JW Insider

That wasn't me. It was someone else who gave the tip about the TOR browser. Also, it's much better to just recognize that there is no such thing as perfect anonymity. The TOR browser, for all we know, is promoted surreptitiously by government agencies because of their own ability to exploit weaknesses in it while tempting people to use it for dishonest and nefarious purposes. Better to just be honest and know that all things hidden can easily come to light.

These are exactly the kinds of situations where the protocol can go out the window. I don't know the status of this person, but you could probably call the WTS/CCJW and find out. Anecdotally, going back about 40 years and another situation going back 5 years, I know about a couple cases where the congregation was asked to DF someone "in absentia" to mitigate a possible crime scandal. Also, in effect, all Witnesses who had previously disassociated were disfellowshipped "in absentia" in the early 1980's. This was a necessary change in order to be able to create protocol for disfellowshipping R.Franz. He was caught eating a meal with his employer who had previously disassociated himself. Making the two different statuses equal would mean that he was now eating a meal with someone who had been disfellowshipped which therefore made R.Franz subject to disfellowshipping.

No, not really. Under the former owner, through 2016, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philly.com still had journalistic integrity. (200-plus journalists are expensive, though.) They were known to emphasize "bad news," but they were never known for sensationalism without verification. You describe it the way people describe the National Enquirer (which is often confused with the Philadelphia Inquirer). You seem to have implied that those provided links to Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) and Wikipedia would have supported your claim but they didn't. CJR did discuss the faults and business mistakes of the previous ownership and the typical lurid links of their online outlet, Philly.com. Still nothing about sensationalism without verification, however. Of course, the writer of the CJR article admits that he is a friend of the current managing editor for digital content at Philadelphia Media Network (PMN), so this whole article reads like a cautious advertisement for his friend, but nevertheless quotes someone there about their current situation, since 2017: “Our job is to make sure that the best journalism gets as many eyes as possible … It’s really easy to throw up links all day long, but we’re starting to think about making sure that we’re sharing our best journalism at the best times with the best people in a more focused way.” Whether PMN got the article right about the Witnesses or not is another question, but trying to tarnish the credibility of a paper because it had a prior history of mistakes is like those people who point out historical mistakes of the WTS in order to tarnish its current credibility.

