TrueTomHarley

That says it all, then. You can seek revenge, or you can bury the hatchet. The brother who told me, and who is now in poor health, says he was his table head.

I got to be a district overseer this way. I had ten kids—I had them for just this reason—and I would feed each one the answer to a question. I got so many credits for this that promotion was a slam-dunk. I am told that the brother who wrote the Truth book was a fellow named Peleyn. Yes?

She is disagreeing with you, that’s all, and not being mean about it. Grown-ups are usually able to handle that without “sinning.”

As far as I am concerned, this sign represents a win-win. It does not make me mad. It is doing me a favor. If anyone doesn’t want to talk to me, then I don’t want to talk to them. There is a squirrelly assumption that underpins this meme: that Jehovah’s Witnesses are determined to talk to each householder no matter what, and are incredibly frustrated if stymied. It plays into the infantile view that they are “recruiting,” a view popularly spread by “anti-cultists” who obsess over all the ways that people can “manipulate” others. They abhor all forms of “brainwashing” except for the brainwashing that is theirs, as they safeguard mainstream values—values that have not worked out very well insofar as promoting overall peace and well-being. If the mainstream thinking contained answers to the vexing questions of life, people would’t have to worry for one second about “sects” and even “cults”—they would be rejected out of hand. So are Jehovah’s Witnesses “recruiting?” “I am going to ask you to convert,” I told a certain householder, “but it is not going to happen until the 100th call—and what are the chances It will go on for so long? In the meantime, it is just conversation.” To householders who state they have their own religion or spirituality and who decline conversation on that basis I say, “Well, I’m not going to ask you to change, and if I do, you can say No.” I mean, it is fine to decline conversation—more people do than do not—but just not on that basis. You might say it to an evangelical Christian—the sort that actually do feature instant conversion of the “Come down and be saved!” variety. You might say it to a Moonie, because their people are known to disappear off the surface of the globe, only to reappear selling flowers in robes. But you ought not say it to one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose members live and work in the general community. No, the sign does me a favor. I have no problem with it. It might be different if they proliferated so that they became a commonplace gag sign, just a fad witticism inspired by late-night TV that didn’t necessarily mean anything. In that case, I might just walk away or I might playfully attempt to negotiate terms before deciding if I wanted to enter into such a “contract.” “Well, a guy has to serve the Lord,” I will say non-aggresively to some while trying to size them up. You’ve got to have a sense of humor. Like a No Soliciting sign, there are no legal consequences to blowing past it, and like a No Soliciting sign, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It might be put up by a previous owner, and the current one sees no reason to remove it. It might be put up by a family member that died. It might have been put up after those pushy people selling vacuum cleaners left. It might be put up in the heat of election campaign season. It might be put up to dissuade Jehovah’s Witnesses, but I do not assume that is the case. ”I saw your sign and was a little concerned that you might think it applies to me,” I sometimes say when one of them is staring me in the face. “It doesn’t—but you might think it does.” You can assess by the response if the householder had that intention or not, and if he did, I have no problem moving on from what would cause both of us stress. Don’t argue, “We’re not soliciting,” because it really doesn’t matter whether you are or not. What matters is what the householder thinks you are doing. Of course, you can tell him that what he thinks is wrong, but that is never a fine foundation for a visit, is it? I have said at times, when my attention is directed to such a sign, “Oh. Well....I’ll make sure not to do that, then,” either by soliciting money (which Witnesses never do) or soliciting opinions—drawing people out—which we do. Simply tell them stuff, don’t ask them a thing—that is enough to technically comply with such a sign. But the trick is not to be like Alan and argue over technicalities. The trick is to see if such and such a vague sign actually means anything to the householder and respect his wishes if it does. No, a No Soliciting sign means nothing legally, same as this new $50 per hour JW sign that Jack is giggling about means nothing. The only sign with legal consequences (in the US) is a No Trespassing sign, and even that only has legal consequences for individual dwellings—you can’t wall off an entire community with a No Trespassing sign. To be sure, some are trying to change that, but the idea of answering for large swaths of other people is repugnant to most and so the change may not readily happen. Let’s face, this sign is kind of crude, and not too many people are going to put one up. It is sort of like that sign in which you find yourself as though staring down the barrel of a gun that