Foreigner

@TrueTomHarley 'In your dreams is right, for the whole first comment you wrote.
What twaddle. Didn't Peter and the Apostles say at Acts 5 v 29
But Peter and the apostles answered and said, We must obey God rather than men. 
And now the JW's are admitting they have a clergy class ? clergy-penitent privilege 
Quote "Unity among Jehovah’s Witnesses is a commonplace and unremarkable fact." 
What utter rubbish. JW's take each other to worldly courts. They bicker and gossip about each other. It has been proved that some congregants have been 'threatened' by Elders to keep their mouths shut or be disfellowshipped, and that includes me. There is adultery, divorce,  family disputes, all sorts of problems, dishonest dealings too. 
You rabbit on about the world and the UN, but why ?  The W/t, JW Org, GB, are supposed to be NO PART OF THE WORLD, so why doe you people even try to compare yourselves to that world ? 
I've said before, living in my house is much better than living in a sewer. Does that mean my house is perfect ? No of course not. It just means it's better than a sewer. 
So comparing W/t and JW Org to the world means nothing.  As people tell me the 'world' is a big place and is varied in many ways. But even I have met people 'in the world' that are much 'nicer' in a humane way than people in the JW Org. 
Then of course you find the need to off into the realms of fantasy, to obscure the truth about your wicked Org. So be it.
 
 

Wish it were that simple. This is only ONE of the reasons to be insular. Another reason to be insular is to hide the fact that you are just like the world in some areas and still hope that people will think of you as no part of the world. In other words, it's to hide your dirty laundry.
(Romans 13:11-14) . . .. 12 The night is well along; the day has drawn near. Let us therefore throw off the works belonging to darkness and let us put on the weapons of the light. 13 Let us walk decently as in the daytime, not in wild parties and drunkenness, not in immoral intercourse and brazen conduct, not in strife and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not be planning ahead for the desires of the flesh.
I think it's helpful to always remember that we are talking about crimes: crimes that can be akin to rape and murder and torture and kidnapping and terror. Granted there are some aspects of child sexual abuse that don't appear to sound like crimes. Some persons get caught during the times when they are only "grooming" children for more serious abuse. (Romans 13:14 "planning ahead for the desires of the flesh.") A recent court case includes an elder who was able to convince the other elders that it was "accidental touching" before being caught in several other cases at various stages of abuse. 
I remember when Brother J.R.Brown did an interview and kept focusing on false accusations, accidents, and "lesser" areas of child sexual abuse, such as an 18 year old committing fornication a 16 year old. I didn't see the old 20-20 interview about CSA and still haven't. But I remember listening to J.R.Brown's comments and immediately thinking that he must know that this is a common way to shift attention away from the serious crimes of CSA, which often includes rape/violence. I believe now that the WTS had already paid out millions of dollars even back then, but this is not something that Brother Brown could admit. He made it seem like we didn't really have a problem. I think this kind of hiding, or keeping people in the dark on a matter, could have been very dangerous in that the problem was not dealt with openly. Hinting that matters of "sexual abuse" are associated with apostate lies is another way to keep people in the dark. (Granted that Lett's quote was technically accurate, but it served the same purpose because he was not willing to admit the extent of the problem.)
Brother Jackson at least admitted that these cases of real CSA were not associated with apostate lies. He admitted that it is a real problem in our community, just as it is in the world at large. That was an excellent "change" in the way we began to address the issue. I think it has led to the current shift away from trying to save the reputation of the organization, and make sure that the blame goes to the perpetrator.
Again, I think that even when a person comes to the elders with a case they would like spiritual guidance on, but don't wish to have the case go to the police or other authorities, I think that a desire for privacy should not always be a valid concern. Many types of CSA rise to the level of overriding the legal requirements. Abusers repeatedly are caught repeating the crime with another person. I think there should be times when the elders tell a parent:
"We understand that you want to avoid publicity, embarrassment, and reproach that this would bring on your family and the organization. This family head and 'breadwinner' may even lose his job and no longer be able to easily care for the rest of his family financially. And you may even have the law on your side when it comes to keeping such a terrible thing hidden. But, as for us, we must do all we can to protect the innocent, not the guilty. It is our Christian obligation to protect the innocent, look after orphans and widows in their tribulation, and therefore if necessary, to err on the side of mercy and love for the innocent. If we must make a judgment, we should err on the side of those who are often trampled by the world's justice: the children. It's what we are willing to do for the "least of these" that is deemed as if doing the same for Christ himself.
(Proverbs 11:21) . . .Be assured of this: An evil person will not go unpunished, But the children of the righteous will escape.
(Isaiah 10:1, 2) . . .Woe to those who enact harmful regulations, Who constantly draft oppressive decrees,  2 To deny the legal claim of the poor, To deprive the lowly among my people of justice, Making widows their spoil And fatherless children their plunder!
(Matthew 7:11) 11 Therefore, if you, although being wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will your Father who is in the heavens give good things to those asking him!
(Matthew 18:2-5) . . .So calling a young child to him, he stood him in their midst 3 and said: “Truly I say to you, unless you turn around and become as young children, you will by no means enter into the Kingdom of the heavens. 4 Therefore, whoever will humble himself like this young child is the one who is the greatest in the Kingdom of the heavens; 5 and whoever receives one such young child on the basis of my name receives me also.