I'm sure that "Indagator" has much more background to provide a better answer, but we all learn from questioning, so I will try to take up the question behind the theory: "Could 4Q120 have been written by a Christian?" First, it's a very interesting idea. To avoid a lot of separate quotes, I'll try to just re-quote a larger section and intersperse comments. These are just my opinions of course, but I'll highlight in orange-yellow if I think the evidence for the statement or implication of the question is not that good, and red if I think the evidence clearly goes against the particular idea presented, and green where the idea appears correct. My comments will be bracketed and in black. There is evidence that this fragment may have been written by a CHRISTIAN and not by Jews. [Haven't yet come across any such evidence.] Although most scholars say that this fragment was written by a Jew because it is from Leviticus and from the Qumran cav?es. [However, scholars identify it as Jewish not just because it comes from the Qumram caves but because it does not present any of the primary unique indicators of Christian documents from the first century. (see Hurtado, for example)] But did only Jews use the Qumran caves? [All the evidence indicates, Yes, only Jews. There have been several theories about the purpose of the caves and who used them. All of them point to one or more Jewish groups, and there is no evidence of any Christian group who might have used them.] {When the Christians left Jerusalem in 66 C.E. they traveled right past the Qumran cave where this scroll came from "Cave 4" on there way to the mountains of Pella north along the Jordan River}!!!? [Looking at a map of Jerusalem to Pella (see attached picture below) Cave 4 would be many miles out of the way. Jesus indicated that the Christians in Jerusalem should take the quickest route.] The Christians also made copies of the Hebrew Scriptures which they would have translated into Greek the main language of the First Century. [The evidence so far, shows that Christians did not make copies of the Hebrew Scriptures that they translated into Greek. Instead, they appear to have used the LXX which was an already existing translation. There is actually no evidence that they made any copies or translations in the first century, but this does not mean it was not done.] The main reason why this was probably written by a Christian is because the Divine Name in this fragment "IAW" {Iao} is a PRONOUNCEABLE rendering of the Tetragrammaton. [Yes, IAO is a pronounceable rendering of the Divine Name as it had been pronounced by certain groups of Jews for 100's of years. However, I believe that there is no evidence yet that indicates that any Christian in the first century C.E., or even the second century C.E., pronounced or wrote the name this way. This does not mean that they did not, and in fact, I believe that you are right that many Christians did -- but only because especially the Aramaic-speaking Christians would have been following a Jewish custom for which there is a lot of evidence.] A Jew following the custom at the time of not pronouncing the Divine Name would never have written a PRONOUNCEABLE RENDERING as that would go against their traditions. [Except that we already know from the history of the term IAO, that Jews had been using this pronounceable form of the name for hundreds of years. There is evidence that these traditions against pronouncing it were not yet consistent until after the first century C.E.] However Christians did not follow Jewish traditions as Jesus denounced such very strongly. [This statement could be right or wrong, depending on which traditions are being referred to. If we recognize that many Jews were still following the Jewish tradition of pronouncing the name, then I'm sure Jesus would not have condemned that good tradition. Jesus even said of the scribes and Pharisees in Mt 23:3: "Practice and obey whatever they tell you to do."] Jews who wrote the earliest pre-Christian LXX wrote the Tetragrammaton in HEBREW within a GREEK TEXT in most cases making it stand out in order not to pronounce it. [The earliest pre-Christian LXX translations may have initially used IAO. Based on the common use of IAO at the time it is reasonable to conclude that all original LXX translations used "IAO." There is no conclusive evidence that they did not, and no conclusive evidence that they did. But there is evidence that it was earlier than the first century C.E. when IAO was used, and of course any of the other 3 major known LXX variations for the Divine Name. It's possible that some of the LXX translators may have already used "kyrios" in their earliest copies. This means that some would have already been influenced by a tradition not to pronounce the name (in 250 BCE), whether they had used YHWH-square, YHWH-paleo, kyrios, or some other replacement for the Divine Name.] I'll stop here for now.

I have just completed a quick reading the book by Frank Shaw recommended by @indagator. I have also done the same for another book recommended to me late last year, "The Earliest Christian Artifacts" by Larry Hurtado. I hope you get a chance to read both books yourself if you have not already. From what I can see, there is no real evidence that makes this particular fragment more likely to have come from a Christian. It's not just the more likely date that would place the document about 100 years prior to the first known Christian writings, it's also the fact that there is plenty of additional evidence that Greek-speaking Jews used this pronounceable form of the name for hundreds of years prior to Christianity. They had clearly been using it in writing and also pronouncing it too. Before the Greek Scriptures were written, there is evidence that some Jews had already stopped pronouncing the name, but evidence shows that this could not have been true of all Jews all at the same time, everywhere. Perhaps that practice among the Jews had reached a pervasive saturation point some time before Origen and others remarked upon that practice. BTW, as TTH has also said, glad to see you stopping by.

The superfluous question marks are always a giveaway. Hope you didn't just ruin that "tell" by exposing it. ? I think it's a style he hadn't realized because it so often shows up in his aliases, but not with anyone else here. There's another thing he has done each time the subject of multiple accounts has come up. Which won't likely happen as much any more after exposure. Allen and his aliases, by default, tend to use more commas than most of us, but after the subject of multiple accounts comes up, he evidently makes a conscious attempt to nearly double the number of commas in his "Allen" posts to help differentiate their style from many of the other names he has used. I know he is aware of this particular one, because he has brought it up himself: That's the nature of the beast. However, When it comes to understanding scripture, there's no need to take offense, if the truth, be told. Only those here, unwilling to accept the truth to that end, are offended. That self-conscious "response" contains twice as many commas as one might expect, but it happened not just here but in a similar context at other times, too. In fact, it just happened in this topic. Note that only one of the four commas below is doing the useful and punctual work of a comma. The short, choppy sentence thing with unnecessary periods is less common, but not completely new either. Could even happen on some devices when a comma is intended, but mistyped as a period, and the next word is automatically capitalized after the spacebar. Yes. Let's! O, what a tangled web . . .