says, “Never mind the dog! Beware of the owner!” I don’t just jauntily breeze by that sign as though is was a Welcome mat. I tread a bit cautiously. If my companion was to turn around and leave, I wouldn’t blame him a bit. Still, you never know. I was leaving one such home—no one had answered—and as I was walking away, a pickup truck drove in with a gun rack in the back window. “Great!” I muttered to myself—“probably a real sorehead here!” He turned out to be the nicest guy in the world—very respectful of our purpose and of the Bible. There was a lot of crime in the neighborhood and he had just “weaponed-up” for the protection of his family. These signs are not a red light—No Soliciting, Beware of Whatever—but they certainly are a yellow light. They are not a yellow light legally, but they are a yellow light in that they might reveal something of the householders wishes, and I have no problem always complying with their wishes once I know what they are. As it is, Jehovah’s Witnesses have a method to keep note of those who have emphatically said that the don’t want JW calls ever. It is an imperfect system and I usually forget to consult it, but it works better than nothing. Ironically, it may all vanish one day if the current “data-keeping” laws gathering steam in Europe, spearheaded by the same people who see “manipulation” everywhere, spreads to the US. It will be illegal to keep track of who doesn’t want a call. As it is, one US brother I know reported on a trip to Europe and how the brothers there were wrestling with these new anti data-gathering laws that had never been intended (at least, by most) for them, but were being applied to them, with: “Good! They’ve just made your job easier! Preach to one and all and don’t worry about any “records”—keeping track of them is a pain in the neck!” What about a child answering the door? For me, that depends upon the age of the child. For a teen, sometimes I will go Bible-lite, such as commenting on what the words of the Lord’s Prayer literally mean, and I do not press any point. Or show a video geared to teens—I have never had a teen not pay rapt attention to the video, “Be Social-Network Smart.” With teens, I have sometimes told them that I really don’t know what to do with teens, because they are learning and gathering smarts, but they are also under their parent’s roof, and the latter is guiding that process, and so they may or may not want them speaking to persons of different beliefs at the door, and ‘which is it with them’? Even that doesn’t guarantee anything. One parent that I finally encountered said, “I don’t appreciate you speaking to my children,”—I had done so twice and had shown a couple of videos. I responded that I had never been looking for the kids—I had been looking for her—and that when the teens had answered I had asked them whether their parents would want them speaking to a visitor about religion and they had said she would not care. “Kids will say anything!” she told me. So I explained that I would not call again (she said ‘thank you’), repeated that I had never been looking for them in the first place, and even was able to give a brief synopsis for why we call at all—she became quite pleasant. Another teen—I had just finished something brief and similar—he had been home alone. As I left, the mother drove up in the driveway. I told her who I was, that I had spent a few minutes speaking with her son, I had asked him a question and he had answered intelligently. “You should be proud of him,” I said as I took my leave. Cultures are different. I once handed a tract to a child with directions to give it to her parents, and upon leaving, my companion said that she would have witnessed to the child. My companion was newly arrived from South America where it is nothing for parents to allow and even encourage children to talk religion to anyone calling about it. There are congregations there heavily populated by children with the full blessing of parents who do not attend themselves—respect for God runs deep in some lands and the assumption is that you cannot go wrong allowing your children to learn about the Bible. Though the following has nothing to do with the Bible, it has everything to do with that fact that cultures are different, and so when the GB speaks in a way that is not really my cup of tea, I say, “It is probably one of those others cultures that they are taking into consideration.” There is a large community of deaf persons in Rochester NY. Accordingly, there are a number of Witnesses who make their living as translators. One of them told me of a certain deaf family of two adults and two children—all deaf—who are known not only locally but also nationally, and the following story is told nationally as a way of highlighting the challenges of catering to different cultures: A neighboring “hearing” girl would come over to play at the home of the deaf family. The two children were surprised that she didn’t seem able to sign very well at all, but they all managed to sign well enough to each other to get by. Then the two children went to the little girl’s home to play, where they saw the mother not signing at all! Her mouth kept moving, and the little girl seemed satisfied with that, but there was no signing. Upon returning home, they related their bewilderment to their parents and asked, “Are there other people like that?”

