TrueTomHarley

Sometimes they do. Sometimes they wear belt buckles announcing that “God is With Us.” Sometimes they say, “God and Country!” and “My country—right or wrong!” Sometimes they see a cross in the sky and lead soldiers to their death on that basis. That’s because the ones most revered in popular press today do not believe in God. Duh. The only one who can “ruin your life” is you. Give it a rest, will you? Many are the ones who have let me down in my life. The most notable one is me. You pick up the pieces, thank God for the “discipline,” and move on. It makes you a better person if you are not constantly bellyaching at how others have “ruined your life.” Jehovah’s Witnesses are a cult if and only if the Bible is a cult manual. The modern organization practices the discipline as best they can that is laid out in that book.

Huh. I posted a reply in another thread to someone who also writes in purple, and it fits better here than it does there:

I cannot see why General Mills does not have all the food products that they have manufactured since 1879. What is the problem? What is with those liars, anyway? Too often when the scoundrels come up with something that they think will make Witnesses squirm, we accept their premise. In most cases, we should question it. Look at it very closely. It is often wrong. In this case it is that “spiritual food” should not change. Why should it not? It represents the light that grows brighter and brighter until full daylight, as in Proverbs 4:18. When you are “keeping on the watch” in light that is not so good, you see a lot of things that turn out to be wrong. This is not true if you are sitting on your rear end, not “keeping on the watch.” It is not true if one expects spiritual things to be delivered like Santa Claus delivers presents. But if one gets the sense of verses such as 1 Peter 1:10 about diligent inquiries, careful searches, keep on investigating, or Matthew 24–“let the reader use discernment”—then it is true. If one is doing what Jesus says, “Keep on the watch” in light that is insufficient, then it happens. It’s when people tire of it all that they start to log all the misses and near-misses. It is no more complicated than “Demas has forsaken me because he loved the present system of things” spun as though he is embarking on a lofty search for eye-opening truth. There is no reason that spiritual food should not change. “Spiritual food” resembles physical food in that it exists to be consumed. It powers you for the moment. It has a shelf life. Who here has items of physical food on the shelf from 50 years ago? It serves its purpose and it is gone. If General Mills stops selling Wheaties, it is not a conspiracy. It is not a ban on Wheaties. It is simply providing food more relevant to the present age. So it is with spiritual food. If HQ instructed ones to destroy all copies of the Aid book, for example, that would be a ban. But they don’t. They simply let things go out of print that are no longer relevant. Because infantile people who have tired of “keeping on the watch” because they have come to “love the present system of things” and who want to spin their previous “wasted” years as the fault of those who “misled” them, scour past publications to see anything that has changed and feed it into a wrong premise that it should not. They don’t do it with any other field of knowledge. They don’t do it with matters of science, which also reaches wrong conclusions and finds itself backing out of cul-de-sacs, or which hangs on to wrong conclusions for the longest time due to pure human stubbornness or greed. As much as half of what is currently published in medical journals is wrong, say the editors of some of them—let alone what was published in the past. They don’t go back (or even stay in the present) to criticize that. https://ethicalnag.org/2009/11/09/nejm-editor/

“Oh, that’s because I need some help with my anger issues, and I’m kind of lazy. Just ignore that.” It’s too much.

Well....I’m not getting ready for battle then. You’re not exactly the boogie woogie bugle boy from company B, you know.

Put this in a readable font and I will look at it

Books that have gone out of print are not “banned.”

I do not lament it .... it is exactly what I taught them from Kindergarten .... get on with your life, and never look back. In that case, the answer is to cry, even if he is not sensible enough to cry along.

And to think that the old boy laments that his ‘loyal Watchtower’ kids do not visit him, when he devotes his entire life to ridiculing and undermining that which they most hold dear. One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

This is a reference to a Caleb and Sophia video which would be seen as praiseworthy were it for any other cause. If Sophia had had an epiphany and donated her ice cream money to the ‘world hunger fund,’ or the ‘world peace fund,’ or the ‘save the planet fund’ or the ‘animal rescue fund’ or almost any charitable fund, the video would be lauded. It represents training a child that not everything is about her, and that used to be seen as a good thing. It is only because the malcontents here despise the Witness organization dedicated to the relief of ‘spiritual hunger’ that this video is so attacked. Were it for anything else, it would be lauded.

And why would they explicitly state not to use social media? What are they AFRAID of? Here is another reason that we stick with the anointed that we have—because there are other “anointed” out there who, not only are pure loons, but also requote the exact opposite of what was just stated. The only question that remains is whether they do it through deceit or mental blindness. They have not explicitly stated not to use social media. They have explicitly stated that they do not use it.

I have never counted any time spent “witnessing” on the internet. If I had, I would have been logging special pioneer hours for years. But I haven’t. It is respect for those taking the lead, who speak of many avenues of witnessing, but have never included the internet. It would be hard to draw a line of distinction with what constitutes “witnessing” anyway. Does telling the ol pork chop that he’s full of air constitute “witnessing?” This is just too stupid. It just is. It constitutes proof that we should stick with the anointed that we have, because their are some “anointed” out there that are pure loons. If ever the GB went on social media it would constitute a dramatically different new means of communication for them. We are to believe that they would do this without giving ample notice beforehand through trusted channels? Moreover, they have explicitly stated that they do not use social media. So what would Witness have us believe? That in the GB conference meeting, the other seven are saying: “You go, Steve! Never mind what we told them! Pump up that FB stock! Why—your account alone will double the share value!”

