ComfortMyPeople

I also wondered why you brought this up seemingly out of nowhere when you said:
I assumed, that you had your own reasons to bring up the "controversy" portion by adding "not the end of the world as claimed by former members." I had to assume that you knew good and well that Russell understood the "Gentile times" to mean something quite different from what we now believe and that therefore Russell's Gentile Times did not end in 1914. I figured you thought I would know the truth about that partially false statement and might try to correct it. This would provide you an opportunity to say: See, JWI is a deceiver, because all true Scotsmen Witnesses agree that the Gentile Times ended in 1914. But I didn't bother with that point. The bigger non sequitur in your question was intriguing so I went with that: "Can you refute WW1?" 
I'm sure it was for the same purpose because you knew I might tell the truth about how WW1 demolished Russell's predictions about never coming out of that war until the crumbling of ALL human institutions, kingdoms, and organizations (with the exception of an ever-expanding Zionist rule from Jerusalem that would finally fill the earth). I was sure you knew the truth, that WW1 refuted Russell. But you also knew that if I told the truth, this would play well to an angle you have promoted about how correct Russell was about Zionism. Oddly, however, your promotion of Russell's false prediction as "correct" flies in the face of later publications in Rutherford's book, Light I, II in 1930. Your take on it, ironically, is a criticism of the Governing Body's take on it. 
And then of course, the piece of "bait" you were most hoping I would take, evidently. Then confirmed when you "triumphantly?" (I'm guessing) brought out the January 1914 Bible Students Monthly.  It was obvious that was what you had in mind all along, because you had recently tried to involve someone else with that same point. 
But for anyone who knew the context and timing of this Canadian claim about Russell and the "end of the world" it would have been obvious to them that this came out at the time when Russell admitted that his faith in the 1914 date was faltering (mostly between November 1913 and May 1914). Russell knew good and well that he had been using the term translated from "aionos" (world, system of things, age) and had even defined "cosmos/kosmos" (world, system of things, national and international institutions) to be able to speak of the "end of the world" but then show that his definition, even of "kosmos" referred not to the planet itself but all the kingdoms and institutions of the world which would be dissolved through the time of trouble starting in 1914 and the following months, most likely. 
When the warmongering nations began to be vocal Russell's wavering faith in 1914 was strengthened again:
There is absolutely no ground for Bible students to question that the consummation of this Gospel age is now even at the door, and that it will end as the Scriptures foretell in a great time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation. We see the participants in this great crisis banding themselves together [...] The great crisis, the great clash [...] that will consume the ecclesiastical heavens and the social earth, is very near. - "Now Is Our Salvation Nearer", The Watch Tower, May 1, 1914.

A better question is: what motivated nearly ZERO brothers that we know about to stand up for the Bible's view? What motivated brothers after they began following Russell, to study the pyramids and write extensively, even visiting the Great Pyramid and writing books about it, in full support of faulty mathematics, and faulty astronomy? What made them so gullible? What motivated The Bible Students Monthly (in the issue just prior to the one you showed earlier) to make exorbitant claims that this pyramid was the ORACLE of Jehovah? Why did no one seem to question it at all until the very day that Rutherford came out in the Watchtower and said it was from Satan?  

None. That's my point. If someone is just about to come into the truth, and they ask their study conductor if it's true that this or that controversy really happened, or if it was true that when Brother Jackson testified at the Australian Royal Commission on CSA really said that Proverbs isn't really talk about corporal punishment. Then what happens when the study conductor says, "No, Brother Jackson was never asked to testify, or we would have heard about it in the Watchtower or on JW.ORG." (This supposedly actually happened, although the original question was only about whether he testified at the ARC, not about corporal punishment.) Now, who is spreading disinformation??? 
The likelihood of "stumbling" a new one may be even stronger when we outright deny something through ignorance of controversial issues. That person who asked the study conductor about something, and the study conductor spread disinformation in response. Now we have a possibility that the one studied with can just easily pull up the video, and he will begin thinking that JWs are some kind of cult who will deny reality. And the study conductor may begin wondering "why such important information was hidden from us." Now we have TWO persons potentially stumbled, when just being aware of the situation could have easily resolved the whole thing, and Brother Jackson's words could be better defended in context.
When we are so quick to deny anything negative out of ignorance, we not only look bad, we can easily cause others to stumble, especially when we consider how easy it is for people to find controversial information online. I think there will come a time very soon when any question can be asked of an AI LLM and it will quickly spit out ALL sides of the answer to a question, pro and con. We shouldn't be so arrogant as to suppose that only OUR own preferred side of a controversy will be available to interested persons. 

