TrueTomHarley

Now, now. “If it is not perfect, it is filthy,” does not fly with me. Go argue it with Billy.

Ray Franz made it seem that way, too, much to the annoyance of those interviewing him. This is after he had departed from Bethel and had written many bad things about them, but he thought this topic was far overhyped. Nonetheless, I take your point, and have stated that those brothers wishing to portray it as though CSA could never ever occur within the Christian organization have inadvertently caused that organization much reputational damage, above and beyond anything to do with the crimes themselves. https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/04/lessons-to-be-learned-re-child-sexual-abuse.html I am told by an elder of about 40, who is a relative, that these days elders strongly urge parents to report cases of abuse (only to find that many are reluctant) I accept this as the way things currently are, since this person was completely unaware of my interest in the subject or of anything I had written.

John says: Billy the Kid (born Henry McCarty September 17 or November 23, 1859 – July 14, 1881, also known as William H. Bonney) was an American Old West outlaw and gunfighter who killed eight men before he was shot and killed at age 21. You say: (from history.com) “Just how many men Billy the Kid killed is uncertain. Billy himself reportedly once claimed he had killed 21 men-“one for every year of my life.” A reliable contemporary authority estimated the actual total was more like nine-four on his own and five with the aid of others. Other western outlaws of the day were far more deadly. John Wesley Hardin, for example, killed well over 20 men and perhaps as many as 40.” I say: Come, come. I cannot be everywhere. I have to think about God. You two get together on this. Just how many did he kill?

The present policy of God’s organization is not to “taste” apostasy. I would never say that that is wrong. In fact, it is all but required by the Scriptures, such as at Matthew 11:19–they criticize you no matter what you do, so pay them no mind, and press full speed ahead. Or “Let them be. Blind guides is what they are.” That is why I am a bad boy for hanging out here. However, just because a policy is right does not mean that there may not be a significant downside to it. As it is, many of our young have succumbed to the oldest temptation in the world, going where they have been advised not to, like the cat that curiosity killed. There they find material that they have never seen before. It is material that is mostly misrepresented, but they do not see how—some of it is presented convincingly. It strikes a chord with some of them. Ideally, parents or other older ones should be able to show them how it has been misrepresented and what is wrong with it, but they cannot because they don’t know what is there themselves—they have not “tasted” apostasy. That’s why I could see @Anna‘s point when she said that she kept on top of “apostate” things, lest one fine day her teenage son ask about them and she is not able to do more than say, “Don’t go there!” which the opposers unfailingly spin as evidence of trying to keep the kid in a “cult.” As it is, last I heard, the kid is happily serving as a regular pioneer, has never displayed any interest in such things, and says: “Mom, what’s with all this goofy stuff that you read?” But he is not everyone.

This speaks to what non-biased journalists have pegged as JWs greatest problem—the religion is “insular”—and almost by definition, “insular” does not spill. The trick will be to shed the negative aspects of “insularity” without sacrificing its positive aspects. After all, being “insular” and being the required “no part of this world” are practically the same. The very purpose of insulation is to separate what is desirable from what is harmful. The verse I think of is 1 Corinthians 5:9-10: In my letter I wrote you to quit mixing in company with fornicators, not [meaning] entirely with the fornicators of this world or the greedy persons and extortioners or idolaters. Otherwise, you would actually have to get out of the world.” The latter is impossible. The former is mandated. The trick will be to merge the two.