It’s odd that this should be your latest insult. Once again you inject national politics before an apolitical audience to whom you know it will fall flat. I have several times expressed the opinion that the 2016 election was a godsend for Witnesses, and it has nothing to do with who won or lost. It used to be that if you read 2 Timothy 3:1-5 and your householder did not agree that people are more fierce, implacable, backbiting, unhinged, and so forth, then in times past, there was not much you could do about it. Plainly the verse is subjective. It always will be, or course, but with Trump’s election most people will concede that the country has lost its mind, with rank and file persons of both sides screaming at each other day and night. To say 2 Timothy 3 is undergoing fulfillment increasingly comes across as a “Duh.” Parallel events take place around the globe. Brexit is as crazy, if not more so, and 2 Timothy saves the day for JWs there also. Then there is the fact that major populations around the world are exploding in violence, even revolt—Hong Kong, France, Italy, several countries of Middle East, South America, several again of Africa—civil unrest has become the order of the day. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/with-nationwide-strike-colombia-joins-south-americas-season-of-protest/2019/11/21/2d3adf0e-0bef-11ea-8054-289aef6e38a3_story.html In view of this, the most important thing we can do is debate whether Karl Klein reported Rutherford saying “I made an ass of myself” because he didn’t like him. It is not unlike when Tillerson supposedly called Trump a moron, and the media suspended interest in all other topics in order to determine whether he did or not. This continued even after Tillerson called a press conference to say: “Back where I come from, we don’t have time for this nonsense!” Incredibly, this did not chasten them! “Well......did you call him a moron or not?” they wanted to know. You can’t call Trump a “bull in a china shop” because to do so you would have to accept the premise that the status quo of human government is a “china shop.” “Junkyard dog in a junkyard” is perhaps an analogy that works better. In service this morning, my companion started some presentation around the theme of good government. The householder, initially reserved, responded that he is working hard to undo the damage he thought Trump was doing to the country. I thought it was well, due to his initial brusqueness, to explain that Jehovah’s Witnesses are well-known for being neutral, and that a person such as he might suppose that anyone serious enough about the Bible to come preaching it must be a Trump supporter, since born-agains fall all over him, but with us it is not so. This melted his reserve considerably and the end of the visit was far better than the beginning. Had it been my door, I would have heard him out on just what he was doing to counter Trump as a quid pro quo—perhaps he would afterwards hear us out. But I am comfortable talking politics, as relatively few Witnesses are. My companion took it back to a more conventional path, from our point of view.

Oh, give me a break, you pompous pillar of pettiness! I think far more deeply than you. You have a incredibly broad knowledge of a certain aspect of a narrow topic. Beyond that, I wonder if you know anything at all. I bring to the table free-ranging, out-of-the-box thinking on a variety of topics. You bring strait-jacketed, legalistic thinking about one. I bring wit, imagination, and humor in all its varieties—self-deprecating humor as well as the kind of humor where you make fun of yourself. You bring niggling, blustering nastiness, insolence, and an astounding capacity to insult all creatures great and small with childish taunts. You are a precocious, smart, and mean-spirited adolescent who finds himself in the body of an adult and thus imagines he is one. You don’t want to know just what high position he occupies. A he who is characterized as a she. If I were you, I would ask no further questions. Of course! That’s why he repeatedly said just the opposite in his life experiences.

The thing to focus on is, not that Rutherford thought it existed, (a “cult” around Russell) but that the FDS freely admits it 50 years (or whatever) later. It is as when Rutherford says “I made as ass of myself,” and AlanF uses to fact to insist that he could not have been “inspired.” What he should focus on is that he said it in the first place. I mean, not in my wildest ramblings can I envision Alan saying publicly the same. You cannot go wrong when you have persons who, as individuals, do not take themselves too seriously. This is the same Rutherford who says: “Well, Carl talks a lot and he says things he doesn’t mean.” Can you imagine Alan letting anyone off the hook so easily? He rages on about the technicalities of words and totally ignores the human component that makes them work in actual life. Of course, the “Carl” whom Rutherford spoke of was Carl Klein, a one-time GB member whose life-experience was published in 1984. (“Jehovah Has Dealt Rewardingly With Me.”) Notable among the lessons he reports as contributing to a happy life is: “Since then, I have observed many similar tests of loyalty. When mistakes are made, those not wholly loyal at heart seem to pounce upon them as an excuse for quitting.”—Compare Psalm 119:165. This, too, is good to reflect on. Klein’s reminisces are a favorite with the friends—it is not just me. One brother stated just the same when commenting on a WT paragraph about a month ago that referenced him.

