The story of young Ashya King has taken a dramatic twist in the last 24 hours as it has emerged that the motives for his Jehovah’s Witness parents removing him from hospital were NOT religious as initially suspected by some (myself included).
Last night Brett King, Ashya’s father, made an emotional appearance in a YouTube video claiming he fled the UK with his son because doctors refused to consider proton beam therapy. King said he was afraid Ashya’s doctors would obtain a court order blocking him from seeing his son if he objected.
The Hampshire police, who initiated a European-wide arrest warrant that eventually succeeded in Ashya’s parents being arrested in Spain on suspicion of neglect, have come under heavy criticism in the UK. Ashya’s grandmother, Patricia King, has labelled their actions in hunting down her son and daughter-in-law as “disgraceful.”
“I think they (the police) have been absolutely disgraceful … I have nothing but condemnation for them,” she said.
“To be told that that’s it, that you can’t do any more for the child, of course Brett took alternative measures,” she said.
“Other people have done it (sought proton beam therapy), so why have they gone after my son like this?
“They’ve made him out to be a criminal.”
Meanwhile, another parent of a brain tumor victim has spoken of her own struggle in securing proton beam treatment for her son.
“We were told the same thing, that Alex’s tumour wasn’t suitable for proton therapy by the NHS here in this country,” said Ros Barnes, whose son eventually had beam therapy treatment in the US.
“The alternative here was radiotherapy, and he was only four years old at the time it would have caused extreme brain damage and probably wouldn’t have worked either. So yes, I would have done the same as this family.”
An apology
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for assuming that Ashya’s parents’ behavior was religiously motivated. Though, as a parent, I cannot condone taking a critically ill child out of hospital and on a 1,000+ mile car journey, as more information comes to light I can certainly sympathize with the King family’s horrendous predicament. I hope above all that Ashya will receive the treatment he needs, whatever (and wherever) that may prove to be.
Further reading…
Thanks for the update. I wish Ashya and his family the best.
Yeah sometimes its good and wait on all facts.My opinion is even i am ex JW the parents know the best whats best for their children.
That was also reason why i left England recently the lack of pacient care and proper treatment.
As that gentleman mantioned the best care is in the Czech Republic where i live and am originally from.
Difficult to imagine the suffering of the parents and the grandparents of Ashya, when our own children are OK.
In such a case, only empathy is not out of place.
It’s wrong to castigate the police. A critically sick child,
just days after surgery was taken away from his medical
support team without any consultation by the parents.
The doctors, keenly aware of the child’s condition and
the possible further deterioration in his health, away
from essential support systems… Called on the Police
to help trace him.
The police pulled out all the stops, even calling in
Interpol. In different circumstances, a kidnapped child
for instance, The police would have everyone’s full
support..
Ashya was rightly considered to be a child in danger
and the actions of the police and medical staff was
completely justified.
I for one, am grateful that we have such caring people
and organisations at our back. And very disappointed
at the unjust criticism they have received.
It was clear from the original video posted by Ashya’s brother that he was seriously ill showing little movement or emotion and seemed to be sinking fast. We can more readily understand his parents urgent concerns to find a way out for their son and get him the best treatment available.
Without the input of his fathers views which we did not have at the time it became so easy to put two and two together and come up with five. Fortunately Ashya’s father had more independent thought and genuine concern for his child’s welfare than we as WT Apostates give most rank and file members credit for. The danger to Ashya’s health and welfare is still uncertain and hopefully it has not been increased by Ashya’s having been actively removed by Police from the care of his parents which from what we hear is the current situation. From what I read there is a power that is available to all when even the best of medical science fails. Believers call it the active Power of Prayer.
we all jump the Gun, so to speak, every now and then, its the job of all of us to not take info as fact, untill we have done some extra research. sometimes it takes a while too.
I just wish the authorities would be more prone to calmly ask questions of people before aways assuming the worse and getting the info strait themselves before making judgments, and he media sure doesnt help. why is it that so often we assume the worse first? hmm. That poor child, I wish him and his family, relief from all his trials.
