JW Insider

Well said.
The publications not too long ago made much ado about Solomon’s temple dedication speech:
Individuals of “your people Israel, because they know each one his own plague and his own pain; [would] actually spread out his palms toward this house, then may you yourself hear from the heavens, the place of your dwelling, and you must forgive and give to each one according to all his ways, because you know his heart.” (2 Chronicles 6:29-30)
We will never know it all with any given person. But he does. And he uses the knowledge for good.
I’m sure you have taken notice how frequently the verse of Job’s “wild talk” comes up for play, after decades of never hearing of it at all. “If a brother or sister engages in some “wild talk,” don’t be quick to jump to conclusions. You don’t know what they have gone through.” Counsel along such lines has become frequent. 
Before you came along, @Thinkingtold how David Splane had said something to the effect of, “there are those who engage in wild talk, and we may just have to put up with it, because they have been injured and It’s part of their healing process.” I didn’t hear it myself. Thinking may have inadvertently skewed it. But I regard her as a reliable source, and I suspect she is spot-on. It certainly is in keeping with 2 Chronicles 6:29).
 
 
 
 

@JW Insider
Elementary, middle, and primary school schedules are staggered so that the same bus can make three runs. The last to let out in the afternoon was the middle school. I would arrive after two runs and take my place in a line-up of 6. There usually was a 15 minute wait, during which I might read. 
Two buses up the driver was some long-hair of my approximate age that I had briefly chatted up once or twice. One day he disappeared. It got around that he had taken his life, he had been bummed by being “just a school bus driver.” 
For me, being a school bus driver was a liberation—not being a school bus driver in itself, but what it represented, a purposeful departure from the materialistic upward climbing careerist life that I wasn’t comfortable with because I had no idea where I was going. Studying the Bible with subsequent baptism brought an overwhelming sense of being where I knew I belonged. 
Often we hear that the truth is like that—that we have to be at just the turning-point moment of dissatisfaction, even crisis. We reach a moment of realizing life’s conventional goals don’t lead anywhere. We are not sure whether that is true in general or just for us. We tend to say it is true in general, but that may be just us putting a good face on our departure. It is not so terribly different from what undissuaded ex-JWs do themselves—they reinterpret reality to conform to their own actions.
One is never quite sure just how Jesus “draws us,” nor do I think it is so crucial to find out. Suffice it that we have been somehow drawn to a life of better rewards and goals.
It is the reason I think the anti-cult movement is so corrosive. Explaining himself to a too-receptive Katie Couric, the CultExpert says: “People are in vulnerable moments in their life where they’ll be more receptive to a recruitment message or recruiter. So death of a loved one, illness, dislocation, losing a job, I mean seriously, the pandemic and the economic problems are huge susceptibility factors for the public going forward. Destabilizing country groups economic status is a major technique for doing mind control on people because you want to disorient people. You want to confuse people. You want to make people search for meaning and hope outside of the existing institutional structures. So the susceptibility of people now to look to, well, who knows the solution to that problem of how to make the world a better place now.”
Historically these have been turning-point moments during which a person might explore and find a deeper meaning in life. Under the anti-cult people, they are now moments of “temporary insanity” that one must brace themselves through, so as to once again acquiesce to the “reality” that is is no “meaning and hope outside of the existing institutional structures.”
The stuff is a cancer.
 

