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Jehovah’s Witness Bethelite Videotaped Boys at O’Hare

Jehovah’s Witness Bethelite Videotaped Boys at O’Hare

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Man Allegedly Taped Boys Using O’Hare Rest Rooms
From Steve Miller, Chicago, WBBM Newsradio 780/CBS 2

WBBM Newsradio 780’s Steve Miller reports the man accused is Jesus Manuel Cano and is 50 years old. A Jehovah’s Witness minister, say police in Middletown, New York. Cano is in jail in New York. He is charged as a pedophile there.

Middletown Police Detective Sergeant Jerry Mishk says investigators have seized four computers from Cano’s home – at a Jehovah’s Witness farm.

…

Cano had a video recording labeled “O’Hare” that allegedly included images of children in public bathrooms, Mishk said. And Mishk says Cano had a videotape that apparently was shot inside O’Hare rest rooms.

CBS 2 reports Middletown police say Cano allegedly used his own video camera to take images of himself in the nude and then print them with his phone number in hopes of luring young boys for sex.

Police say the first alleged incident took place on June 17 when Cano allegedly called an 11-year-old victim to his car to give him a naked picture of himself. Police say Cano then asked the child to meet him at another location for sex.

One week later, another alleged incident took place, but the victim’s parents called police.

Police say they found beer, condoms and an ointment of some sort inside Cano’s blue Nissan. Inside, they also found an alleged trail of perversion stretching from Chicago all the way to the Caribbean.

Police say photos of an unidentified teen in sexual positions were discovered, along with videotape that police say Cano shot at O’Hare Airport as he followed boys and men into the bathroom with a hidden camera to tape them as they used urinals. Cano allegedly targeted six or seven bathrooms for six or seven hours at a time.

When arrested, police found a church identification card on Cano. The church confirms his position as a minister, but had no further comment.

See the Silent Lambs website for more details on the Cano case.

Video Report from WCBS-TV New York

Another Jehovah’s Witness Pedophile Convicted

Another Jehovah’s Witness Pedophile Convicted

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Another Jehovah’s Witness predator convicted. For 20 years, Daniel molested children and his wife knew it was happening.

BRUSSELS – Convicted for sordid abuse rape, and crimes against children, Daniel P. and Nadine NR were a married couple and active Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Yesterday, Daniel P. was sentenced to six years of hard prison time. His wife Nadine was sentenced to three years probation.

Their atrocities against children were of an extreme gravity. For example: molestation of eleven minor children, seven convictions of abuse using the internet as well as two rapes. According to the charges filed by law enforcement, around 20 children were victimized by the couple. Many of the victims remained silent and were afraid to come forward. Some of the abuses were spread out over a twenty year period of time.

The perversions of Daniel did not have any limit. But what is even more shocking is the passivity of his wife. Nadine NR. Nadine openly confessed to having witnessed many of the abuses and kept silent. She acknowledged hearing children groan and scream when they were forcibly raped and molested. She confessed to seeing her husband sexually aroused in the presence of children when in the same room.

Nadine stated she did not like sex and viewed the children as a replacement for her husband’s perversions in the marital bed. According to her statements, she forgives her husband and wants to continue the marriage at the end of the court proceedings. At present this will be for a while as the only visitation will be in prison.

The case first was reported in May 2005 when two young women filed abuse charges against the couple. The first case of abuses goes back to 1986. The couple had a good image in the community. They often volunteered to babysit children when the parents were at work.

Over the years, Daniel P. operated like a predator and adapted his techniques for seducing children. He used the internet as a way of approaching children passing himself off as a teenager to set up meetings with young girls. When the teenage girls would meet him he would pretend to be the uncle picking them up to arrange the meeting and get them to go with him.

Daniel tried to discount the charges against him by blaming his wife and saying the victims was promiscuous. The defense was not accepted due to the ages of his victims being as young as four years of age. He also tried to blame law enforcement for further crimes due to not catching him sooner. The jury did not accept this defense.

Yesterday, before the jury, a victim presented testimony. In some of the cases charges could not be filed due to the statue of limitations being expired, it was hard for the victims to accept. One victim committed suicide when the matter was revealed, the parents were distraught. They wondered what extent their child was molested by Daniel as the child revealed few details.

(thanks to the article by Phillipe Boudart via Silent Lambs)

Ex JW Documentary: Losing My Religion

Ex JW Documentary: Losing My Religion

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A trailer for the documentary Losing My Religion has been released to raise awareness (and funding). I am very pleased to be involved with this project.

View the Trailer.

Contact Stephan T. McGuire to contribute to this unique film. Please support this effort if you can.

