Anna

It is rather a sloppy article but the subject is so visceral that such things are overlooked.
All is told from the point of view of the wronged girl. I don't claim she speaks untruthfully. It is simply that, humans being what they are, we are inclined to remember things the way we remember them...embellish certain points and downplay or forget others. For example, when the judge recalled certain things in a matter-of-fact way, the victim says that's not how she recalled it, and the reporter at that point forgets all about the judge and runs with the victim. I suspect that the judge recollects it more accurately, because he has not carried the emotional baggage for two decades.
When Lett, many years later, speaks of 'apostate lies,' the reporter presents it as though he is calling his old friend a liar. Of course, he is not. No one says that what happened is a lie; it is the spin that enemies (which now seem to include the Inquirer) put on it that is the lie.
I answered at some length the Inquirer's first story and emailed it two two editors and the reporter. It was never acknowledged in any way. Instead, the reporter followed through on remarks he had made on the Reddit forum, that he had more material in the hopper that he considered damning to the Witnesses. Of course, this story that Witness is so thrilled about is what he had in mind.
I take it as evidence that the Philadelphia Inqurer wants this story told one and only one way. If there is anything to mitigate a damning verdict, they do not want to hear it. Of course, they have a story. No one would say that they do not. It is a variation of the "If it bleeds it leads" theme - familiar and not so terrible in itself, but the refusal to consider or even acknowledge a different lens through which the topic might be viewed, is to paint it, imo, as a not very good newspaper. Adding to this perception is that the paper does not seem to have a comment section for its online articles.
Comment sections are not necessarily great, as they attract many a moron, especially on 'hot' topics. But they have become ubiquitous and the fact that the Inquirer does not have one seems but another indicator that they will breach no dissent on what stories they report.
It is the religious version of the shabby journalism that has become the norm today. Reporters of the right or left hype up their view to the point of hysteria, and refuse to look at things that in any way confound their conclusions.
 

I have suffered from both types of liars, too. But I don't think Stephen Lett is either. He was a District Overseer that included my present circuit. I've seen him up close in front of a congregation and at assemblies, although I can't say I have seen him interact closely with elders or other individuals. But he was known to be a man full of a lot of love and concern for others.
When it comes to defending something he loves -- and he loves the organization -- he is prone to the same kinds of mistakes that all humans make. They will often "spin" and exaggerate and filter out negative details to try to put the thing they love in the best light possible. Most people do this naturally when it come to speaking about their children, their spouses, and other loved ones. If you listen closely to what he said, it was also obvious that it was calculated to be a true statement. He didn't say that we have no trouble with such crimes, or that we are better than other religions. He said that we don't protect sexual predators and a claim that we protect predators is a lie that finds its source in apostate lies.
It turns out that he was trying to generalize, and probably spoke from a belief he holds to be true.
I believe he is wrong in some serious ways, but I don't know that he knew he was wrong. I think he thought he was right. I do have direct evidence that we have upheld policies that have protected criminals more than we have protected the victims of these criminals. This may have even protected criminal elders more than others persons in congregations where such crimes have been committed. I think that even now there are policies and procedures that tend to protect criminals more than they protect children, but the written policy is almost as good as it can be made under the restrictions of the two-witness policy (as we currently think we must apply it).

They do not.
It is your spin on them that they call false stories.
Assuming that it is true, In an ever-changing population of 8 million, there will be examples of anything.

I heard he carved it into the bark of a Norway Spruce. If only such a tree could survive the Flood!

That was very interesting. Of course, the real idea behind not believing in an immortal soul is that we don't believe there is a part of the person that goes on living as a separate entity (or life force) of some kind that can have its own memories of itself, and which can obtain and maintain new memories of things like suffering in eternal torment or heavenly bliss (or anything at all).
None of those ideas fit your idea that Witnesses believe in an immortal soul. But we do believe that something "like" what some people call "soul" is encompassed in the set of memories/personality/qualities/traits that make up a person and which can be remembered by Jehovah and recreated in a new body for either a heavenly or earthly environment. This can be summed up in the idea of "spirit" or "soul" but there is still quite a difference between the Witness belief and what most people think of when they hear those words.