Exactly. I was raised a Catholic, went to parochial school, altar boy...(that made me realize I didn't want to be a priest or a dentist after seeing the dental work of everyone in the parish). Of course the mass was Latin at the beginning and then it changed, and then there was that additional offering each other the sign of peace thing they stuck in, which seemed fake and nobody wanted to do it....I think I went to confession once, and that made no sense. Like it was a slide rule for sin and you had to do X number of "Our Fathers" and Y number of "Hail Mary's" to "pay off" the sin. That made no sense to me at age 8. Neither did the book "My Catholic Faith" which had anyone not a saint doing time in purgatory, which was identical to hell, but you'd get out after being on fire for a bit. Neither did that part at the end of the book which had everyone who died at the last judgment brought back to they physical bodies so if they were in hell already, they got double hell and the people in heaven got double heaven??? WTF?? (of course I didn't think those words at 8-9...but the sense of that was what I felt)...
What's funny is that I was trying to figure it all out (Mom was no help...when I told her I was afraid of dying she just said "don't worry, it won't happen for a long time"...which wasn't at all comforting...It was "Oh, yeah babe! You are sitting on a ticking time bomb, but enjoy your ice cream, trust me, you have a long fuse" Meanwhile I'm craning my neck to see the countdown timer.
Then I found this book that fascinated me "From Paradise Lost to Paradise Restored" on the shelf and I was trying to read it when my Dad told me "I don't want you reading that book!" and hid it from me. I searched the house, but all I could find was his Playboy Magazines (which Mom had no problem having me look at, but weren't that interesting at the time)...BUT that book, what I remember reading made more sense to me that anything I'd heard in church or read in "My Catholic Faith" and it was a JW publication.
I was disappointed I couldn't find it, but then I scanned one of my father's college textbooks on human civilization and ran across this part about Neanderthals and burial rituals....It was all confusing.
I began asking questions of the nuns and that went nowhere fast. I figured out that Jesus was a Jew, and that we supposedly liked him, so in 3rd grade in religion class I asked "Was Jesus a Jew" and the old sister said "Why yes he was", to which I replied "So then how come we aren't Jews?" and she loses it, grabs me by the ear and hauls me outside the class....Then the nun principal comes down and there's all this talking and class changes....(we stayed put, and nuns shifted rooms) and I had a note to take home.....When I get home and ask mom, I didn't get any good answers there either...just "Oh, she's an old nun and didn't know what to do"....(Still I thought, my question remains)....
Undeterred, I began stalking nuns on the playground to ask them why they became nuns ...Nothing like being a kid and seeing fear in the eyes of adults who are supposed to have answers to these kinds of questions, but had none.....
I eventually ditched being an altar boy along w/all the other boys in the parish because I was a little mysogynist and felt that girls shouldn't be used as altar boys, and if they were, then this clearly wasn't a place for real boys, only sissies...So no more altar boys in our parish, also no boy crossing guards for the same reason....
Anyway..we ended up moving away from Laredo to Dallas and elsewhere...We pretty much slowed up going to church at all....
When I was in 6th grade I tried to read the Bible all the way through, but it didn't make much sense to me....We had an Old Green NWT in the house....I remember the inside said "From the R. L. Hopes"....So that was the Bible I was trying to read....
...anyway...enough rambling.... Clearly Catholicism didn't answer anything from my perspective...

27  So the slaves of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow fine seed in your field? How, then, does it have weeds?’ 28  He said to them, ‘An enemy, a man, did this.’y The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go out and collect them?’ 29  He said, ‘No, for fear that while collecting the weeds, you uproot the wheat with them. 30  Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the harvest season, I will tell the reapers: First collect the weeds and bind them in bundles to burn them up; then gather the wheat into my storehouse.’”z - Mt. 13:27-30
We're not angels, and we could imagine we're wheat when we could be a bit on the weedy side. So it strikes me that the garden one has a right and responsibility to "weed" is that of one's own heart.
Where groups and people go wrong is when these decide they need to engage in a bunch of weed whacking of someone or some group other than themselves.
As long as two or more are gathered in Jesus name he said "I'm in their midst". So we have to find a place where we can associate w/people whom we feel are supporting our own efforts at self-weeding. The problem may come (and it often does) when we decide we need to readjust other people on matters unclear at present, or engage in endless harping on past behaviors or expectations. Jesus said "sufficient for each day is its own badness".
 
18  “Now listen to the illustration of the man who sowed.q 19  Where anyone hears the word of the Kingdom but does not get the sense of it, the wicked one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart; this is the one sown alongside the road.
 

Here is a brother who got his start in the Bethel art department:
https://www.facebook.com/100003863247474/posts/2000662983405790/
 

In 1973, when I quit high school, I was still 15, almost 16, and my art teacher had a terrible time with it. The principal came over to the house once, but my art teacher made several "shepherding" calls to our house during that summer, encouraging me to come back after the summer break. He tried to bribe me with paints, canvases, pens, charcoal, brushes, etc. I took some of these to Bethel in 1976 and still run across leftovers in the house now and then.
But, in 1973, I had already switched from auxiliary to regular pioneering and decided that this was an example of Jehovah providing a work opportunity. So I painted landscapes and sold them for between $10 and $25 depending on size. I became "rich" to the tune of about $50 a month for a few months. Even if I had been any good at portraits --I definitely wasn't-- I probably could have barely doubled that, since more people will pay to have a likeness done. So I had to change my strategy quickly to join my brother's cleaning business. This put me in a "club" of regular pioneers, where I knew members across the entire state.
There was even a lot of buying and selling of cleaning accounts. And real mergers and acquisitions.
Yes. I read about him here: https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/friends/
After Bethel, I still didn't feel ready for the great big world. Art was not an easy thing in NYC so I didn't even try. And I didn't get the bindery or printing  or construction experience that most Bethelites got. I had my letters of recommendation from Dan Sydlik and Bert Schroeder that were supposed to be useful for general employment. But if you have ever seen examples of these letters, they were only about exemplary conduct and honesty, and this was supposed to impress a prospective employer, but without any specifics or skills mentioned. I tried to use one of them with my resume which necessarily included my years of Bethel experience, but I had the impression that these letters actually detracted.
My brother would leave Bethel later and start a micro-controller business which followed directly upon his Bethel assignments, and he had help from our Dad who had been doing electronics work since the 1940's. I hoped not to just fall into the older brother employment network again, so I ended up getting married and going off to college myself part-time.
Reminds me that ex-JWs have sometimes unfairly made fun of an old Circuit Overseer refrain that a few years of reading the Awake! magazine can be the equivalent of a 4-year college degree. But I also found that the university had a program called "Adult Collegiate Education" which allowed night classes and also allowed one to work with professors of various departments to try to test out of a bunch of credits to meet the 128-132 credit requirement for the B.A./B.S. degree. It wasn't from the "Awake!" of course, but due to some research projects I managed Middle-East history credits (8), first semester Classical Greek (3), first semester Modern Greek (4), and since I had been attending a French congregation on the side, even got 3 French credits. I had a large art portfolio worth, sadly, only 4 credits. I also tried with limited success at some other subjects: religion, philosophy, Bible as literature, music theory, psychology, but only squeaked out about 6 more credits altogether. But it shaved a full year off my 4-year Computer Science degree so that I could mostly focus on math, computer programming, and 7 semesters of Hebrew.
I have discovered, as many others have, that you are paid better for less tangible work. The person who works hard at menial jobs is paid for some measure of productivity and, nearly always, very little. But the higher paying jobs are often much less taxing to the mind and soul. Sometimes, if your productivity cannot be measured, the sky is the limit.