I liked that one, so I'll take the risk and link to it for you: http://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2010/06/a-lobotomy.html (It's the least I can do after a PSA I included in one of my posts produced a page worth of comedic diversion.)

Wow! The person who sells this particular Newsweek on the account just pointed to has grossed over $345, so far, just by selling 9 copies of it. 81.00 on June 23 57.00 on June 30 28.00 on July 7 29.99 on July 17 29.99 on July 19 29.99 on July 21 29.99 on July 25 29.99 on July 27 29.99 on Aug 15 . . . and has at least 2 more to sell.

Although it's uncommon enough and controversial enough to make news when someone (with supposed authority) says it out loud, I think it's probably a more common view among psychiatrists than some will admit officially, and it may even be correct for all I know. (But I don't know, and wouldn't even want to guess.) What I was addressing in Space Merchant's posts were some apparent factual errors about LGBTQ-P, TEDx, and the DSM-5. I don't think anyone believes that no psychiatrists believe what the deleted TEDx talk said. Psychiatrists are a wide-ranging bunch who have even believed things like full-frontal lobotomies can only have a positive and never a negative effect.

That's probably true, technically. I never believed your real name was Allen to begin with.?

There are now dozens of ways to not only have random IPs each time you log in, but to even select the IP for a specific location. Some browsers like Chrome even allow plug-ins to keep the ruse going and keep the location from resetting. https://www.expressvpn.com/support/troubleshooting/spoof-location-google-chrome/ For those who can see the IP, it's not good etiquette to reveal someone else's location, even their spoofed location. But there is at least one person here who use several names, most of them spoofed to different locations, and uses them to be able to spam up-votes and down-votes. I know of one user who apparently keeps at least 15 different ID's ready to use at any time primarily so that he can put two and three down-votes and "HaHa" votes on posts he doesn't like, and a couple of up-votes on his own. I actually think this is kind of humorous or even clever, so this is not said to get the person in any kind of trouble. I just mention it by way of explanation for those who may have received this kind of unusual voting attention for their posts.

Allen, I noticed that the IP address for "Gray Reformer" did indeed resolve to Canada, but only up until today. As of today it no longer resolves to Canada but to some other place. Just thought you might like to know that.

I told that joke on the forum already. If you want to tell it again just refer to it as #487. Thank you. I find that it gets more upvotes (and HaHa emojis) if you put it in italics and it's underlined.

I'll stick my neck out and offer some last words on the topic. You are right that the common expression uses new rope. But it's a dumber, and more ambiguous perspective, in my opinion. As you know I don't always side with JTR, but when I do, it's usually because I think his humor is working. In this case, I think it's a bit funnier with old rope. But I can swing either way with this one. Editing to add that JTR's version reminds me somehow of the 3 men in the process of being beheaded by a guillotine. The first, a farmer, puts his head in the slot and the blade gets stuck, stops short, so the executioner says it must be fate, and they let him go. Same thing happens to the next man, a salesman. The third man, an engineer, puts his head in the slot, looks up and says, "Oh wait! I see the problem."