We of all people (should) know how important it is to get all facts right first. Very good of you to use your well-known voice to clear the air and share their side of the story. Thank you for this. Hope this shows certain persons that we are not the “evil apostates” we are portrayed to be – which may lead some to get their facts right too.
interesting developments, and one can’t be sure until all the facts, however with the WT history one does seem to be sceptical when this issues arise.
Good article and helpful to JW and exjW, shows unbias and honesty. well done.
Good on ya, John, for printing an up front addendum to your story. Most newspapers, if they ever do print a retraction to a front page story, hide it in section C. The Watchtower NEVER prints a retraction. For that, you are the better person!
a fine day for the great tribulation to begin, the sun is shining, the sky blue, and 100 years since the First World War.
I appreciate the work you put in to this website, and your determination to let people have accurate information about Jehovah’s Witnesses.
I’m not sure, however, that this news item, and the way that you have reported it or commented on it, has been a very good advert for either you or your website.
Just as a reminder of some of your comments:
“All the while the child is in dire need of medical attention and could die at any moment.” (italics mine)
“The parents, who have ripped their child from its hospital bed and medical apparatus, thus endangering its life…Astonishing.” (italics mine)
“…their behavior, which I still consider reckless in the extreme.” (italics mine)
(Almost as soon as he was put in the hospital in Malaga he was downgraded from critical to non-critical.)
“The father has come to the conclusion that he knows better than the doctors after browsing a few websites.”
“If you choose to send your money to parents who (in my view) are acting recklessly, against medical advice, and who think they understand the complexities of brain surgery after browsing a few sites on Google, that is your decision.”
Even your apology above is tainted somewhat by your addition of the “1000+ mile car journey.”
Something is off, and leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Certainly of this visitor.
Thanks for your comment Rory. I’m not proud of the way I initially reported this story, hence the apology. Unfortunately I can well imagine that, for some people like yourself, “sorry” is never enough.
Sometimes, when having left the Jehovah’s witness religion, we become very cynical with this organization and the members in it. This is only natural as when we usually leave we have already faced a very stressful time leading to being cut off from long term friends and family. I applaud anyone who uses their own time to openly expose the hurt this religion causes and the wrong teachings. As it helped me to see TTATT.
However, I don’t think this gives us the right to expose every single Jehovah’s witness and their private actions – especially when facts are not present and assumptions have to be made. Its very clear that in the first article about ashya’s case that wrong assumptions were made based upon ceders cynical mind against all witnesses. There was nothing stated in any news article that it had anything to do with the blood issue or any other Jw objection. Yet ceders automatically assumed the worse and formulated his own wrong opinions before getting all the information and facts. In so doing, he helped tarnished 2 people who should have been left alone. This is very much a police case – not a case of that much interest to jws or former jws as it has nothing to do with the society or its teachings and scandals. This was a desperate situation for a desperate couple. U may sit there and say u think its wrong for them to take the child out of hospital and condemn their actions for it however ur not in that situation. I would do everything possible for my children and if the doctors would tell me they couldn’t do anymore when I know doctors in other countries would then I would have done the same. And I’m sure many more would have done too. So maybe instead of continuing to condemn this couple, why don’t u instead leave their private life to them. And until ur in that situation, refrain from commenting.
I have been a user on this site for years now. I’ve always directed people here. Its been an invaluable tool. However I will say that in recent months, its changed. It used to keep is updated with what the organization is doing, the doctrinal changes and their court cases. But when I log on these days its filled with articles condemning the actions of a individual members. I’m being given the impression of a hate filled exjw who has it personally against every individual Jw rather than the Jw religion. (There was a recent change to whether they can marry in the ressurection which would have been of great interest but this was completely overlooked)
Perhaps it may now be time to get things back on track and focus ur attention on the organization and not individuals and when you come to write an article to make sure u have all the facts before u and write what’s actually going on instead of writing down ur opinions and making what could be wrong assumptions. It does u no credit in the long run.
“But when I log on these days its filled with articles condemning the actions of a individual members.”
Examples?
@rory.
What do you think this site is all about.
Yes it is set up to keep us informed, but John has as much right to comment from his heart as anyone else on here.
