JOHN BUTLER

Quote "but vulgarity should be limited to those who cannot think well enough to express themselves without it.  Thinking correctly is hard work, and many are lazy. "
Um, horses for courses i think. Street cred' is very necessary for some people in some places. Thinking correctly for those in the working class regions is totally different to thinking correctly in the upper class regions. It's not a lack of intelligence, in fact it could be showing intelligence. 
Quote : " I find vulgarity offensive ... because it means , generally, I am in a conversation with a stupid person, not because I am personally offended by the vulgarity. "..   That seems a narrow minded judgemental attitude.  
Reminds me of an Elder once telling me that he and his wife went to their first Memorial dressed in 'their normal clothes'. They were Hippies and his wife was wearing the shortest brightly coloured mini skirt that she had. Were they wrong ? No, they just didn't know what was the right way to dress for such an occasion. 
The same with language, you could be a very intelligent person but have never been taught what is deemed the right words to use.  

It is an adult's job to judge EVERYTHING.
That's why we work hard to become adults .... to develop those skills.
Those bad at judging EVERYTHING, often have very short lifetimes, full of drama and hardship, filled with bad, destructive "friends".

This is going round in circles and getting boring. And it is totally off topic. 

Some people that want and have  the job of being our masters, guides, instructors, teachers, judges  ... and policemen ... are highly competent, and have the very best of intentions ... but if none of that is true ... they STILL intend to be our masters, guides, instructors and teachers, judges ... and policemen.

There is a difference between Rambo .... and Bambi.

Limmy, you have to know the players here. Admin is not a Witness. The Librarian is, but he is certainly not a typical one. Call him avant- garde. Few Witnesses here are typical. This is not Bethel. Apostates, real and imagined, are free to come and go. And JTR would make Rambo blush.

Is this a mistype?

The Governing body and the Apostles in the first century were also infallible!! Never the less they would not tolerate such talk! Also in line with your comments about Jesus. Paul to was accused of Apostasy by the religious leaders against the mosaic law!
As we know in the Christian Greek Scriptures Apostasy  is used primarily with regard to religious defection; a withdrawal or abandonment of the true cause, worship, and service of God, and hence an abandonment of what one has previously professed and a total desertion of principles or faith!! If you can condone such behaviour and justify such comments then you also need to rethink where you are heading or are at!!
 Remember, it is evident that there is a distinction between a ‘falling’ due to weakness and the ‘falling away’ that constitutes apostasy. The latter implies a definite and willful withdrawal from the path of righteousness.  Whatever its apparent basis, whether intellectual, moral, or spiritual, it constitutes a rebellion against God and a rejection of his Word of truth!!    

limmy:
and with that philosophy, clearly the Allied Forces mobilized to push back the Germans should have never bothered, to preserve the Unity and Tranquility in Europe under Nazi Occupation, and the glories of German Civilization.
When the Nation you love and hold dear to your heart ... and we ARE A NATION ... without land territory ... is overrun with leadership that are ... in their own words ( In the Feb., 2017 Watchtower) "neither inspired or God, or infallible". (DUH!) that is not a good time to be a "Good German".
Remember ... according to the Theocratic Organization ruling at the time of Jesus' time on Earth ... HE was an Apostate.
Jack Ryan is an apostate, and apparently an atheist... but TRUE is true ..... no matter what the source.
As Winston Churchill said to his wife in the latter part of World War II, when she threatened to leave him .... (paraphrased) "Please forgive me... the only thing I know how to do is FIGHT.".
 

Admin,
Are you really witnesses running this site because if you were this Jack Ryan would have his membership revoked, clearly an Apostate, get a life and move on mate!! 

Pretty soon it’ll be:
“Faithful Christian parents of selfless Bethelite volunteers cheerfully provide their devoted children physical food for the nourishment of their bodies, while Jehovah graciously sustains them spiritually. A faithful brother in Norway cheerfully notes, “ It’s a privilege to send food to my adult children who are working hard for Jehovah and the brotherhood around the world alongside so many of Jehovah’s young faithful ones. Its a blessing from Jehovah to be able to aleve the Society of this burden.”