Yes. But as I said, if there is a good answer to anything controversial that you or I or others bring up here, then that answer appears right here, online, where the original controversial point has probably been rehashed in other places with or without an answer. Also, if there is no viable answer to the controversy, then the issue has been brought up and persons who are interested in truth ("making sure of all things") will know that there is no answer to it (yet). That's also good information to have so that we don't go around deceiving people inadvertently. 
For example, let's say that someone claims that "Pyramidology" was presented as truth to householders as late 1933, nearly 5 years after it was declared "from the Devil" and two years after most Bible Student associations and individuals began identifying themselves as "Jehovah's witnesses." This point was brought up to me once (by a Bethel sister, who was a proofreader, no less) and I was asked to question the writer about making a small change in the "ka" book which referenced this point of organizational history incorrectly.  This book ("ka") was about to be reprinted for the mid-week Book Study. I claimed to her that her statement was false. But she showed me the 1928 through 1933 "Informants" which she had copies of. This was something controversial to her and she knew it, and she wanted someone else to pass the question back to the writer. 
To be sure, she was skewing the emphasis on pyramidology to make the point more memorable. The "ka" book reference never mentioned pyramidology, only the date when the Society stopped selling the Studies in the Scriptures series. 
Should we all have ignored the issue? This book was going out to the public. I placed several copies of this book myself. Interested persons would attend the Book Study. In the end, it was decided that the sentence would not be corrected. But does this mean no one should have questioned? Should no one have tried to "make sure of all things"?
But I also learned that the people who get angry over such things, when the answer is not in favor of their interests, are the ones who KNOW there is no answer, or don't want to admit the answer. That's why I'm not concerned about bringing up controversial things publicly. There is nothing secret that will not be made known. 
And I've found that online the anger is most often from those who, deep down, realize that they don't like the truth. But I always remember Proverbs 6:17; Psalm 26:3; Psalm 31:5: ". . . Jehovah, the God of truth."

By "refuses" I think you meant that I was the first one to link his spoof accounts to him. Of course, it was easy for a moderator to look up the IP address and see that he wasn't hiding anything. They all came from the same IP address from the same account and same location that his regular account came from. A moderator can also see where a person gets the email address associated with their account(s). He didn't even try to hide his account sources via a VPN service as some people do.
An astute moderator can even watch the IP addresses which come from various VPN services, and although the locations are not really where the person is located, you can tell when several accounts have used the same VPN service which usually only offer a limited set of VPN servers.
To avoid detection if one wishes to use multiple accounts as sock puppets to "enhance" their reputation, or downgrade others they should do the following:
Pay for a premium VPN service that doesn't give itself away by naming their VPN/IP servers or chooses from just two or three "free" servers when the premium can randomly choose from dozens. Mix up the email service providers that are used in order to produce the separate accounts, and make the same sound legitimately associated with the account name, rather than random characters. Keep your own spreadsheet or database or document to keep clear which account speaks with a different voice, has different quirks, different levels of education/knowledge/specialties, different levels of attention to grammar/punctuation/spelling, different "accent," different personalities, age, location, etc. On that last point, there have been several cases where the new account starts off doing this very well for 10 or 20 posts, then gets lazy and reverts back to the original personality.
Of course, I'm not really recommending that anyone create multiple accounts. But I doubt that anyone has ever been banned here over the practice. This forum includes a lot of "entertainment" content, and I think that most people find the use of multiple accounts either entertaining or psychologically revealing. Either way, that's a form of entertainment for me. I happen to like puzzles, too. TTH , for example, clearly created the separate accounts for entertainment purposes, including satirizing some who took their separate accounts a little too seriously. But so what? No one cares about the separate accounts unless they are clearly used as a means to create contention. And even when this happened, it might be a small annoyance to some persons, but no one has been banned for having multiple accounts as far as I know.
 
 

Russell's words ARE exactly my argument about what Russell was teaching. Read them again. The beastly organizations of this world would be destroyed in 1914, including the Papacy, which would also be slain along with all governments by October 1914. October 1914 would also mark the end of the times of Jewish disfavor. Imagine, nearly ZERO antisemitism after October 1914 because there would now never again be Gentile kings. Those Gentile kings had their day, and now it was time for Zionism to reign supreme and begin establishment over the entire earth beginning in Palestine.
Russell's words did not refute Russell's teachings. The events of WW1 refuted Russell's teachings about October 1914.  
Then I thank you for sharing additional passages supporting the point.