Come come. That is you pretending to be him.

I have many times made the point that reckless hurling of the C-word inspires the unstable crazies to take matters into their own hands. https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/01/the-anti-cultists-are-directly-responsible.html

That’s a lot of work to syphon out the liars. That’s not to say it is not a good idea, nor that it is any more time-consuming than what I do. It is just that few people have that kind of time. Most people take news from one or two sources, often the evening TV news for people our age, and pretty well accept that they are being told the truth. Usually they are, but it is not “the whole truth and nothing but the truth”—which can completely turn things around. At one pioneer meeting the elder conducting it was highlighting the importance of neutrality, and never to give the impression of taking sides. “Now we all know that Trump is crazy,” he said, “but.......” I would stake my life on it that his only source of news is the evening news of one of the three networks. I was relatively up in years before I discovered to my surprise that my (non-Witness) Dad cared hardly at all about politics. Many were the political discussions swirling around the dining room table, as I was growing up, when the extended family was gathered. However, it turned out that my Mom’s father was very much a GOP person and would crank on about it endlessly, and my Dad was just too gracious to tell him to zip it—it was his father-in-law, after all, who his wife liked.

Come to think of it, they were “Far Side” chickens.

BTW, this month is ‘space month’ at PBS. ‘American Experience’ has some excellent documentaries on the space race. It even shows cars of that vintage.

I’m told it was staged in your back yard. The chickens running on the horizon is the giveaway

It never occurred to me that this statement would provoke such a response. What is your take? That JWs all think the moon landing was staged?

As near as I can tell, Jehovah’s Witnesses buy into conspiracy theories in no greater proportion than the general population. It is a little surprising, since they have become privy to the greatest conspiracy theory of all—that involving “false religion.” As for me, I find myself nibbling at the edges, and in some cases accepting them. If I follow anything on Twitter, I make a point also of following its polar opposite. Sometimes i find the polar opposite point of view to be represented much more persuasively than the common wisdom.

Do you mean that commercial company founded by the frat boy whose original purpose was to rate women by their outward physical attributes—their “faces?” Look, I am prolific on commercial media, too, but I don’t try to elevate it as a vehicle for the Lord GOD of Hosts. It is just me spouting opinions, some of which I hope are worthwhile.

Here is a prosecutor who says when he was investigating yet another charge against Epstein years ago, Trump was the only one among high-profile people who responded to his requests for information: https://truepundit.com/trump-was-only-one-to-help-prosecutor-in-2009-epstein-case/

You ridiculous woman! Those, too, are easily gleaned from remarks already made. The only reason that “we two have come to a standstill” is because you don’t have the sense to acknowledge an answer when given. You simply repackage one of your complaints and run it through again—as you are doing here, ever breathing life into corpses that have been buried. I did though, didn’t I? My goal was to find out if there was anything that you believed in other than that the current GB was doing it all wrong, while somehow keeping you and the other “true” anointed prisoners in the abyss. And when I did ask questions to that end, you immediately took it as evidence that I was finally coming around to view you as the true teacher! It was unbelievable! How can eight ‘false’ anointed so hamstring the countless ‘real’ anointed?—for the one thing that I did learn from the exchange is that you hold there are countless real anointed, not at all the limited number JWs point to. Send the eight out into the wilderness, forget they ever existed, and use your overwhelming numbers to feed the sheep yourselves, if that is the case. The reason that you cannot draw them in, in the spirit of Haggai 2:7. (And I will shake all the nations, and the precious things of all the nations will come in) is that you have no “in” for them to come into. Your “in” is no more than tirades that the GB is wrong. You don’t actually do anything otherwise, or at least nothing that you have identified. They, on the other hand, have a considerable “in,” which you do nothing but disparage. Say anything about deeds of the organization, and you say “Who needs deeds? Who needs organization? Just believe in the Lord Jesus.” Say it already: “Just believe on the Lord and go to the church of your choice.” Your hate-filled diatribes against the GB (as opposed to JTR’s, which are crass and insulting, but seldom if ever hate-filled) even earn you rebukes from the Librarian (that old hen) from time to time, whereas I have only been rebuked by her once, mostly unwillingly since it was Admin’s displeasure that triggered it, and that was her own fault for putting me on a thread I didn’t want to be put on in the first place, “TrueTom vs the Apostates” and, come to think of it, you were one of the apostates, but in hindsight, I am glad that she did it because I built that exchange into a book called “TrueTom vs the Apostates” and made use of that rebuke in the very first chapter: https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/01/confrontation-atop-gotham-tower-1.html So ridiculous woman that you may be, I owe you a significant creative debt.

That mutt has a lot more artistic and business savvy than I was aware of.

Why should you use that logic here? You reject it in its proper setting.