JW Insider

On 8/20/2023 at 6:40 AM, Srecko Sostar said:

 

I've mentioned before that I was a "Gilead Tour Guide" from 1978 to 1981 for several different classes. I wasn't assigned the UN visit (and I don't recall that there was one at that time) but I took them on tours of NYC including the Financial District (Wall Street area) and Midtown: Rockefeller Center & Central Park & 42nd Street Library. That tour included an old St Patrick's cathedral (Prince & Mott) downtown, and the huge "new" St Patrick's cathedral in Rockefeller Center. We didn't go in the smaller one downtown to avoid attracting attention as a conspicuously large group of JWs in a relatively smaller church, but we always took the entire group into the much larger St Patrick's cathedral in Rockefeller Center (5th & 51st).

The fact that there were tours of the UN doesn't mean anything. Just like going into St Patrick's church didn't mean we were turning Roman Catholic. I do remember that there were sometimes one or two who wouldn't go in to the church. They were free to wait in front for the rest of the group to finish. The more vocal of the Gilead students would ask why we were going in: "What if Armageddon comes when you are inside?" One of them once tried to convince a couple others that this might be a test to see who would "fall for it" and go inside. What was most memorable to me was that some wanted to wait directly across the street so they wouldn't even be on the same block. They ended up standing under and next to the large statue of the Titan "god" Atlas, as if he would be strong enough to save them, while Jehovah somehow would not be able to protect anyone who had chosen to look inside a cathedral.

58 minutes ago, BroRando said:

It's good for the forum to see your dishonest antics. Your ad hominem attacks on me are not going to work. I'm used to being attacked for my religion.

On 4/9/2016 at 9:07 PM, JW Insider said:

Jehovah and Jesus are the same. ("I and the Father are one"). The "call" in this case is a "command" which results in the effect of raising the dead to life. It is the simultaneous purpose of both Jehovah and Jesus to effect this resurrection and judgment.

I see you did it again. You didn't even use ellipses to show that you are starting the quote in the middle of a sentence. Many months ago I would give you the benefit of the doubt because it could have merely been a matter of lack of comprehension. But I see you have the ability to go out of your way to be dishonest. For clarity here is the original quote again:

Quote

Jehovah God, the Father, calls. And so does Jesus. No contradiction. Because, in will and purpose --even though the Father is greater-- Jehovah and Jesus are the same. ("I and the Father are one"). The "call" in this case is a "command" which results in the effect of raising the dead to life. It is the simultaneous purpose of both Jehovah and Jesus to effect this resurrection and judgment.

I believe that Jesus and Jehovah are the same in will and purpose. I believe that's what Jesus meant when he said "I and the Father are one." It's what we teach as Jehovah's Witnesses.

What you have done is not much different than someone who would try to say the Watchtower promotes the Trinity doctrine just because the following three quotes are "accurate" in the sense that they are unaltered:

*** nwtsty Philippians Study Notes—Chapter 2 ***
the phrase “Jesus Christ is Lord” means that he and his Father, Jehovah, are the same person.

*** pm chap. 21 p. 389 par. 53 Theocracy Triumphs over All the Nations ***
at the time of the baptism of Jesus in the year 29 C.E. the name of this Son of God became a ‘substitute or a replacement for Jehovah’ and that Jesus is the same as Jehovah and hence the name Jehovah does not need to be used anymore.

*** ad p. 894 Jehovah Is Our Righteousness ***
this means that Jesus, the Messiah, and Jehovah are the same, forming one God.

Using quotes like that is dishonest because it leaves out the first part of the quote containing key information showing that the Watchtower actually holds an opposite viewpoint.

If you agree that it would be dishonest to use these quotations the way they are presented above, then you are admitting to being dishonest by doing the something just like it with my quote.

1 hour ago, BroRando said:

On 4/9/2016 at 9:07 PM, JW Insider said:

Jehovah and Jesus are the same.

You are selectively quoting again to make it look like I said the opposite of what was actually said. It's considered dishonest to create a partial quote to make it look like someone said something they didn't. To clarify, I will include the full quote below so that anyone can see what you tried to do.

On 4/9/2016 at 9:07 PM, JW Insider said:

Because, in will and purpose --even though the Father is greater-- Jehovah and Jesus are the same.

I assume that you actually believe exactly as I stated that "In will and purpose Jehovah and Jesus are the same." For even more context, read the question in the original post and my FULL response further above.

Please be more careful when quoting persons. This is not the first time you have used quotes from me and distorted their purpose and made them seem like they were saying something quite different from what I actually said. In fact, you misquoted me from this very forum and put it on one of your websites and in a book of yours which is still available online. You used that quote to make it appear I was supporting another theory of yours that turned out to be false.

Please take a lesson from your own false accusation against me. The projection and blame-shifting is very revealing:

1 hour ago, BroRando said:

Altering my quotes @JW Insider is not only unethical but dishonest. Something a Jehovah's Witness would not engage in.