I read your story with unfeigned interest before your final question hit me. I rarely laugh out loud literally, but I just did. Thanks.

Sorry, you’ve got me going on this new topic. Forget about yours.
For many years I worked in what would now be called the gig economy (but wasn’t then). If it is a “fault,” it is my fault and cannot be laid at the feet of the organization. Relatively recently I heard an update of this sister I vaguely know who decades ago said (regarding fellowshopping), “I thought of Tom, but he was too immature.” Let me tell you that my estimation of her rose, for I had been a young elder at that time, and not everyone was so astute. Someone else described me as being “so spiritually minded that I was no earthly good.”
As to the “gig economy,” another sister said (not specifically about me) that often really creative and/or intelligent people deliberately choose menial work so as not to hand over their mind and soul to “the man.” I can apply this to myself with some truth, but it also smacks somewhat of putting lipstick on a pig. For the longest time I would say, “If I am good at it, it does not pay, and if it pays I am not good at it.” Thus I took a lot of “gigs,” most of which I enjoyed or made the best of, but they kept me “grounded.” I was not like another friend, a brother with the “Midas touch,” who said, “If it were not for the truth, I could be filthy rich. As it is, I am just a little dirty rich.”
Much less was I like “Davey the kid,” who bypassed a college scholarship to pioneer, who loved his time in Bethel but confessed he always felt a little cheated there by not being able to make his own way. Upon leaving Bethel, he walked into the 8-story Medical Arts Building to secure the cleaning contract. The building manager pointed out this and that requirement and challenge, noting, “I don’t know much about cleaning.” “That makes two of us!” Davey said to himself as he signed the contract, “how hard can it be?”  “It’s my gift,” he told me later, “they never say no.” He used his gift to good effect, building two Kingdom Halls and one Assembly Hall, more or less taking charge of the latter, and absolutely the former—this was before the days of the Regional committees which was before the days of the LDCs. Being daily at the Assembly Hall, he would receive phone calls. “Sorry, I have to put out a cleaning fire,” he would tell the other brothers, and spend some moments sweet-talking some businesspeople on the phone. Finally he tired of it, took a few college courses, combined it with college credit for “life experiences,” and emerged a psychotherapist. “Poor Davey,” I would joke later. “He always thought half of us were nuts. Now that he is in the field he finds that even those he thought were sane, they’re nuts, too.” He didn’t regard all of his preparatory coursework as nonsense, which he may have assumed would be the case going in. “Some of this stuff I’m not doing myself,” he said, as he applied his new training to good effect. But I digress.
I was lost while I was in college, not really knowing why I was there, having merely taken the path of least resistance, not sure where it was leading me, if anywhere, and not sure if I wanted to go wherever it was leading, with a ton of questions, issues, misgivings, and considerable immaturity, that was unaddressed there. I wanted simplicity, yet felt pressured (as though “manipulated”) to “succeed.” Running across Jehovah’s people was a liberation for me. It addressed questions that I didn’t know I had. It pointed towards a way of life where happiness and contentment lay. In short, it offered a way to leave the “rat race” with impunity. It put together the puzzle pieces. I still say that “once you have assembled the puzzle and have reproduced the box top picture, you are pretty much immune to the person who says you put it together wrong. You are especially immune if that person’s own puzzle lies unassembled in the box on his closet shelf.”
Yearning for that simplicity, once when I drove home for break from university and I carried a passenger who lived nearby, I mentioned as we approached the Thruway toll station that such a job would suit me just fine. The girl laughed hysterically, certain I was pulling her leg. I wasn’t. She was the daughter of some local politician, lived in a very upscale community—mine was no slouch, but it did not approach hers, and I sometimes wonder what became of her.
Decades later, when i just needed pocket money, I quizzed one of those Thruway toll-takers. They were then hiring part-timers. I knew the person hiring, and no doubt could have easily gotten the job had I pursued it. The toll-taker assured me it was peaceful gig and unstressful. “What do you do for bathroom breaks?” I asked him. He assured me THAT was a problem—all the more so for a guy as they reach senior years/
All the toll-takers are gone now. Long after everyone else abandoned them to go the digital scanning route, New York finally followed suit. I noted once how you can drive from Florida and soon after crossing any state line you would encounter a “Welcoming Center.” This happened until you crossed the state line into New York, where you would encounter, “Stop! Pay toll!” In recent years, I got into the habit of saying, “Worth every penny!” after paying this or that toll-taker, just to play and see their reaction.  One of them said, savoring his drawn-out words, “It is not!”

