Anna

I was looking for you comments @Arauna and @Eoin Joyce and I see the "Russian" Librarian is he culprit

3 hours ago, bruceq said:

On 3 April, Alexander Dvorkin, the Russian priest most famous for the defamation of religious groups not belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox faith, was elected Chairman of the Justice Department’s “Commission for the Implementation of State Expertise on Religious Science”,

Now isn't that interesting...

I am assuming this is 3 April 2017

3 hours ago, Shiwiii said:

The instance of putting the Russian ban on the jw news portion of jworg but not other government investigations is dishonest.

I guess your best bet would be to write to headquarters and ask THEM why they don't put government investigations such as the one conducted by the ARC on the website. My guess is because the Russia ban is not an investigation as such. Now had the Australian Government said it was going to ban the Witnesses, because of the ARC findings, then it is much more likely this would be in the news portion of jw.org.

3 hours ago, Shiwiii said:

child molestation and abuse have gone unannounced or exposed in Australia in the past 10 years, then I would have to disagree with your statement that exposure happens every time. 

Exposure happens every time a sexual child molester/pedophile is found to be guilty of his crime and without a doubt. In other words; what they have done comes to the fore, and is undeniable. Then their conduct has been exposed.

3 hours ago, Shiwiii said:

4 hours ago, Anna said:

I would hope that a known perpetrator would not be protected under any circumstances, if by protected you mean being allowed to carry on abusing children.

But this IS the case, as proven by the ARC and admitted to by the representatives of wt au.  

I would have to go back and re-read some of the testimonies by victims and also the transcript. I do not remember reading about an instance where a known perpetrator was protected so that he could go on abusing other children.

1 hour ago, Shiwiii said:

Actually no, I'm not looking for some sort of big announcement. I'd be more interested in the exposure of such wrong doings to children

Isn't that the same as a big announcement? In any case, the exposure of wrong doings to children happens every time it is found out isn't it? And it has to be handled correctly. However, a certain form of confidentiality is always required in these cases, and it was never confidentiality that was questioned by the ARC, but the handling of these cases as respects a suitable environment for disclosure and the reporting of such to the police etc. Announcing names of pedophiles to the whole congregation has never been a recommended policy of any child protection institutions as far as I know. However, a pedophile may be put on a public pedophile list by the authorities and in this way the perpetrator may be known to all.

1 hour ago, Shiwiii said:

I think the difference is that with Russia it doesn't negatively reflect on the org,  where as the investigation from the Australian government does

I would hope most Jehovah's Witnesses recognize that the organization is made up of imperfect people, and that there are individuals in the organization who are Jehovah's Witnesses in name only, who in their private lives and behind closed doors molest children, beat their spouses and do all kinds of other things despicable for a professed Christian. Yes, these people, if despite being found out, would remain unrepentant and remained in the congregation would indeed reflect negatively on the congregation and by extension the whole org. That is why people are disfellowshipped. To keep the congregations clean from such unrepentant wrongdoers. The problem is that some situations are difficult to prove. The unmarried sister who becomes pregnant is clear. (Although I know of a sister who got pregnant and apparently swore she didn't do anything). But the husband who hits his wife is a lot more complicated. And so is a pedophile who carefully grooms his victims.

The Russia situation is an entirely different thing and in all fairness cannot be compared to the above situation.

1 hour ago, Shiwiii said:

I forgot to ask, is it your opinion that the Russian ban and label as "extremists" greater in importance that of a child being molested and the perpetrator being protected just because it is commonly accepted that it happens in most major groups? 

I would hope that a known perpetrator would not be protected under any circumstances, if by protected you mean being allowed to carry on abusing children and not being punished for his crime.

1 hour ago, Shiwiii said:

I just thought it odd that sexually abused children didn't get the same coverage as this, or even a mention on the official website.

I thought @bruceq explained it quite well. Child abuse is nothing new. Not only that, Jehovah's Witnesses have been made aware of the problem since the early 80's. I remember the Awake article very well. There is enough information on the website about it:

https://www.jw.org/en/search/?q=child+abuse

Also, I believe, most recently there will be a special handbook of some sort made available to every publisher.

But I suppose what you really would like to see is a big announcement made that; "there are some among Jehovah's Witnesses, or some who are associated with Jehovah's witnesses, who are pedophiles" instead of advice on how to protect children.

Opposers like to quote this reply to a comment “From our Readers” implying that although Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that “Any organization that assumes that position should be willing to submit to scrutiny and criticism”  they themselves do not tolerate any scrutiny or criticism and therefore are being hypocritical.

Is that accusation true?

