Jehovah's Witnesses to face abuse inquiry

[TrueTomHarley]

No. I don't believe that. I don't believe one can have meaningful discussions with apostates (and I'm not saying that you do). 

You can reason with the surly neighbor. You can reason with the person who hates Jehovah's Witnesses' guts. You can reason with one who has left the faith, for sometimes they reassess. You cannot reason with apostates. They're easily smart enough, but they have no interest in reasoning. They have only interest in persuading. How many apostates have you seen budge one iota here? Imagine yourself a one-time Mormon. For whatever reason, you left the church 10 years ago. And yet you spend huge amounts of your time trolling the comments of your one-time fellow Mormons, trying to shake them from the religion. Are you one who can be reasoned with?

I say, blow them out of the water, until the overlords say you cannot, and if they should say that - well, that also tells you something. Expose their motives. Expose their bizarre obsession with ruining the faith of others without offering any substitute. I mean, as World War III breaks out, can't you imagine Ann (has she been on this thread or just the other one?) upset that the Australian commission has to desist from questioning our people?

Of course, your indignation must be controlled. For one brief moment, Allen gave reign to wrath, and it's back to Bible 101 for him! But he will gain a refresher certificate (I know, because I have a few of them) and then he will be back for more battles. Or maybe he will move on to other things. Either way, he will be fine, and I am glad to know he is around.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

TrueTomHarley:

In any REAL  civil debate the TRUTH will always win out.

IT IS EVERY SEEKER OF REAL TRUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY TO PRESENT ACCURATE FACTS, AND TO KNOW WHAT IS TRUE ... if for no other reason that YOU PERSONALLY can win an argument on any topic, Antarctica to Zepplins ... based on facts, reason, logic and common sense.

Calling people names and trying to disparage their character, or appealing ( read: WHINING) to "overlords" only sends up a red flare into the night sky, that you cannot defend what is true, based on what is actually true, and need a "Big Brother" to shut the opposition down .. because you cannot defend your position, facts, philosophy, perspective of Theology in the REAL world, outside of pretzel shaped sentences and words.

The TRUE test of ANY philosophy, perspective or God supported religion is this ;

1.) It must make plain 'ol common sense outside of a convoluted million word semantics trap, where ANYTHING can be rationalized, and explained with applied stupidity.

2. It has to be based on free will, without coercion in any way, shape or form.

3. It has to be defendable against ALL COMERS ... in every circumstance ... in every case ... and the Arena Of Ideas by necessity must run red with rivers of blood from bad ideas exposed, and piled high with the bodies of the deluded, to stink in the hot midday sun.

The reason people inside, and outside of the Brotherhood fail at this is that they are afraid of philosophical combat, and TRYING to find out what is true.

THEY FEAR BEING PUNISHED SEVERELY FOR RATIONAL THOUGHT AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH.  This is why in in a judicial system based on FEAR, in 50 years, with 1,006 criminal child molesters, in over 5,000 incidents ... ONLY ONE was reported to the Australian police.

The word the entire Planet uses for this  ... is TYRANNY.

Without rational thought being encouraged, and Freedom of Speech, with EVERYBODY encouraged ... we become draft animals for anyone who, even though they may have the highest goals and the very BEST motives as rulers, and shepherds ... THEY INTEND TO RULE.

The effect  ALWAYS is an almost imperceptible slide from fear, to accepting tyranny as "the way things should be",

Instead of debating and abandoning what is false ... they debate and defend their untenable and wrong positions, ideas, and totems, and lose the simplest arguments about what is True and what is not, resorting to "Theocratic Warfare", where lying is an acceptable tactic.

It's a TRAP.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

21 minutes ago, AllenSmith said:

And how is that any different from Non-fallacious reasoning ad hominem attacks, that many here are only interested in disparaging the WTS by misinterpreting and perverse what the society is about. It’s quite “clear” the Administrator has taken an interest to admonish me while playing favoritism NOT to admonish others. So, if the “truth” is what you seek, this is a perfect example of a double standard. TRUE STATEMENT!

Is that OK! Administrator, and Queen Esther? Since you are going to start to "mark" my post as "dislike" while posting "like this" to those other forms of ad hominem attacks.