[Moved from another place to avoid an off-topic discussion]
Good question. I have wondered what the point was if we generally think that both of them have pretty much the same chance to repent and be resurrected to Paradise on earth. It has occurred to me that this person dying around the same time as Jesus, might be another indicator of the change in hope for Christians at the time, for which we partially depend upon Matthew 11:12 :
(Matthew 11:12) From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of the heavens is the goal toward which men press, and those pressing forward are seizing it.
The "truly I tell you today" verse could be another indication that our view of Matthew 11:12 is correct, if Jesus were referring to paradise as heaven, just as Paul spoke of heaven as paradise:
(2 Corinthians 12:2-4) . . .was caught away to the third heaven. 3 Yes, I know such a man—whether in the body or apart from the body, I do not know; God knows— 4 who was caught away into paradise . . .
And this might re-open up the discussion of why the Bible writer would have included a statement that seemed clear but actually needed to be seen as more ambiguous by adding a comma, nearly two thousand years after the statement. While Greek was still a living language, no early translations (into Coptic, Syrian, Latin, etc.) noticed the need to add a comma here:
(Luke 23:43) . . .“Truly I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise.”
Compare Jesus' words about a rooster the day before:
(Mark 14:30) . . .“Truly I say to you that today, yes, on this very night. . .
At any rate, these are the kinds of questions that don't really change anything. ("First world problems" as xero said about something else.) Even if Jesus had meant "today" in the unambiguous sense, we would simply take it in the same way we understand Jesus' words about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob:
(Matthew 22:31-33) 31 Regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, who said: 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob’? He is the God, not of the dead, but of the living.” 33 On hearing that, the crowds were astounded at his teaching.
Or perhaps, with new questions, we could look at the following:
(Matthew 8:11, 12) . . .But I tell you that many from east and west will come and recline at the table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of the heavens; 12 whereas the sons of the Kingdom will be thrown into the darkness outside. . . .
(Luke 13:26-28) 26 Then you will start saying, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our main streets.’ 27 But he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from. Get away from me, all you workers of unrighteousness!’ 28 There is where your weeping and the gnashing of your teeth will be, when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown outside.
(Luke 16:21-31) . . .. 22 Now in the course of time, the beggar died and was carried off by the angels to Abraham’s side. “Also, the rich man died and was buried. 23 And in the Grave he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and he saw Abraham from afar and Lazʹa·rus by his side. 24 So he called and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazʹa·rus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this blazing fire.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you had your fill of good things in your lifetime, but Lazʹa·rus for his part received bad things. Now, however, he is being comforted here, but you are in anguish. 26 And besides all these things, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you, so that those who want to go over from here to you cannot, neither may people cross over from there to us.’ 27 Then he said, ‘That being so, I ask you, father, to send him to the house of my father, 28 for I have five brothers, in order that he may give them a thorough witness so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to these.’ 30 Then he said, ‘No, indeed, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.’”
(Hebrews 11:8-16) . . .By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place he was to receive as an inheritance; he went out, although not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he lived as a foreigner in the land of the promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the very same promise. 10 For he was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 11 By faith also Sarah received power to conceive offspring, even when she was past the age, since she considered Him faithful who made the promise. 12 For this reason, from one man who was as good as dead, there were born children, as many as the stars of heaven in number and as innumerable as the sands by the seaside. 13 In faith all of these died, although they did not receive the fulfillment of the promises; but they saw them from a distance and welcomed them and publicly declared that they were strangers and temporary residents in the land. 14 For those who speak in such a way make it evident that they are earnestly seeking a place of their own. 15 And yet, if they had kept remembering the place from which they had departed, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But now they are reaching out for a better place, that is, one belonging to heaven. Therefore, God is not ashamed of them, to be called on as their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
These latter verses especially tell us that there were already exceptions seeking the kingdom of the heavens as their goal, which might reflect upon the meaning of "kingdom of the heavens" in Matthew 11:12.
I don't think that there is anything here that in any way contradicts our view that Abraham is still in the grave, as David still is --(Acts 2:34) ". . .For David did not ascend to the heavens. . . ." Hebrews 11: 13 says pretty much the same.
So I think that the "Truly I tell you today" verse is not a verse about the difference in whether Jesus meant that literal day, or whether we needed to add a comma. The important difference between the two evil-doers was that Jesus' presence on earth and our reaction to him, reveals our choice to seek the Kingdom of the Heavens. Just as with Abraham, it's not about whether we live in heaven or on earth, but that all of us should be seeking a place belonging to the heavens. In other words, like Abraham, we all have a heavenly hope, whether Jehovah allows us to live on paradise earth or in paradise heaven.