Some good points: *** w61 11/15 p. 704 Questions From Readers *** In the resurrection of the “other sheep” on earth, no former married person will have occasion to envy another former married person, as would be the case if this latter one got back his former marriage mate who had remained single, whereas the envious marriage mate does not get back his former partner because this partner remarried and survived Armageddon with his new marriage mate. What the resurrection promises men is, not remarriage, but reliving, and this under God’s kingdom by Christ. Is that not something satisfying? Has anyone a right to demand more through Christ’s sacrifice? Christ died for you, not to marry, but to live! Let us not be swayed or overcome by sentimentalism or emotionalism. Of course, some of these types of questions ended up pushing the idea that the Greek Scriptures were written only to the anointed. This is not a point of emphasis any more. More reasonable answers and non-dogmatism are always welcome, especially when we are willing to humbly admit that we just don't have all the answers.

I never said it was for a misguided purpose. I can't say I really agree with the purpose, but that was not a concern of mine at the time. My question was more about whether the book would be re-set (in new molten lead linotype) or whether it would be redone for offset printing, and perhaps even an upgrade to the artwork. Also, we had a set of proofreading changes that were not exactly the kind that that the proofreading department could just fix without permission. (And this has an expensive trickle-down effect on the other language editions.) They would be tied in with editorial decisions. A few month later, for the updated "Truth" book (1968 edition vs the new 1981 edition), several references to 1975 and the probable imminent end in the 1970's, had to be removed and replaced with new content, but this was a more obvious editorial decision, not a proofreading decision.)

Many sincere brothers now are quick to defend the mistakes of the past by saying that the number of little ones who were stumbled was actually a good thing. We've seem multiple comments on this forum that make that claim. As the misguided logic goes, with 1975, for example, it was a kind of test that only stumbled those who were serving Jehovah with a date in mind. To be fair, I think all this talk about the importance of obedience to men is a mistake. It is not hooked to anything so tangible as a calendar date so fewer people will be stumbled outright. But more people will be disheartened over time without being able to put their finger on exactly why. In my opinion it will be because they probably anticipated that association with fellow Witnesses would continue to enhance their love for Jehovah God and Jesus Christ in an overwhelmingly positive, uplifting, encouraging and heartwarming way. In this case, perhaps the brothers in the lead feel that they need to cover all the bases, and prepare us for unknown possibilities. The problem, in my opinion, is that this emphasis on the importance of obedience to men has now been associated (e.g., summer conventions) with a kind of future "fear-mongering" about the conditions we can expect during the great tribulation. It creates an even heavier load by making us overly concerned about the next day, when we would prefer to think that seeking first the Kingdom would have freed us from such anxiety, throwing our burden upon Jehovah, knowing that Christ's load is light, and his yoke is kind. (Matthew 6:33, 34) 33 “Keep on, then, seeking first the Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you. 34 So never be anxious about the next day, for the next day will have its own anxieties. Each day has enough of its own troubles. But this makes it appear to serve the exact same purpose as 1975. This time, by associating these unspecified ways in which we will need to show obedience to men with a certain level of fear-mongering about the great tribulation, we will pay more than the usual attention to men. It should have the effect of ratcheting up the activity and anticipation by making the end seem even more imminent. It reminds me of an experience at Bethel when I once had an opportunity to question Brother Franz about his plan to have us study a 1973 book a second time in 1981. *** km 11/80 pp. 1-3 par. 5 Part I—Congregation Meetings *** CONGREGATION BOOK STUDY: In January we will start studying the book God’s Kingdom of a Thousand Years Has Approached. This 416-page book, published in 1973, contains vital information that is even more apropos now than when it was first released. Think of the hundreds of thousands of new ones who have been baptized since it was first published. My question was about whether we needed a new edition to change some inaccuracies, or whether it would go into print using the old press plates. His response was basically that we needed no update to it because "this is what the publishers need right now." [The book was basically a history of the Watchtower Society wedged into what are now half-obsolete explanations of Matthew 25.] But his idea was that it would somehow make people appreciate the Society, its place in our time, and therefore raise the level of activity. So ultimately I think that the pendulum will swing the other way again, and there will be a kind of retraction of this method of making the end seem so imminent as a way to raise activity levels. The Bible indicates that this method can backfire. (Proverbs 13:12) 12 Expectation postponed makes the heart sick,. . . Langston Hughes agreed: *** g94 5/22 p. 27 Put Humor Into Your Life *** Poet Langston Hughes once wrote: “Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air, and you.” Oh wait, not that one, but his famous one: "What happens to a dream deferred?" Of course, those who become disheartened (over the current emphasis) will likely be "chalked up to" the fact that this served as a test to get rid of those who were not worthy. For most, including myself, the overall context of these "changes" is not as bad as I just represented it, since the overall point is not to fear men, but to expect Jehovah to come to our aid when the trouble seems completely overwhelming. But unfortunately, I fear that even the perceived combination of emphasis on "obedience to men" and "fear-mongering" will combine to create a new kind of burden that will not appear to reflect the true spirit of Christianity.

