James Thomas Rook Jr.

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

1 hour ago, Srecko Sostar said:

If your family member (children) want to celebrate birthday and you as JW parent forbid them to express their  freedom to manifest and practice his or her religion  (or wish, or non religion attitude, or atheistic, or worldly ideas)  that is the source of conflict.”

Historically, people have recognized the right, even the responsibility, of parents to decide such things for their minor children.

There are many examples of authoritarian countries deciding otherwise: that children are the property of the state and not the parents,  to be molded by state views.

Increasingly that model is spreading to lands that once had greater respect toward parents and took a hands-off approach.

Don't go to town with the "hands-off"  phrase, JTR. Just don't. We know where your obsession lies. Please refrain.

TTH:

With your level of reading comprehension you should appreciate my rants, not disparage them.

The perfect example of this is when you project or attribute to me the posting above, created by Sreko Sostar ..... not me.

"Don't go to town with the "hands-off"  phrase, JTR. Just don't. We know where your obsession lies. Please refrain." - TTH

If you don't want to read something  someone else has to say that might disagree with you .... you are on the wrong  venue.

Could be worse .... you could be deceased, and voting Democrat.

Helpfull Hint:  If you get tired at being sniped at by me, don't snipe at me.  I have the typical "engineers' personality" ...which is to say, not much at all, so I REFLECT other peoples' personalities.

You shoot at me ... I shoot back.

Is it later than I think?

I often think, as the Sun goes down, that it is really the horizon, coming up.

If I face away from the Sun and bend over, looking through my legs at the Sun, the Sun and the horizon  seem to be meeting in the middle.

Then I do a front flip, fall over, and consider it from another perspective.

Reality is what it is.

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

Some audible gasps were heard as they understood that he had just said "Hell" from the platform, but, somehow, it proved that you can get stung if you don't understand modulation, pauses and emphasis.

The thing I like about the Klingon language is .... you get to yell and spit at the same time.

2 hours ago, Space Merchant said:

Not much of a movie, more of a small clip and or video based on the particular subject of said material of which it is trying to convey.

To paraphrase EEyore, of the Hundred Acre Woods :

"It's not much of a movie, but I'm kind of attached to it."

IMHO I guess if I had enough RAM in my CPU I could overcome my DSL, AKA phone, and need to RSVP, PDQ,  by PDF,  before MTBF, and I R.I.P.

Finland has a long history of quasi-conflict with Jehovah's Witnesses ... namely their running a parallel Justice System in competition with the Finnish Judicial System .... and the Finnish Government is  of the opinion that they will not tolerate two different justice systems operating in the country. 

It is even worse with the Muslim immigrants, as they think that they do not have to abide by anything that is not Sharia Law.

As an example, the young Muslim men and teenagers rape Finnish women, and when hauled into court, they and their parents  scream that it is the young womens' faults, for dressing provocatively ( not in a black canvas tent?).

It is with the Finnish Government that the super-duper top secret Elders Handbook was first made public, as copies were given to the officials of the Ministry of Education, and one other, which I forget at the moment.

At this time, here in the United States, no Brother was allowed to read it, and it was not even to be left on a table at home where some WOMAN  (A Sister), might see or read it.

They too, like many governments, see our shunning practices as cruel, and extreme .... breaking up families and extended families ... AND THEY DO NOT LIKE IT!

Unlike us ... they do not have to tolerate people with clueless, ignorant cruelty that destroys families.

My guess is that is why in these landed immigration cases Jehovah's Witnesses are NOT granted asylum.

Other than their sustained and historic predilection for cruelty among ourselves as religious extremists, we  are almost universally model citizens, and very nice people.

They do not understand that we are absolutely no threat to their nation or their government.

We only eat our own.

39 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Until now maybe we have shown too much patience and long-suffering with our students.

Long suffering is a double edged sword ... it cuts both ways.

Emphasis on the word suffering.

Could be worse .... could be a Land Shark !

39 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

It means we can run the entire preaching campaign out of Brother Lett’s dorm room, if need be.

Bro Lett, in his dorm room, can start his Service Time, by merely sitting up in bed, and turning to the side away from his wife, ask any of the other three couples sleeping there, if they know that there is more evidence that God's Kingdom has been ruling for a hundred years, than there is evidence for gravity ... electricity .... wind.

30 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

"God also selects others to be associate rulers with Jesus" and adds that "anyone who obeys its laws can be a citizen."

The Laws of God, and Corporate regulations and protocols .... and ingrained-to-the bone  cultural morays that FEEL like the laws and regulations of God, but are not .... are two (or three) different things.

Like Bob Hope in THE MUPPET MOVIE as a curbside ice cream vendor in a white suit and cap,  at a County Fair somewhere in mid-America, said to Fozzie Bear as he was getting a  honey ice cream cone for himself, and a dragonfly ice cream cone for Kermit ...

" Don't get 'em mixed up".

I think my sentiments are expressed in the song by Meat Loaf "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad".