I never use the phrase "the end of the world" to refer to 1914 and 1975. I do point out that Russell was using a kind of available wordplay to backtrack on the idea that he had in fact been teaching the end of the "world" in 1914 and sometimes 1915. Only it was the definition of the word "world" which was effectively "the social order."  In fact it is about the same definition the Watchtower has always used. I never believed that the Watchtower taught or claimed that the end of the world (the system of things) would happen in 1975. There was a time when the Watchtower taught that it would be in the 1970's, and if not 1975, then within a few months following 1975, but NOT years following 1975. (Based on the faulty and unbiblical 6,000 years premise.) To Russell's credit, he admitted shortly after October 1914 that it would likely be just a few short months, but that it COULD be years before the transition from this Age to the next.
Russell taught that the social order would end in 1914. That the final battle would end in 1914, sometimes 1915. Here are some samples from 1894 included the 1894 reference to 1892
--------------------------------
CAN IT BE DELAYED UNTIL 1914? We see no reason for changing the figures— nor could we change them if we would. They are, we believe, God's dates, not ours. But bear in mind that the end of 1914 is not the date for the beginning, but for the end of the time of trouble. We see no reason for changing from our opinion expressed in the View presented in the WATCH TOWER of Jan. 15, '92. We advise that it be read again.
------------------------------
The  Scriptures  give  unmistakable  testimony
to  those  who  have  full  faith  in  its  records,  that
there  is  a  great  time  of  trouble  ahead  of  the
present  comparative  calm  in  the  world— a  trouble
which  will  embroil  all  nations,  overthrow
all  existing  institutions,  civil,  social  and  religious,
bring  about  a  universal  reign  of  anarchy
and  terror,  and  prostrate  humanity  in  the  very
dust  of  despair,  thus  to  make  them  ready  to  appreciate
the  power  that  will  bring  order  out  of
that  confusion  and  institute  the  new  rule  of
righteousness.  All  this,  the  Scriptures  show  us,
is  to  come  to  pass  before  the  year  1915  (See
MILLENNIAL  DAWN,  Vol.  II.,  Chapter  IV.)
---------------------------
1892:
That  the  overthrow  of  the  present  nominal
ecclesiastical  systems ...  the  overthrow
of  the  civil  powers  is  thus  indicated—
...  until  A.D.  1914.  ... The  Editor  expects  from  Rev.  19:20
that  the  final  overthrow  of  present  governments
will  be  at  the  same  time  as  the  fall
of  ecclesiasticism  and  will  be  followed  by  from
five  to  seven  years  of  socialism  and  anarchy,  to
end  with  19 14  by  the  establishment  of  Christ's
Millennial  government
----------------------------
 
All  this  remains  to  be  accomplished before  the  trouble  upon  the  world  can  reach  its crisis;  for  . . . we  can  readily  see  what  the  results  will  be -- viz.,  a  sudden  and  terrible  overthrow,  as  the Scriptures  predict.  . . . This  culmination  we  do  not expect,  however,  before  about  1905,  as  the events  predicted  will  require  about  that  time, notwithstanding  the  rapid  progress  in  these  directions now  possible.
-----------------------
1894:
This latter part of the commission was not due until the harvest or end of the age; . . . — the latter part must of necessity be declared by those members of the body living in the last times —the harvest or end of the age, from A.D. 1874 to A.D. 1915. It is upon this generation that "the days of vengeance" are coming; and it is this generation therefore, that should hear the voice of warning. It is in the midst of the great afflictions of the now impending time of trouble "such as never was since there was a nation,"... Thus in due time— the end of the harvest and time of trouble— "all that mourn" will be "comforted." Then the whole world will have learned to be still and to know that the Lord's reign of righteousness is begun —the Kingdom of God established in the earth.-Psa. 46:10.

Yes. I wish he would grow up. There is nothing wrong with upvotes. They show that other people think you’re hot stuff.

Sorry, I upvoted again!!

Funny you should mention that. About 45 minutes earlier, 9 of my posts in this topic were upvoted by Comfortmypeople. I immediately thought: "Uh-oh, that has always made you react. I wonder if it will be a slew of downvotes for me or a slew of upvotes for you." This has happened so many times before that it was quite predictable. That's why I watched for it.
I didn't remove anything though. I went to the Alphonse profile to see the Alphonse activity. https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/profile/20363-alphonse/ You can still go to the comfortmypeople profile to see his activity: https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/profile/10944-comfortmypeople/
Nothing was ever removed. But voting activity disappears from the profile after a short time. I don't know for how long those links will display voting activity, but they will always show regular posting activity. 
BTW, the unfounded and false claim that I had conveniently removed something was insulting. Downvotes without an explanation are also intended to be insulting. I don't feel insulted however because the lack of an explanation just shows that the downvoter likely has no real reasons to back up the negative criticism. Many people will see that the lack of reasons for a downvote is effectively a form of ad-hominem attack which usually strengthens the point being downvoted rather than weakening it. So rather than be insulted, I can just thank Alphonse for strengthening the point I was making.

What is the reason behind your insistence on having these games? Is this criticism stemming from the wave of "upvotes" you received from comfortmypeople, which you conveniently removed to justify your unwarranted excuse to criticize?

It's been 10 years, why not behave in a manner consistent with adulthood.
 
 

And speaking of insults and negative criticism, you have always shown a keen interest in who upvotes and who downvotes others. Even in this very thread you have brought it up more than once. So, I'm sure you are aware that when a person adds a critical downvote with no explanation (no constructive criticism) that this is intended as a not-so-subtle insult. I don't think anyone here really has any remaining doubt about who controls a certain account which once only interacted positively with you and George88, and which only interacted negatively with accounts you and George88 also interacted with negatively. Watch how that account still spams upvotes and downvotes:
These are just the last 10 in a row. As is typical, 100% of the downvotes are unexplained downvotes of my posts, and 100% of the upvotes are for you, BTK59. Previously, as expected, all the upvotes were shared between BTK59 and George88.

