Posted on 08/14/2015 3:31:08 PM PDT by Jyotishi
SYDNEY -- The abuse was meticulously catalogued. From 1950 to 2014, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society amassed some 5,000 files detailing sexual abuse of Australian children by 1,006 of its members, who believe only they -- the Jehovah's Witnesses -- proclaim the truth about God.
Young girls were assaulted by neighbors. Teenagers were raped by their fathers. Victims were forced to pray with their abusers.
When the children reached out for help, the church's obsession with secrecy and hostility to outsiders kicked in. Victims, ordered to keep quiet, were forced to confront their abusers in person. All complaints -- which averaged one a month for six and a half decades -- were carefully recorded in sealed files, along with the church's by-the-Bible responses.
One hundred and twenty-seven church officials were demoted. No one was reported to the authorities. Child abuse was recorded and hidden away.
Now, sordid details from the closed world of the Jehovah's Witnesses are being exposed that could severely tarnish the image of a powerful organization that has 8.2 million members around the world and has mostly avoided scrutiny.
Two years ago, the Australian government established a royal commission -- similar to a presidential commission in the United States -- to investigate institutionalized child sexual abuse.
The inquiry's primary target was the Catholic Church, whose record of protecting pedophiles was almost as bad in Australia as in the United States. To avoid singling out one religion, government officials gave the inquiry wide legal powers to examine any organization that may have covered up abuse. The commission doesn't have the power to find guilt or issue punishment. But a spokesman said it has referred over 700 matters to authorities and will make recommendations to the government in a final report in 2017.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
JWs are ghouls
Definition of schadenfreude, harm joy, beyond jealousy, wanting what another has,envy, wanting another not to have good things, is happiness at another’s discomfort.
One of the odder theologies I have encountered. Based on cherry picked takes of the bible, it boasts the “virtue” of no hell.
That is a slam on the dignity of both God and man, however. Hell represents God’s respecting of the choices of man. We know where things go when there is no skin in the game.
what exactly are the beliefs of JW’s?
It’s pretty easy to Google up, but among the stark differences between that and mainstream Christianity is no Trinity and no Hell.
Their core belief is that they have the right to ring my doorbell and interrupt what I’m doing.
Are they allowed to celebrate birthdays? Because. a few years back, I went to a party where a mutual friend, who was a Jehovah’s Witness, was attending and it was his birthday.
So I made a very nice birthday cake for him, at the request of the party hostess, and the bastard blew out the candles at the party, and them took the whole cake home with him. I mean, the point was to share with all the people at the party, but this dude packed the cake up in his car and took him so he could eat the whole thing himself!
Bad etiquette, no matter what you religious persuasion.
(And it was a double chocolate cake that he refused to share!! People have been killed for less)
No. Birthdays are forbidden, since in the Bible only pagans celebrated birthdays.............
And as for the cake, he probably threw it in the garbage, but not wanting to insult you he took it as a gift instead of a celebratory gesture which would have been against his beliefs. You, unknowingly of course, put him in a position where he had to take the least sinful way out........
No, this guy took it home and ate it. He was known for getting food from friends.
And his 3rd ( or 4th wife) at the time wasn’t a JW, and she told me how good the cake was.
Not really. I'm actually surprised that he took the cake, usually they tell you loudly that they don't celebrate that because they are JW's. And if you send them a card they will send it back to you with a note telling you all about their 'faith'. Someone should have 'reported' his failing to his Hall.. ;-)
And no Christmas gifts. Or Easter celebration, no pledging allegiance to the flag, no blood transfusions (because that's 'eating' blood), no Resurrection (Jesus body dissolved into gasses and the Disciples who all went to their martyrs death proclaiming that they had seen the Risen Lord, were merely seeing an apparition), no Heaven (except for 144,000 of their elite - everyone else who is less worthy gets a paradise Earth.) Works based salvation, such as whatever they offer is. And to support all of their aberrations they use their own translation of the Bible, altering verses that would disprove their mantra in a manner that no qualified scholar of Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic would agree with..
And Jesus returned in 1878. Or 1914. Or 1925. Or 1935. Or 1974. Or..
I think he was JW in name only. He as big into gambling and had been married numerous times. Never mentioned JW during our poker club get togethers.
I’m just mad he didn’t cut the cake and share it as it was a really good cake and I wanted a piece LOL
And so they don’t care if they turn into abrasive, puffed up a-holes because hey, there is no real skin in the game. What’s this “love of God” stuff? Life is for patting each other on the back.
It’s a religion being a religion.
Maybe he thought that way, he wouldn’t be sinning. No celebration, no sin.
So..
Next time, if there is one, you bake the cake, bring it along, and at the appropriate time you loudly announce “It’s our buddy Joe Witness’s birthday. I baked this cake for us so we could celebrate his birthday for him since I know that his faith forbids him to celebrate his birthday... “
And then cut the cake and pass it around. Offer him a piece after everyone else has theirs ‘in case he wants to join the celebration’...
He already had sinned a lot. He liked younger women.
He’s moved to another state quite far from here. And divorced the 3rd (or 4th, not sure which marriage it was) wife.
The thread just brought back the memory - I know the cake was wonderful. :-)
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