WITH RESPECT TO 'GOING BEYOND THE LAW'
(Matthew 5:40-42) 40 And if a person wants to take you to court and get possession of your inner garment, let him also have your outer garment; 41 and if someone in authority compels you into service for a mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one asking you, and do not turn away from one who wants to borrow from you.
I sometimes think of this scripture when it seems that the courts want us to 'air our dirty linen' (our inner garment) by asking for information we have tried to keep secret.
 

I think it was you that got burned Kid, when I pointed out that the scripture you used from John 8 wasn't recognised as being authentic scripture. 
But now you go on to use another reference that isn't authentic scripture. 
My only thought here is that you are trying to guide people away from God's word. Why would a 'Christian' want to do that ? 
And why would someone who pretends to love the 'Watchtower' / JW Org not use the NWT ? 
But then why would a 'Christian' have a house full of guns and want to use a murdering outlaw as his avatar ? Do you know I've just found a strange coincidence Billy. Let me show you :- 
Billy the Kid (born Henry McCarty September 17 or November 23, 1859 – July 14, 1881, also known as William H. Bonney) was an American Old West outlaw and gunfighter who killed eight men before he was shot and killed at age 21.
Now how many men in that GB ?  How strange that is. 

On which list would be your name ? :)) Which other names would be with your?

Thanks for warning me about names of dangerous elements in this forum. 
So, you would like that i pay my attention to Billy? Because his name is not on your list?!
:))

Billy is strange, pretending to be a JW, using writings that are not for true Christians, just to try to back up his useless comments. I think the person is unwell. I was going to say man, but one never knows with stupid avatars, if a person is male or female. 
I think your own comment applies to you Kid 
 If you were a JW at one point, whoever taught you scripture did a poor job of it. 

Why would a JW use the Gospel of Thomas which is possibly fake and not inspired of holy spirit ? 
Remember 'all scripture is inspired ...... ' but the gospel of Thomas is not scripture. 
My feeling is this Kid is defo' not a JW but is trying hard to destroy the reputation of the JW Org in an indirect way.
Unlike me that uses direct means and am not frightened to speak my mind. I think the Kid has a grudge against the GB / JW Org / Watchtower and is being sneaky about how he is getting back at them. 

Au Contraire TTH .. I am not trying to portray myself as anything.   I just stated facts, and you can draw whatever conclusions you have to, based on your WDS.
I just thought it was incredibly rude, deceitful, and dishonest on their part, as I introduced myself, even though they had already been told my name, although we had never before met.  Also, I instantly determined that a Judge who will not divulge his name is one chain short of wearing a black hood, and carrying a headman's ax.
The reason I did not respond earlier is I do NOT assume motives for other people, where there are no clearly discernible facts in evidence ... or they TELL me what their motives are.
You have assumed quite a LOT about my motives ... without facts.
I feel I was grievously mistreated by their being anonymous, and therefore dishonest judges..
They had NOTHING to fear from me, based on 55 and more  years of hard facts .... unbroken by even a single instance of violence or threat of violence.  ( To be fair, about 1981 a rich and influential  Elder called me up on the phone and said he was going to DESTROY ME, and I replied he was welcome to try, and that I would be willing to meet him in the street outside my home, and we would shoot it out ... and he hung up and never bothered me again.).
The last time I was in a fight was as a teenager, at a school bus stop in Jr. High School.
Because i do not consider consequences once I decide what is right or wrong, I did not need their names to write in a book, and ambush them later. 
If I was a mind to (and I would like to EMPHASIZE that I was not then, and am not now...) I would have shot them to death in that room, at the time.
Basically, they were cowards, and bullys, pretending to be fair and impartial, and successfully deceiving themselves.
 
... and the hand, having writ, has moved on ... just another day in Margaritaville.
 

TTH is here trying to put the blame on JTR. TTH has learnt well from the GB and it's Org. 
Victims in the JW Org very often get told they are to blame. Especially in cases where a victim of mistreatment blames an Elder. Once again we see worship of the Org. 

I have no idea. If he is, he certainly is not a typical one, that’s for sure.
I don’t think that he is mentally sound. That does not mean that he is stupid. But both oars are somehow not in the water. It is just too weird to be as outrageous as he consistently is, picking fights with everyone.
 