I am guessing that all this vitriol and anger and divisiveness and contention on your part are a result of seeing the evidence that your theory was false and that the Watchtower article I quoted was true. If you are angry that the Watchtower rejects your false theory, then please take it up with the Branch, the Writing Department, the Governing Body, the WTBTS, or the CCJW. I think it will only continue to embarrass you if you continue to lash out dishonestly against other persons on this forum.

2 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Also, these were not voluntary confessions in most cases, anyway.

Can you provide me with evidence of this?

This has nothing to do with the methods of obtaining confessions by the elders. I have only rarely heard of these methods being problematic. The spreadsheet indicates that only 58% of the alleged perpetrators made a clear confession.

I am saying only that at least 290 of those 579 reported confessions (50.1%) were not volunteered to a judicial committee due to remorse that followed soon after the sin/crime. These confessions happened most times after SEVERAL YEARS.

Imagine sitting in the same Kingdom Hall (or Book Study home) where your victim is also sitting and continuing to go on for years without ever admitting your crime. Or knowing that your crime has caused that person to leave the Organization and still not being bothered enough to confess until after an accusation is made years later and a judicial hearing is called. Imagine being in the same household pretending to be the spiritual head of the household in front of your wife and children knowing that you are abusing those same children, time after time, in some cases.

The most obvious cases where the perpetrator confessed, but not voluntarily, would be the 257 of those confessions that occurred after MULTIPLE children were abused by them. (I removed all the cases with just 1 victim or an Unclear number of victims.) With some of them, it was actually 10 or more children abused and their first abuse occurred when they were baptized publishers. For two others they began abusing when they were Ministerial Servants and still went on to abuse at least 10 victims each. With some elders, it was only after 2 or 3 or 5 or even 7 accusations that they finally confessed. Although they may have "voluntarily" confessed years later, i don't see this as a voluntary confession. No one is supposed to accept an appointment to be an elder without confessing to such crimes/sins that began after they were baptized.

With 44 alleged perpetrators where the confession was labeled "Unclear," these also had been accused of abusing MULTIPLE children. These 301 alone (257+44) )already puts us into the definition of MOST.

In all these cases the confession was about abusing at least ONE of the MULTIPLE children referred to in the accusation.

Even though this already covers enough of the numbers required to speak of MOST being involuntary there is a large number of additional cases which are based simply on the fact that there was no judicial hearing until years after the initial accusation of abuse. For these, of course, I removed those perpetrators whose first abuse was as a Non-Witness.

I should have mentioned before that I don't consider it a "voluntary" confession if a person waits years to confess it, or has continued to abuse MULTIPLE children before that confession. Even if just one child was abused, I think that waiting years until confessing at a judicial hearing (especially only after an accusation is made) doesn't count as voluntary.

Another curious piece of data that showed up in the analyses was that in almost every group (non-JW, baptized, ministerial servants, and elders) the average number of children involved in the accusations was close to 2 victims apiece. The highest percentage of children per perpetrator was among Ministerial Servants reported. Then Elders had almost the same ratio of children abused per Elder as non-JWs in the data. The lowest victim ratio was among Baptized JWs who were not Elders or Ministerial Servants.

Of course, this data can be complex, because several of these persons whose first accusation was as a Baptized Witness, went on to become Ministerial Servants and Elders, and some had to be deleted from their positions as Elder or MS. Same goes for alleged perpetrators we have been calling "Non-JWs" in the data. It just means that their first accusation was as a Non-Witness. Several of them also went on to become Elders and Ministerial Servants. So this fact would skew the numbers of victims per perpetrator (ratio) even higher as these perpetrators were promoted in their positions within the congregation.

Another potential skew of the data comes from the interpretation of the word "Unclear" for the number of victims. I could only equate these to ONE victim for that particular perpetrator, because we know it means "at least one." However, it is more likely that it's "Unclear" because it could not be determined whether it was 1 or 2, or 2 or 3, etc. It could possibly have been a question about whether it was: less than 10, 10, or 10+ child victims.

Also, the number of separate victims does not necessarily correlate with the seriousness of the crimes. A single victim can be molested many times over a long period by the same perpetrator, just as multiple victims can be molested many times over a long period by the same perpetrator.

3 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

A "confession" made in front of more than one person ceases to be confidential information.

Related to that, it has also been ruled in some courts that it was no longer a mere religious confession due to the very fact that the WTS kept detailed data on the perpetrators, and sent these "confessions" to secretaries to have forms typed, and then sent the details to Branch headquarters to have them discussed by lawyers, and retyped by secretaries in another database visible to several people in the service and correspondence departments.

Also, these were not voluntary confessions in most cases, anyway. In fact, in only 579 out of 1,006 alleged perpetrators was there a definite confession recorded. Not even 58%. Part of the judicial process is an attempt to try to get a guilty party to confess and judge whether there was sufficient repentance.