I think Christ's negative criticism of the Pharisees was beneficial for others to consider.
Sure. The answer to your question would be that Russell never really challenged this particular belief derived in large part from these "reverends" of Christendom. He claimed not to have had for himself a very good understanding of the chronology and admitted that he had just pretty much accepted Barbour's numbers that Barbour had partially derived from other leaders of Christendom. But we have no choice but to bring up some of the Bible Student issues that were still accepted long after many Bible Student individuals and groups began to go by the new name, Jehovah's Witnesses. Some of these doctrines partly derived from Christendom are still accepted today by most of us. 
Some see it as Barbour refusing to return to his Adventist views, and ultimately giving up on any version of Adventist chronology while Russell went on to state that the Adventists were instrumental (from God) in giving us a workable God-ordained chronology but that persons like Barbour were like the foolish virgins who let their lamps go out just because the advent appeared to be delayed. Russell specifically accused those who stopped believing in Barbour's 1874 date as "foolish virgins."
Russell many times claimed that the end of the world would occur in 1914, and then later offered a possibility of 1915, and later he said it could be within a few months, or even maybe a few years of 1914. What he didn't believe in was the burning of the world, one of the original Adventist views he rejected. But for many years he preached that 1914 would see the complete and final end of this world, meaning all the world's systems and governments and institutions. I don't refute WW1, but WW1 certainly refutes Russell.

You just indicated that speaking the truth should not be considered insulting. Yet, now when I speak the truth about something you said, you seem to consider it insulting. That's what I meant about a double-standard. You only mean that when you claim another person is not telling the truth, you say it's not insulting to them. But when I know for a fact that what you are saying isn't true, and I state that true fact, you feel insulted.
That's the other thing to consider about your claim. You can only guess at something and it turns out your guess was wrong. But you claim it's a fact, that you will never believe anything else, and yet you can never and therefore will never be able to provide even a tiny bit of evidence for your false claim. I'm the one who knows for a fact that I am not the Librarian, have never asked the Librarian or anyone else to ban anyone, have never asked Tom to ban anyone (and I doubt he could, the old rooster). And I have never banned anyone and don't even know if I could even if I tried. And I still have no intention of ever trying, except that you did get me curious about whether I have the ability or not. But I guess I'd rather not know so that I can't ever be accused of using such a function. 
See what I mean? You think me telling the truth is insulting even if subtle. 
Sounds OK. By the way, I never meant to imply that I haven't made others feel insulted. I was only pointing out the ridiculousness of a claim you made about making zero insults and waiting for others to join Anna to be first in some kind of insulting laughter. I was counting your own insults but didn't mean to imply that mine would always remain at zero, only that mine were still zero by the time you had already racked up a few against me.
I know it's true that I can be insulting. Sometimes it feels like the appropriate response to a barrage of insults, and sometimes I feel like it's OK to counter a barrage of insults with just one or two subtle ones. But I'll take that as a mild rebuke. I will try to avoid even the slight ones. Starting now. I hope it doesn't take all the fun out of the forum for me.
True. I tend to only speak about GB members who made a reputation for themselves, left a history of their words and actions, and are no longer alive on earth to be actually physically rebuked by any criticism. But letting the Bible rebuke their actions or their claims should still be a legitimate form of criticism.
I agree.
That doesn't make sense to me. Did you say it the way you meant to? You say that persons who are part of the problem are hesitant to make corrections of others? I have no problem trying to make corrections of others. But I'd guess that it can work both ways: persons who are part of the problem might also be too quick to make corrections of others.
Are you really saying you think that you personally have no possession of the spiritual qualifications to be able to criticize an elder? Or did you mean no one else does? I've heard criticism from you of elders who have been on this forum: one on the forum in the past, one or two in the present. 
From what I can tell, I think that this question is unrelated to the point or to anything either of us previously said. The closest is probably Luke 16:8,9 but I don't think it applies.
 
 

This topic was created from posts moved from https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/90947-forum-participants-we-have-known/
When the topic of proofreading and mistakes and typos came up, I posted the following statement, which triggered a longer discussion about Russell/1914/Chronology and the like. 
 
Mostly true. But what if Reverend E. B. Elliott made use of Reverend Christopher Bowen's chronology typo and it happened to fit Nelson Barbour's 1874 to 1914 chronology, and Russell, and Rutherford and Fred Franz all accepted it, not realizing it was based on a typo? Should anyone have pointed out to them that it started with a typo?