If you are IN: The G.B. really knows how to put our money to better use. The end can't be far off now!
If your OUT: The G.B. is losing money hand over fist. They must do more with less. THE END CAN'T BE FAR OFF NOW!
JWs...WAKE UP. The end can't be far off now.

"Making the best use of dedicated funds" = Paying off child abuse lawsuits.

No need to get cross about it .
 

No need to get cross about it .
 

I believe what you mean to say is ‘the stake of the problem.’

Because it was a job given to Jewish people to collect taxes from fellow Jews to hand over to the Romans so that they had enough money to be even more oppressive and so that the Romans could display their riches and opulence as a direct humiliation of the people they were oppressing and occupying. For nearly Jesus' entire life on earth up to the 70 C.E. and even as late as 130 C.E., there was a continuous state of revolution against Rome by the Jews from Judea to Galilee, especially Galilee.
Imagine the same situation in Gaza or West Bank today where the Israelis continually abuse and terrorize the Palestinians, hoping to provoke enough backlash so that they can excuse the tactics of bulldozing and exploding their homes to steal their land and squeeze them further into economic ruin. Now imagine a Palestinian who takes a job of collecting taxes from fellow Palestinians to give to the Israelis.

Yes, he said what he said about tax collectors and religion rules. Old Law said too, how to use stones for example ....etc.
Question is: Do You, Me, and All Other have to do/to work, to think according to The Words? Or by Interpretations of The Words? Or by .... whatever?
In every Paradise (in all sort of Paradises) existing/there is The Snake.

My only dispute with the disfellowshipping policy is being TOLD "how to treat loved ones living outside the home" by means of videos. No matter how I slice it, I cannot see what is right about TOTALLY  ignoring a loved one and the loved ones innocent children (grandchildren) for years. The Israelites, under the mosaic law, were to stone those who broke God's laws, parents were to stone their children. Is this our version of stoning? The question is, were the Israelites also to stone the children (grandchildren) of someone who broke Gods law?
Why was stoning done away with? What was to happen with those who would have previously been stoned now that stoning was no longer practiced? Is there specific admonition by Paul which deals with family? How would we be breaking our loyalty to God if we treated our loved ones like we are supposed to treat our neighbors, tax collectors and those of the nations?  Didn't Paul say we should treat ones who have left as tax collectors? 
I would not advocate my views unless I was specifically asked about them. But I know how I would treat my son if he got Df'd. and it wouldn't be as is "recommended" in the video.
 