If he hung his head, it was not in shame. It was in dismay at the literalism. He was probably wondering, “How did this fellow ever get past ‘I and the father are one’ to become a Witness in the first place? He was probably wondering, “How did this fellow ever come to believe in God?” since the cosmonauts traveled through the heavens and didn’t see him. Lord, save us from the literalists. By definition, you cannot get to see spiritual things. It is the wind that blows where it will and you hear the sound of it but cannot otherwise nail it down. (John 3:8) In the ministry, I will not argue with a trinitarian (having learned from experience). I say, “95% of the scriptures that are said to prove the trinity would, if they were seen in any other context, be instantly dismissed as figure of speech.” Yet somehow grown persons make themselves children when they see them in the Bible, and insist: “The Bible SAYS what it MEANS and MEANS what it SAYS.” I simply cannot play that game. I don’t want to prove that “crocodile tears” does not mean the crying person is a crocodile. I don’t want to have to produce the bush after I have told someone not to beat around it. I don’t want to explain to a grown-up that there is no Santa Claus. I have never had this problem at all of demanding just HOW elders are appointed by holy spirit. Jesus said (above) that it can’t be done. It is enough to say that appointees are measured against the Bible template, which is an acknowledged product of holy spirit, the measuring is done by existing elders, and is cleared by HQ, where presumably there is a file cabinet stuffed with holy spirit. I do note, however—I mean it clicks together just now—a possible reason for that last letter from the circuit overseer. “I have appointed” so-and-so as an elder in the congregation, he said. It is a tactic to stay one step ahead of the scoundrels who are adept at “framing mischief by decree” to make clear that, contrary to their insistence that they are fighting a “corporation,” what they are actually fighting is the Bible itself, and to the extent that the Bible is God’s Word, which we believe that it is, God himself. Verses directly say that traveling ministers appointed elders. Frame it the same way today so that they must redirect their attack against scripture itself and thereby reveal exactly what is their desire. Many changed wordings and announcements likely come about for the same reason, causing JTR to rant about “legal machinations,” but it cannot be any other way, because attacks are often framed legally. After changing the wording, then say, as did G Jackson, “the Bible says that there will be such and such, and we are doing our best to fulfill that pattern.” Surely THAT should not be illegal. (What he said was: “Jesus said that in the last days - and Jehovah's Witnesses believe these are the last days - there would be a slave, a group of persons who would have responsibility to care for the spiritual food. So in that respect, we view ourselves as trying to fulfill that role") Davey the Kid, from the final chapter of Tom Irregardless and Me, is a real person, immensely capable, who served several years at Bethel. He died a few years back, so perhaps I could give his last name, but then some sorehead here will produce evidence that he farted once and will start a thread about that. Davey related that, while at Bethel, visitors would tour and some would say that they could feel holy spirit in the hallways. You cannot literally feel holy spirit in the hallways, Davey said, as he went on to discuss just how holy spirit can be expected to back those who do God’s will, as they do in a focused way at Bethel. I can picture 99 persons in the audience—who had said they felt holy spirit in the hallways—smiling at themselves that they ever thought they could literally feel holy spirit in the hallways, and AlanF stomping out of the building now that they have admitted to LYING to him for all these years.

This is actually a very good answer. No one has to kiss up to these guys. It is enough not to oppose them. No national leader stands by and sees his legitimacy trashed. You don’t get too far in Russia or China by doing that. Look how much trouble Trump is causing that “whistleblower” and the uproar over it from those who want to undermine him. Obama did the say with a different set of whistleblowers. It is enough not to try to grab the wheel of the bus. Simply “do not think about them at all” if you cannot get your head around everything they do.

When Bill Ford fired Lee Iacocca, he said: “Sometimes, you just don’t like a guy.” Fortunately, I do not have that problem. Look, you windbag. Nobody else has this problem of producing lengthy texts that appear to be expounding upon your previous remarks and then blaming Admin for his inadequate software! Everyone else can figure out how to use the stuff. The trick is to not think yourself so important that you must, not only talk ad nauseam yourself, but quote others ad nauseam so you can argue with their every syllable!

My detective skills are being criticized and some unkind ones are doing the same with my writing skills. One unkind person even said, “Don’t quit your day job.” Just to be on the safe side, I have resolved to keep my position as head of the glass department for Tesla Motors.