Lack of conviction has never been one of my criterion for laughing at a post.
 Never thought about it that way. Never intend to, either. LOL. 
Except when someone is speaking the truth about you. 
I certainly didn't feel insulted, but I could easily tell that this was your intention. The problem of course is that you weren't speaking the truth. You were making an unsubstantiated claim based on either a hunch or a narrative necessary to your own view about yourself and others. It's hard for me to believe that, deep down, you even believe that I or Tom might be the Librarian. I am pretty sure you would already have read enough of the Librarian's posts to know this. 
I have no objections to Biblically-supported disfellowshipping. Never have. Never shifted my opinion on that. 
Never had a problem with "rebuking" either. I just think that we shouldn't be quick to rebuke brothers in high levels of responsibility. I won't rebuke any members of the Governing Body, for example. I won't rebuke anyone here either, even if I might think the Bible thoroughly disagrees with some of their content. I'll stick to discussing content, and only bring up the qualities and quirks of individuals if I believe there's an interesting enough connection between the person and their content. In most cases I won't know enough about the individual which is why I usually avoid those kinds of topics. 
I didn't link them inadvertently. I said that the Bible says we should criticize elders if we have spiritual qualifications. We are therefore responsible to use our gifts or our talents. If I have zero spiritual qualifications I will not criticize an elder. But if I have gardening qualifications I will offer help and suggestions and criticisms about the plantings around the Hall. I will even offer to help with the new assembly hall being built not so far from me. If I have proofreading qualifications I will offer proofreading criticisms as my gift. Whether my qualifications are good or not will only be known by how people respond, and so far, so good. 

You have been aware for years that I state I have never banned anyone. You might not believe it of course, but you were aware of my position from previous discussions. Yet, you repeat here that I am showing favoritism to some and banning others. You imply that I am just making excuses for favoritism, and that this behavior with no evidence provided is becoming increasingly obvious -- and you repeat it claiming now that it is MULTIPLE people I have banned by adding -- "with each person you ban." 
So I give you the benefit of the doubt and don't call it an insult yet, even though it clearly was:
BTK insult #1: JWI is making excuses BTK insult #2: JWI is showing favoritism BTK insult #3: JWI is banning others making this behavior obvious with each person JWI bans I was guessing that you meant the "laughter" emoji at the reference to my funeral. Still, I guess this was also meant as an insult:
BTK insult #4: JW upvotes dishonesty I began to respond:
This was not an insult. Just a statement of clear fact. It can't be obvious that I have banned someone since I never have banned anyone. I still honestly don't know if I have the power to do so. 
So far, BTK insults: 5.
You responded with:
So, now you go ahead and try to claim that I was lying via some kind of wordplay that I have never used, but which I have often seen used by others. 
BTK insult #6: JWI is using wordplay manipulation to deceive  Anyway, I responded:
Again, just a statement of fact. And to make it clear you weren't being insulted I made mention of how astute you are. 
As an aside, I don't think it's an insult to point out that when I use certain descriptive words (like "astute') for the first time here almost all the "Allen-Smith-styled" accounts will return that word to me in some way, and I have often said this might be a form of echolalia. No one else does this, but Allen did it, Moise did it, Billy the Kid did it, and at least 20 other Allen-styled accounts. And guess what:
I admit that the phenomenon of echolalia came up in a course I took many years ago. Otherwise I would not likely have noticed. I could give about 150 to 175 examples from the Allen-styled accounts.
Aside completed.
You had gone on next to say: 
Another direct claim that I am lying.
BTK insult #7: JWI will continue lying (claiming NOT to be the Librarian) because he will never publicly admit it.
I assumed that this meant only a few out of hundreds of my posts have been true. Another insult that I am overwhelmingly a liar almost by default.
BTK insult #8: JWI only posts a very small percentage of truth.
At any rate, I don't think I have to spell out the next 20 or 30 micro-insults from you. They don't even make a difference. I'll continue to speak the truth. But I just wanted you to see why it seemed ridiculous for you to claim that other people insult you and you don't insult others. It seemed you had such an obvious double-standard. (Yes, that's an intentional form of me using echolalia. My own definition, not the same form you will see in a dictionary, but perhaps related.) 

I have to admit that I laughed out loud a bit when I saw your claim that Tom and I are the Librarian. It didn't make me laugh when Anna admitted that she had the same reaction. In fact, I cringed a bit realizing that you would take immediate offense and try to make a big deal out of it. 
The problem is not that people are insulting you, but that you have indeed made ridiculous statements and claims. When people make ridiculous claims in public, they can expect ridicule. That's what ridiculous means. You can be glad that the form of ridicule you receive is merely a bit of laughter.
I will again admit that this too made me laugh a bit. Not at you, but at the ridiculousness of the claim about who started insulting, and the fact that you gave yourself a score of 0 insults, which only highlighted your own double standard. Although I doubt this was on purpose;  i don't think you were aware of it.
You probably aren't aware that claiming someone is not telling the truth is insulting, except of course when someone happens to make that claim about you. For example, look closely at the exchanges between you and me. Next post of mine:
 