Expelling is Biblical. That's true. But what is the method and are Christians under some kind of rule of law that needs to be applied uniformly in all situations? What if it was a principle that is good, but the way it was executed even in Bible times turns out not to have been a Christian method.
For example, the Bible allows for a husband to disfellowship his wife. (The Bible never allows for a wife to disfellowship (divorce) a husband, by the way.) But are we under Mosaic rules for divorce just because it is Biblical? In fact, Jesus said that even though it was Biblical, it wasn't what Jehovah really wanted.
(Matthew 19:7, 8 )  7 They said to him: “Why, then, did Moses direct giving a certificate of dismissal and divorcing her?” 8 He said to them: “Out of regard for your hard-heartedness, Moses made the concession to you of divorcing your wives, but that has not been the case from the beginning. Jesus doesn't say Moses wasn't inspired when he made the Biblical concession for divorce as one of the laws in the "perfect" Law covenant. But Jesus rejects this particular "jot and tittle" of the Law as a mere concession for human hard-heartedness, especially because it was being misused in practice.  "Hard-heartedness" is a form of having "no natural affection." (See my earlier post on this topic.)
There is an even more obvious case where the Governing Body now rejects something that is definitely Biblical. In the Bible, it's OK to "beat" your children, physically. When asked about this, GB member Geoffrey Jackson, in front of the Australian Royal Commission,  said that the GB now believe that the "rod" of correction is not a physical rod, but that it is the "virtual" rod of righteous corrective discipline. Of course, what do we then do with the Mosaic Law that says that if you beat your slave to death that there is no punishment as long as it takes the slave a day or two to die? (There is a punishment if the slave dies within in a shorter time period.)
(Exodus 21:20, 21) . . .“If a man strikes his slave man or his slave girl with a stick and that one dies by his hand, that one must be avenged. 21 However, if he survives for one or two days, he is not to be avenged, because he is someone bought with his owner’s money. The way in which the point was made in front of the ARC was for the GB member to avoid this Scripture:
(Proverbs 23:13, 14) 13 Do not hold back discipline from the mere boy. In case you beat him with the rod, he will not die. 14 With the rod you yourself should beat him, that you may deliver his very soul from Sheʹol itself. Instead, he used another verse, from the previous chapter, which was more ambiguous:
(Proverbs 22:15) 15 Foolishness is tied up with the heart of a boy; the rod of discipline is what will remove it far from him. Of course, all of these verses use the same Hebrew word for "rod/stick" and the same Hebrew word for "beat/smite/strike." Same word for "rod" or "stick" is used here too:
(Proverbs 26:3) 3 A whip is for the horse, a bridle is for the ass, and the rod is for the back of stupid people. I'm not in favor of the physical beating of children. There are times when the principle is correct, but the methods used were "hard-hearted." The Governing Body says we have updated our understanding to that of the world here, and I think everyone knows that Brother Jackson is not so stupid as to think that the Bible was not really referring to physical beatings with these Hebrew expressions. It's time we progressed in our understanding of what it means to disfellowship, too. 
You've argued that other religions see familial DFing, for example, as Biblical. But so what? In other religions they might still beat their children, beat their wives and servants, promote racism, divorce on any ground, and promote a lack natural affection, too.

From what I can gather here about you, I think that most of the 130 do not believe you are evil, and probably do not wish to treat you badly, but as you say, they THINK they are following the rules. Also, they will not merely treat you this way just because they feel you were concerned about the "child abuse" issue. If you have told the whole story then it is pretty clear that you are treated as someone who has formally disassociated, and we are told to treat that person the exact same way as someone who was disfellowshipped. (I think that is an abuse of power by the way on the part of the WTS policy.) It's probable that someone has added a few other "details" for the ears of the congregation, real or imagined. The more likely concern is that you have somehow become a spiritual danger because you are actively seeking out false information from apostates to spread it among the congregation in order to sow divisions and contentions. Many in the congregation must believe that your current motive is to promote such apostasy, even if you are personally still "salvagable." They are told that to treat you like this is a way to save you. 
I personally would not follow the rules in this regard when it is a person I have known and if I feel that my continued association is more likely to be scriptural than unscriptural. There have been two persons where my opinion of them and my association with them didn't change a bit after they were disfellowshipped. One stayed out and one came back. I don't advertise this to the rest of the congregation, for fear of stumbling others, and for my own fear of the same kind of unscriptural disciplinary treatment that others have been subjected to.
But there is also a certain kind of friendship we build up with others that goes beyond rules and regulations. We show a certain type of loyalty (loyal love) to the other person, and they to us. In the Bible, if David had become a murderer and an adulterer, Jonathan would have still loyally stuck by him. "There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother." (Prov 18:24)  I have seen several friendships like this, and would hope that no human rules would ever get in the way. I had a roommate at Bethel who joked that his friend who had recently been invited to Bethel, was like this. He claimed that even if he murdered someone, that this friend would never change. I thought about that and decided that he should move out and room with this arriving friend. 
If we truly have love, even for our enemies, we should have no problem dealing with tax collectors and sinners. How much more should we show love to someone who is in dire straits for a reason we already understand and one we can help them understand. This does not mean that I would go out of my way to seek out such a person, unless I was sure I could help them feel better with some encouragement. Often they truly put themselves in a situation where the best thing they  to do is to find their way back into the organization and I will often encourage that. But I would never encourage family members to disfellowship themselves from that disfellowshipped person.  It has been rare, but as I said, I have had a couple of occasions to "break the rule" in this regard.
 