Excerpt: In fact, certain persons cannot go ‘beyond the law’ with impunity. A doctor in the U.S. absolutely dare not go beyond the HIPPA law ensuring confidentiality; it is a meticulously enforced law, leading some to wish that more major crimes were so quickly avenged. Three confidential relationships are bedrock to Western law: confidentiality of doctor-patient, lawyer-client and clergy-penitent,36 for none of these relationships can work without the expectation of confidentiality. If law is not written otherwise, it is illegal to go beyond the law in such cases. Without a clear legal mandate, a Witness elder cannot go ‘beyond the law’ because the default law says he cannot violate confidentiality in matters where the wronged individual would prefer it so. Geoffrey Jackson of the Witness Governing Body three times pleaded for such a consistent mandate across all territories before the Australian Royal Commission to Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse mentioned above. When it was his turn to testify, he said:37 Jackson: “Thank you for the opportunity to explain this. I think very clearly Mr. Toole pointed out that if the Australian Government, in all the States, was to make mandatory reporting, it would make it so much easier for us.” … Jackson: “The point being, here, another aspect that an elder needs to consider is he does not have the authority to lord it over or take over control of a family arrangement, where a person—let’s say it is a victim who is 24 or 25 years of age—has a right to decide whether or not they will report that incident. They also respect the family arrangement that the appointed guardian, who is not the perpetrator, has a certain right, too. So this is the spiritual dilemma that we have, because at the same time, we want to make sure that children are cared for. So if the government does happen to make mandatory reporting, that will make this dilemma so much easier for us, because we all want the same goal—that children will be cared for properly.” … Council Assisting (Stewart): “Leaving aside the question of overriding mandatory law from the civil authorities, do you see the possibility within the scriptures as you have identified them for a change in the practice of Jehovah’s Witnesses? In other words, would it be within the scriptures for the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization to adopt a policy which says that in cases where there are others at risk, a report must be made to the authorities?” G Jackson: “That is a possible thing for us to consider, and I think, already, the assumption is there, that if any elder was to see that there was some definite risk, that their conscience should move them to do that. But the point I was trying to make, Mr. Stewart, is there are other scriptural factors that maybe make that a little complicated, and it would certainly be a lot easier if we had mandatory laws on that.” He is pleading for sanity to prevail. Sometimes reporting is mandated. Sometimes it is not mandated, and in such cases, Witness elders run legal, even moral, risks in doing it. Where not mandated, they are not free to override concerns of family members if they choose not to report; yet they are held to account if a victimized one, years later, regrets that decision, and blames, not the family members who made it, but the elders themselves. Sometimes, doing their best to navigate a maze, our people have likely stumbled. Other times, the maze itself has tripped them up. Jackson pleads for an across-the-board policy, with no room for misunderstanding or misapplication, so that it won’t matter if a given family wants to avoid airing its dirty laundry on the 11 PM News. Even today, families do not line up to do that, whether religious or not. If going beyond the law is so laudable, then that should become the law. With the prioritized, near-sacred quest of protecting children, one would think nothing could be easier. Failure to go ‘beyond the law’ is an invitation to Monday morning quarterbacks assigning motives, invariably bad ones, to parties they don’t like. However, in most things legal, careers are built on complexity. They are all undermined when the course is made simple. The reader will have noted by now, and may even have been an exasperated by, this author’s disdain of the greater world for being so disunited; it has never presented itself otherwise, he or she might note. When the agency says “United Nations” and even affixes the Isaiah quotation about nations beating swords into plowshares, it is just joking. It is not to be taken seriously. It is just dreaming of an ideal it knows full well is unattainable. This author must be forgiven because he comes from a people who have pulled it off. He comes from where they are not just joking about such things and where the dream has become reality. Unity among Jehovah’s Witnesses is a commonplace and unremarkable fact. It is not in the Witness world that one hand plants the seed which produces the plant that the other will eventually have to uproot. So the following is admittedly sarcastic—which is risky because Thomas Carlyle said sarcasm is the language of the Devil. Forgive me. The Devil made me do it. Here is my fictionalized hearing with the commissioner, not speaking specifically of Australia, but for the overall world: Lead Commissioner: “Mr. Jackson, I hope that you people will straighten up and fly right and cooperate more fully with what we are trying to do. I emphasize the word “trying,” Mr. Jackson, because we are terrible at it and the overall track record of the world would be laughably bad were it not so tragic. But our hearts are in the right place. “Mr. Jackson, I am impressed by your humility, your distress at what clearly is a problem, and your overall demeanor. We have so many people strutting their stuff about here and you almost can’t stand them. We appreciate your willingness to work with us and we hope we can further work with you along this line. “You have pleaded with us, Mr. Jackson, to make our policies the same across all territories, for that would make your job so much easier. It is a reasonable request. Unfortunately, Mr. Jackson, we cannot comply, though we would like to, because we represent squabbling and disunited governing entities that cannot collectively tie their own shoe. You would think it would be the easiest thing in the world to do what you request. Unfortunately, it is impossible. “And this is just one area. Don’t get me going about international efforts to fight child sexual abuse. Children in many third world countries are routinely abused every day without anyone at all to stand up for them. That’s because there is no money over there, and consequently, no interest. But we do have a lot of money here. “We have a request for you, Mr. Jackson. I know it’s a bit irregular, but can you take this off our hands for us? I have looked into your organized nature and have concluded that you could do it. Aren’t you the people who set up and take down your buildings of worship almost as easily as our people set up and take down Coleman tents? I know you do not have grandstanding politicians who will push and shove to do whatever will keep them in their jobs, and that you can focus on the real issues, undistracted by personal agendas. I know you can separate the truly worrisome pedophiles from the run-of-the-mill ones, who appear to be almost everyone. I know too, that you care about poor people just as much as you care about well-off people. Listen, we just want to save our kids here, and we think that if we funneled all reports to you, you would be able to handle keeping a centralized list and handle its distribution. I know it is not your main line, but surely you can devote a committee to it. Ten of your people are worth 10,000 of ours because your people know how to work together and our people do not. The more people we add to our efforts, the more chaotic the overall picture gets. (in my dreams) from the book: Dear Mr. Putin - Jehovah’s Witnesses Write Russia