Comments are comments and he commented. Then he apologised. But why you think his closing comment has tainted the apology leaves me puzzled.
He simply adds, ” as a parent” so he has as much right to say this, as anyone.
You have as much right to respond. But please take your hands off your hips.
I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that there is no religious connection to this behaviour. Religion feeds into everything that a JW does.
Not only that, but they “took him to Spain to sell their house first.” How quickly did they expect this sale to go through? What care plans did they have in place for Ashya while this was going to be happening? By all means, look for alternative treatment, but do it in a responsible way. This was completely irresponsible, as far as I’m concerned.
We don’t know all of the facts. We only know the family’s side of things. And even if it turns out that their story is 100% true, I would argue that the JW “we know better” attitude had a large effect on their decision.
Folks,
I sympathise with Mrs King. She must be very worried for her family, as we all have been over the last few days.
I do not think that the search for Ashya was “disgraceful”. The police did not know any facts about this case, and were simply acting reasonably in doing all they could to find a very sick little boy. I think that we would all expect the police to do all they could to find a loved one of ours, wouldn’t we?
Should the Kings be kept from their child? No, I don’t think so. All that would be needed was a person present outside the room to ensure that Ashya is not removed again.
John Cedars has come under much criticism for his handling of this case from some of our fellow posters.
He has apologised. He presented the King’s You Tube video in its entirety. He has written this article.
It is up to us to forgive him his mistakes, just as we would want others to forgive our own, after we had taken steps publicly to correct those mistakes.
We all want the very best treatment for little Ashya. I hope, as we all do, that he can receive the correct treatment for his tumour and that he makes as full a recovery as is possible.
Peace be with you
Excelsior!
Hi There. I wondered if the reasons for taking that little boy were religious. However I am glad that I did not automatically assume. I guess part of the reason for that is just through experience. I was once a Housing Officer looking after a council estate. And I use to work with Neighborhood complaints. And I had several instances where the ‘facts’ presented to me, turned out not to be true on further investigation. And on one occasion the ‘facts’ seems implausible indeed, but were actually true. :-) Also, as a Non JW, looking from the outside in, I get a different perspective. It is true that when it comes to JW ‘ Faith’ issues, my relatives do tow the line. But at the same time, I also see a curious paradox. For example, one relative is a wonderful artist, photographer, and gardener, and loves good music. In other words the ‘indoctrination’ goes deep, but it is not total. So given my observations, and experiences, I am not surprised when JW’s are independently minded. Let me give you another example. My Nephews and Niece were for did Home School. However my Sister and Brother in law made sure that it was very good home schooling. And in fact when my Niece did go to a state school, she was way ahead, in literacy than many of the other pupils, some of whom could not even read. Its a paradox here. In one sense a JW may be ‘confirming’ to JW.ORG’s expectations. But it also takes guts, and an individual willingness to challenge society in order to Home School the children or go self employed or refuse to celebrate a birthday. My in-laws contacted ‘Education Otheriwise’ ( a society in England that helps anyone who wants to home school their children), and it clearly worked. In my view, the danger for the Watchtower, is that that ‘independent streak’ that it takes to do something like that,or be self employed, can given the right conditions, also be turned back on the society itself. Indeed many of the ‘apostates’ demonstrate that independent and critical thinking skills which seem greater than in the general population And maybe those skills, were already there and what lead to the misguided decision to join the WTBTS. Just food for thought.
@Joshua. We have been programed in the Society to think firstly that if a JW child has been taken from the hospital without the hospital’s permission that it must be because the Liaison committee helped them to escape having blood forced on their child. We have seen these experiences over and over again in our lifetimes in the organization so that would have been almost all of our presumptions.
The fact that the decision had nothing to do with blood still gives the press the impression that JW’s don’t follow the rules when it comes to whether or not you can just take your child out of the hospital without informing them and keep running when the police in many countries are being paid to find this family.
In the U.S. when something like that happens where it involves a religious practice such as Christian Science, the parents are held to account and especially when there’s a child’s life is involved and the news article will bring up the religion over and over again.