I like a lot of what the GB and the JW org are doing, and I love many of my fellow associates in the congregation. But, YES, I really mean it. Speaking out is what I am doing right now. I often speak out against unscriptural policies, or discuss them here to help make sure whether my own reasoning is wrong. I don't have to speak out in front of my local congregation, nor do I cause divisions. I speak out on this forum, and I will sometimes speak frankly and honestly with people who approach me in person. I also send a couple letters a year to the GB and JW org. For the past few years, these have been anonymous. I have used this site to try to formulate the scriptural reasoning behind these letters.
I have already spoken out against abuse and bad policy in this regard for about seven years now -- not just on forums but in person. This is why I cannot completely understand the treatment you are getting. At several opportunities over the last 30 years, I have spoken out against a policy of tolerating spousal physical abuse against wives, because my own sister had an experience like this with the usual requested cover-up from authorities and hospital personnel. I have even turned in a young 20 year old brother who showed serious problems in this regard at gatherings. He is not quite a person of full mental capacity, but this won't matter to an abused sister who would feel traumatized if he takes these types of actions any further. And it's quite possible he already poses a criminal danger when not in public. There should be heightened awareness of these problems to protect all potential victims, and where necessary, secular authorities and law enforcement need to be involved.

I am now going to tell you of what took place today. Please read it slowly and carefully. 
My wife and i were out delivering things to a charity warehouse and my wife suggested they we go to visit her mother who lives nearby. 
On arriving at my wife's mother's home, we found that she already had visitors. Hayley, one of our daughters (who has never been interested in the JW Org), and Phoebe (one of our granddaughters), but the daughter of our only daughter that remains in the JW Org. 
Poor little Phoebe, 7 years old, didn't know if she should speak to me or not. Obviously had been told by her mother not to talk to me, but I could tell that she actually wanted to. I spoke to her of course but she didn't know what to do... So that is No1 child that is suffering for no fault of her own.
Now i proceeded to talk to my wife's mum and to explain to her that Phoebe's mum Hannah doesn't talk to me since I left the JW Org and to my surprise my wife's mum already knew the situation, and she had asked Hannah why she wouldn't talk to me, and Hannah had said' Because it is the rules, and I am not allowed to talk to him'. That was my wife's mum's words not mine. 
After leaving my wife's mum's home we drove to Hannah's house to deliver a 'baby chair' a sort of bouncy seat to put a baby in. Hannah was at work and her husband was looking after the other two children. My wife took the chair in to the house and I stayed in the car. Hannah's oldest daughter aged 9 said to my wife 'I want to go and see grandad, but I'm not allowed to'.  My wife told me this when she came back to the car of course. So No 2 child that is suffering for no reason of her own. 
So there we have it. TWO children that are suffering because they want to talk to me (their grandad) and they are not allowed to, and a 29 year old baptised woman (our daughter Hannah)  who is SHUNNING ME because it is the rules of the GB and Elders. Yet Hannah doesn't know why, she just follows blindly without question.... And thousands of others do the same.. 
There is the truth about your shunning, Tom and other blind JW's. Not a rant, just plain truth. But truth is something your JW Org and it's GB cannot handle. 

So what about it, punk? Ya feelin lucky today?
I think my next project will be to introduce @JOHN BUTLER to @Jack Ryan and duck out the back door while they get to know one another.
"Now TrueTom, knowing that the one part was made up of atheists but the other of malcontents, cried out in the WorldNewsMediaForum: “Men, brothers, I am a believer, a son of believers. Over the hope of the existence of God I am being judged.” Because he said this, a dissension arose between the malcontents and the atheists, and the assembly was split. For the atheists say that there is neither resurrection nor angel nor God, but the malcontents accept them all.  So a great uproar broke out, and some of the scribes of the party of the malcontents, though not John Butler, rose and began arguing fiercely, saying: “We find nothing wrong in this man, but if a spirit or an angel spoke to him—.” 

I suspect there are more women of the Anointed of God, than men ... as a general rule in the general population, they seem to be more spiritual, than men .....
.... We TRY to be spiritual ....  but we also try to be as cool as Clint Eastwood.

No worries. That being said, the years go by fast anyways. It is already almost 2019.