Maybe, but I doubt it. It's probably quite the opposite. Of course there will be some who think this way, that's why Ted Talks rejected the talk. But those who speak of Ms. Heine are more likely the ones embarrassed by the speech, and who hope that their own agendas are not hurt by those wanting to make pedophilia legal. I see the number of mentions of Ms. Heine as overwhelmingly against making pedophilia legal. A few more might agree with Ms Heine's position that acting on pedophilia is a crime, but that we need more sympathy even for the devils who act upon it. Perhaps you are referring to a "darker" part of the web that doesn't come up in my Google searches and/or newspaper, website, research database searches. I expect that some of those who copy the video are in agreement with Ms Heine's position that acting on pedophilia is a crime, but do not realize the danger of creepy scope creep. I agree with what you said:

Hello Dolly?

After noting those two wrong or at least misleading facts, I decided to do a quick check on the implication above that "they removed it from the list of disorders." The first link that came up actually showed that in 2014 the idea (American Psychiatric Association: DSM-5) was never to remove it from the list of disorders, but to remove the label "Pedophilic Sexual Orientation." This is nearly the opposite of the general point you made. http://jaapl.org/content/42/4/404 Perhaps you are referring to something that came up after 2014. If so, I didn't see that, and didn't look any further into it.

I'm guessing that this "fact" probably came from a fake news source. The LGBT community, as far as I can tell, is vehemently against anything that would harm its social and political momentum. I have heard an interview where spokespersons for this community have explicitly condemned Pedophilia. Where one does find a P suffixed to the acronym, it is supposed to mean "pansexual" described on mtv.co.uk as: "When someone is pansexual it means they are attracted to people regardless of their gender. They are attracted to individuals rather than one particular gender or sexuality, and that can be whomever they fancy." Just like all the other letters in their alphabet soup, none of their definitions would apply specifically to anyone prior to the age of consent. Defining "consent" is another problem, even in the judicial matters of Jehovah's Witnesses. Edited to double-check my guess above: I don't always trust snopes.com unless their research is well-documented, but this article appears to have researched the topic: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lgbtp-adding-letter/ Is ‘LGBT’ Adding a ‘P’ for Pedosexuals? Claims that the LGBT community is adding a "P" to represent "pedosexuals" originated with a homophobic smear campaign.