Awake 1984 8/22

“You all loved it, didn’t you? You couldn’t resist taking a shot at the Catholic Church, could you? I will never forgive the way you mercilessly tore down the Pope. If Jehovah’s Witnesses must refer to cheap shots in attempting to bring down other religions, they’re in more trouble than the Catholics”. - Florda

"We surely were not trying to take cheap shots at the pope or the Catholic Church, nor were we criticizing Catholics. The Catholic Church occupies a very significant position in the world and claims to be the way of salvation for hundreds of millions of people. Any organization that assumes that position should be willing to submit to scrutiny and criticism. All who criticize have the obligation to be truthful in presenting the facts and fair and objective in assessing such. In both respects we try to live up to that obligation.—ED.

5 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I bring up similar issues regularly for clarity, so that fellow brothers and sisters are aware of the counter-arguments to our beliefs, and so that we don't fall into the trap of dishonesty where we simply say that something can't be true if it makes us look wrong.

I appreciate you doing this and I would like to add something more to that but it would off topic here, so I am working on starting another topic (hoping it hasn't already been raised at some point already, but I'm sure the Librarian will let me know)

3 hours ago, Micah Ong said:

I do think it is important for everyone to know how tainted the NWT is to suit doctrine which I think was clearly shown in that they took it upon themselves to insert Jehovah in the Christian Greek Scriptures under their own assumptions.  Therefore trust in the Governing Body is clearly misdirected and dangerous. 

I could understand your reasoning if this had to do with something that was doctrinal very serious, such as misrepresenting God, his standards and his qualities. But using God's name Jehovah? And apparently inserting it into the Christian Greek scriptures instead of the title God? I can not take that kind of argument seriously, especially if you are thereby trying to prove that God is Jesus.

Perhaps as JWInsider suggests, this should be under another topic.

10 hours ago, JW Insider said:

But mentally we must understand that Jesus is the bread from heaven and that his blood means life for us. Whether we put the glass to our lips or add our saliva to a piece of bread and swallow it during a ritual is not what is truly important. Besides, if we hold to an earthly hope, then we would merely be confusing others who might take our participation as a declaration that we are of a heavenly hope.

Nice

On 4/19/2017 at 8:38 AM, Micah Ong said:

The other sheep that were not of this fold but would come in to be one flock that Jesus mentioned, would in context be the Gentiles of the nations. 

Yes, I have heard this reasoning in my discussions with the Bible Students. But it is evident there are two flocks with two different hopes right now, and these do not include the "Gentiles" in the context you mean.

6 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

To follow Christ is now illegal in Russia. 

No surprise there....

What would be fantastic is if the final court transcript of the actual decision would be made public, because this would be a clear summary of the case, and clear explanation for the decision, (whichever way it goes) neatly packaged in a few pages. (But hopefully not translated by Google, I don't think I could take any more "little wives").

7 minutes ago, Eoin Joyce said:

You know it's not worth reading an article which has this in the first paragraph on doctorine: "Jehovah’s Witnesses reject most Christian dogmas, such as creation of the world,"

More:
http://tass.com/world/939582..........    No Thanks!!

I know right! A complete ignoramus wrote the whole article. Unfortunately only we know that. Those who don't know much about JW might think it's accurate...

I especially love this part too:

"Each adherent is expected to unconditionally obey the will and aims of the organization. Nobody is allowed to leave it of one’s own accord. The movement expects its members to be hostile against all those who do not recognize its teaching".

 

Also on Tass, a not so flattering nor accurate picture of Jehovah's Witnesses. Ranked no. 4 as most read:

http://tass.com/world/939582

Also, it makes me wonder if the majority of those reading about the trial on Tass, are Jehovah's Witnesses themselves....because I kind of doubt others would be that interested.

As far as I know, yes, if there are not enough brothers available.

Every time I read this particular translation "little wife" cracks me up. I couldn't fathom it out and then I read another translation and it is the name of one of the participants, translated literally.

3 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

It is hard to know what to make of JTR. Sometimes I regret having been so blunt. Other times I regret having been such a wus.

You seem to bounce ideas off each other really well though 

Yes they do!!! Spongebob says so!!

By he way (and I know this is not the point of your thread here) those ex- members etc. are being discussed here.

1 hour ago, AveragePub said:

Nonsense!

Really? You don't say!

9 hours ago, Eoin Joyce said:

As they have stated themselves recently.

In discussing the functioning of the Governing Body, the February 2017 study issue WT says::

"And each member of that body views himself, not as the leader of his fellow brothers, but as one of the “domestics,” fed by the faithful slave and subject to its oversight." P29 para 11.