9 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

While most of the 1,006 case files of abuse occurred in jurisdictions where there was no legal obligation for ministers of religion to report, contrary to Counsel Assisting’s assertion, the files on hand confirm that close to 400 cases of abuse have been reported to secular authorities by victims or others. In some cases, the victims or their families have exercised their right not to report the matter to the secular authorities and their decision has been respected by congregation elders. In still other instances, the victims or their families have later decided to report the matter and congregation elders have provided support.

Thanks for adding this. It validates the point I made earlier, and was also a point made on the Reddit link. It admits several important points.

First, it's the admission by the JW defense that NONE of the cases were ever turned in the authorities by the JW congregation even though at least SOME of the case files of abuse occurred in jurisdictions where there WAS a legal obligation for ministers of religion to report.

Also, it was clear that the Australian court had determined that MOST of the cases DID occur in jurisdictions where there WAS such a legal obligation.

It clearly admits that it was only the victims or others who reported. And that the only involvement of the elders was when victims or their families later decided to report, and in some of those instances the elders provided support.

We know from the BCH case that one elder did evidently come forward as a reluctant witness 11 years later to make a statement. But that statement is sloppy and not very supportive at all. He says he barely knew the perpetrator except for a very short time related to the judicial meeting he was called in to join. But he can't remember what year, or which daughter. He remembers two things the daughter said something about how the father had "interfered" with her, but can't remember the "extent of the interference." He appears to hide behind the excuse that he "can't remember the exact words" she used as a way to avoid discussing anything additional about her claim. In fact, he never even mentioned the second thing he said he remembered that the daughter had said.

In other words, he would confirm nothing that could even be supportive of a true claim of sexual abuse even though the elder was the chairman of the committee that disfellowshipped BCH for it - and justified that judgment to be correct even after appeal. Then this elder (Bennett) actually indicates at the end that he is there INVOLUNTARILY, which was already obvious by the way he didn't really support the victim claimant.

Who needs "support" of that kind?

19 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

The suggested findings by Counsel Assisting are problematic in the sense that, they often seem to assume a connection between child sexual abuse and beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses in circumstances where there is no obvious connection and none is identified by Counsel Assisting. 

This is the JW legal team attempting a very weak "negotiation" defense. It's easy to see that the data doesn't bear out the claim, however. With 221 of the 1,006 perpetrators, the data provided by "Jehovah's Witnesses Australia" admits that JW/WT cannot rule out the fact that the "two-witness rule" kept the case from moving forward to a judicial committee. This was a connection that the court (and even victimized JWs) have made between sexual abuse and the beliefs of JWs.

But there is an apparent skew in how that two-witness rule is used depending on the position of responsibility that the Witness holds. The two highest-level accusations that I have learned about, were actually left off the list altogether, and in at least one of those cases, the accused had no hearing and was promoted to a higher position within the Organization. For now, we can safely ignore this however since it was not in the ARC data. But the following are all from the Watchtower-provided data:

The only Circuit Overseer included on this list did not have a judicial case, and it is admitted that "YES" the two-witness rule kept this case from going forward to a judicial committee.  And there was, therefore, no reproof, demotion, or discipline of any kind reported.

Pioneer data I had here a few minutes ago was removed. Turns out it was 3 out of 8 whose cases may have been kept from going forward due to the two-witness rule. That's 37.5%.

Now we come to all the persons on the list known to be Elders at the time of their first accusation of child abuse. There were 38 such elders and for 16 of them -- that's 42% -- the data could not rule out that it was the two-witness rule that kept their case from going forward and therefore there was no judicial committee formed.

Now we come to the cases of the 65 who were Ministerial Servants at the time of their first accusation of child abuse. It drops down to 22% where the data admits that they could not rule out that it was the two-witness rule that kept their case from going forward and therefore there was no judicial committee formed.

Now we come to the cases of the 689 who were JW Parishioners (Baptized JWs who were not MS/Elder/Pioneer) at the time of their first accusation of child abuse, it drops a bit more, down to 20% where the data admits that they could not rule out that it was the two-witness rule that kept their case from going forward and therefore there was no judicial committee formed.

I didn't include those for whom it was unclear what their position in the congregation was at the time of their first accusation, but only a very few of them were definitely identified as servants or elders in other parts of the data. 

Technically, of course, the JW legal team didn't deny anything related to what I said above, but they only said that "The suggested findings by Counsel Assisting are problematic in the sense that, they often seem to assume a connection between child sexual abuse and beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses in circumstances where there is no obvious connection."

Those are typical lawyer "weasel words" that don't actually deny that there is a connection; they just claim that the connection is not obvious in SOME of the cases where the Court "often seemed to assume" one. For some persons, hardly anything is "obvious" which is the entire reason for investigations. This doesn't discount the fact that there were other cases listed where the connection was entirely and blatantly obvious.