Thank you Allen, for providing an EXACT example of what I was talking about ... WoooOOoooEEEEEEoooooo !

[TrueTomHarley]

Uh oh. The overlords have their heads in their hands and are crying. 'Don't we have a day job we can back to?' they are asking each other. So lets go back to a previous point.

Someone said that the Australians were miffed that a GB didn't appear at their second hearing. Were they? If so, should they be?

The Australian commission has authority in Australia, and nowhere else. Why should not the response be to send our own people who have authority in Australia alone? Seems to me representatives from the Australian Branch should do just fine. Everyone wants to talk to the top guy, assuming all underlings are orangutans.

Our people are united. It isn't our fault if the world is carved up into 200 separate entities. What if they all insisted upon meeting the top guy? No. People overseeing the territory they oversee should be enough. Send more if you want. But it shouldn't be expected.

....SIGH!!!....the LIBRARIAN will YYYEEEEEELLLLLLLLLL!!!!! at me, and i will 

1.  have to 

2  AGREEE!!! with HERR that

3 I am

FOUR!  behaving BADLY by IMITATING a certain APOS**TATE who 

5. INSISTS on absurd and bombastic styyyylllling. 

6. I CAN'T HELP IT!!!!! GILL TEE as Charged!!!!!!!!!!

There. Try to make some sense out of that. I'll take the hit, if need be. Maybe this thread needs be split into several new ones. If so, name them after Anna, not me.

Oh, and now for some JTR-esque graphics:

 

I mean, C'mon. Some of these characters are firing off statements that are barely coherent. I should be able to do it, too.

[Anna]

9 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Our people are united. It isn't our fault if the world is carved up into 200 separate entities. What if they all insisted upon meeting the top guy?

I agree. But the ARC were made aware in case 29 (which was the case held in 2015) that the GB have the last word in all decisions, so I guess they just wanted to cut out the middle man...

[TrueTomHarley]

There was also a suggestion somewhere that our people are acting so as to safeguard assets for any place they or individual elders may have erred. Even the word 'cynical' was used.

Oh? And everyone else approaches the bench with wallet opened: "Here, Judge, help yourself! Take as much as you want!"?

Regardless of the merits of any case, pedophilia or otherwise, lawsuits today are the premiere growth industry, which in itself says much about this system of things. 

From 'Tom Irregardless:' "At any rate, early in 2010 a Portland, Oregon jury determined the Boy Scouts of America was responsible for the above gross sexual abuse of a child, and assessed a judgment of $18.2 million in damages. That was said to be the largest such verdict in American history on behalf of a single plaintiff.

"Eighteen million is a lot of dough. What’s one person ever going to do with it? But it plays into that uniquely Western notion that money is the way to compensate for anything. Sometimes I think much anti-West sentiment is stirred up through that mindset, especially among nations where family ties are strong. Some foreign national is killed through Western action. “Gee, that’s a shame,” is the response, “oh well, here’s some money.” Who can forget the French peasant in Tale of Two Cities who wasn’t satisfied with the silver coins tossed from the coach of the aristocrat which had run down his child?

"Possibly one can argue that, if money truly is the god of society, anything short of a huge monetary penalty will have no effect. You can’t shame or guilt anyone, so the theory goes, since we have ridden ourselves of those concepts. A representative of the plaintiff’s legal team stated afterward his belief that the Boy Scouts have undertaken a truly noble and important task in mentoring young boys, for which they are to be commended, and it was his sincere hope that the $18 million judgment will impress upon them the need to do it better. Now, that is an American sentiment if ever there was one. I guess I’d be more persuaded if that team plowed their one-third of the award back into charitable causes, perhaps even the Boy Scouts themselves, with the stipulation that it be used for anti-pedophile purposes. And maybe they did. Do you think so?"

I'll even put a crass link for the book here: I've already written this stuff. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel.

Where I live, a local legal team is running non-stop ads: "After my accident, Friskem and Goode got me $5 million, 35 times what the insurance company said." That comes out of the fatcat insurance company's pocket? Of course not. It comes out of my neighbors' pockets. They celebrate with me at my bonanza with the insurance company. Then they open their insurance premium bills.