An audio version by Dean Songer:

Your browser does not support the HTML5 audio tag.

Noted, and probably deserved. It is good for me to be rebuked on this from time to time, for I might be far worse without it. On the other hand:
Actually, arguing doesn’t play a role in “scriptural arguments.” You know the verses as well as I: debates about words, leave blind guides be, answering a fool, even spreading pearls before swine. At least if I spread stuff before “swine,” it is not pearls.
I can think of a way of solving that problem.
In addition to blasting away at everyone as “apostate,” your weird mistake is in thinking you can convert this forum into a Kingdom Hall. You can’t. The internet is inherently a lawless place, where nobody’s identity is known for sure, where it is so easy to hide who and what you are, where rocks lurk to rip the bottom from your love feast boat, where there is no spiritual food, where there is no stabilizing presence of elders, and where any claim of anyone who says he is an elder is unverifiable. Do you think that which is crooked can be made straight?
Or perhaps you somehow think you have a “sacred calling” to argue, but in that case you are in direct contradiction with the Bible and the earthly organization.
On my blog profile, I do nor say that I am. Nor do I have what many seem to feel is the obligatory link to jw.org. That’s deliberate. Everyone has some idiosyncrasies (Lord knows you have some! to the point where your identity itself is questionable) and if you link to the Witness website you convey the impression that you got it from them. I’d rather not tarnish them that way. 
Of course, one can read my posts and readily conclude I am a Witness, which I am, but I don’t outright say so on the front page. I admit I veer into the crass at times. There is one stereotype I like to counter, and that is that JWs eat Bible sandwiches—that is, apart from the Bible, they have no interests at all, from which some interpret that they are nothing but self-righteousness on steroids. I like to counter that with an image of someone more true to what I think Witnesses really are, who lives in the world, and as such reacts to it, but attempts imperfectly to be no part of it—in short, a regular joe that other regular joes might relate to.
Of course, there are some Witnesses who do eat Bible sandwiches. To these, some of what I write is a turnoff. And as stated, to those who heed the WT’s advice as to hanging out where there is riffraff, anything written here is questionable.

I read your story with unfeigned interest before your final question hit me. I rarely laugh out loud literally, but I just did. Thanks.

I once worked for an inventory company—you may have seen their counters at various stores—there may be one hundred or more at large venues. Occasionally anal managers would come along to insist on no talking whatsoever!!! among the workers. (It does marginally improve the count)
Comraderie was the only thing that job had going for it. “Why can’t we get good people?!” one of the managers complained. “Because we don’t offer anything,” my favorite manager would answer back.
As such times as enforced silence I would make it my life mission to break down that discipline, and more often than not I succeeded. One might think I would be out on my ear for conduct like this, but I was a peacemaker, a force for cohesion, I wasn’t competitive, I would freely help others, particularly newbies, and for this a multitude of sins were overlooked.
I once was assigned a shift under Gladys, a legendary dragon, whom I almost never worked under—she covered a different time period. “Don’t worry about Gladys,” I told a newbie. “Yes, she is a dragon, and she is mean as the day is long, but if you just do your job you will not have any trouble.” She was right behind me!!
I didn’t back down when she took offense. “Well, come on,Gladys! You know how you are!”
She dismissed me later from the job for talking. But I refused to leave. “You can not request me for an additional job, but no way can you send me home from this one after I’ve gone to all the trouble to show up!” So I stayed. She did win a victory of sorts, though, for I talked no more during that night.
You think so, do you?