1 hour ago, Fausto Hoover said:

The data you provided initially, 1766 and 1857, was not accurate.

It's easy enough to check whether those numbers of 1,766+ and 1,857+ were right. Using your suggestion that "Unclear" should be equal to 1, I changed ALL the "Unclear" to 1 and tried the total again.

I got 1,766 again. What do you think you would get?

Next, I fixed ALL the cells with "10+" in them. I still get 1,857. What do you think I did wrong? What would you do to make it more accurate?

2 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

It is seeking a judicial review and High Court declaration that the church does not assume responsibility for the care of children, young people, or vulnerable people.

Lawyers say the damd darndest things. Speaking of James:

(James 1:27) The form of worship that is clean and undefiled from the standpoint of our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their tribulation, and to keep oneself without spot from the world.

20 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

21 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Additionally, it's worth mentioning that these figures are specific to the Jehovah's Witnesses organization in Australia and may not represent the situation in other countries.

This assumption requires further clarification. Are JWs Australians more prone to CSA than JWs from other nations?

I'm not defending the text that ChatGPT derived, but it's still a true statement -- even without any reference to what the situation is in other countries. But you should keep in mind that the Witness organization also reaches out to prisons and to former criminals, and other persons who have issues. Jesus said that it was the "sick" that came to him, not those who considered themselves healthy. And then there is the fact that crimes, including rape and murder, come ultimately from human sinful nature.

(James 1:14, 15) . . .But each one is tried by being drawn out and enticed by his own desire. ¹⁵ Then the desire, when it has become fertile, gives birth to sin; in turn sin, when it has been carried out, brings forth death.

(James 2:11) . . .For the one who said, “You must not commit adultery,” also said, “You must not murder.” If, now, you do not commit adultery but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of law.

Imagine! A need to write to congregations to remind them that it is not OK to murder!

11 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

I would say, all within the column marked "total number of alleged victims" on the top of the spreadsheet is a clear indicator that all individuals are accounted for, even if there is a "+" symbol present or if the quantity of victims on a given column is ambiguous. I suspect the ones marked as "unclear" were counted as one.

I checked to see if you were right. I selected ONLY the ones marked Unclear or with a "+" symbol. Your suspicion that the "Unclear" were "counted as one" is incorrect. The total for all 45 of those lines is ZERO:

Then I took two of "10+" cells and changed the text to a number. (I used 10.) Then I took two of the random "Unclear" cells and changed the text to a number. (I used the number 1 [one].) If I am right, then I would expect the total to go from ZERO to 22. (10+10+1+1=22).

Turns out the number was exactly as expected: 22.

3 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

It's ultimately up to you to decide if you believe you've made the right choice.

That is correct. But, I'll leave it up to you, then, if you think there is an even more reasonable set of numbers to use for the items that the sheet failed to calculate. But that's only if you really care to quibble about the difference of a few numbers. As far as I am concerned the entire process showed up a lot of flaws in how things were handled. If the number of alleged reports had been twice as high or half as high, it still would have shown those flaws. I'm glad that policies changed in the immediate wake of these hearings.

The point I was trying to make was clearly not one you cared about, and that's fine of course. But I used it as an opportunity to show that there has been bias on the part of Witnesses reading the numbers and bias on the part of non-Witnesses in reading the numbers. If you are a Witness, you certainly helped make the point.

-------------------------

For any others who might be confused because of the position that another poster or posters have taken, I'll just try to clarify one last time:

The problem in counting alleged victims from this sheet is that someone, at some point, had tried to total the column, probably without realizing that they had accidentally forgotten to count any alleged victims among those where the exact number of alleged victims was "Unclear." Worse yet, they forgot to include in the total, all those 9 perpetrator cases where the number of victims was ten or more.

If we manually add up all the cells in the column that have an actual number in them we get 1,732. The fact that there is a "1730" at the bottom of that column shouldn't confuse anyone. It's not a summary formula and isn't even marked as a TOTAL anyway. Arguing that the number 1730 should be more accurate than adding up the actual numbers in the column manually makes very little difference, but it's an odd argument. It means we should not trust the thousand or so ACTUAL labeled numbers in the sheet and only trust the one unlabeled number.

But there are also those 45 perpetrators in the spreadsheet whose numbers of victims were NEVER counted in that "tentative" or rounded number that someone had left at the bottom.

My screenshot is cut off and doesn't show all of 45 of them -- but does anyone really think that these 45 lines should all total up to only ZERO alleged victims? One or two posters have indicated that these 45 lines should add ZERO additional victims to the number.  Yet, some of the perpetrators who are marked with 10+ victims were disfellowshipped 3 times and reinstated twice. Is it really reasonable to think that we should continue to count 10+ victims as ZERO victims even for those cases?