I have often wondered it it was me, or EVERYBODY else, that had problems with delirium ...... and then I realized ! ...
... For me, it's not a problem ....
.... I rather ENJOY IT

Thanks @Anna. This bit of the quote is interesting too, even though we can all read it for ourselves. Thanks to @Jack Ryan for a fascinating snip although the motive is unclear.
"Carbon dating is not accurate enough to pin down the exact year the tree sprouted from seed; but, given the estimated age, the tree is supposed to have sprouted around 7550 BC. For comparison, the invention of writing (and thus, the beginning of recorded history) did not occur until around 4000 BC." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tjikko

So ... assume every five years a branch bends over to touch the Earth, and it reproduces a tree trunk ... and the old trunk dies out..
That means that the trunk has replanted itself, and the old trunk died 1,912 times.
Boy, if the math had worked out to 1914 years this would have been GREAAAAT! to plug into the GB Body Member David Splaine's "overlapping generations chart!"
Now... 9,570 years divided by 5 DOES make 1914 years, plus ... you can get a "9" out of it and a "570", which sounds very biblical.
It is late ... I have the flu, and am very tired and congested.   I will let better minds than mine figure out the obvious typical / anti-typical ramifications.

Your posts are pretty much off topic and it seems you are going on a rant, but I couldn't help noticing the above statement.
Well that was the Pharisees wasn't it? We would not expect them to understand what Jesus meant would we?
On the other hand Jesus explained to his true disciples exactly what he meant: John 17: 20 -23
"“I make request, not concerning these only, but also concerning those putting faith in me through their word, 21  so that they may all be one,+ just as you, Father, are in union with me and I am in union with you,+ that they also may be in union with us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. 22  I have given them the glory that you have given me, in order that they may be one just as we are one.+ 23  I in union with them and you in union with me, in order that they may be perfected into one,* so that the world may know that you sent me and that you loved them just as you loved me".
Surely you would not suggest the disciples were God and/or Jesus would you? Rather it is obvious that Jesus was referring to the complete agreement that exists between him and his father and would also exist between them and  his followers.
In fact if you read further on in John 10: 34-36 Jesus shows that he rejected their (the pharisees) understanding (that he was saying he is God) and then  10:37-38 it is quite clear Jesus was saying he is God's son and that he is doing the works of his Father: "Do you say to me whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?+ 37  If I am not doing the works of my Father, do not believe me".

This is what the Wikipedia article says: " The trunk itself is estimated to be only a few hundred years old, but the plant has survived for much longer due to a process known as layering (when a branch comes in contact with the ground, it sprouts a new root), or vegetative cloning (when the trunk dies but the root system is still alive, it may sprout a new trunk)".
So in view of that, it's a bit misleading to say the tree itself is that old, but evidently the root system survived the flood and was able to sprout, probably repeating the process many times throughout several millennia...

JWs adhere to the teachings of Jesus, they do not believe Jesus is God for there is a clear distinction between God the Father (Yahweh/Jehovah) and Jesus, who is the Son of God. Is it hypocrisy if one, such as yourself, speak ill of another man who does the work of spreading the good news gospel, yet you do not adhere to command and commission? The answer is clear.
Clearly you do not have the Holy Spirit because of what you just posted breaks a very clear quality of what a Christian must profess, but you read the bible don't you? This should be very evident to you and we know what Jesus says about those who do not adhere to the law (Matthew 7:23), especially to someone such a s yourself who have no idea of what the Law of which every True Christians is bounded to.
 
They deny Hell because Hell isn't the lake of Fire, in fact, even bible translation makes this point clear, example, Revelations 20:14
And death and hell [hades] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
So riddle me this? If Hell is the Lake of Fire, how can you cast Hell in Hell? See how silly that sounds? and Any man who knows God, can go to the Hebrew Old Testament and see for themselves in the Torah an the Laws, that God the Father is not a fan of Fire Torment, this practice was done by Molech Worshipers and Sorcerers who toss their sons and daughters into the burning fire - alive. God even stated such a thing would never cross his mind, so I ask you, you seem to get your giggles and delight out of eternal fire torment of people, ask yourself, if such a thing never crossed God's mind to begin with, why practice it? Of whom do you serve and to whom is your master? God the Father or Molech? You can't teach love with Fire Torment, playing with fire is bad.
They do not believe in the cross because the original form of the word was Stauros, meaning a pole or a stake (tree sticking up perhaps), the cross was a very late addition into Christianity, and the clue of the whole pole/stake situation we can look at Maryas, of which predates Jesus.
Quote yet no explanation. A dog who barks but does not bite, is no dog at all. You also make a small misstep on your part here.
Jesus didn't create everything, nor did he come on his own, nor did he consider himself to be God or equal to him. Your explain is weak and your claim is flawed.
Mormons do not preach the good news gospel, they believe they can be equal to God, they also believe God himself actually had intercourse with virgin Mary, they also only adhere to the book of Mormon and hold a strong view in polygamy and child marriage. JWs, are Restorationist, nuff said. Hardcore Bible pressed also, meaning stick to what the bible says, always. SDA believe in the Trinity, so technically, they are JWs who accept the Trinity. They also believe being part of the nation to fight for a cause. Clearly you do not read the bible very much, unless you are here to troll, it can easily be seen.
Your picture show holds no foundation also. therefore, your spirit has been tested, 1 John 4:1.