Yes. Thanks for asking. Up until yesterday, the Mobile app allowed you to look up the Meetings under Library and when you clicked on the Song it would stream either Meetings, Vocals, Instrumental, Children, or Chorus depending on what selections were available for that particular song. 
Well, Tuesday you were able to select a Chorus version of Song 111, the last song for the midweek meeting. And of course some persons, in preparation for the meeting, will play the chorus version so that that they can practice the song with words. The Vocals version will often be a solo performer who might improvise a bit. The Chorus version will not improvise so often. The Chorus version of Song 111. (Our Reasons for Joy) starts out "Our reasons for joy are abundant." But the original chorus version, some might recall, sang it as "Our reasons for joy are abounding." It was originally written this way to sound better with the next line The joy in our heart is well-founded." So that a B-rhyme or "slant-rhyme" was implied between abounding and well-founded.
But those words were awkward sounding, and the printed version changed abounding to abundant. But the mobile app still pointed to the old Chorus version. When reported it was removed and only the Meetings version (instrumental) and Vocals and Children version remain. Those ones are all correct. 
So, my point was that some criticism gets commendation instead of condemnation. But what if I had questioned Psalm 45 for the same meeting? And what if I said that I don't think this is really the marriage of a king, but the marriage of a king's daughter (which may or may not have been to another king)? I might question such a point here on this forum, but it's nothing to call the Bethel Home about. But that's because I could easily be wrong and it's too trivial to worry about. Yet, if I study another issue that I feel is quite important, I might actually feel the need to call them up and question it. 
In fact, I have questioned 4 potential errors in the NWT 2013 Edition, and 3 of these error/typos have been changed in the [latest] printed version. Only one of these got an acknowledgment, so I don't know if others had also reported the others. 

Seems doubtful since I never believed it was always unethical, nor have I ever believed disfellowshipping itself was ever barbaric. That's not even a word I would use when the once-blind person that Jesus healed was disfellowshipped from the Sanhedrin. It was wrong, but not barbaric. The only types of uses that I consider barbaric are of the type that I mentioned. There are probably others but I was not privy to the details of that many other cases.
My position is that none of us should be banned. We are almost all reprobates from my perspective. If this were a Christian congregation, I would be disfellowshipped too, because there are things I will say here "in the congregation of reprobates" that I would never think of saying in a Christian congregation, nor even to a closest friend, unless they could convince me that they were asking honestly and in good faith, and able to understand the consequences if they chose to agree with whatever understanding I admitted to having at the time.
 Not sure what you have in mind, but lies persist because people often lie. If someone says something that appears to be a lie, then we either ignore it or we ask them for evidence, or we defend against it, or we research the "lie" ourselves and decide whether we should keep our feelings about it to ourselves, or we wait and see if someone else will take up the mantle. I've seen several lies on here that I just didn't care enough about to be concerned. Too trivial. Or I knew that telling the truth would just create unnecessary trouble and attacks. We can't all be each other's keeper.
 If there are things to criticize or correct, some will feel the need to criticize or correct. And some won't. It's no big deal since this is not a Christian congregation. In effect, you are criticizing the GB for being here when the GB have recommended that we not be here. So am I.
Not all criticism is worthy of condemnation though. If one has spiritual qualifications they should criticize an elder under some circumstances, according to the Bible. If one has proofreading qualifications, they probably should criticize the publications under some circumstances. I criticized a mistake on the website yesterday, and it was fixed the same day in time for the Wednesday mid-week meeting. I got an acknowledgement of appreciation for my criticism. It's no big deal. 