Losing My Religion: In and Out of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Organization

That knock on your door is meant to save your life! Daily, over 6,000,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses are being instructed that very soon, those who do not obey their exact teachings will be ferociously exterminated by God himself in Armageddon at the end of the ‘world’!

So who are these people? And what is it like to be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Losing My Religion is a soul-searching, interview-style film documenting the experiences and exoduses of Jehovah’s Witnesses as they leave behind family, friends, their acquired interpretation of “God”, and a very unique ‘fundamentalist reality’. Losing their religion, many who leave must undergo an often emotionally agonizing and dramatic transition into the once ‘forbidden’ world.

Jehovah’s Witnesses who ‘awaken’, who figure things out and leave; who permanently lose their religion, and speak up against the Watchtower Society, are in fact accused of being the absolute worst of all creation. Basically, the Watchtower Society’s stand is: You are either with us or against us.

Why Losing My Religion?

A deep conversation and intelligent study is needed on the effects of extreme fundamentalism in the world today. There are currently millions of ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world who struggle with adjustment to their new lives. Billions of other people find their life purposes and identities almost solely through their religions, political persuasions, marriages and/or other relationships, their corporate careers, nationalism, the military, etc. Upon close examination, most of us are willing to throw out our own personal reasoning capabilities and deny our own personal experiences to be relieved of the oppressive burden of figuring out life ourselves. Why? What is happening?

The interviews in Losing My Religion will serve as a metaphor highlighting the disservice of extreme fundamentalist ideology and the triumph of the human spirit.

Losing My Religion will be a powerful journey into the life of the filmmaker, Stephan McGuire as documents the dilemmas of current Jehovah’s Witnesses, other ex- Jehovah’s Witnesses, solicit the opinions of cult specialists and psychologists who focus on identity and life purpose. So far we have been interviewing ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses, and already the dynamics of self-realization being revealed before the camera will make for a psychologically fascinating study. Once film production begins, we will want to document several Jehovah’s Witnesses as they are leaving the ‘truth’.

With a kaleidoscope of cutting edge style, highly informed specialists and provocative footage, Losing My Religion will be an experience of synergized story telling, deep healing and an exploration of our insatiable quest for real truth.

Ex Jehovah’s Witnesses and other experts on Identity and Life Purpose:

Links

Ex JW Meetup

Rick A Ross Institute

Silent Lambs– Protecting JW children from abuse

Watchers of the Watchtower World

A Common Bond

Dr Jerry Bergman

A tribute and a memorial to Jehovah’s Witnesses who have taken their own lives

Cult Busting information

Recovering ex Jehovah’s Witnesses Webring

Watchtower Whistle Blower

Lightbearer’s Escape from the Watchtower

Watchtower Exposure

Ivor Hope

Survivors of Abusive Religions Outreach & Self-help

12 Steps of Ex JW Theocratic Addiction and Religious Abuse

Ex Jehovah’s Witnesses Chat

In Depth Watchtower Survey

Former Jehovah’s Witnesses Helping One Another Outside the Watchtower

The Truth about Jehovah’s Witnesses

See also my JW-related links, helpful books, and the Forward You Ex-JWs webring.

If you need a little distancing humor, see the JW jokes.

TSHIRT JEHOVAHS WITNESS BAR CODE

Religion as a Virus: Dawkins on Religion

Religion as a Virus: Dawkins on Religion

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Richard Dawkins (Oxford prof., father of meme theory, author of The Selfish Gene) argues against irrational, militant religion in the two-part Channel 4 UK documentary “The Root of all Evil?” (Jan. 2006).

Dawkins goes too far by including all forms of faith – not all are in direct contradiction to independent thought and constructive doubt! (Please chime in on this – esp. Progressive Faith Bloggers!)

Still, his arguments are very persuasive in terms of the malignant, dangerous, and destructive forms of “faith” that we see once again today – both here and abroad.

This from the Channel 4 description:

He describes his astonishment that, at the start of the 21st century, religious faith is gaining ground in the face of rational, scientific truth. Science, based on scepticism, investigation and evidence, must continuously test its own concepts and claims. Faith, by definition, defies evidence: it is untested and unshakeable, and is therefore in direct contradiction with science.

In addition, though religions preach morality, peace and hope, in fact, says Dawkins, they bring intolerance, violence and destruction. The growth of extreme fundamentalism in so many religions across the world not only endangers humanity but, he argues, is in conflict with the trend over thousands of years of history for humanity to progress – to become more enlightened and more tolerant.

The Root of All Evil? Part 1 – The God Delusion
The Root of All Evil? Part 2 – The Virus of Faith

Here is Part 1:

The God Who Wasn't There The Selfish Gene : 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author The God Delusion

Oppose Flag Idolatry

Oppose Flag Idolatry

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Oppose the “Flag Anti-desecration” Amendment.