That takes a humility not found among all of us. Learning from our students rather than thinking only of ourselves as the teacher can be very beneficial.
My wife and I have years of pioneering behind us, although we are less active now. We both learned a lot from studying with a couple where the wife was mentally ill ("possession" issues), and they became Witnesses with no further issues that I have heard about. My wife and I studied with another mentally ill woman who had been in a jail (NYC Creedmoor), and whose fleshly brother (also an addict) joined one time creating a scene that brought about an assault situation for the police. There was no success here in converting the person, but it created a deep friendship and evidently a life-long change in the woman who has overcome addiction, and is still loved deeply by us. She actually sees herself as a Witness, although the elders here would not allow baptism.
I studied for years with persons inside medium and high-security prisons. Altogether, it's like a course in psychology.
I studied with one family where the husband was a policeman, the wife took a year of studying and long late-night hours with me on the phone to help her overcome her smoking addiction. They were baptized together. Their two children were too young at the time, but one has been baptized since. This is a sad situation for me, because we love the family and have been close, but he is an elder now and realizes that I didn't believe in the 1914 chronology because of things he remembered in the way I studied it with him. He confirmed this by asking me directly, and has now asked that we have no more contact.
Very early in my pioneering (pre-Bethel) I loved studying the Evolution book and the "Is the Bible Really the Word of God?" book with university students. It was easy to pick up a dozen Bible Studies, and this made the pioneering hour quota go by so easily. (Strangely, one of these studies left Missouri after getting baptized and joined the congregation I was assigned to in NY at Bethel.)  My mother is pioneering as we speak and calls in to the meeting for service every day before letters or phone calls, and she currently has only one regular Bible Study. She stays on the line with one of the other sisters so they can talk together while writing letters, but getting in the quota is so slow-going for her.
That can be read with a bit of ambiguity. If you care to, I am always happy to discuss.
I either join or create a discussion on the topic about once a year on the forum, because I have now spent enough time on the topic to be convinced in my own mind. It's not something I feel is specifically important in the long run, but it's part of an ongoing and ever-resurfacing problem of trying to motivate activity (works) by emphasizing that we have special knowledge of the times and seasons. Going back to review how we (as an organization) received this 1914 tradition was an important lesson in humility for me. But sharing that lesson will just be seen by most as the exact opposite of humility and some will vehemently oppose discussing it reasonably.
I've reached the same idea, and I know that other JWs have also concluded the same. One or two others have implied as much on this forum.

Arauna I agree with so much of what you say...but as a people we shouldn’t have needed the ARC..to do the right thing....that’s what some are arguing here.
And they are right....BUT..we have corrected  the error..even if it was forced on us....our policies have been updated..and this would never happen again...it will never be sorted in house or quietly .
we are under Jehovah’s Laws...and there are no loopholes with them...but he taught us...thru the ARC.

That is most Christ- like of you.... I recall a scripture which says " knowledge puffs up but LOVE builds up." 
 I think love for jehovah and love for neighbour goes much farther than harshness, pride and all those nasty attributes.  Love is the one attribute which  can most often help people to recognise the truth.
Maybe you came to this forum to also learn a truth about yourself..... you have to work on your Christian attributes. You may have knowledge but you still do not have the love.
I recall Corinthians (Paul) said: If I have all the knowledge and I do not have love - then I am NOTHING.
So this silly little old sister can also speak directly the truth to you. While I find the "deceivers"  on here just as disgusting as you do and have also not been kind to them on occasion....... I at least feel guilty about my failings because my conscience has been trained to distinguish right from wrong, kindness from pride, self-righteousness from true righteousness.  I leave it to you to ask yourself: what have I learnt about myself on this forum. 
 

What could be more humble than this? Asking for help. Asking for counsel. Asking for strengthening. Abasing oneself as a child. Surely a true Christian would be softened at this. Surely a true Christian would offer a mild response. His response?
Nothing! Not a bit of help, though he was entreated in the kindest way! Just boasting about his own brilliance, and denouncing anyone who has given him the slightest offense! 
I tell you, I have pretty well come around to an idea @JW Insideronce floated, that he is not a Witness at all, and his primary M.O. is to make JWs look as nasty and intolerant as possible by pretending he is one. 
Nor have I ever actually seen him give a witness, in the way Arauna just did   a few comments above, or relate an upbuilding experience, or strive to upbuild anyone. I have not seen Christian kindness, Does he “continue to show mercy to those who have doubts,” as in Jude 23, “snatching them from the fire?” Or does he turn up the flames on them?
Arauna’s “experiment” (though she be quite sincere in asking for help) just about clinches it for me. The guy is a fraud. As such, the ruse is cleverly done, because he does have command of certain legalistic points, which he “fortifies” with picayune ones (that fall apart upon scrutiny—or at the very least, reveal astounding tone-deafness). If he really is a brother, some serious self-examination is called for.
 

