Posts by konceptual99

73

2 witness rule

by punkofnice in

i'm gobsmacked.. the 7 rock star popes in warwick know darned well that the 2 witness rule allows child rapists to get away with their crime.. geoff (whacko jacko) jackson was at the australian royal commission and should have seen first hand what a vile man made law the 2 witness rule is.. my question is, why do they still insist on this pervert protecting rule?.

i know it's a highly controlling cult but still...........................stuff my old boots, mate!.

the above is more a rhetorical question.

konceptual99

That is arguable. Any accusation of wrong against the church is considered on a case by case basis.

Fair point and the fact the elders put everything past Bethel does mean they could get specific instructions. It's also fair to say that the current guidelines do make statements about ensuring victims are not at further risk.

The reality so far has been that this has not been the case and the WTS has been reticent to be pro-active in any positive sense for decades. I fear the culture is stronger than the words. You also still have a strong bias by elders to ignore their gut feelings and defer to whatever Bethel say. The people that should be determining if an individual poses a risk to an alleged victim or the wider community is not a drone at Bethel or even a local elder. It should be the proper, qualified local authorities.

73

2 witness rule

by punkofnice in

i'm gobsmacked.. the 7 rock star popes in warwick know darned well that the 2 witness rule allows child rapists to get away with their crime.. geoff (whacko jacko) jackson was at the australian royal commission and should have seen first hand what a vile man made law the 2 witness rule is.. my question is, why do they still insist on this pervert protecting rule?.

i know it's a highly controlling cult but still...........................stuff my old boots, mate!.

the above is more a rhetorical question.

konceptual99

Statutory mandatory reporting yes however whilst there are arguments against mandatory reporting, many organisations have implemented a mandatory reporting policy regardless of what the local laws are.

Even if the WTS held back from implementing this themselves they also fall short from any form of pro-active support of the victim. They are simply told to make sure the victim and family are informed they can go to the authorities but given no support to do this. They should be doing everything possible to support the victim and help them get the right help as well as ensure the authorities are able to investigate an allegation so that the risk of leaving a predatory sexual abuser free to do whatever they want is minimised as far as humanly possible.

73

2 witness rule

by punkofnice in

i'm gobsmacked.. the 7 rock star popes in warwick know darned well that the 2 witness rule allows child rapists to get away with their crime.. geoff (whacko jacko) jackson was at the australian royal commission and should have seen first hand what a vile man made law the 2 witness rule is.. my question is, why do they still insist on this pervert protecting rule?.

i know it's a highly controlling cult but still...........................stuff my old boots, mate!.

the above is more a rhetorical question.

konceptual99

At the risk of being really unpopular I think the two witness thing is increasingly a red herring.

In the past there have been countless examples of where the elders have not acted on accusations because of two witnesses not being available. They have also not supported, suggested or taken any other positive action to ensure an accusation is reported to the authorities and in some case have gone so far as colluded to ensure an accusation has been suppressed.

The current guidelines to elders as a result of the ARC and other negative publicity has changed the framework. Elders still will not take congregation action unless they have the evidence of two witnesses. They will now accept the word of a different person or evidence from the authorities as a second witness. They are also instructed to ensure that the victim is clear they can go to the authorities even if the elders cannot take congregation action themselves.

I would agree with those that would suggest this still falls short of what they should be doing in terms of self-imposed mandatory reporting, active support of reporting and so on but is a step in the right direction and should prevent the repetition of these cases where the victim and family have felt it impossible to report an accusation to the authorities.

The two witness rule still applies to congregation action and this certainly leaves a risk that a perpetrator may still be free to access other vulnerable people if the elders take no action to monitor their behaviour. There is still a risk that an accusation may remain unreported if the victim or family decide not to report it themselves. There are still plenty of areas that the WTS should feel ashamed about in terms of their protection policy however I think there has been steps taken to separate the two witness rule and congregation judicial action from the secular side of things and that criticism of the policy should be focused onto those areas that still remain astonishingly weak and out of step with current best practice.