46 minutes ago, Fausto Hoover said:

It is advisable to include in the records any information that may be relevant to your calculations, regardless of whether you are interested in it or not.

Exactly. That's why I ran statistical analyses for all the different row values in ALL the columns. That's how I discovered that some of the ones marked "Non-JW's" (at the time of their first accusation) were actually Elders and Ministerial Servants at the time of their judicial hearing, removal, reproof, df'ing, etc.

46 minutes ago, Fausto Hoover said:

Since the end column has no further information as indicated, there is no need to add or subtract from the amount.

If you know how to create a simple summary formula, you should be able to see what's going on in the spreadsheet. In Excel it's the AutoSum option shown below:

In Google Sheets, it's as follows:

But there are relatvely simple, but more powerful methods, with data filters (and crosstabs) to summarize many more items of data from the sheet.

46 minutes ago, Fausto Hoover said:

Avoid making unwise assumptions or recalculating based on them.

Exactly!!

1 hour ago, Fausto Hoover said:

I don't see your numbers in the original spreadsheet.

Whether you see them or not depends on how perceptive you are. For example, look at the totals at the bottom of each column of this sample spreadsheet which you could enter yourself in Excel or even in a free spreadsheet program like Google Sheets:

You see a four as the sum of the first column. But if you are perceptive you will see that the total is really higher. The second column would show that it was really just treating the text "10+" and the text "Unclear" as if they were the same as 0 (zero).

That's exactly what's happening in the ARC spreadsheet.

If you assume that every instance of "Unclear" could refer to 1 (one) alleged victim, then you could change the word "Unclear" to the number 1 and the total would show up as 5. In the next column, it shows that you could change the "10+" into the number 10 and the total of that fourth column is now corrected to 15. The next column with the yellow cells, shows what would happen if someone either edited or corrected the spreadsheet when the formula in F5 was turned off. They corrected the 1 to a 3 in the top cell of that column but the number at the bottom stayed at 15. If you put the formula back in at the bottom, then the total corrects itself to 17.

Technically you don't even need to fix the formula to see the more accurate numbers in this sheet. You can see it just by looking. If you had the time and ability, it would be the same in the larger ARC spreadsheet. You could manually add up all all 1,006 rows in the "victim" column, and realize that you needed to add 1 (one) every time you see the text-string "Unclear." And you need to add 10 every time you see the text-string: 10+. You might discover reasons to put a number higher than 1 in the "Unclear" cells, or a number higher than 10 in the 10+ cells. But since it would be a matter of speculation to put higher numbers in those cells, I have left them at the minimum possible number.

3 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

Were some of the figures correct?

Yes. All of them are correct according to the spreadsheet. 1700+ means 1700 or more. If the actual number was 2,222 then 1700-plus is correct. We KNOW that the spreadsheet represents investigations that resulted in a total of at least 1,857 alleged victims. So 1,857+ is also correct.

3 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

All we know is there is 1006 in the Australian case file. If law enforcement was unable to find legal means to charge a person within those 1006 cases, the number would be significantly reduced.

I think that's completely false, according to everything I've read including what the Watchtower publications have said about CSA. I think that if there were 1,006 cases in the case file and law enforcement had not been able to charge any one of the persons within those case files, the number of alleged perpetrators would still be 1,006. In fact, if all 1,006 alleged perpetrators were investigated by law enforcement, and they were unable to find legal means to charge any one of those persons, there would still be 1,006 alleged perpetrators. There is a huge difference between being unable to charge and being able to fully exonerate someone who was falsely accused.

But the truth is that it is very hard to charge someone with such a crime because such crimes are notoriously difficult to find prosecutable evidence for, except when the victim went to authorities immediately after the crime, and children do not typically do this. It's not found among these cases (I hope) but even cases where the girl claims rape and ends up pregnant have been dropped as unprosecutable. 

3 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

I fail to comprehend the possibility of an unbaptized publisher being disfellowshipped, given that they haven't undergone the process of baptism.

Perhaps you can explain your position biblically?

I agree. That was exactly my point. It's why I just asked you the same question about how one might go about disfellowshipping a non-Witness. You can't DIS-fellowship someone who was not "fellowshipped" to begin with. This is why no one can make a big deal out of the fact that several persons on the list were listed as NON-Witnesses at the time of their first accusation of CSA. These persons could NOT have been NON-Witnesses at the time of their disfellowshipping. Therefore, these persons (some of them) were Witnesses at the time they were listed on this sheet as elders and ministerial servants, for example, but NOT Witnesses at the time of their first CSA accusation.

I also what it knew about the number of perpetrators:

During the Australian Royal Commission hearings in 2015-2016, the Jehovah's Witnesses provided data on child sexual abuse allegations within their organization. According to the information presented, it was reported that there were 1,006 alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse within the Jehovah's Witnesses organization in Australia from 1950 to 2014. These allegations were made by 1,659 alleged victims.