Oh YEAH!?
Just for that I'm gonna carve your BTK photo on a Coconut, put a handlebar mustache on it,  and throw it in the Ocean!
YEAH!
Take THAT!

Oh, I thought you were sending all my comment to a higher authority, the one that the bible mentions 'Superior Authorities' 

It depends upon what you mean by insult. Alas, you tend to take the slightest reproof (which I have given you) as an insult.
When Allan returned from one of his many banishments, I took the time to say (maybe someone with more patience than me can pull it from the pile) that he truly did bring much to the table, but he jeopardized his contribution by indulging his anger. ‘You cannot afford that luxury,” I told him.
He was somewhat of a prickly character—who can say what makes a person what he is?—but he seemed to take that counsel to heart. It was some time before he got into hot water again, and as stated, we got along well afterwards, even though our exchange was mostly through DM.
Had I ever rebuked him? No. Had I ever reproved him? Yes. 
Have I ever rebuked @JW Insider? Yes. Once, and he took it to heart. He said so, and I saw the difference that it made. It did not change his basic philosophy of telling whatever he has experienced. But once he stepped over the line to tell something (and no—it has nothing to do with CSA—don’t even go there, John) that would not be known otherwise—revealing a confidential matter that truly was confidential. 
And he has reproved me on different things, whether he knows it or not. Not quite a rebuke, but maybe that is coming someday.
Have I ever rebuked you? Nothing like I am going to. It is outlandish how you let yourself get carried away by your anger. To the extent people accept you as a genuine member of the faith, it makes for a terrible witness. I’m not sure that JTR does worse. In fact, I think he does better, for it is very clear that he is way way out there as a Witness. He does not pretend to be representative of them.

Well...I will lend you some support on something that seems to be important to you.
So many here seem to think that you are one of the Allans—he got all the way up to #30 something, advancing a number each time he got tossed out on his ear for getting too abusive (and he was right to object that others had been equally abusive and had not been disciplined, which @JW Insider pointed out even more than me, and on more occasions.)
I used to point out that Allan made a significant contribution here—he proved the resurrection.
I messaged him privately, or maybe he messaged me—I forget—and in the course of a very nice exchange, I gave him a copy of Tom Irregardless and Me, which he said nice things about, as well as nice things to me.
So I don’t think that he was you at all. Hear that, @Witness, @JW Insider, @James Thomas Rook Jr., @JOHN BUTLERand others? He’s not the same guy.
Billy is mean to me. Allan was not.

I copied the whole comment to my FB page so that people can make their own mind up about it all. 
Unlike some on here that pick out just a few words out of context.  
But I still find people having a love of guns strange. There are people here in the UK that collect German war memorabilia, i find that disturbing too. Perhaps, in my opinion, it should all be forgotten. War in my opinion is racist. The idea that one race has the right to live above another. 
I tend to collect old household items and farming items, things used for constructive purposes not destructive ones. 

Well it's quite funny to read this comment right now as I've just posted, on my FB / Ex JW page, about JW's that have a stockpile of weapons in their own homes. And how they love to talk about war and about men being run over by vehicles and having their heads blown off. Very Christian attitude, not. 
And how it seems fine with the GB for 'brothers' in the USA to stockpile guns, and how those 'brothers' seem to have a love for weapons of war..
I'm sure my readers will find it interesting. 
I got the idea of copy and paste from the Kid, so I copied and pasted from this blog to my FB. 

I have a wonderful wife, and life, three grown children all strong and active in the Truth who do not burden me,  6 dogs, 18 bantam chickens of indeterminate theology that I get a great deal of enjoyment from, just watching the 25 be happy, every day,  and a Congregation that says "Hello Bro and Sis Rook" as we pass.  I have outlived most of my friends. and am a truly happy man, even though I never got my CH-4 helicopter.
I had a psyxhiatrisx ask if idiocy was a problem in my family.
  I replled "No, we rather enjoy it!"
You know, Billy, it must be discouraging being wrong about EVERYTHING!
Perhaps you should not take up Skydiving.

.... A truce only works between men of straight forwardness, and principle.
I do have enough life experiences to know better ... but I gave it a shot.
Oh well!
...by the way, I purchased my arsenal, Billy, with money I worked for.

Do you think that is the “real” issue here?
Do you think that God loses any sleep over it?
Do you think that should he see the error of his ways and back down, there will not be 100 to take his place?
Do you plan to take them all on? I mean, you haven’t really put out any fires here. You’ve even managed to get Mt. JWI to erupt again. He had been content to post pictures of kitty cats.

You said you had two-or-three examples.
When called on it you choked, and changed the subject.

