Hi gdt - I understand the vast majority of JW's and elders would deal with such situations with good sense and with a sense of justice, but these problems seem to affect most sectors of the community where vulnerable people are present and the JW's are not an exception.
The JW's handle most things in ways that meet the standard of their reading of the bible, not in accord with prevailing community standards. That leaves the JW's vulnerable to critisism on this point. I don't envy any honest, fairminded person having to deal with these situations in the raw through the congregational system - or under any circumstances.
Some of the court cases in the US and Canada seem to be providing evidence that most elders handle it as well as ordinary people are expected to, but that there is still a streak of legalism and protectivness of the reputation of the org than seems to hamper these cases sometimes, and with disasterous effect for the individuals involved (espcially concerning inappropriate use of Matt 18, see Boer v Cairns - it's off the court site now but is still on Silentlambs, or I'll send you a copy if you prefer).
All in all, writing that on an Awake! troubles me less than some of the evidence presented in courts recently.
Regards, Max
Max Divergent
JoinedPosts by Max Divergent
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36
Found an Awake at the rest stop today..and I knew exactly what to do....
by Dawn infound it at a rest stop today while traveling.
i thought about tossing it, but decided it had a much better purpose.
it was an issue on what to teach your young child - cute picture of a little girl (about 4 years old) on the cover.. so - i took it to my car, got out a pretty purple pen and wrote on the cover "this religion has a major probelm with pedophiles and is hurtful to young children.
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Max Divergent
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92
Blacks and Voting
by Mecurious? inokay, this is not meant to inflame or cause another race debate.
but something here is amiss.
why aren't more blacks getting out and registering to vote?
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Max Divergent
I personally don't see the necessity in voting in the presidential election though, the only votes that matter are from the electoral college's votes.
But don't you vote to say who the Electoral College votes for?
Maybe you can tell your friends & brother that if you all vote, then you've got more of a say in the election than George W, George H, and Jeb Bush all put together... if your partners all vote too, then you've got even more of a voice than those guys and their wives...
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Human skeletons found in Flores dated back 18,000 years!
by badboy in.
they have found `fossils' of a new human species in liang ???
cave.. only1.5 metres in height, this is of the most exciting disveries to came from east asia.. i wonder what jws will make of this one?
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Max Divergent
Just to say I was writing a post on the same topic when badboy posted his and ended up being a few minutes later... slightly different content, so I'll leave mine... no annoyance ment!
Jim_TX>> I am just puzzled as to why they are not referring to them as 'Pygmies'. Instead they have some yuppie archeologist (or paleontologist) labelling them as 'Hobbits'.
As I understand it, pygmies are a race of Homo sapiens but these little critters are a new species of humans - sort of like there are lots of species amongst the felines (lions, tigers, domestic cats...). They're not apes, but humans... but not Homo sapiens .
That's why it's such a big deal... Homo sapiens lived on earth at the same time as this species and there's the possibility that folk lore of 'little people' amongst some peoples may be oral history of this species similar to ourselves.
Homo erectus died off long before these guys and may or may not have interacted with Homo sapiens ... but these guys probably did.
Max
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New human species found!! Only 13,000 years ago...
by Max Divergent inmmm... we live not that far from flores and there local indigenous people say they won't go to certain spots becuase of 'the little people'... there are also artworks on some cave walls that noone knows who did... mmmm.... .
max .
(edited to say badboy posted on the same topic while i was still fiddling so i was a few minutes later than him... but diff content so i'll leave mine up...).
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Max Divergent
Mmm... We live not that far from Flores and there local indigenous people say they won't go to certain spots becuase of 'the little people'... there are also artworks on some cave walls that noone knows who did... mmmm....
Max
(Edited to say badboy posted on the same topic while I was still fiddling so I was a few minutes later than him... but diff content so I'll leave mine up...)
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Breakfast
by Englishman ini adore eating out for breakfast.
hl has gone to work and i have a free day.
so i'm off to sainsbury's to do a shop.