If the child should die, the mother and father would be put in prison for the child’s death and there would be much bad press about the cost of law enforcement costs and bad press about the religion these people adhere to. There have been cases in the United States where Christian Scientists have not taken their children to hospitals and the children have died and those parents are put in prison for murder.
In this case the fact that these parents were JW’s was plastered all over the news article in the paper and on the Television news stories. If it were not for the news stories reporting that they were JW’s, we would never have heard about it since Cedars is looking for JW stories on the internet.
If these parents had done this to keep their child from getting blood, the Society would have held them up to be a GOOD EXAMPLE!!! The fact that it had nothing to do with blood, shows that they were not following JW rules at all. The Governing Body wants everyone to think that JW’s aren’t like Christian Scientists at all in that JW’s believe in taking their children to the hospitals to get medical care and they don’t practice faith healing like the crazy Christian Scientists.
Christian Scientists think that they have the religious freedom to withhold treatment for their children but the government says no, not when that child’s life is at stake and the child can’t speak for themselves. The Government in the US. will hold the parents responsible for the death of that child.
We all wanted to know what happened and none of us said for sure that it had to do with blood. All of us were saying IF IT HAD TO DO WITH BLOOD, thus and so.
The only reason that hospitals and police talk the religion when it comes to JW’s, ALWAYS has had to do with blood so naturally that is what we could have thought and started up the discussion about blood. We are on this site to inform anybody who hasn’t come to the realization yet, that the Society are a bunch of thieving liars. Every time I post, I am hoping that I can say something, anything that will inform those who haven’t come to know the truth about the truth yet, something that might make them think about how they are being misled. Blood is a good subject and this article was a way to have the discussion going about blood in the hopes it might make some people wake up and think about the man made rule the Society has about blood and how many children have died due to this man made rule.
But think about this. This was bad P.R. for the Society. When these people are threatened with jail time and the kids taken away from the parents, this will make the JW’s look like cooks. This is not what the Society wants to happen at all. If the child had died, they would not want that reported in the newspapers or tv either. They want everyone to think we wouldn’t do stuff like that to make the Society look bad.
I have a feeling that the Society will distance themselves from this family if that happens. I also think they will be called on the carpet for it from the local congregation. The Society does not want bad P.R. I hope that this little boy recovers and if this family is chastised or they lose all their friends over it, I am hoping they will realize that the love in the Organization is only conditional love and not real love at all and wake up to the truth about the truth.
One thing also is that the Society likes everyone to think it’s a charity. Where is the Society when a family like this has to sell their house in order to pay for a medical treatment?
What if it had to do with blood and the child died and the parents would be thrown in jail for neglect? Would the Society find funds to help this family out either with lawyers or medical bills, or help support the children who now have no parents to take care of them? No, not even then. This family is on their own and if they were going to get any charity, you had better believe it will come from so called “worldly” charities. Who are the real Christians here?
I think that that the local congregation will distance themselves from this and not help them out at all but call them on the carpet for making the Society look bad. They would have called them heroes and slapped them on the back if it did have to do with blood though, even if the boy dies in the process. I have been around this organization a long time and I know how it works.
Hmm interesting: “When they operated on him two months ago, we agreed to them doing blood transfusions but thankfully it wasn’t necessary.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/11067254/Ashya-Kings-brother-defends-parents-actions-as-couple-await-court-ruling-in-Spain.html
They’re not very “strong in the faith” the,n are they? :-P
excellent comment anonymous!
thanks for that link Gareth, interesting indeed! the elders are not going to be happy with the parents, maybe this will be a wake up call for them as anonymous pointed out.
Apology accepted John.
Countless numbers of children each year are taken from parents who are not acting in the best interests of their own Children.
As far as these parents are concerned they were breaking the universal law of common child care practices.
If they as Jehovah’s Witnesses are supposedly held to higher standards according to their own rules. I. E. Be in subjection to the superior authorities as they are placed there by God as a protection for you.
Then why did these parents break that law?
Why is this Grandma disrespecting the law enforcement officials?
Again we come back front and center to double standards being practiced by this family.
But then again their Watchtower trained Consciece alows them to do such a thing.
If they really followed the Bibles principles then this story probably would have never existed to begin with.