First off, notice the language of religion and the sacred here. To “desecrate” is to violate the sacredness of something. To be “anti-desecration” is to be against the violation of the sacred. This assumes that the flag is holy, sacred, sanctified, blessed, consecrated.

The American flag should not be made into a golden calf, a graven image; to worship the symbol would be a grave mistake.*

Making a “holy” thing of the American flag is a form of idolatry. The flag is only a piece of cloth. It is wrong to worship a flag. (On this one issue I still agree with the Jehovah’s Witnesses.)

The flag is, at its best, an emblem or symbol of the United States of America. To focus on the symbol is a way of forgetting that to which it points. What it’s meant to stand for are things like our constitutionally-protected rights and values, our freedom, our democracy. (Unfortunately, in some places it stands for other things.)

It is also symbolic of America that we don’t worship a flag. Have one, don’t worship it. We have freedom of expression. Criticism of actions and policies of our government is also a form of patriotism, and part of a functional democracy in the land of the free.

The more important and “sacred” the flag becomes, the uglier the country becomes (including ours). There is a huge difference between patriotism and nationalism. Self-aborbed nationalism is a dead end in our world. We are crossing that line into a major fall already.

Of course, if they somehow pass this thing, a lot of Americans are going to be in deep trouble some weeks after Independence Day (you know, that celebration now referred to as “4th of July”) when ratty flags start getting reported. Maybe that’s one way to start people snitching on one another. Maybe it would even stop the practice of requiring that international students pledge their loyalty in homeroom to a piece of cloth that signifies a country that isn’t even theirs. Or not. (I wonder how many Americans would tolerate that in another country?)

Why are these pseudo-Christians so tied up with flag issues? You’d think they might see the idolatry in it, but maybe not. The current governor of Georgia got elected on the Confederate flag.

What a cowardly path to take. With so many more important issues and challenges facing us, this transparently political strategy is yet another issue aimed at igniting hate and fanning its flames. Like so many other interpretations held by this administration, it is profoundly anti-American. I suppose that anyone who happens to mention that freedom of expression is a Constitutional right, and that enforced patriotism in a democracy seems a little strange will then be called “treasonous”?

We would do better in this global economy to open up to other friendly countries, rather than set ourselves so pridefully and arrogantly above all others. We aren’t in the Crusades or the Inquisitions or the Witch Hunts (not yet anyway). We’re not going to accept Bush as a king, an emperor, or (a) god.

We’re not ready to say “Heil,” not even in Georgia.

The flag itself is meaningful as a symbol of our freedom and democracy, neither of which seem particularly valuable to this administration.

Oppose the “Flag Anti-desecration” Amendment. Oppose flag idolatry.

Oh, and Congress? Get off this constitutional amendment kick. We all know you have something better to do.

*Nelson, I rewrote this a bit after yr email (but yes, it’s a pun). Post revised June 14th.

JWs Refuse Blood for Testing?

JWs Refuse Blood for Testing?

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Wired has a story about Hacker Adrian Lamo, who has refused to give blood for DNA testing on religious grounds. His lawyer declined to specify which religion, but the article notes:

In prior court cases, members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses have registered opposition to blood tests for alcohol content, based on certain passages in the Bible.

The JW prohibition is on the partaking of blood, as in accepting a blood transfusion or varying human blood products. Their biblical interpretation is that the biblical injunction to “abstain from blood” applies to blood transfusions. There are some changing views on blood fractions, blood products, and they don’t go so far as to eat kosher meat.

But yes, they will refuse a blood transfusion, even to save a life.

However, Jehovah’s Witnesses have no prohibition on blood testing or DNA sampling. JWs get blood tests all the time.

If any JW thus claims religious conviction as the reason to avoid…well….conviction, it’s pure mendacity.

If anyone knows of any of these cases in which JWs have claimed “religious opposition” to giving blood for testing of any kind, please comment with a link (or any other reference).

It seems to me that if DNA were the issue, they don’t need his blood. Still, I agree with the ACLU about the FBI’s DNA bank. Why should all our DNA be on record with the government? I’d like to have it for the family records, but I’ve never thought well of this total information idea — too much potential for total control, total tyranny.

Georgia encodes our fingerprints on the Driver’s License. I had meant to protest it – I really did – but I realized my renewal was up when I was 8-1/2 months pregnant. After standing in line for about an hour I felt like I was going to pass out. When I got to the front, I said that I didn’t want to be fingerprinted since I wasn’t a criminal. They said – “Well then, that would be your choice not to have a driver’s license in Georgia.” I gave up.

Whatever religious path this admittedly interesting character is on doesn’t seem to be the issue at all. My guess would be that it’s his quirky sense of humor at work, just making it that little bit more difficult for the system.