I am most certainly not the librarian. And knowing the kind of wordplay I've seen some of you guys use I am also not "The librarian" or "The Librarian" or "the Librarian" or "THE LIBRARIAN" or any combination of letters referring to "The Librarian" account. I am as certain as I can be that Tom, TTH, TrueTomHarley, etc., also is not the Librarian. 
Must not have been that obvious, if even such an astute person such as yourself got it wrong.
I would never claim to be. But I will publicly admit that I have never manipulated anyone's posts. I have taken a couple down, but they were repeats like when someone accidentally posts the same post 3 times. I have also moved posts to new topics many times, and in a couple of cases I have removed the posts that requested the move, or thanked me for making the move, because these make no sense after the move is completed. But even for these, I would only do that for persons who wouldn't be prone to complain or wouldn't get paranoid about a post being taken down. If I thought the person might wonder about a lost post I will announce what I'm doing in a post, and if there are no complaints within a day or so I will also take down my announcement post. 
If you know of any posts that were manipulated, point it out immediately and the admin(s) should be able to find an edit history so they can know who did it. I don't have access to an edit history but I assume that every such event is logged in the db. Not just admins, but moderators do have the ability to edit another person's post because I was once asked to edit a typo in a post where the author had passed the time limit for editing and I could still edit it for them. That's happened only about three times in 10 years.
I don't know what comments you refer to. Not the one from Tom, although I can guess, nor the one from Pudgy. I almost never interact with Pudgy, and even with JTR many of my "subtly offensive" posts to him were just hints that I didn't like a lot of his incessantly off-topic cartoons. in fact, the only recent time I recall interacting with Pudgy was to complain that his cartoon was completely off-topic and he responded that it was supposed to be obvious satire intended to lighten the mood from such a serious topic. But I also like some of his humor, too, I just don't respond to much of it.
You might be referring to a specific comment of George's that I didn't see. There is no specific post referred to in the "Reports" section which I can see. And there are times when an admin or moderator(or Librarian?) will hide an ostensibly offensive post, and that gives it a pinkish border to a moderator like me, while others can't see it at all. I have seen these, but I see no such offending post in George's case. If someone requoted that post, then maybe I can go back and see it, but I didn't completely read this topic yet.
I have no reason to defend my position. Just stating how I feel about banning, etc. I could be wrong about it, and I don't mind being corrected if I am. 
OK. Maybe I understand a bit better what you meant. I didn't know George used abusive language in his post about Tom's dishonesty. I didn't know Tom had been dishonest about something. I thought this was between J.R. and George88. Banning someone could potentially be justified, although I would never do it. And I have only one account/name/title here. I wouldn't do it under any account/name/title even if I had more than one. I don't think it's my place. I was never offered the authority and I think it's better to deal with content a person posts more than worry about the people behind them. It's sometimes funny and/or revealing when people use sock puppets for manipulation or satire or use them to build up a vote-reputation, so that's fair game for discussion. But not to attack people, and not to ban them. If the rules said only one account and no sock puppets that would be a different matter to the admins/owners, but not something I would worry about.  
If Tom was dishonest, or Pudgy was abusive I wouldn't defend it, but just like with you I wouldn't want to see them banned. And if someone thought it was absolutely necessary (which I doubt) then just like with George, I wouldn't want to see the content banned. I thought George had spent a good deal of time on the site rebuilding a better reputation and had also posted a ton of interesting content that had nothing to do with whatever happened here. I found it tedious to go through this last exchange with J.R., especially since I didn't agree with J.R. on the basic point. If someone wants to be a zealous OT-prophet-styled vigilante for truth and justice, who are we to try to stop him. Gamaliel could have told us that. 
Sort of right. I'm guessing that I do have the power to ban. Perhaps you have control of an old account that you don't think you will ever use again. If you give me permission I can give it a try and let you know if I was able to ban it. I suspect a strong possibility that I can only report it, and then another person has to approve the ban. I truly don't know for sure, but I was wrong to say "I will never use it even if I can." Because I'd like to know and if someone gives me an account to try, and permission to ban it, I will try to ban it. 
 

Must not be as obvious as you think because I've never banned anyone. I don't even know if I have the power to ban anyone. It's possible I do, but when I was offered moderator powers it was to help keep some order in some otherwise chaotic threads that kept going off-topic, and most specifically it was offered to me at a time when Allen Smith appeared to be responding to nearly all my posts with an extra dose of vitriol. I was told that I could use my new moderator powers to remove excessively spiteful posts from Allen. As you are well aware, I never did, but left them all just exactly as awful as he wanted to express himself. Then someone came along and deleted several versions of Allen along with all his past posts in many cases. This removed the foundation of my own responses to him which makes it difficult to make sense of those threads if anyone were go back and try to read them. 
I may never know if I actually have the power to ban anyone because I will never use it even if I can.

I don't think disfellowshipping is always unethical. The Christian congregation needs this authority for cases of exceptional wrongdoing, gangrene-like heresy and apostasy, and times when accepting association by someone reprehensible would give the appearance of condoning that person's conduct. But it can be implemented in a "barbaric" manner. I've watched this happen. I worked with Governing Body member, Brother Bert Schroeder, when his practice was to threaten to disfellowshipping persons unless they "snitched" on private conversations they had with friends who were closer to Bert's "political" target at the time. Then the person who snitched was allowed to just walk away unscathed. 
I've seen it used to break apart families where a (young -but-just-over-18) baptized person still lived at home with mental conditions that made it nearly impossible for her to safely live on her own, and yet she was kicked out of the home.
I've seen the threat used on my own sister if she were to tell the truth to hospital personnel that her ministerial servant husband had given her the injuries through a beating. 
I've seen the threat used against a registered nurse, a good friend of my brother, who was told (by Brother James Pellechia of the Writing Department) that she could no longer voluntarily care for a 90-year-old nearly invalid wheelchair-bound brother in a second/third floor apartment in Brooklyn who was disfellowshipped for apostasy, mostly over some negative remarks about Rutherford that he wouldn't recant. (He had been a colporteur under Russell and Rutherford.) The nurse asked my brother (a Bethelite at the time) for help and my wife and I were able to sneak in (partly disguised) to help the disfellowshipped person several times a week, along with another sister who took the other days. He literally would have died without the help.
I agree that you have often spoken truth here. However, this is not a congregation. It's a nearly random collection of persons who take an interest in discussing JW-related topics: some controversial, some innocuous. Every one of us who is here is here against the wishes of the Governing Body and we know it. There is therefore no reason to ban/disfellowship over any issue, with the exception of deliberate or targeted abusive behavior intended to hurt or bring harm to someone. But as we are mostly Witnesses here, we have learned to take such abuse in stride. We expect it. And if we happen to doubt or even reject a doctrine or two that most JWs accept, we understand quite well that we should expect to take some "abuse" for it. That's the only kind of abusive behavior I've gotten from the Allen-Smith-persona-like accounts.
I expect it now and then, and don't agree with JR that such a vigilante-styled zealous one needs to identify himself.
I especially don't like the fact that all the innocuous posts from the same individual get lost in the process. That's overkill over and above what's already overkill. 