You don’t even know that the people you are arguing with are sane. You don’t even know for sure that they are people. Maybe they are bots like those the Russians supposedly employed on social media, so as to get people enraged at each other and then they could say “See how much better our form of government is? We don’t have these kinds of lunatics running around in the wild.”
If you are going to engage with opposers on social media, there are a few points to keep in mind.
1.) you probably shouldn’t.
2.) you will ultimately lose. You must be prepared to yield the final word. This is because they do not give up and the only way you can match that record is to become petulant and argumentative yourself.
3.) you somewhat negate that if you have a huge body of relevant work that you can link to, effectively answering their 50 words with your 1000. It has a way of discouraging trolls. 
4.) You cannot let yourself be goaded. It is your greatest weakness, imo. Sometimes you start out well, but when they talk back (which they will always do) you get madder and madder and MADDER until you leave a trail that, regardless of whether it is true or not, comes across as the very opposite of the way Jesus dealt with people.
5.) You must be like me, who never ever trolls and who merely confines himself to the dignified use of internet resources in search of fatheads to set straight.
Do you find enraged elephants here and think that you have to slay them? Another way to handle enraged elephants is to bury them in an avalanche of other elephants. That is what this forum serves to do. Even regular participants like myself find it impossible to keep up. Even my own stuff penned here I also put on my own blog because that is the only way I can find it again.
If the regulars can’t keep up, who else is going to? If someone says something substantial here or there, it is quickly buried amidst so much crap that it is impossible to find again—nobody but the most resolute nerd would have the patience, and should he find and spotlight it nobody pays any attention to him because he is a resolute nerd and everybody knows it and only other resolute nerds pay any attention to him.
It calls to mind when that pompous scientist/philosopher/cheerleader/atheist Alan H wrote: “I call everyone to witness that TTH has not answered my question.” “It’s just you and me, you idiot,” I retorted. “What! Do you think that you are Clarence Darrow in Inherit the Wind?”
It is inherently easier to defend something you think noble than it is for others to attack it. The benefits of the Christian teachings serve to strengthen resolve and to unbuild one, but what are the benefits to one who would tear it down? “I gotta be MEEEEEE, I gotta be FREEEEEE!!!!” only goes so far. That said, if I thought that my words here were solely for here and only here, I would not be able to motivate myself to write them.

No, Billy, don’t go there. I don’t allow myself to get worked up enough to judge anyone online as despicable—as though it were my role. It’s not.
As you say, I am mostly here to test out lines for future books. Frankly, I hate to see him go, for I test out many through him. But it is better for him if he leaves. Others will pick up the torch.

Light is truth. John 14:6; 8:12  Christian living requires speaking truth and practicing love toward one’s neighbor.
Eph 5:11 - And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.
Beliefs Clarified is not truth, but “unfruitful works” of darkness;  a flip-flop of lies.  Beliefs Clarified” is a misnomer and should in all honestly be entitled, “Beliefs Obscured”.  When we “clarify” a point, we bring into focus what is initially stated, building on the primary point.  If we clarify a true teaching, that truth becomes well established with clearer understanding.  Watchtower usually starts with a lie and ends with a lie.   Prov 12:22
A wicked slave authorizes its army of adherents to ban and disfellowship those who follow Christ, even though Jesus promises life to those who do. Matt 24:9-13; 48-51; Rev 13:11,12, 15; John 8:12  It is not an act of love to disfellowship such ones, but hate; and it is exactly what Jesus prophesied would happen to those who follow him.  Luke 21:12; John 16:2; 1 John 3:12  It is exactly what the Beast/organization of Revelation practices on those who refuse to “serve” and dedicate themselves to its authority.  Rev 13:4-10   The attack against such ones, is guaranteed.
These are all “unfruitful works of darkness”. 
Pagan ways?  You are grasping at straws.  Can you imagine worshiping God without the organization?  If not, you are an idolater.  Isa 46:5
To admire a dual power of authority over others, is admitting one’s own enslavement to its authority.  It has nothing to do with true “religion”.  James 1:27 
Since the GB ‘dishonors’ others with their sense of pride and position, ousting any who reject their bogus claim, they have no love in themselves; they are the “wicked” slave.    The organization’s disfellowshipping file must be bursting at its seams. Of course, their lawsuit file already is.  
 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  1 Cor 13:4-6
 
 
 
 

Actually Billy, the idea of you being like a dog would be an insult to dogs, of which I have a high opinion..
My wife and I have six dogs, and I should know.  We enjoy watching them live out their lives as happy animals. Recently we just bought 20 Bantam Chickies,  for our entertainment only, to watch them grow up, and enjoy their lives.
No matter what the subject, you misinterpret what other people have said, so there is no news there.
Let's just say that in my mind there was no idea whatsoever that you exhibited any characteristics that dogs are known for, the chief of which is just being happy, and happy to be around humans.
None whatsoever.
I would tell you what I did have on my mind, but you would just misinterpret that as well, and take it as an insult, without understanding.
I think TTH gave John Butler incredibly GOOD advice, and your reaction was pure evil.