Gareth,
If what Danny King said is true, then thankfully, no, they aren’t toeing the official line.
It makes my heart glad to see that human beings can transcend their conditioning sometimes.
I wish the King family all the best in their search for the best treatment for Ashya. It is unfortunate that they had to flee the country without informing anyone of what their intentions were, or the fact that they had a charger for the feeding apparatus, along with additional food supplies.
I do not align myself with those who have been critical of the police. I recognise that, sadly, there have been many instances in the past of UK police failing society. I do not think that the initial search and discovery of the Kings applies as a police failure.
If people have issue with the subsequent arrest and extradition then they need to complain to the Crown Prosecution Service, who advised and authorised the European Arrest Warrant. Hampshire police are not responsible for this.
The priority was finding Ashya and I applaud the British, French and Spanish police who have accomplished that goal swiftly and efficiently.
What happens next to little Ashya and the rest of the King family is another matter. We all hope that little Ashya receives the correct treatment and that the rest of the King family are supported through this dreadful time.
Peace be with you
Excelsior!
Mr, King stated that he had “Given permission for a blood
transfusion, but happily it was not needed”.. This then must
create a dilemma for the W,T,Org,
In view of the international publicity focused on the family
and the quite understandable sympathy for them.
Will the Org, stick to their principles, and apply congregation
discipline, which according to to the rules could mean
disassociation, or will they let this quietly drop.?
Also what do the ordinary J,W’s, think. Did Mr, King do the
right thing in giving the doctors permission to use all means
possible to save his son’s life.? Or did he act in an
un Christian way ,? And commit a sin worthy of cutting off
from Christ, and his God Jehovah.?
On seeing the video with that limp little boy, I,m sure everyone’s
hope ( Including all us “apostates”), Is for that child’s recovery.
Hi Cedars,
Joshua said :”However, I don’t think this gives us the right to expose every single Jehovah’s witness and their private action…”
I just want to tell you Cedars, continue to expose the hypocrisy of the seven ” We Already Are Sitting On Heavenly Thrones”. Although hypocrisy already is depicted on each of their own face, I appreciate to get more information on your website and consider them as words of consolation after fourty years trapped in the WT cult.
Thank you Cedars. All the best.
That is an apology … taking of ownership and responsibility for an error, though be it unintentional. I’ve yet to see such humility from the jw organization. Can someone show me where that’s taken place if it has?
Hi John,
I am a regular reader of this site and I respect your work. I am glad that you apologised for jumping the gun. You are still allowing your personal opinion to avoid a full apology. All the information so far indicates that the parents had good reason to remove their boy from hospital and took excellent care of him while travelling to Spain.
Thank you Brendan. Though an apology was appropriate and was given, my opinion doesn’t have to align itself entirely with yours. My apology was no less “full” simply because it failed to completely endorse the actions of the King family. I am allowed to sympathize with their predicament without having to completely agree with how they handled it.
They could at least have left a note about where they were going to go? What I also don’t understand is: they still had to sell that house to get enough money? But selling a house is not something you arrange in a weekend… especially when the economy is depressed, it can take quite a while to find a buyer. Or perhaps they already had a buyer and were now traveling to Spain to finish the deal? But I assume they would have revealed some detail if this were the case. I think there are still some loose ends here. Anyway, anyhow, I wish the best for Aysha!
What IS a FULL apology.
Fortunately Ashya survived. Otherwise the opinions
going around would be a whole lot different.
Cedars apology is well accepted. But jw organization is still a cult. Wonder what is the latest prediction by them for the end of this system as they call it. LOL
Good job John – Sorry you have to put up with miserable individuals as this Rory. Persons like this who can only criticize, make it tough for ones taking the lead. I am sure he did this while a JW as well.
You’ve just done it again. “For some people like yourself, sorry is never enough.”
You continue to make assumptions about people, which is what got you in to trouble with this story in the first place.
In actual fact, you could remove this story altogether without the shame of it looking like a Watchtower cover-up. You focused on it because it turned out to be a family who happened to be Jehovah’s Witnesses, and you leapt to certain conclusions based on that. It turns out that their religion is incidental to their plight, and several respected news sources have managed to report the story without mentioning their religion at all. Look at this recent one from the Telegraph, for instance.