(Proverbs 26:17) Like someone grabbing hold of a dog’s ears Is the one passing by who [meddles in] a quarrel that is not his.
I have had hundreds of very similar exchanges with Allen/Billy/Cesar/D../E../F../etc., and, by explaining, might even be able to divert some of his sneering hatred back over to me instead of you.
First of all, you did nothing wrong. I see two possibilities here:
Cesar simply made a mistake when he misunderstood your post: he saw a response to something that made him think you were accusing him of lying, when you were obviously referring to Srecko. But as many of us have seen 1,000 times (probably not an exaggeration) Cesar has never been able to admit his own mistakes no matter how obvious they are to others. It is also possible that Cesar understood, and actually did see that you were referring to what Srecko said but he objected to you contradicting him when he had said that it was Srecko's "opinion" and you said that it was more than just Srecko's opinion, it was a "lie." All of us probably have some sensitivity towards what people say based on what we think of other things they have said. Everyone carries some "baggage." Sometimes I have found that it is easier to understand an exchange of ideas more objectively by imagining the exchange of ideas in a different context outside the forum, or by paraphrasing the meaning instead of the exact words, and even removing (or mentally swapping) the names of persons involved in an exchange.
I'll imagine two sisters (Sister "A" and Sister "B") going on a return visit to a woman (Woman "C") who has shown interest, but who has now learned something that disturbs her.
Woman C : But it looks like the WT writers can revoke previous teachings any time just by saying that "new light" has shined upon them.
Sister A : You are thinking something false, this conjecture that the WT is "changing" scripture altogether. Once again, that's just your opinion.
Sister B : Yes, [Sister A is right] ... and it's not just false conjecture or "just an opinion," it's really a blatant lie to say that the WT has changed scripture.
---------------The actual relevant portions of the exchange-----------
Srecko: WTJWorg religious teachers, scholars with GB+Helpers, "revoking" past and present teachings (each time a “new light” shines on them)
Cesar: The false statement here is your conjecture to say, the Watchtower is "changing" scripture altogether. Once again, that's just your opinion.
Arauna: it is a lie - not opinion.  
 

These days it is easy to confuse memory with a good search engine.

I can explain myself, but I admit that I made a mistake here: I do accept that you have been fairly consistent for a long time in basic agreement with Witness on this point. And I admit that I exaggerated your position, and misrepresented the position you have been making very clear for well over a year, at least.
It's true that the account "4Jah2me" has been consistent about accepting the idea that the "True Anointed" are likely included among the JW Memorial partakers, but not limited to these persons. "John Butler" made some of the same points over a year ago, but did not start out that way, from what I remembered. Even "4Jah2me" would say things like what you said to Arauna recently under another topic: 
When you become wise enough to know that God & Christ are not part of the Watchtower / CCJW, then you will have spiritual wisdom. There are many JWs that agree that when judgement arrives, people will be judged as individuals, judged on their spiritual heart condition, NOT judged on whether they are a baptised JW or not. . . . Soon God through Christ, will show who the True Anointed are. Then we will get true interpretation of God's word.  The deeper things of the scriptures are for the True Anointed to understand because they have been anointed of God's Holy Spirit and because Christ died for them. Rev 5 v 9 & 10
I know that this on its own does not contradict what you are saying, but when I put it all together, you appear to expect a separate "perfect" organization run by True Anointed, which is not related to the CCJW, which you say God and Christ have nothing to do with.
About a year and a half ago, to Tom, you ("4J")said:
But there will be an Organisation that stands tall above all others. A pure and truthful organisation run by true Anointed. It will suffer persecution because it will be so pure and good and because it will serve God through Jesus Christ properly. It will give true direction and not have to keep changing its mind. 
Unlike the JW Org that is as deep in the sh-t as all other religions are right now. The JW Org is not recognisable as being high  above the others, it is not recognised for pure worship, it is seen as being just as filthy as all the others and seen as telling just as many lies too. Different lies of course but still lies.  . . .
So right now God does not have a reliable organisation, hence Judgement time must be a way off yet. 
Now, I know it's not really fair to pull up things you have said in the past, as if people can't expand and change their views. Also, I know that these statements can be reconciled with the idea that True Anointed exist within this organization. But I can show even more distancing from the CCJW by "John Butler."
At any rate, I'll repeat that I made a mistake here: I do accept that you have been fairly consistent for a long time in basic agreement with "Witness" on this point. And I see that I misrepresented your current position on this topic. Sorry.