It's important to note that these figures reflect the data provided specifically for Australia and cover a span of over six decades. The information disclosed to the Royal Commission pertained to allegations of abuse and not necessarily proven cases. Additionally, it's worth mentioning that these figures are specific to the Jehovah's Witnesses organization in Australia and may not represent the situation in other countries.

For more detailed and up-to-date information regarding the specific findings and recommendations of the Australian Royal Commission, it is recommended to refer to the official reports and publications released by the commission itself or reliable sources reporting on its outcomes.

31 minutes ago, Fausto Hoover said:

The recent controversy surrounding the ‘alleged’ cases of misconduct involving Jehovah’s Witnesses has been a hot topic of discussion. There has been a lot of speculation as to what actually happened and why it was allowed to go on for so long.

I asked ChatGPT how one could go about defending Jehovah's Witnesses' response to the ARC and got the following. The rest of this post is the response:

It's important to note that the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse held hearings in 2015-2016, where it examined the responses of various institutions, including religious organizations, to allegations of child sexual abuse. During these hearings, there were criticisms and concerns raised regarding the way Jehovah's Witnesses handled cases of child abuse within their community.

Here are some points that individuals might raise in defense of Jehovah's Witnesses:

1. Autonomy of Congregations: Jehovah's Witnesses operate under a decentralized structure, where each congregation is responsible for handling matters internally. Some defenders argue that this structure might have led to inconsistencies in how cases of child abuse were handled and that improvements can be made in terms of reporting abuse to the authorities.

2. Cooperation with Authorities: While some criticisms were raised about the Jehovah's Witnesses' response to child abuse allegations, defenders may highlight instances where the organization did cooperate with law enforcement and child protection authorities. They may argue that efforts have been made to improve cooperation and compliance with mandatory reporting laws.

3. Child Protection Policies: Jehovah's Witnesses have developed policies and guidelines aimed at addressing child abuse within their organization. Defenders might emphasize that these policies aim to protect children and promote awareness of the issue. However, critics have argued that these policies have been insufficient and that there is room for improvement.

4. Internal Disciplinary Process: Supporters may assert that Jehovah's Witnesses have an internal judicial system to address allegations of child abuse. They might argue that this system is intended to maintain the religious integrity of the congregation but acknowledge that reforms could be implemented to ensure that the safety and well-being of victims are given priority.

5. Ongoing Reforms: In response to the Australian Royal Commission and other similar inquiries around the world, some defenders may point out that the Jehovah's Witnesses have taken steps to address the concerns raised. They may argue that ongoing reforms within the organization are being implemented to improve child protection policies, reporting mechanisms, and cooperation with the authorities.

It's important to note that these points represent potential defenses that individuals might raise in support of the Jehovah's Witnesses. However, it's crucial to examine various perspectives, including the concerns and criticisms that have been raised, to form a comprehensive understanding of the issue.

7 minutes ago, Fausto Hoover said:

You did not provide any information about the number of victims that amount to 1766 and 1857.

That is correct. All I said from the start was 1700+, then 1732+. Even now the number is really 1,857+ alleged perpetrators.

10 minutes ago, Fausto Hoover said:

Can we confirm if all the allegations have been proven to be true? The word alleged appears to undermine the gravity of the situation, and doesn't account for the potential truth of the accusation.

Exactly! We can't know the truth of any of them. If these were the number we learned about the Catholic Church in Australia, we probably would have argued that the "real" numbers probably go much higher. Since these were numbers and data evidently provided by the Watchtower Society, we have seen many arguments that they probably go much lower. We just don't know specific numbers for sure. The data can only give us an idea of the magnitude of the problem.

13 minutes ago, Fausto Hoover said:

14 hours ago, JW Insider said:

One needs to be careful about making too much of these "NON-WITNESS CASES." In actuality, those cases come from a column called "ROLE IN CHURCH AT TIME OF FIRST ABUSE." It does not mean that were not Witnesses at the time of their second or third (or more) accusations.

This would be an unwise view. We are dealing with circumstances out of the Org's control.

Or one could say that the advice about being careful could be a wise view. Because the Organization DOES have control over who should meet with a judicial committee, who is disfellowshipped, reproved, reinstated, "demoted," "re-promoted" to their responsibilities as an Elder or MS, etc. Some of these so-called "non-Witnesses" were definitely under the Org's control as far as those kinds of procedures and policies were concerned. And, I also agree that some of the circumstances were outside the Org's control. Best to be vigilant as you said before.

18 minutes ago, Fausto Hoover said:

Here you have confusion between a publisher, a non-publisher, an attendee, or an acquaintance.

I understand why some might still have some confusion here. It would be tempting to try to dismiss all the cases as meaningless just because the first accusation happened when they were "not Witnesses." But the very fact that some of these same people had become publishers, ministerial servants and elders, is a good indication that they were JWs at the time that judicial committees had to decide whether to disfellowship them or reinstate them or demote them. After all, can you really disfellowship a non-JW?