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Max Divergent
... the British are subtle about this - trick you into thinking Fish & Chips, roast beef, bangers & mash or whatever is the range of their diet... but that's to distract your attention from their primevil blood lust and unnatural desire for gore in the kitchen...
I was over there once and there was this hermit in the congo who used to catch hedgehogs in the street, slit their throat and put the whole lot in a pot and boil the thing up in its own blood and then eat the lot.
The elders said there was nothing they could do becuase he bled the animal in accord with some scripture or other and the blood was evaporated by the time of eating... therefore it was much the same as eating a rare steak. It took a long time for him to be allowed to be baptised... I think he did in the end, but I'm not sure....
This isn't just one crazy man... I found a cookbook for 'traditional British fare' once... I swear there wasn't a recipie in the whole frigging book that didn't have blood as an ingredient or cooking medium. That was to accompany appitising meals of liver, stomach, brain, kidney or whatever other bits they thought was a good idea to eat... watch out for the dark gravy too... it's more than the cooking juices, I can tell you!
Bloody Brits... :-)
Cheers, Max - who's definatly still got that hang up.... :-) -
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Safran vs God
by BLISSISIGNORANCE in.
have a look...........big hit in australia.. .
http://http://www.boblarson.org/australian_tv_/australian_tv_.html.
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Max Divergent
Hi Sirona - Mmm... Well... Watch the series and you'll see why it's so plausible that if there are spirits then the bad ones got right into John Safran!!
For example, the exorcist said the Mormon garment had a curse and wearing it gave the demon(s) of Mormonism the 'legal right' to enter the person. Likewise calling up viking gods, having a fatwah for blasphemy called on an innocent person by an Islamic court, chomping the goolies off a goat in a voodoo ceremony and so on were seen as giving the relevent spirits ('demons') the implicit invitation and right to enter Safran.
I guess all this grabs me a bit because of the obsession I remember from the JW's about the demons coming into the house with books or second hand furniture or by watching the wrong TV shows, and from all the stories I was told as a kid of 'demon attacks' and so on. The idea that 'spirit activity' was OK if harm wasn't caused was just not on the radar and it wasn't for this exorcist who was Safran's final call.
Max -
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Could use some advice
by missy04 incould you guys give me some advice?...
i may or may not vote..i was wondering if it really would be "being part of the world" to vote??.
i know what the witnesses' take on it is, but i won't base my decision on that.
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Max Divergent
Being born makes you part of the world, not voting...
Voting means you hope a candidate might make a difference, the WT wants all your hope to themselves...
You choose...
Max -
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Safran vs God
by BLISSISIGNORANCE in.
have a look...........big hit in australia.. .
http://http://www.boblarson.org/australian_tv_/australian_tv_.html.
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Max Divergent
It was truly compelling TV... Safran was obviously deeply affected by the experience, as was everyone I watched it with.
One part of me wonders if the Jehovah bit of the JW's isn't all true, maybe the demon bit is...
...but the rationalist in me noted though that there was a lot of suggestive material given to Safran before the exorcism.
Safran was shown videos of earlier exorcisms, met others who'd 'benifited' before and was told repetedly and authoritivly how badly possessed he'd be as a result of all his particiation in rituals. From there there I just wonder if he was led to a vulnerable and highly sugestable state and then succumed to hypnotisim?
He did A LOT on the Mormons over the series. On one show he went preaching door-to-door in Salt Lake City wearing Mormon 'uniform' right down to teh bike and black badge saying 'Elder Safran - Athiest' using Darwin's Origin of Species as his 'literature'!
But he never, ever even once (that I saw) mentioned the JW's... I wonder if he can do almost anything to offend his birth religion (Jewish) except utter 'the name'?
It's very insightful TV, hopefully PBS or Channel 4 might screen it in the US & UK.
Cheers, Max and any (un)friendly spirits I'm sharing with leading me to rationalise it away...