Whatever Bethel may be doing with contributed funds is well over my head. But they are the 'faithful steward.'

 

[Anna]

7 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

Interesting they didn't insist on calling the "POPE" if they want to cut out the middle man. Funny how things work, here and elsewhere.

That's maybe because they don't view our GB as they do the Pope, which I'm glad about! The Pope has celebrity status, I hope our GB are not viewed that way. (I just has a visual of him answering questions in his skull cap and and white cape...the Pope I mean) And also the Pope is just one, whereas we have 7 representatives and one of them was already a part of the hearing in 2015. They obviously thought it wouldn't be any trouble for him to repeat the gesture. 

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

There was also a suggestion somewhere that our people are acting so as to safeguard assets for any place they or individual elders may have erred. Even the word 'cynical' was used.

Oh? And everyone else approaches the bench with wallet opened: "Here, Judge, help yourself! Take as much as you want!"?

Regardless of the merits of any case, pedophilia or otherwise, lawsuits today are the premiere growth industry, which in itself says much about this system of things. 

From 'Tom Irregardless:' "At any rate, early in 2010 a Portland, Oregon jury determined the Boy Scouts of America was responsible for the above gross sexual abuse of a child, and assessed a judgment of $18.2 million in damages. That was said to be the largest such verdict in American history on behalf of a single plaintiff.

"Eighteen million is a lot of dough. What’s one person ever going to do with it? But it plays into that uniquely Western notion that money is the way to compensate for anything. Sometimes I think much anti-West sentiment is stirred up through that mindset, especially among nations where family ties are strong. Some foreign national is killed through Western action. “Gee, that’s a shame,” is the response, “oh well, here’s some money.” Who can forget the French peasant in Tale of Two Cities who wasn’t satisfied with the silver coins tossed from the coach of the aristocrat which had run down his child?

"Possibly one can argue that, if money truly is the god of society, anything short of a huge monetary penalty will have no effect. You can’t shame or guilt anyone, so the theory goes, since we have ridden ourselves of those concepts. A representative of the plaintiff’s legal team stated afterward his belief that the Boy Scouts have undertaken a truly noble and important task in mentoring young boys, for which they are to be commended, and it was his sincere hope that the $18 million judgment will impress upon them the need to do it better. Now, that is an American sentiment if ever there was one. I guess I’d be more persuaded if that team plowed their one-third of the award back into charitable causes, perhaps even the Boy Scouts themselves, with the stipulation that it be used for anti-pedophile purposes. And maybe they did. Do you think so?"

I'll even put a crass link for the book here: I've already written this stuff. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel.

Where I live, a local legal team is running non-stop ads: "After my accident, Friskem and Goode got me $5 million, 35 times what the insurance company said." That comes out of the fatcat insurance company's pocket? Of course not. It comes out of my neighbors' pockets. They celebrate with me at my bonanza with the insurance company. Then they open their insurance premium bills.

Whatever Bethel may be doing with contributed funds is well over my head. But they are the 'faithful steward.'

 

So in other words you are saying that it's understandable that WT might be trying to safeguard assets. Which is what I said.

[Anna]

7 minutes ago, AllenSmith said:

then one shouldn’t imply the high status of the POPE that happens to be just a normal man, and is only falsely venerated by his status, not as a chosen member of GOD. So, that status then becomes irrelevant to anyone mentioning it as a difference.

It's irrelevant to me, but it is not irrelevant to the "world" and that is who we were talking about. I very much doubt the ARC would have summoned the Pope if he was in Australia. Trust me, they do not view the Pope the same as the GB of Jehovah's Witnesses. Not in this case anyway.

11 minutes ago, AllenSmith said:

Yet, your suggestion of the GB not being seen as any other than a Group of “anointed” brothers (assistants) Acts 6:3 that GOD has found acceptable for the purpose of GOD’s spiritual work; they’re NOT there to argue legal matters either

It wasn't just about cold blooded legal matters, it was about policies to better protect children from sexual abuse, and how to better care for victims and deal with perpetrators, policies which need to have the approval of the GB in order to become valid policies.