The elders and the GB can take care of themselves. It’s when he failed to laugh at one of my jokes that I decided he was toast. Well....you’re both from the UK, aren’t you? Doesn’t everyone on that island know everyone else?

Oh. That explains it. I just saw your words from before and wondered what THAT was all about? He said something and then unsaid it, apparently.

Uh oh. You are reacting (and I thank you) to my Dawkins post on the wrong thread. Be prepared for an onslaught from @AlanF about how STUPID you are! He is not the same—JTR is an absolute saint by comparison—but I used to occasionally include off-color words in my posts just to see him, who could launch the nastiest and crudest of tirades, get all bent out of shape that I has said a naughty word.

This is not technically true. Admittedly, there was much opinion, but there was also at least one bit of solid information content: It would be very hard to dispute with that one.

Tweeted Richard Dawkins one fine day (11/13/19): “You could easily spot any Religion of Peace. Its extremist members would be extremely peaceful” Can it be? Is Richard Dawkins referring to Jehovah’s Witnesses—universally known for being “extremely peaceful” yet declared “extremists” in Russia? If so, I will take back the relatively few bad things I have said about him. I have not really said THAT many bad things about him. At times, I have even been complimentary. When he blessed the atheist buses rolling out in London, I said that he raised a good point—his was a reaction to existing “hellfire’ buses, with advertising from the church. He did wuss-out, though, with a: “There probably is no God.” Probably? It wasn’t until I began following him on Twitter, though, that I noticed how breathtakingly contemptuous he was toward anyone who disagreed with him—not merely about God, but also on geopolitical things—and then I did say a few mean things. For example, I said of him that “he does not suffer fools gladly, and a fool is anyone who disagrees with him.” However, he has largely repented over this online meanness. I’ve noticed it over the months. He has not banished it entirely, but it is much less prevalent, so that I regret that I ever said what I did. The temptation to be disdainful of opponents is well-nigh irresistible, particularly if you think that they are willfully choosing ignorance. I have (more or less) mastered the temptation, of course, but I have a source of effective and unending counsel that he does not. This is no more concisely stated than it was at a recent Watchtower Study. A Bible verse considered how we ought “do nothing out of contentiousness or out of egotism, but with humility consider others superior to you.” (Philippians 2:3) Practically speaking, this advice is not easy to implement. It may even strike one as nonsensical—how can everyone be superior to everyone else? Said that Watchtower: “The humble person acknowledges that everyone is superior to him in some way.—Phil. 2:3, 4.” Of course. In some way everyone is superior to everyone else. Search for that way, hone in on it like a laser beam, and it will not be so difficult to treat even opponents with respect. “Disagree without being disagreeable” is the catchphrase today. But Professor Dawkins does not have this advantage. Much of his tradition would sway him in just the opposite “survival of the fittest” direction. So he must be given credit for his new, somewhat softer, online personality. Possibly someone who has his best interests at heart—perhaps his wife—said, “Richard, you sure do come across as a cantankerous crank on Twitter,” and he deliberately walked it back. It’s commendable. Now, I don’t think Richard had Jehovah’s Witnesses in mind with his tweet. He probably has formed his views of them through the contributions of their “apostate” contingent, and those views could hardly be blacker. I looked down among his comments to see whether any of those nasties had reared their heads. Perhaps here was an example: “Not entirely true. Extremists usually have their own misinterpretation of scriptures.” I responded to this one: “If “misinterpretation” results in a religion of peace, perhaps it is not a misinterpretation after all. Perhaps the mainline view is a misinterpretation.” Is that not a no-brainer? Another one, disagreeing with the above tweet: “Actually no. Most extremists do exactly what is written in their book. ‘Misinterpretation’ is used as an argument by believers that cherry pick morals that fit our secular ethics today.” I know this type, too. This is the type that finds slavery in the Bible or war in the Old Testament and rails at the “hypocrisy.” I responded to this fellow as well: “Everything has a historical context and to deliberately ignore such context is to be intellectually dishonest. If our side does it to theirs, we never hear the end of it.” He blew up at this reference to context. Evil is evil, he carried on, across all places and time-frames. These characters are very predictable—you could even write their lines for them and not be too far off. Has “critical thinking” made us all nincompoops? It was once thought the most intelligent thing in the world to consider historical backdrop; one was irresponsible, even deceitful, not to do it. Very well. If he is going to trash, with blinders affixed, the source that I hold dear, I will do the same with his source: “You should turn your critical thinking skills upon Ancient Greece, the definer of it. When time travel is invented, history revisionists will give a friendly wave to American slaveholding forefathers as they race back in time to fetch wicked Greek pedophiles—it was an enshrined value of that world—back in irons.” He was not chastened by this. Hijacking Twitter as his personal courtroom, he cross-examined: “Is the holding and beating of slaves, as described in Exodus, morally acceptable? Yes or no?” I countered: “Is the raping of children as endorsed by Ancient Greek society morally acceptable? Yes or no?” Incredibly, he was not dissuaded. “Last chance!” he shot back. “Is the holding and beating of slaves, as described in Exodus, morally acceptable? Yes or no?” “To the blockheads, I became a blockhead.”