it seems like (although I could be incorrect) that Norway is distributing actual subsidies here, not tax cuts. Although I loath the idea of "tax breaks" being a government payment at all (just stealing less money isn't a payment). But I digress.
16 million kroner is about $1.7 million USD. According to jw.org, there are 12,001 publishers in Norway. That would come to about $146 per publisher for the year. In other words, about $12 per month for each publisher.
Even though the WT is appealing, I'm sure they can easily use this horrible attack by Satan's system in order to ask each publisher for a bit more of their budget. You know that small sandwich you buy each day at lunch? Just do that one time less each month.
To be fair, I'm not for the government handing out cash, regardless. And the organizations that rely on it become beholden to the government based on that money. Do you think there is anyone in the WT organization, at any level, thinking "Well, that's $1.7 million less, maybe we should just rework our entire doctrine"? And for all the faults of the WT, it's really good at being prudent. Do you really think they won't compensate for the clear political shift anyone can see coming?
This isn't the beginning of the end for the WT or for shunning.
To summarize:
1. The subsidies to the WT is barely anything
2. It can be used as a rally point to gather more funds from the publishers, and it will most likely work
3. They might win the appeal anyway
4. It won't change the minds of any one of the 12K publishers in Norway.
5. And this is the most important: the support system for the WT in Norway are those 12k people - the same people that *agree* with the WT in principle and/or in action.
By all means, the WT are engaging in assholery. Draw attention to that, absolutely! But don't fool yourself, the shunning isn't going to stop.
And hold those who shun you responsible - your "friends" and "family". It's their moral agency.ALSO - think about what sort of political world you are creating by giving the government control over freedom.of association. It seems to be eroded in Norway and Belgium, perhaps also the EU in general.
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Call me Suspicious, but ...
by Simon inwhen the president is going somewhere to talk about an infrastructure bill, and wants support for ever more endless spending, some of which is for bridge reconstruction, having a bridge collapse on the very day and in the very place he's going just seems "too perfect", doesn't it?.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60173771.
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MeanMrMustard
Yeah, kinda like the Jussie Smolett incident happening at the same time Cory Booker and Kamala Harris wanted to push through anti-lynching legislation? Everyone was mocking it as useless, woke, virtue signaling, and then all of a sudden a noose appears.