There will be plenty more opportunities to declare some home truths about the Watchtower organisation’s stance on blood, and its effects, without tying it in to a story which would appear to have little or nothing to do with the blood issue. This one would only seem to give us so-called “apostates” a bad name. As Lindsey says in The Abyss: “Stay off my side.”
I’m not making an assumption when I say that, for people like you, “sorry is never enough.” You are making that glaringly obvious with each comment. In your version of reality, nobody is allowed to make mistakes, and if people do make mistakes owning up to them is apparently pointless.
I won’t remove the story altogether, because I believe in owning up to my mistakes rather than covering up evidence of having made them. If you object to my writing or the way I run this website I have excellent news for you – you can choose not to visit this website, or start your own that can be a beacon to the world of how to carry out activism prudently.
@rory
The the Telegraph have reported up until three days ago that the Kings were Jehovahs Witnesses. Why!!!!! The fact that they do not mention it in the link you have posted says a lot. Because rightly or wrongly they assumed this was to do with their religious beliefs, otherwise why would they mention it. However not one paper has apologised for the misleading of the public with that assumption. Cedars has apologised for the bits he needs to apologise for. He agrees he jumped the gun. So lets just move on.
Rory, when did “us apostates” ever claim to be perfect anyway? Those “not apostates” aren’t even supposed to be on this web site to see what “us apostates” are saying.
That’s the difference between those “not apostates” and “us apostates” is that we listen to reason and if we make a mistake, “us apostates” apologize whereas those “not apostates” will never apologize.
When did the Society ever apologize to Carl Olaf Johnson when he proved the Society wrong about 607 and disfellowshipped him for writing his book of years and years of research or apologize to Ray Franz for disfellowshipping him, one especially hand picked by Jehovah to be of the Governing Body and one of the 144,000? When did those “not apostates” ever apologize for telling everyone not to go to college because Armageddon was coming in 1975 because none of those people would ever finish school anyway and now they are in their late 60’s with no health insurance? What about all the millions and millions who have to wash windows till the day they die because they were shamed into not getting an education, while the Governing Body live like kings?
I can’t recall even one time in my life time (68 years old) one time when the Society ever apologized for any of their wrong predictions or all their lies about the real history of the organization or any of the times they misquoted the Bible or sources or all the babies that died because their parents were shamed into refusing blood for their child or loved ones that died because it was cannabolism to have a kidney transplant. They are the proud liars. Not us.
Don’t attack “us apostates” and especially John Cedars, that is if you are one and not one of “them”. John Cedar’s website has literally saved the lives of many who were at the point of suicide until we saw this website and saw that we were not alone.
He lost his family and life long friends and good standing with the organization because of his activism. If it weren’t for the work and money he has put into this web site, none of us would know that there are probably thousands and thousands of us who never had a say in how we really feel about the Society and how trapped we are with no voice. Nobody is perfect, even you.
While I am happy to go toe to toe with John Cedars on many issues I would in this rare instance actually take a moment to defend him.
Cedars said he was sorry and for me that is the end of the matter. I am not wringing my hands and thinking Ah Ah. Not at all. I even thought this couple had done something stupid until I saw his video he recorded before he was caught. I would do the same if it was my son. But I would have headed for Prague instead. And then worried about the money or given the Proton company the title deed to my apartment.
So let’s forgive and forget. However someone has unkindly said something about the Organization that I respect and love and since Cedars places me on the blacklist each time I make up a new email I shall include this “However” moment with my “Forgive and Forget.” :o)
My wife has just returned from near the frontline of the warzone of eastern Ukraine. There are over 10,000 witness refugees that our Organization is caring for in some way or another. There is a substantial amount of money that has been sent to the Ukraine branch and within 30 minutes that money is put into the bank of 13 refugee centres that JW’s have set up all over Ukraine including 1 just over the border for those that escaped into Russia.
My wife spoke to some of those that were helped. Can you imagine how much it costs to help over 10,000 people survive who do not have food, clothing or a roof over their heads? BTW any here who want to help can contact me and I can arrange it very easily. We have already dug deep ourselves to help family [non JW”s, friends and JW refugees] and it’s a privilege to do so.