—Paul (sort of) —1 Corinthians 9:19-22,” I tweeted back: “Two can play the game of obstinacy. Last chance: Is the rape of children—it was enshrined in Ancient Greek society—morally acceptable? Yes or no?” Then I went away, and when I came back, he had deleted all this tweets so that it was hard for me to reconstruct the thread. However, someone else had pointed out a grave sin I had committed: “Thomas you are guilty of the moral equivalence fallacy.” Am I? I suppose. You can sort of guess by the wording just what that phrase means—I had not heard it before. At least it is in English. I once heard a theologian quip that if there is a Latin phrase and a perfectly clear English phrase that means the same thing, always use the Latin phrase so people will know that you are educated. But my “moral equivalence fallacy” is still is no more than considering historical context, a praiseworthy intellectual technique for all time periods except ours. Besides, I actually had posted something about slavery long ago. But it is not a topic so simple that it can be hashed out in a few tweets, and so I declined to go there with this fellow, who would debate all the sub-points. If God corrected every human injustice the moment it manifested itself, there would be nothing left. The entire premise of the Bible is that human-rule is unjust in itself and that God allows a period of time for that to be clearly manifested before bringing in his kingdom—the one referred to in the “Lord’s prayer”—to straighten it all out. In the meantime, the very ones who work themselves into a lather at religion “brainwashing” people are livid that God did not brainwash slavery away once humans settled upon it as a fine economic underpinning. If Dawkins’s tweet and my response hangs around long enough before burial in the Twitter feed, I would expect some of our malcontents to observe as they did in Russia, where the only evidence of extremism cited is proclaiming “a religious view of supremacy.” Huge protest will come at how Jehovah’s Witnesses practice shunning and thus “destroy” relationships and even family. But views inevitably translate into consequences and policies. Refusal to “come together” with those who insist on diametrically opposed views is hardly the “extremism” of ISIS—and yet the Russian Supreme Court has declared that it is, with the full backing in principle of those from the ex-JW community—the ones who go crusading, which is perhaps 10%. I’m going to write this up as a post and append it to his thread. Let’s see what happens. Probably nothing, but you never know. Plus, let’s expand on that particular Watchtower some more. The particular article covered was entitled: “Jehovah Values His Humble Servants” (September 2019 issue—study edition) Unlike nearly all religious services, Witness meetings are ones that you can prepare for. You can comment during them. They are studies of the sacred book, not just impromptu rap sessions, acquiescencing to ceremony, or sitting through someone else’s sermon. You can prepare for them, and you are benefited, as in any classroom, when you do. The focus here, as it so often is, is on practical application. Humility draws persons to us. Haughtiness repels them, and thus makes next to impossible the mantra to “come together.” My own comment, when the time was right, was that haughty people can only accomplish so much—it may be a great deal, for haughty people are often very capable people—but eventually they run up against the fact that nobody else can stand them, and so people are motivated to undercut their ideas, even if they are good ones, out of sheer payback for ugliness. Humble people, on the other hand, may be far less capable individually, but their efforts add up. They know how to cooperate and yield to each other in a way that haughty people do not. Someone else on that Dawkins thread, an amateur wit, played with that them of unlikely extremists: “Jehova's witnesses are peaceful but their extremists are better extremely annoying...” Why fight this? It is a viewpoint. Viewpoints are not wrong, because they are viewpoints—right or wrong doesn’t enter into the equation. Better to roll with it. I was indeed on a roll, and so I tweeted back: “I will grant that they can be. Still, if you had a choice between a team of JWs approaching your door and a team of ISIS members, you would (hopefully) choose theformer. Those 2 groups, and only those 2 groups are officially declared “extremist” in Russia.” And with that, I included a link to my ebook, “Dear Mr. Putin - Jehovah’s Witnesses Write Russia.” I am shameless in that. No matter how many books I sell, it is not enough. I don’t sell them, anyway. The book is free, a labor of love. It is an application of the theme: “If you have something important to say, don’t hide it behind a paywall.” It is the only, to my knowledge, complete history of events leading up to and beyond the 2017 ban of the Witness organization in Russia. As to the latest developments there, another one was herded off to prison, who, making the best of a sour situation, or perhaps genuinely finding value there, said: "I want to thank … prosecution. I don't just thank you, but thank you very much, because thanks to you my faith has become stronger … I see I'm on the right path." Of course. It is unreasonable to oppose so vehemently a people totally honest, hard-working, and given to peace—and yet the Bible says that such will exactly happen. How can it not serve to strengthen faith?