I'm sure both TED talks and LifeSiteNews would be happy for me to quote the following article in its entirety to clarify what some might find misleading in your statement, but I will only quote some relevant excerpts: -------------------start of quotations from the site: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ted-speaker-pedophilia-is-an-unchangeable-sexual-orientation-anyone-could-b Introducing her theme with the “story” of “Jonas,” a 19-year-old pedophile who studies law and plays soccer, she asked her listeners to put aside their revulsion for pedophiles. “Anyone could be born a pedophile,” she told them. According to the medical student, pedophilia is just another “unchangeable sexual orientation just like, for example, heterosexuality.” Heine asked her audience to differentiate between sexual attraction to children, which she believes should be accepted and tolerated as involuntary “feelings,” and child sexual abuse, which she underscored was always wrong. “The difference between pedophilia and other sexual orientations is that living out this sexual orientation will end in a disaster,” she said. . . . For Heine, pedophilia is not something that someone actually does but something that someone would like to do, as a sexual preference that they would “live out freely,” if only it weren’t contrary to leading “an upright life.” . . . “We shouldn’t increase the sufferings of pedophiles by excluding them, by blaming and mocking them,” Heine said. “By doing that, WE increase their isolation and WE increase the chance of child sexual abuse.” Central to Heine’s argument is that pedophiles are not to blame for their feelings and thoughts, only for their actions. . . According to Breitbart, once it was posted to YouTube, Heine’s lecture resulted in a massive online backlash. In response, the organizers of the independent TEDx event removed the video, and the founding TED Talks media organization has been trying to remove “illegal copies” from the internet. . . . “After reviewing the talk, we believe it cites research in ways that are open to serious misinterpretation. This led some viewers to interpret the talk as an argument in favor of an illegal and harmful practice,” they wrote. . . . TED Talks later added to its statement that it does not support or advocate for pedophilia. -----------------------------------------end of excerpt quotations from site --------------------------------

I think that's very doubtful, unless you think that measuring abuse by all JW congregation members equates to just measuring only the priests and responsible officials of these Catholic diocese. Also, this is just Pennsylvania. You would need to add those reports from Massachusetts (made public in 2002 was it?) and several other states to get a parity population of Catholics here that matches that of the (JW) numbers from Australia. I'm not saying we don't also have a serious problem that most Witnesses know very little about or can't acknowledge. I just don't think you can so easily make a true comparison from these separate "snapshots" of reports/studies. They cover different statistical "populations." One thing in the report I found disturbing is that this was based on church records that detailed the crimes, but also detailed systemic cover-ups and even the promotion of priests and church officials involved in the cover-up. This went all the way up to cardinals and arch-bishops, ultimately even the Vatican. The fight over statute of limitations laws that always comes up as an issue after these reports also tends to become embroiled in its own coverup on the political side. Although anti-Catholicism is common, there are often enough US politicians in high places who fight the change to statute of limitations laws because they are convinced that extending the prosecution window truly would bankrupt the Catholic Church. Governor Brown in California and Governor Cuomo in New York have been rumored to accept that "line" from the Catholic Church. But keeping these laws in effect, knowing the typical way in which abused children wait until they are adults before gaining the courage to face this publicly, these laws help produce a coverup of the number of cases that would otherwise be reported.

There is virtually no Wahabbism in Iran except among the few remaining ISIS supporters and some Sunni extremist terrorists. Saudi Arabia would love to export more of it, but most Muslims hate it. So far, their society wouldn't allow it from the perspective of the government. It's true that the overwhelming majority of Iranian society is rural, conservative, but that is apparently what they want. Iran is still a freer society than the Arabian peninsula. Iran is not strict about the burka (or even lesser coverings for women) where it is still consider extreme and too piously self-righteous. Women are often a part of the government in Iran and the social hierarchy. Iranian women can still visit their conservative grandparents in the country wearing the headscarfs and then go visit their cousins in Lebanon on the weekend and wear a bikini. Both Syria and Iran have been, even very recently, some of the more free countries in the Middle East. Iran is an Islamic Republic, but it's a "kind of democracy" but with a theocratic layer of government that acts like a very conservative "supreme court" that can block laws in the name of religion. They, the mullahs, are also corrupt, trying to control capitalist endeavors. But it is not illegal to be a Christian or Jew in Iran. By comparison there is nothing like democracy in Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc. Human rights violations are not as much of a problem in Iran as they are in say, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

True, it said that the mongoose relies on "God-given" defenses and abilities to defeat the cobra. No more anachronistic blaming of the teeth of saber-toothed tigers at least indirectly on Satan and the fall of the first human pair.