They have stated this even earlier than this WT.  Notice concluding paragraph in the letter from the GB in the 'God's Kingdom Rules' book, and also there were a couple more WT articles (I can't remember when) and a talk, which I can't remember either, I just remember noting the reference to the GB as being domestics. Then there was a convention or assembly talk about not imitating men but their fine deeds or something like that. Of course we should know all this anyway, since from the inception of the modern day Christian congregation this has always been the case (although some did put Russell on a pedestal, but he never put himself there). I am not sure when it is that a form of a kind of reverential adoration of the GB started (I am not saying that everyone of us was this way, but many were). Was it with Rutherford? I don't know. But in any case, it is very much part of human nature to "worship" what we see (adoration of the Pope etc. ) and this must be why Jehovah had to make sure that this was correctly directed towards him only (warning regarding idols etc.) I was reading recently a secular article about 'Jehovah' to whom this particular author referred to as a "Hebrew god of war" (Jehovah of armies), but what he found noteworthy was that as opposed to surrounding nations, the Jews had no statue or physical symbol of, as he terms it," this deity". We know why that is.

In any case, it seems that the GB/FDS saw it necessary to remind us that they too are domestics because perhaps of this human tendency to focus more on those we can see, rather than Jesus and Jehovah whom we cannot see.

11 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

apostate pie

13 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Not only can he not wait to ban them in Russia, but he will send thugs worldwide to beat up each individual Witness!

No, I think he is going to gather them all up from the four corners of the earth and haul them off to Siberia

Thanks @Eoin Joyce.  Your comment is pretty much my thoughts too. Why I pushed that point about the FDS was because some have the attitude (and opposers love pointing this out) that we believe that we are somehow dependent on the FSD for surviving the great tribulation, i.e. that they play a direct role or special role in our outcome, and that without them we would not be able to make it. This is why I kept harping on about WHAT is the REAL criterion for us surviving. It's not the FDS obviously, although as you have rightly pointed out, their role in helping us to maintain our loyalty to Jehovah has not been small by any means. And as you say, yes, we could spend a lot of time speculating on how the actual scenarios will play out, because we just don't know. But that wasn't really my concern. My concern was that readers don't get the impression that we are putting the FDS above the place they were given by Jesus, or on par with Jesus, because each of them individually are also the domestics, like everyone else in the Christian congregation.

3 minutes ago, Bible Speaks said:

Don't understand the question? I have Grandchildren. 

It's ok. Ignore my question I mean you don't have to answer it. Pretend I never asked.

I hope you don't mind me asking; how old are you? @Bible Speaks

1 hour ago, Eoin Joyce said:

Do you think a little more detail in writing would be prudent in case you are not conscious????

Actually I did, hence the dots......I only put what I thought was relevant to the discussion, the other bit was...."or with my health care surrogate in case of my incapacity"

By the way you never got back with me on that discussion HERE

1 hour ago, Ann O'Maly said:

5 hours ago, Anna said:

Well I guess Ann, you don't view the Bible as authority from God, many do however.

Indeed, many do ... and one doesn't have to be a JW to do so.

Hahaha, very well, I shall rephrase it: many believe the Bible to be authority from God, but only a few actually believe it enough to change their lives to live by it, even if it is a inconvenience to them. I was actually meaning that I get the impression you are an atheist.

1 hour ago, Ann O'Maly said:

'Nobody'? How do you know? Did you shadow them? Eavesdrop their conversations with other congregants, or during shepherding calls?

I know, because I talked to them about it. On top of that there were no shepherding calls, because they declined the offer. You know you can leave the congregation and stop going to meetings any time you want don't you? Usually without any "repercussions" I say usually, because as long as you don't flaunt an outwardly "hedonistic life style" as you call it, and tell everyone at the strip club you are one of Jehovah's Witnesses, then most likely no one will "bother" you. Again, I know quite a number of ex- Witnesses who were never disfellowshipped and who have been living out of wedlock and celebrate Christmas for some time now. The whole point, as I mentioned before, and as I am sure you know, is to keep the Christian congregation clean. Once someone leaves and over time is no longer known as a Witness in the community, keeping the congregation clean is no longer applicable as they are no longer associated with it. A far cry from the claim of "total control" indeed.

2 hours ago, Ann O'Maly said:

If an elder's baptized children are pursuing higher ed., they must have reached the age of majority. And yet the father could be sanctioned for any congregational 'slacking' on the part of his adult children while they're at college?

Well this is assuming they are still living under his roof of course, and are a part of his household which he "presides" over. I don't see a chain of coercion here if you believe Jesus's words about putting the Kingdom first, and agree with the Bible's qualifications for elders.

2 hours ago, Ann O'Maly said:

it's little wonder that so many feel manipulated into blocking off that pursuit for themselves or their children.

Indeed, it's difficult since the whole of society is geared to self pursuit. In this environment it is not easy to follow Jesus's command: Then he went on to say to all: “If anyone wants to come after me, let him disown himself  and pick up his torture stake day after day and keep following me".