110

Exjw activists protesting inside a Kingdom Hall today!

by Crazyguy in

spoonfed nomore, has uploaded a video on his youtube site, of exjw activists protesting inside a kingdom hall during this sunday meeting.

several people speak out.

if some one can put a link on here that would be awesome, i can’t figure out how to do it with an i phone.

konceptual99

The reality is that JWs simply are not *that* extreme. Of course it is possible to highlight a number of issues but you don't go to a meeting and hear outrageous hate speech, violent oppression of people, highly visible sexism and so on. To most people Witnesses are essentially a slightly odd but harmless religion. Most people are happy to allow Witnesses to exercise their freedom to worship as they see fit.

Even the child abuse issues are not enough to cause a major upset, after all many organisations have historic child abuse issues and it's certainly not something that is endemic within the organisation or intrinsic to a Witness way of life.

The protesters therefore are as irrelevant to the masses as the Witnesses themselves, if not more so since small scale protests and disruption can easily be assumed to be the work of those with a chip on their shoulder, a petty axe to grind.

I respect everyone's right to work out their opposition to the WTS in whatever way they see fit just so long as it legal however there direct activism such as this has, as far as I can tell, a zero percent success rate in changing anyone's mind.

The mass media will only be interested in the WTS if a serious scandal comes to light. The most productive method of getting people to stop being Witnesses is through the internet and having material out there that the questioning person comes across and that strikes a chord with them.

41

October 31, 2017 TO ALL CONGREGATIONS Re: New Visitor Exhibit at Bethel (UK)

by wifibandit in

october 31, 2017 to all congregations re: new visitor exhibit at bethel.

konceptual99

Literature comes from Germany now. It's the hub for Europe. Shipped to London (soon Chelmsford) and distributed from there.

I think that the reason for pushing forward with Chelmsford was that they were too far along to reverse the build and have too much locked up in the property in London to stay there. They have reduced the scale of Chelmsford by a massive amount but it had to go ahead.

47

Outside JW World They Barely Exist

by Farmer Jim1 in

jw
friends

is anyone else staggered by the fact that outside of the organization most of the general public seem to know very little or nothing about jw’s?

when i was in i was led to believe that 99% of the worlds population had been giving sufficient warning, knew what it was all about and were stubbornly sticking to their immoral ways.

the reality seems to be that the entire jw universe is barely noticeable to the masses.

konceptual99

Yet Jehovah is patient, desiring none to be destroyed but all to gain repentance.

How odd then that even where Winesses have a reasonable presence there is still scant knowledge of or interest in what the "good news" really is.

28

252 Congregations have closed in Germany since 2015

by LevelThePlayingField in

this is a video from down with the tower.

it's excellent.

enjoy.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0lvvy2qurm.

konceptual99

A quick look at the source documents and lots of Google Translate suggest alot of consolidation in the foreign language field. Maybe someone will have the time to produce a detailed breakdown but it's certainly interesting data.

52

If a year is really 365 1/4 days why 360 days to calculate 1914

by blondie in

jw
friends

doesn't that throw off the date?.

*** w51 6/15 p. 383 questions from readers ***.

in establishing the length of the seven times of the gentiles, a time or year of 360 days is used, to give 2,520 days, which become 2,520 years when ezekiel 4:6 is applied.

konceptual99

The irony to me is that God is such a "God of order, not of disorder" that he insists on numerous minute details in organisational policy like only staying in org approved hotels for an assembly yet could not organise the solar system so that the relationship between the rotation of the earth, the orbit of the moon around the sun and the orbit of the earth around the sun was something that would fit naturally together for humans so they could easily understand time.

Us humans have modified things like monetary systems to make them easier to use so why the hell could he not do the same with the the sun, earth and moon to make this stuff just a little bit easier for us to comprehend?

510

What Music have you Been Listening to this Last Year ? Post You tubes if you Like !

by flipper in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wktxjuyiat4.

.

konceptual99

sorry for the multiple posts, started posting and I couldn't stop!

510

What Music have you Been Listening to this Last Year ? Post You tubes if you Like !

by flipper in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wktxjuyiat4.

.

konceptual99

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPr1JR1Iu3w