24 minutes ago, Fausto Hoover said:

It is important that we do not make unfounded claims in order to inflate our position.

Exactly right!!

24 minutes ago, Fausto Hoover said:

We must reject speculation. 

Exactly.

Looks like we are pretty much in agreement again on the more important things.

21 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

The actual number of cases remains at 1006 over 65 years, and not 1730, 1766, or 1857.

As I made clear all along, I have used the term "case" to refer to every case of child abuse based on the number of alleged victims in the data. You have used it to refer to the number of alleged perpetrators. I have always agreed with the number 1,006 as the number of alleged perpetrators.

21 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

Subtracting 383 from 1006 would be the ideal solution.

Yes, it would be ideal in that it lowers the overall number, but I can't see why you would remove 383 alleged reported perpetrators from the total number of alleged perpetrators, just because those 383 were reported? Does reporting someone somehow make them no longer an alleged perpetrator?

21 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

Then you have those none witness cases.

One needs to be careful about making too much of these "NON-WITNESS CASES." In actuality, those cases come from a column called "ROLE IN CHURCH AT TIME OF FIRST ABUSE." It does not mean that were not Witnesses at the time of their second or third (or more) accusations.

That may explain why some of these same alleged perpetrators who were marked "Non-Witness" at the time of the first abuse accusation were called into a judicial hearing with the elders. Some of these so-called "non-Witnesses" were disfellowshipped, some reinstated, and some disfellowshipped again. Some of these "non-Witnesses" were removed from their position as an Elder or Ministerial Servant. Some of these were re-appointed to their position. In some cases, it was reported that the two-witness rule kept the case from progressing to a judicial committee.

So it can't be right to just blanketly say that all of these so-called "non-Witnesses" should not be counted. Especially if some were Elders and Ministerial Servants. In some cases, it may also have been another way of saying that their first case of child molestation happened before they were baptized.

19 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

So, you're saying that you've just confessed to making up the figures regarding the victims.

No. What I did was explain how one can best determine the minimum number of alleged victims that are represented in the spreadsheet. I'm not saying the spreadsheet numbers are correct. I'm just discussing the most accurate way to read it correctly. If someone else has an idea about reading it even more accurately, that would be welcomed.

19 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

I sensed an intense effort from you to undermine my post,

I would certainly hope you were able to sense that your post was being undermined because it was. Unfortunately for you, that's a typical result of presenting facts alongside fiction. The fiction often gets undermined by facts. The only thing you sensed incorrectly was that you thought the effort was intense. But there was nothing intense about it. The facts are simply there, and I simply presented them.

19 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

There were 1,006 cases of child sexual abuse reported among the Jehovah's Witnesses in Australia . . .

I have been referencing the cases not the victims.  Multiple individuals can be victims in a single case. . . .We need to stay focused on the quanity of cases, not the victim numbers.

No. That's false. Actually, we don't need to stay focused on the number of cases (perpetrators), and not the victim numbers. That might be your own agenda, but my goal was to clarify the false impression you continued to give that there were not at least 1,700 victims included in the same documentation which referenced 1,006 perpetrators.

You are welcome to use the term "cases" to refer to the number of perpetrators alone. As I said above, some people will want to use the term "cases" to mean only that without any reference to the number of victims. What needed clarification was the fact that there really were 1,700 plus victims. Whether intentional or not, you made it appears as though you had an agenda to apply "case" only to the lower number as a way to obfuscate the fact that there were 1,006 alleged perpetrators and over 1,700 alleged victims. I thought it better to be concerned about both numbers, not just the lower one.

19 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

Spychanolizing the numbers means analyzing the data to find patterns or trends in the information.

That's also false. Psychoanalyzing the numbers definitely does not mean anything like that.

19 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

In theory, those 383 cases referenced by Holy Folk could have 600+ victims.

I'm sure that's possible. Although most of her data appears now to have come from merely analyzing the same spreadsheet you referenced. It's the spreadsheet we already have that gave her the 161 convictions, and 1,006 perpetrators for example. She appears to have had no extra help from police sources but merely made some assumptions based on the data about the number of convictions (which MUST have been reported at some point) along with her interpretation of another column about reporting statuses. That same spreadsheet has a column called "Reported to Authorities by JW." That column was claimed to have the word "NO" 1,006 times. Actually, it had "NO" only 994 times and 12 marked "UNCLEAR." (You referenced this earlier, I think.)

21 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

Could you explain how your chart shows an increase to 1857 even though the total number of "alleged" victims on the list is 1730?

Yes. Easily. The formula had been turned off before the JW Branch or the ARC made final edits to the document. I put the formula back in and it gave 1732 instead of 1730 in that same cell. If you count the numbers manually you will see that the formula is correct.