Know the difference between counterfeit Christians and true Christians. It's not a new teaching. The scriptures warn about this and give clear identifying marks to help distinguish the two.

Know the difference between counterfeit Christians and true Christians. It's not a new teaching. The scriptures warn about this and give clear identifying marks to help distinguish the two.

It is indeed the Northenden, Manchester Assembly Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses.
This building was originally constructed as a cinema in about 1933 and owes it's styling to a trend termed as Art Moderne, a much disputed offshoot of the earlier Art Deco movement of the mid 1920s. The websites linked will give you information on the status the building now enjoys as well as some historical background.
https://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101385002-assembly-hall-of-jehovahs-witnesses-northenden-ward#.WyYfSaczqM8
http://old.manchesterconfidential.co.uk/Culture/Architecture/The-former-Forum-cinema-Northenden

This one is for  @Gone Away . Isn't that the Northenden, Manchester Assembly Hall?

Thanks . He will do SOMETHING for sure, because he won't let anyone die unjustly. Not only is that a promise, but it is in line with his 4 greatest attributes.

You are using perfectly rational logic here, but you seem to progress it in a way that loses it's sense.
You then assert that the descriptions that  are termed personifications in connection with inanimate or non-human objects are not so in connection with Holy Spirit. That appears to be because you assume that the Holy Spirit is a person, therefore the descriptors cannot be personification. So your conclusion would appear to be flawed here. The descriptors in themselves no more prove the Holy Spirit to be or not to be a person than the they do love, wisdom, fire, tongues or any other object to which they are applied.
Have you noted Isaiah 40:13: "who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord or being his counsellor hath taught him?" AV
I quite like John J. Skinner's comment on this text:
"the spirit of the Lord] denotes here the organ of the Divine intelligence (see 1 Corinthians 2:11). This is more likely than that the spirit is personified and then endowed with intelligence. The idea, however, does not appear to be found elsewhere in the O.T. The Spirit of God is ordinarily mentioned as the life-giving principle emanating from Jehovah, which pervades and sustains the world, and endows select men with extraordinary powers and virtues."
 

They can keep it, thanks ?. I'm with Queen Esther on this one. I think it's silly. It's like the 5 year old riding on the back of an orca whale.....there will be some very disappointed 5 year olds.

I'm guessing that in the first picture Angela Merkel is saying: "Did you hear the one about the Japanese man who  . . . . ?"
That could explain the second picture.

Probably by selecting just the right one, you could suggest of any wedding that they will be divorced in two weeks.

 
Remember focal plane shutters on film cameras where you could get dramatically different flash/available light balanced  pictures, depending on whether or not the "x" (electronic flash setting) was set to "at first curtain", or "at second curtain"?
I took a photo of a basketball player, years ago, jumping to put the ball in the basket, with a strong flash, and the combination of blurred available light and secondary flash  at about a 15th of a second, and the photo looked like his white front teeth, trailing the flash image,  were about 12 feet long, in an arc.
I bet some interesting photos could be made of GB member, Brother Stephen Lett, in action.
I used to rely on GB cards, but found that some were typical, and some were anti-typical, and I could never make any sense of the overlapping photos.
For those in Rio Linda, that is ultra-dry Gobi Desert humor.

As a professional photographer, I know that photos taken fractions of a second apart can make people and dynamics look completely different ... and keep my camera on "continuous" shooting bursts 5 pictures to the second. 
Now that "film" is free, with digital cameras when I shoot a wedding sometimes I take two or three thousand pictures for that very reason.  My 64GB SD card will take more than 10,000 high resolution pictures before I have to change the card.  I do take along spare cameras and six fully charged batteries.
A fraction of a second can make all the difference!

The Daily Signal published another photo, taken moments apart:
No particular tension in this one. 

It makes one wonder how much is real and how much is selected just to convey a desired effect.

Oh YEAH??!! Well what about OUR TRUMP?!!!
(No, I am just kidding. I do not regard either of them as “ours,” no any human spokesperson. And I know you do not either; it is but a speechism.)

Yes, If you let them get away with it, the next step will be to single out certain individuals I could name.