CoolWaters

Exactly the words I've been looking for in response to this thread.

ExC...there's no excuse...but I forgive you. ;)--> :P-->

dmiller, Yeah...it's hard to know how to handle this situation. Scapegoating the few knowns does not address the problem...just relieves the vindictive natures of some people. A few years ago we had a halfway house move in kitty-corner from us. We were very nervous because the house is right on the path the elementary school children use to get to and from school...and the house is right across the street from a family of 8 children. As soon as the guys started moving in, my husband went right up to the owner and talked to him about the concerns we and the neighbors had. My husband let the owner know that the neighborhood would keep a close eye on things. The owner was understanding. He even said that he appreciated such involved neighbors. Quite honestly, that halfway house has proven to be the best neighbors ever on that block. These guys live in a fish bowl. Their whole lives are open books into which the whole system is reading. There is no opportunity for these guys to mess up. At least not in public. When they put up a privacy fence around the yard, the neighborhood nerves were rattled again. We had a meeting with all of the children present to talk about how to stay safe. Not just from the guys in the halfway house, but from all possible predators. We were very clear about not going inside a privacy fence or a house or a garage or going anywhere with anybody. We also set up code words for the children to learn so that they would know if their parents had sent someone or not. We did lots of safety things with the kids. It was very good for all in involved. If that halfway house had never been there, I don't think that many of the parents would have known how to help their children stay safe. The guys in that halfway house are still very good neighbors. They, in fact, are the first ones to volunteer their labor and efforts for any neighborhood improvement project. I believe in halfway houses. However, I do not believe in clumping them together. There is one neighborhood just a few blocks from ours that has 7 halfway houses in 2 blocks. There is nothing but problems. I think that grouping them all together leads to an 'us v them' mentality...and stuff happens. I dunno. As you have pointed out, these things deal only with those who are caught.

Galen, I understand that what you see and hear about the most is what you have described. Have you ever considered that you see a microcosm of what really is? Me, my sister and my brother were not in the system...we would have never been in a foster home. No social workers were looking in on our well-being, no judges were giving orders for our parents to get therapy, not one hint of the system. We were not the only ones in our neighborhood, either...nor in our schools. The system gets ahold of the types of families you describe because these families do not have the money to keep things in the private sector. I do not think that you are espousing pedophilia. I do wonder, however, if you have teenaged daughters. If so, I cannot understand your position. Maybe that's just it: I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying that at a certain age it is no longer abuse, but most probably is just 'natural'?

I find it hilarious that the 'preachers' here cannot do the very thing they preach about! Say the right words and, voila!, their 'stand' disappears and their scaly sanctimony slithers around. (RG excluded.)

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaang! I remember saying some of these very same things once upon a time. Didn't float then, probably won't float now. Sigh.

It's also very hard to talk about a subject and be "on the same page" when some of the people are literalists and some of the people are not. :/

Galen, OK. So much you make a lot of sense about...then you go right into stereotyping. I have big issues with that because my family did not fit the stereotype. In fact, they were quite the opposite...to the outsider. That's why nobody believed me when I told. That's why nobody believed my sister when she told. That's why nobody believed my brother when he told. It just could not have happened in such a fine, upstanding middle class home! Not only was it a 2-parent family, but me and my sister were adopted...our parents were approved of by the state! How could we be so damned ungrateful as to make up such terrible lies? It's dangerous to child victims from "good" homes to stereotype childhood sexual abuse as being something that happens in certain types of homes. For some bone-chilling statistics and more information, check out this site. Another good place to look is at this site (poke around the site...it's very informative). There is so very much more to this than a flirty teenager or a "bad" family!

Make fun of me if you want, but I'm wise enough not to come onto a public forum postulating about things of which I have no clue. Are you speaking from experience? You must be because aside from their own immediate families, the statistics show that molesters have many victims from many different families. You said a mouthful there...