Not only are they doing a huge humanitarian project but the JW’s are already planning to rebuild all the damaged or destroyed homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses in eastern Ukraine as soon as the war is over. Materials are being purchased already for those that need it.
One of my wife’s relatives rang her last week and told her how a bomb landed in her back yard and her house was destroyed. So it affects even us here in Australia. So please do not be sarcastic and say our Organization never looks after their people… ..they look after people in places that most of us would not have a clue what’s happening.
Oh I forgot to include that those non JW’s who are with their witness families or friends are also being looked after too. Well that’s all folks as bug bunny would say. Dasvadanya Koalaboy
Thank you for coming to my defense, Koalaboy, but please don’t spam us with any more propaganda about charitable work. For every person helped by JW charitable efforts (which you must admit are JWs themselves, in the overwhelming majority of cases), there are countless others who are put in harm’s way by Watchtower’s policies on blood, child abuse, and the mental anguish caused by shunning. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, doing charitable work does not make a religion true. If that were the case, the Catholic Church, the Mormons, and countless other faiths and denominations could make similar, mutually exclusive claims to divine backing.
sorry bugs bunny
@ anonymous
Your comments made me cry.
I can see you now doing a power punch in the air with each point.
Well said.
You are welcome Cedars. I was just glad to report FACTS in one country my wife has just been to which is at war at this moment and what JW’s are doing to help others. This site is all about Jehovah’s Witnesses so what is wrong in reporting the facts of the matter. You report the negative. I report the positive. It’s a pity that you are so bitter. It’s not good for your health Cedars. Oh well back on the blacklist until next time. :o)
It will be quite obvious to all, irrespective of your ‘facts’, that you cannot answer any of the bigger questions about divine backing that are put to you. There is nothing ‘bitter’ about telling it like it is and giving people the other side of the story – a story they won’t hear on JW.org. If this website is so overwhelmingly negative, why do you keep coming back to it, and jump through such hoops to leave comments despite being banned?
Dear Koalaboy. It is really easy to send money to help refugees when you never lifted a finger to earn a dime of that money. When was the last time anybody in those Watchtower corporations worked washing windows to earn a week’s pay and then reached into those already poor pockets to send money to those refugees? They only take in the money and then decide where it goes. When they are always asking for donations to help their fellow Witnesses, it isn’t a great thing to actually use some of that money for what it was asked for is it? It is a whole different story when we see those men on the Governing Body actually do any physical work and then send the money they earned to war-torn refugees, even those not in the “faith” like other religions do, without asking what religion they are.
If it offends you to see comments that are hateful of the Governing Body, then I’d stay away from this site if you don’t want to be offended. If the only good thing you have to say about the Governing Body is that they send money to fellow Witnesses, that isn’t saying anything because that is why they keep asking for donations. If they didn’t send any of that billions that they are sitting on, maybe then more and more people might wake up to what they are really all about. They have to show some kind of proof of where SOME of that money goes to so that they can have people like you that can say “see how charitable we are? We aren’t all bad.”
Watchtower millions.. Made from people conned into
slave labour, by empty promises. And scriptural
mumbo jumbo.
I think the comments of Anonymous above are spot on really. Surely the Society would be obliged to spend money donated for this purpose on the very same wouldn’t they? The only act of charity here is coming from those who donated the funds in the first place, there is no charity coming from the society per se here at all.
Back on subject though it is impossible to see how Cedars can be criticised for his handling of this, yes the initial story was a mistake, but one he owned up to, apologised for and retracted his initial comments from, so why is this such a problem to some. It must be that maybe from years of involvement with the organisation and consequently having never come across an apology before they don’t know or have any idea how to handle one!!!
Whatever peoples motives for wanting to make such a drama out of this rest assured it won’t be the last mistake or apology you’ll see on here not being as fortunate as the GB so as to have “divine guidance” Cedars will get things wrong from time to time it’s inevitable.
If you don’t want to see mistakes or apologies best get back on to JW.org because for sure you won’t see anyone saying sorry there.