But that formula counts the cells containing the word "Unclear" as a 0, and I think the word "Unclear" should have represented at least ONE alleged victim. Before you tell me I was just making up numbers, let me know how many victims YOU think the term "Unclear" most likely represents.

That formula also counted NINE cells containing the term "10+" as 0. Because when you put a plus sign after a number it now becomes just a string of text, and can't be counted as a number. I counted them as only 10 even though it's possible that the average of those was much higher. 10+ doesn't mean that all nine alleged perpetrators all were associated with exactly 10 alleged victims. Again, before you tell me I was just making up numbers, please let me know what number you would have used for the term 10+.

Anyway, counting the 9 perpetrators with 10+ victims apiece added a minimum of 90 additional victims to their sheet, and adding the "Unclear" as 1 instead of 0 made up the rest.

On 6/9/2023 at 11:48 AM, Fausto Hoover said:

I also don't count an allegation unless it was proven to be one.

Good. You are like me then. I put no faith in any of the numbers. Even the fact that in more than half these listed cases, (nearly 58%) the perpetrator actually confessed to the elders, it still doesn't mean it's a true number. Most of the perpetrators on the list are shown to have confessed, somewhere between about 58% and 70% according to the data provided. But people have been known to confess to things just to get the questioning over with, and try to put the matter behind them. Only Jehovah knows for sure. Of course, I also don't put faith in the fact that up to 40% did not confess. Obviously, that doesn't mean that the allegation is false. People have been known to make false allegations, but people have also been known to withdraw true allegations. Even the number of convictions can be misleading. People have been falsely convicted while other perpetrators never get caught or turned in.

On 6/9/2023 at 11:48 AM, Fausto Hoover said:

The document the ARC provided is 1730 total.

That will easily happen when you don't want "live" formulas in the sheet, and you change it to "values only" before all the editing is completed. It could easily happen in quite a number of ways. If various numbers had to be edited or corrected when the formula had already been removed, then that total will change once the formula is put back in. I saw the 1730 but there is no formula behind it. So I put the formula back in and that's when it showed 1732 instead of 1730.

I left this original number 1730 out of the discussion on purpose however to see if you would admit that you knew the actual number in the document really was 1730. Now I know that you either already knew I was correct when I said the document contained 1700+, or you just found out and still want to quibble about the difference between 1732+ and 1730. Either way, I'm glad I did it. It was very revealing.

I still see nothing in the ARC docs that answers the original question about where anyone (like Holly Folk) got the number of 383 cases that were reported. Obviously a conviction requires a report at some point in time, but there were less than 200 convictions in the entire sheet.

On 6/7/2023 at 6:42 PM, JW Insider said:

On 6/7/2023 at 5:48 PM, Fausto Hoover said:

I'm curious as to why the 383 incidents that involved police weren't included in the ARC investigation.

I wouldn't be surprised at this. Do you have a source? Is there a reason that the Watchtower lawyers forgot to include this in any kind of defense? I heard a rumor about this too but was surprised that it took so many years for this rumor to begin circulating. . . . 1000 perpetrators and at least 1500 unreported cases versus nearly 400 reported incidents is still embarrassing.

I guess to be more accurate, if there really were 383 reported cases, then I should have subtracted 383 from 1857+ and changed that last line to 1006 perpetrators and at least 1474 unreported cases versus 383 reported incidents . . .

18 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

So, you are concerned. But it's wise to be concerned, for the correct information.

Yes, I found my source documents. You are right that the sheet has exactly 1,006 entries for the number of perpetrators. Some people identify the perpetrators as the number of cases. But notice that the next column is the number of victims which I counted as 1,700+ (which other Witnesses numbered at 1732 or thereabouts.) The reason I added the plus is that most people had just totaled the numbers in the column without considering all the ones that had "text" in the cell.

In the screenshot I skipped 1000 lines so you can also see the headings. The sheet matches all the numbers that other JWs and Holly Folk were using, for all the columns, not just the first few I am showing in the screenshot. I won't promote the sheet by posting the whole thing, but I'm pretty sure you can find someone who downloaded it at the time it was available. (I might be mistaken, but I don't think it is currently available on the ARC site.) 

When you look at the original sheet and total the number of alleged victims column, you get 1732 see below.

But many of the cells display Unclear. And we should assume that any accusation involves at least one accuser. So if we replace the Unclear's with a 1 then you get a total of 1766 victims.

But several of the perpetrators (even ministerial servants) had 10 or more victims, and those were marked with the term "10+". The plus sign keeps it from being put in the total because the sheet formula treats it as text, not a number. So if you change all the 10+ to just the number 10 (the minimum), you get a minimum of 1,857 victims:

Again I don't know the accuracy of the report that the Australian Watchtower Branch gave to the court, but it represents at least 1,857 victims. This is why I called it 1,700-plus. But if it comes up again, I supposed I should be more accurate and admit that it shows at least 1,857.