What a prime example of, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." You're wrong, mj. Just plain ignorantly wrong. What you know about abuse, particularly sexual abuse, is nothing...and it shows. You've read a few magazine articles, maybe even a couple of books, definitely a website or two, and, voila!, you know what you're talking about. But you really don't. You can speak only of your own personal experiences...and it is telling...this stuff you talk about so big-headedly. It is a fallacy to believe that "certain families are prone". It is dangerous to put that out here as if it were true. Perps do NOT pick victims based on the parents. The cycle of abuse is NOT "it happened to me so it's going to happen to my children". I wish you'd just shut up about what you think you know and speak only of what you really know. The pure BS you're putting out is dangerous because it leads people to think you're right. In reality, you're dead wrong.

How many people participating in this thread have ever been sexually abused as a child?

If all Galen meant was what you say, Steve, then it was certainly poorly written.

Oh, but Dear Friend White Dove, you've not experienced life until you've been kicked out of the ex cult forums! How will you ever fit in????? LMAO!!!!

Ah! I had forgotten about The Way International's form of Numerology! I still can't believe that The Way International taught Numerology while condemning the same thing in others.

You fix 'em if it bothers you so much! ;)--> :D--> (CoolWaters did good not listening no more!)

Speak for yourself, bub. It is abnormal to be 'tempted' by little children.

What a thread! Lessee...where to begin... When I was 17 I was raped at knifepoint by a 'babe' who was taking piffle. Not only was I told not to go to the cops, but, when I did go to the cops, a twig leader and an 'old grad' were sent by the branch leader to bear false witness against me to the DA. The guy who raped me was let out of jail and no charges were pressed. Within the hour after he was let go, he raped a 12yo girl. Her family hated twi...but they were 'witnessed' to about forgiveness... The limb leader on down to the twig leader and my twig 'family' begged me to reject the 4 years of college my real family had paid for already. You see, it was a Nazarene College and I wasn't going to learn 'the rightly divided word' at that college. Here I sit today with nothing but poverty to show for listening to twi. Don't even get me started about the 'words of wisdom' handed down through HQ over the whole Alaska fiasco! Luckily me and others involved didn't listen that time...and people went to prison...even if only for a little while...and the perps were found guilty in a court of law for raping and otherwise hurting children...and that's on their records forever. Good Morning Viet Nam. Sigh.

It's the same GSC, imo... It's just happened to you this time.

And I agree with the idea that forgiveness is not a mandatory cornerstone of all that is life.

I was wondering when this story of the feral cat was going to pop up. I remember it from WayDale...when I was being compared to the feral cat. Have you ever considered that the cat had done nothing for which he needed forgiving? That it was your lack of understanding the root of the cat's behavior that needed forgiving?

I thought that's why the twin towers went down...

God rest Erma Bombeck!!!!! Without her, I'd have been insane by now. ;)--> :D-->

I still have to put my hand over my mouth to keep from saying, "Be healed in the name of Jesus Christ" every time a boo-boo happens to little children around me. I still find myself replacing a negative thought with 3 positive thoughts. I still catch myself thinking, "What's available, what do I do with it..." etc, when I'm going to make a purchase. I still ask if a person is 'available' when I call on the telephone. I still think about the "4 Ds of Doulos(sp?) Doing" when I have more than one good choice or preferance about something. Whenever I see somebody talking with their fork in their hand, I think of piffle. The manners stuff was taught to me at age 4 and ongoing to age 14, so I can't credit twi with that...but I can credit my mother and the Girl Scouts of America. When I'm feeling particularly vulnerable in life, I find myself taking different routes to places I frequent...just to be on the safe side. This stuff goes deep, doesn't it? And some people don't think it really was brainwashing...

Tee hee Oen!!!!!!!!

OK all you neat freaks... I'm having a party at my house and you're all invited to act out your obsessive behaviors! :)--> :D--> ;)--> :P-->