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/united-nations-soldiers-paedophilia-un-child-rape-ngo-staff-a7648791.html https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/un-isn-t-doing-enough-to-tackle-its-sexual-abuse-epidemic-former-staff-agree/ @Srecko Sostar

This is remarkable to me—the assumption that there is an obligation to patiently hear out and respond to anyone’s complaints. Let us assume that 4Jah2Me has a complaint (I mean, he was DF’d (I think) for something) that he pushes and pushes and pushes to the point where he gets tossed out of the JW organization. He then engages TTH on the WNMF, pushing his complaint here, and simply assumes that TTH will open the door that elders have shut—patiently hearing him out and providing satisfaction after those unknown elders have demonstrated by their discipline (that he has rejected) that it cannot be done. It’s not happening on my watch. What! This is a courtroom for malcontents to conduct cross-examination? I’ll respond and provide “actual information” any way I like. What is the purpose of this forum? As far as I am concerned, it is the purpose of anyone who carries the ball. JW.org has a purpose. Tomsheepandgoats.com has a purpose. AlanF’s blog (I think he has one) undoubtedly has a purpose. But this one? @admin is not a Witness, nor I think anyone to whom religion is a top concern. His purpose is to indulge a hobby, keep abreast and comment on current events, and generate some advertising revenue. He has several times weighed in to the effect that he is dismayed and fed up with the quarreling that goes on here, but it is traffic, after all. Mostly he deals with other areas of his website. @The Librarian (that old hen) is a Witness that I have described as an avant-garde one. She posts things both controversial and non-controversial and I would not be surprised if she was once resolving a crisis of conscience, and though this forum, has steadily moved toward loyalty to God, instead of away like AlanF. She would probably like to see more adherence to topics, but in the end, I think she is happy to see a good witness given, and that cannot usually be done by letting malcontents control the agenda, though JWI does attempt it and sometimes succeeds. I could be wrong, but I think she is stuck with me, and she knows it. I may be a bad pupil, but after all, I am her pupil and I think she stands by me, even as she shakes her head sometimes. The purpose of this forum is whatever I want it to be when I have the ball—it is a human institution, and no more—and then others get the ball and the purpose becomes whatever they want it to be. Selfish? Sure—but why not? The unselfish channel for spiritual things is jw.org. “Please tell me what you don’t like about JW.org so I can smash you over the head with it,” say several obtuse opponents. I don’t think so. I’ll spill when and to the extent that I see fit. I am an apologist—not a “disgusting” one, like that fathead states, but one who strives to do what the word itself means—defends. The old hen only has two genuine Witnesses on the controversial threads that reliably comment, and one of them is a little bit squirrelly—which one is in the eye of the beholder. Then there is a second buttressing level of 4 or 5 persons who are solid, but they also have lives to lead and most of them disappear for weeks or months at a time. I don’t think she’s ever going to mess with JWI or I, because if she does, she has very little left to represent JWs and she becomes simply another undisguised apostate website—which I don’t think she wants. So we two set the “purpose” here to a large extent, and our intents are not the same. He takes the topic in one direction, and I wrestle it in another. Someone from the second tier will have to step up to the plate if either of us go and I don’t think they have the time. Nope. It is my forum here, now. It will do what I want it to until someone else takes the snap. Will that someone be AllenS, who (I think) resurrects himself at will with myriad names, all displaying the same unusual combination of qualities, even inspiring guesswork as to who he really is? Is he an informed, though paranoid and cantankerous, brother of undefined standing? Is he an opposer who wishes to make JWs look bad by posing as one and showing intolerance, incessant bickering, and unreasonableness? Is he a genuine brother so determined to shut down “apostasy” that he floods the site with such unpleasantness that anyone who doesn’t drink unpleasantness as the elixir of life will flee the scene? Who knows? But he has as much right as anyone to carry on as he does, until the Librarian tosses him, which she has done, but there is hardly any point because he just pops up in another alias. This is a lawless place. One must know that going in. Nobody really knows who’s who. AlanF, who surely must be one of the most unpleasant persons to ever walk the planet, has somehow picked up the notion that I am Vic Vomidog. With John Butler being “DFed” (says JWI—something I did not know), I am once more heading in the direction that 4Jah2Me is really a reincarnation of him. “Can’t you just accept me as me?” he says. No, I can’t. I mean, I can entertain the possibility, and I would rate it at about 60%—really quite high—but he surfaces with identical peculiar reasonings and even some exact words of John B, so I reserve the possibility that they may be the same. It’s a frontier. It’s lawless. Someone else said that it is exhilarating operating in such an atmosphere, and I like that characterization. Still, it sure does consume time, and it would probably do ME good to get tossed.