(Proverbs 26:17) Like someone grabbing hold of a dog’s ears Is the one passing by who [meddles in] a quarrel that is not his.
I have had hundreds of very similar exchanges with Allen/Billy/Cesar/D../E../F../etc., and, by explaining, might even be able to divert some of his sneering hatred back over to me instead of you.
First of all, you did nothing wrong. I see two possibilities here:
Cesar simply made a mistake when he misunderstood your post: he saw a response to something that made him think you were accusing him of lying, when you were obviously referring to Srecko. But as many of us have seen 1,000 times (probably not an exaggeration) Cesar has never been able to admit his own mistakes no matter how obvious they are to others. It is also possible that Cesar understood, and actually did see that you were referring to what Srecko said but he objected to you contradicting him when he had said that it was Srecko's "opinion" and you said that it was more than just Srecko's opinion, it was a "lie." All of us probably have some sensitivity towards what people say based on what we think of other things they have said. Everyone carries some "baggage." Sometimes I have found that it is easier to understand an exchange of ideas more objectively by imagining the exchange of ideas in a different context outside the forum, or by paraphrasing the meaning instead of the exact words, and even removing (or mentally swapping) the names of persons involved in an exchange.
I'll imagine two sisters (Sister "A" and Sister "B") going on a return visit to a woman (Woman "C") who has shown interest, but who has now learned something that disturbs her.
Woman C : But it looks like the WT writers can revoke previous teachings any time just by saying that "new light" has shined upon them.
Sister A : You are thinking something false, this conjecture that the WT is "changing" scripture altogether. Once again, that's just your opinion.
Sister B : Yes, [Sister A is right] ... and it's not just false conjecture or "just an opinion," it's really a blatant lie to say that the WT has changed scripture.
---------------The actual relevant portions of the exchange-----------
Srecko: WTJWorg religious teachers, scholars with GB+Helpers, "revoking" past and present teachings (each time a “new light” shines on them)
Cesar: The false statement here is your conjecture to say, the Watchtower is "changing" scripture altogether. Once again, that's just your opinion.
Arauna: it is a lie - not opinion.  
 

Let me comment again on this. They (people) could conclude the following: If you say nothing AGAINST something, then others might (perhaps rightly) conclude that 1) the person knows nothing about the true state of affairs or 2) that his silence justifies, supports and allows the status quo.
Of course there is also point 3) and 4) but i would not want to complicate :))

@Srecko Sostar asked how it was that I got through the material with him in the first place, and this is the key. During a study with someone I don't think it's my place to tell him where I might think differently, or why certain material may be questionable. But I don't have to go against my own conscience by saying things I don't believe. I can emphasize the points of agreement and defend, to a large extent, the basic concepts of the 1914 doctrine. And I end up in pretty much the same place: that we are in the last days, that Jesus is reigning, that Jesus is invisibly present, and that we are undergoing critical times hard to deal with. But when I go through Daniel 4, I present the 7 times as one of those ideas that might even point to our own time period.  (I believe it does point to our time period in the sense that it shows Jehovah still has everything under control, no matter how chaotic the effects of world governments are.)
I will typically add a bit of scriptural balance by pointing out what Jesus said about knowing the day and hour, and what Jesus said about the times and seasons being in the Father's jurisdiction, and Paul saying that we don't need to have anything more written to us about the times and seasons, or even the parousia itself, for the reasons he gave. But it is natural for us to want to see whatever we think is possible to see, and we live in times when it is important to keep our hope alive during an age of fear and distress upon all nations. This is especially true of times that can see conflicts escalate into world wars. When half a nation will take sides against the other half, or half a world will take sides against the other half.
What I think is obviously quite different than what appears in the WT, and I can't blame his own conscience. I am surprised that it came up years later, but fortunate enough that I am not "turned in" for my own conscientious beliefs. (I can believe that something made him doubt the chronology himself to trigger his dredging it up and then choosing to dig in his heels.) But it is sad to lose good friend.

There were some models—not one that I ever drove, they were being phased out—that if all the high school kids crammed in the back of the bus, they could lift the front wheels.
I learned the truth during my senior year of college. After graduation, I determined to pioneer. Unlike some more mature youngsters, I never knew what I was doing there anyway. I had been (this for Srecko’s sake) “manipulated” to be there. If your grades were not in the toilet, there is no way the high school would tolerate your not going to college unless you had strong reason not to go, and I didn’t. I took the path of least resistance. I used my time poorly there. When I returned for some specific course work 40 years later I had the time of my life—goals make all the difference.
As I get older, I appreciate what this must have meant for my parents. When your child graduates from college, you want some “bragging rights.” It’s not why you sent him there, but it is part of the anticipated package. What did my parents get? A kid who drove a school bus and rang the doorbells of their neighbors to tell them about this weird religion. All the more “tragic” because I went to school mostly on their dime. It was quite doable back then, even if not so today.
My dad did not have any problem with it. Raised on a farm, he was not impressed with the pretensions of men. “You raise you kids and after that their life is for them to live,” he would say. Accordingly I am pretty much like that today with my own kids, one of whom remained with the faith and one of who did not.
But my mom had a tougher time with it. It was all the more so when one of her contemporaries—a mom of one of my classmates—urged her early on to “get him out of there!” But in time some of her friends would invite me in to hear me out. One of them studied for a time. They all sent back good reports to reassure her that whatever I was doing I was well-spoken about it and it was doing me no harm. I wasn’t “tuning in, turning on, and dropping out.”
 

It was a perfect job for a pioneer. I actually lived in a basement apt at the Kingdom Hall then. I would arise in the AM, drive about 1/4 mile to the bus barns, and be back in time for the text. 4 hours in the field and I was back for the afternoon runs.
I know several who do it now. In some areas, the pay is quite good for a part-time job. It is that way where I live.
And yes, even though living at the Kingdom Hall, I would still sometimes be late for meetings.