I did my one-month penance away from this site, and I'm ready for another 10 years here. LOL.
I hadn't realized that Pudgy also stopped posting the same day. Also, there are dozens of post from George88 that are quoted by others here but when I go back to find the original, they are missing. Looks like JR invoked some of the rules of the forum which may have raised a flag to a moderator. What's left of his requoted comments tells me I probably would not have been much encouraged by the exchanges anyway.
But banning someone like George does almost nothing to remove that kind of vitriol and divisiveness. He still has other active accounts on here anyway. There are times when I think it just makes it worse when old accounts are "reincarnated." Anyone remember these names? 
1 Abusive Behaviour
Moise Racette was warned   March 18, 2023
Not Yet Acknowledged   1 Abusive Behaviour
Chioke Lin was warned  July 15, 2022
 Acknowledged   15 Abusive Behaviour
César Chávez was warned   May 13, 2021
 Acknowledged 1 Abusive Behaviour
Leander H. McNelly was warned  March 8, 2020
 Acknowledged 1 Abusive Behaviour
DefenderOTT was warned  October 24, 2019
Not Yet Acknowledged   1 Abusive Behaviour
Sean Migos was warned  October 24, 2019
 Acknowledged 1 Abusive Behaviour
Allen_Smith was warned   October 23, 2019
Not Yet Acknowledged   1 Spamming
divergenceKO was warned  October 23, 2019
Not Yet Acknowledged 1 Abusive Behaviour
Foreigner was warned October 23, 2019
Not Yet Acknowledged 5 Abusive Behaviour
AllenSmith was warned   July 2, 2018
 Acknowledged  

As George88 said, it's all just speculation. Charles Taze Russell thought that Jesus was "conceived" on or about December 25th, which was an early Bible Student rationale for celebrating Christmas. Russell thus held the belief that Jesus would have born around 9 months later, between late September and early October.
Currently, our publications place Jesus birthday around October 1st. 
Our publications also speculate that the "first Adam" was born around October 1st, or Tishri 1 of the year 4026 BCE.
*** it-1 p. 45 Adam ***
"That was in the year 4026 B.C.E. It was likely in the fall of the year, for mankind’s most ancient calendars began counting time in the autumn around October 1, or at the first new moon of the lunar civil year." [Tishri 1]
This is also true. A date as early as 5 or 6 BCE is speculated because the Bible says that Herod the Great was still alive. So far, all the evidence points to Herod's death in 4 B.C.E. See Wikipedia footnote resources for example.
Note that 30 years prior to the beginning of Tiberius' reign in 28 C.E. would take us to 3 B.C.E., but this was counting to the time of Jesus' baptism, and we only speculate that it was 3.5 years from his baptism to his death. Also, Luke said "about" 30 years of age. This is also one of the reasons many scholars put Jesus death closer to 30 C.E., not 33 C.E. 
Not to say that it is wrong, but the WTS publications have spent considerable effort trying to overcome the Herod (and Quirinius) evidence in order to maintain the claim that it was more likely around 2 B.C.E. It might be that 2 B.C.E. makes a better fit for the 70 weeks of years prophecy, but even here we begin counting that prophecy from a year that is about 10 years different from the secular evidence. 
*** it-1 pp. 463-467 Chronology ***
Jesus’ appearance as the Messiah came in the precise year foretold, perhaps about six months after John the Baptizer began his preaching in “the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.” (Lu 1:36; 3:1, 2, 21-23) Since the Roman Senate named Tiberius emperor on September 15 of 14 C.E., his 15th year ran from the latter part of 28 C.E. well into 29 C.E. (See TIBERIUS.) The evidence, then, is that Jesus’ baptism and anointing took place in the fall of the year 29 C.E.
Since Jesus was “about thirty years old” at the time of his baptism in 29 C.E. (Lu 3:23), his birth took place 30 years earlier, or about the fall of the year 2 B.C.E. He was born during the reign of Caesar Augustus and the Syrian governorship of Quirinius. (Lu 2:1, 2) Augustus’ rule ran from 27 B.C.E. to 14 C.E. The Roman senator P. Sulpicius Quirinius was governor of Syria twice, the first time evidently coming after P. Quintilius Varus, whose term as legate of Syria ended in 4 B.C.E.
 
This conflicts with the evidence from secular chronology and historians of the time. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_Quinctilius_Varus
Later he went to govern Syria from 7–6 BC until 4 BC with four legions under his command, where he was known for his harsh rule and high taxes. The Jewish historian Josephus mentions the swift action of Varus against a messianic revolt in Judaea after the death of the Roman client king, Herod the Great, in 4 BC.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quirinius
After the banishment of the ethnarch Herod Archelaus from the tetrarchy of Judea in AD 6, Quirinius was appointed legate governor of Syria, to which the province of Judaea had been added for the purpose of a census.[2]