(BTW, we just had 80mph winds through which ripped big limbs off big trees in the yard and brought hail like ping-pong balls... the temp just before was about 120F... yuk...) -
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This not British V American---------------BUT
by vitty inas an english speaking person, with an english accent, living in england.
why were we subjected every year to the conventions drama with an american voice over.. could they not have had tapes with an english accent?.
i have nothing against the american accent, some are very pleasent .
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Max Divergent
avishei: Jesus Christ!!!!Thanks for that info, God, I don't know what I would have done without it!
Then you can thank your lucky stars that now you know...
I remember a visitor to my country (who had his address broardcast via Assemby Halls to every JW in the land) spent 20 minutes or more re-educating us on how to pronounce Isaiah.... Since then a JW's sprirituality was measured on whether he pronounced Isaiah the old way or the 'right' way...
On the accents... every English speaking country has pleasent and awful accents used by differnt people, but it seemed at one time that JW America had only whining, nasel, drawling accents to offer the drama ... they were horrible... (as opposed to TV America which uses good accents). Later on they improved their choice of voices, especially for the video's and readings - they weren't too bad, if a bit overly gandfatherly.
I think avishei should now be required to spell according to OED, not Websters, and use only British colouqualisims in all his future posts... -
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The 7000 year "Creative Day"
by Fe2O3Girl inwhen i was a youngster, the creative days of genesis 1 were always referred to as being 7000 years long.
i believe the 1975 hoo-hah was related to this teaching as 6000 years since adam's creation plus a 1000 year reign neatly wraps up a 7000 years seventh day of rest.. in another thread narkissos quoted a wt article from 1983 that repeats the 7000 year day teaching.
i don't think anyone much younger than me, or anyone who bacame a jw in the last 10-15 years is aware of this belief.
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Max Divergent
I remember this coming up the first time the old blue creation book (early 1980's?) was studied at the Group and also when reading the old green Daniel book (published in the 1950's?) for private study. It was a very dishonest book, and I remember one guy saying so. He left the JW's... why didn;t I listen to him closer??? There's a 'critical analysis' of that book at http://www.aetheronline.com/mario/Heretic/critical.htm and it mentions this issue citing a 1/1 1986 QFR...
This is the whole section on the 7000 year thing....
p27, par 7 - when you say "millenniums", you mean each creative day was only 7000 years long
Today there is overwhelming evidence that the creative "days" must have been far longer than "millenniums" - they were undoubtedly millions of years long at least.
Why then is our "official" viewpoint still that each day was only 7000 years long? ( w87 1/1 30 Questions From Readers).
Ironically, from time to time our publications indirectly admit that each creative day must have been millions of years long, yet, the "official" figure is repeatedly set at 7000 years.
For example, in the Awake!, September 22, 1986, on page 18, paragraph 4, (prepared by, as is stated in big lettering, "a nuclear physicist of many years experience in both research and industry in the field of radioactivity"); it clearly says that from radioactive dating "WE LEARN THAT THE EARTH ITSELF HAS BEEN IN EXISTENCE FOR A FEW BILLION YEARS".
Fine, so the earth is billions of years old.
Now, if rocks that are reliably dated to be about 3 billion years old CONTAIN CLEAR SIGNS OF EARLY BACTERIAL LIFE, DOES THIS NOT MEAN THAT THE CREATIVE DAYS HAD ALREADY BEGUN BILLIONS OF YEARS AGO?!
Why do we adamantly adhere to a viewpoint that flies in the face of fact?
Also, why in par 14 does the separation of the waters from the land have to ?no doubt involve tremendous earth movements (catastrophism)?? Would not a slow, natural process taking millions of years also be in agreement with Genesis 1:9,10?
Clearly it would.
Why then the need to resort to fantastic events like catastrophism, a term seldom used in science, and which only applies to uncommon things like mass extinctions caused by meteorite impacts?
In this day and age, the 7000-year creative day argument stands out in stark contrast to the other reasonable and sound views that we hold as Jehovah?s Witnesses. This causes many informed people (like the ones I work with) to dismiss us without giving us as much as a second thought.
And it all seems so unnecessary, since modern scientific facts can very easily be reconciled with Genesis.