Humor does not universally translate even to those who do have a sense of humor, let alone to those who do not.

Isn’t saying that you can err the same as saying you don’t know?

When I knew even less than I do now, I mentioned to my son that China, having just emerged from Maoist peasant and dark ages, was starting to throw its weight around and aspire to greatness. He, who lives among countries of the old Yugoslavia and keeps up with world history more than I do, replied that China has always regarded itself as a great nation, and is merely reasserting its greatness, having at last thrown off the deliberate Western sabotage of the 20th century. Long ago a friend of mine tried to follow Angie’s recipe for delicious sauce. He didn’t know what a clove was, so he figured it must be another word for the bulb. When he phoned Angie to report that the sauce tasted funny, she laughed so hysterically that she could be heard without the phone. You could not approach my pal for days. I am not so devious as you suggest. I didn’t think it through. I merely highlighted some words of yours quickly to connect my thoughts with yours. To show that I am not in a conspiracy to suppress your words: There. Happy? Going back 100 years to harangue about a failed anticipation does not interest me so that I should scheme to hide it. I have plainly stated that there were some closely succeeding dates back then that were like when you miss the nail with the hammer, and in frustration, swing several times more, again missing each time. Besides, I wrote the book on how to predict the end. If people would pay attention to my research that I have presented here and on my own blog, we could nail down that sucker to within an hour or two: https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2011/05/how-to-predict-the-end-of-the-world.html

Yes, @Arauna, an excellent challenge for you. Put each “joke” under the microscope. Analyze it with critical thinking skills to PROVE that it is funny or not funny. Just think how enriched your life will be! It is like when I watch Colbert. I do not just laugh because the plebeians are laughing—what do they know? It might be a trap. I run each joke into the lab for a bevy of tests. If I determine thereby using science that it was funny, I laugh my sides off. If you actually read things before you worked on your rebuttal, you would see that @Arauna‘s comment has nothing to do with chronology. It has to do with political developments that she has in position to know that will make you wish the end had come, even should you be on the wrong side.

The last few comments have referenced “the end,” but they have missed the most obvious sign. As you know, Jehovah’s Witnesses take a few years to work their way through the Bible via assigned chapters. This week we consider Revelation chapters 1-3. The end will come in about two months. It would be too inconvenient to make them start all over again from the Genesis beginning. Call THAT not bringing in anything useful?

On the contrary. It is the only beneficial use of space here, with a couple of caveats.

Curse that Alan idiot, anyway! We had a perfectly nice forum of lunatics and he had to spoil it all! ”How is your progress today, TrueTom?” my bevy of psychiatrists asked me at my last appointment. “Are you reintegrating with normal society? A little more progress, and we’ll let you go.” ”Um......uh......well you see.....there was this buffoon who was wrong on the internet....”