".... I want you ... I need you ... but there ain't now way I'm ever gonna love you .. so don't be sad .... 'cause two out of three ain't bad .....".

Sometimes ... when you paint yourself into a corner ... you have to just sit down and wait for the paint to dry.

I had a rough night, just got up, and need coffee.

TTH:

You want a movie to REALLY review?

It's a little 9 minute movie about  intellectual integrity punished to conform to a prepackaged organizational agenda driven "truth"

Try THIS one !

... anyway you could digest that down to three short paragraphs?

11 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Next thing you know the charge will be collusion.

This is a witchhunt!

Sad.

Very simple solution:

Don't do the things witches do ... like try to make something out of magic ... like reviewing a review of a movie that you have not seen, and calling it a REAL movie review, of ANY type.

If you only have a pig, you can CALL it a Giraffe ..... reality is ..... it will only oink.

.... and yes ... it is sad.

12 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Before you choke in indignation, recall that forensic techniques are used all the time in many fields and people never discard the results on that account.

In movie reviews, reviewing someone else's reviews being acceptable as an actual "review" is word subversion.

It has the advantage that you do not have to do the work of actually analyzing the movie, and giving your honest opinion of the movie, but is is EASY, and you do not have to think at all .... just superimpose your preset and predetermined agenda ONTO the movie, and claim credit for having reviewed it.

... which you in reality ..... did NOT.

9 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Yes. That says it all.

Probably NOT !

Thomas Jefferson with the Declaration of Independence did not open  a dialog with King George III.

Most nations celebrate the day they GOT their Independence ... Here in the United States the day it was DECLARED is celebrated.

Then, a long and bloody war was fought to defeat tyranny, and experiment with a new government, of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Until Jehovah establishes his rule over mankind through Christ's Kingship,  with all its faults ... it is the best form of government ever created by man.

I hold it to a lesser standard than a local government that claims to represent the will of God. 

For that, a VERY HIGH standard is reasonably expected.

If the mis-spelling was funny, it was deliberate.

Seriously, though,   merely ignorance of the true spelling, and a spelling corrector that occasionally doesn't have that word conjugated.

... if that is the right word ......

... not to be confused with prison conjugated visits.

4 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Before you choke in indignation, recall that forensic techniques are used all the time in many fields and people never discard the results on that account.

I remember the story about the Coroner who looked at a dead body in a New York Apartment, carefully examined it, and wrote on the death certificate "Death by Natural Causes".

They turned the body over, and their was a knife in it's back.

.... same thing.

Some things are just NOT "good enough".

3 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I'm happy with quasi-anonymity, and would not be terribly upset for myself if all my anonymity were gone.

Me either .... I have had people astonished that I use my real name, as now  people "know where to find me..."

That's Ok by me ... all my enemies have died before me, and any new ones will have less than an even chance ..... God willin' an' the creek don't rise.

If you have ever taken out a mortgage, "they" know "everything" about you, anyway.

13 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

This is also true of my 'review' of the Apostasy movie and an upcoming post or two about the BITE model that everyone is swooning over.

So, TTH, .... um ... you reviewed the "Apostacy" movie?

Did you do it like you do everything else .... with second hand reviews of OTHER people's reviews, who actually DID see the movie?

It is my understanding that it is not yet showing at all in the United States, but my info is a month old.

When and where did you actually see the movie?

2 hours ago, Grey Reformer said:

By the way, thanks for that tip about TOR browser. I started using it. I didn’t know there were unethical spies in our organization.

 

YIKES!I

I knew the story about Franz,  but not the back-story!

I guess there is more to abject ruthlessness, than knowing where Ruth is.

... wow.

CAN A PERSON ... OR SHOULD A PERSON . BE DISFELLOWSHIPPED IN ABSTENSIA?

Here is the situation .....  a person REPORTED to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses is accused, and NOT convicted ( ... because he is a fugitive from Justice ...) .....

Apparently he was at one time in a "Position Of Authority", which possibly alludes to his being an  "Elder", and he may have relocated to another State or even another Country. Possibly using an alias.

The  various Congregation Elders cannot find him, the Society cannot find him, and the U.S. Marshal's Service cannot find him.

Not having any indication to the contrary ... at least from the information given in the pseudo-Wanted Poster shown above, he is possibly still officially one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Whether he is or not, his bad example raises an interesting  aspect of trying to figure out how the disfellowshipping "system" protocol actually works.

Can any of the Congregations  he went to disfellowship him without his being present  to answer charges ?

... and SHOULD he be?

 

On 8/7/2018 at 4:52 PM, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

It seems that 1999 was the last time the WTB&TS gave it's corporate guidance on this matter.

Anybody know about any current updates ... either via publications, talks, or actual practice?

I have only been to two Operas in my life, and I was bored out of my mind.

I understood the expression "It ain't over 'till the Fat Lady Sings !", the first time I heard it.

We shall see what we shall see, as time goes on.

It ain't over until the last .... *coff* ... Roundup.