Are you suggesting that Billy is out to destroy the GB? I never thought of that.

JTR never responded to this. After he had made the charge that: “I was the subject of a Congregational Committee Trial once, and the three judging me REFUSED TO TELL ME THEIR NAMES.“ He never responded. JTR always responds. His responses are as dependable (and often as smelly) as a bear pooping in the woods. He has responded to many other things in the interim. It makes me think that I hit the nail on the head. If not directly on the head, then close enough. I strongly suspect his seemingly outrageous “mistreatment” that I have never heard of as happening anywhere before was somehow triggered by something outrageous on his part. And here he is trying to portray himself as a victim.

I have no idea. If he is, he certainly is not a typical one, that’s for sure. I don’t think that he is mentally sound. That does not mean that he is stupid. But both oars are somehow not in the water. It is just too weird to be as outrageous as he consistently is, picking fights with everyone.

It depends upon what you mean by insult. Alas, you tend to take the slightest reproof (which I have given you) as an insult. When Allan returned from one of his many banishments, I took the time to say (maybe someone with more patience than me can pull it from the pile) that he truly did bring much to the table, but he jeopardized his contribution by indulging his anger. ‘You cannot afford that luxury,” I told him. He was somewhat of a prickly character—who can say what makes a person what he is?—but he seemed to take that counsel to heart. It was some time before he got into hot water again, and as stated, we got along well afterwards, even though our exchange was mostly through DM. Had I ever rebuked him? No. Had I ever reproved him? Yes. Have I ever rebuked @JW Insider? Yes. Once, and he took it to heart. He said so, and I saw the difference that it made. It did not change his basic philosophy of telling whatever he has experienced. But once he stepped over the line to tell something (and no—it has nothing to do with CSA—don’t even go there, John) that would not be known otherwise—revealing a confidential matter that truly was confidential. And he has reproved me on different things, whether he knows it or not. Not quite a rebuke, but maybe that is coming someday. Have I ever rebuked you? Nothing like I am going to. It is outlandish how you let yourself get carried away by your anger. To the extent people accept you as a genuine member of the faith, it makes for a terrible witness. I’m not sure that JTR does worse. In fact, I think he does better, for it is very clear that he is way way out there as a Witness. He does not pretend to be representative of them.

All the same, you are not he, and that was my sole point. He was very nice to me. You are mean to me. That clinches it from my point of view.

Well...I will lend you some support on something that seems to be important to you. So many here seem to think that you are one of the Allans—he got all the way up to #30 something, advancing a number each time he got tossed out on his ear for getting too abusive (and he was right to object that others had been equally abusive and had not been disciplined, which @JW Insider pointed out even more than me, and on more occasions.) I used to point out that Allan made a significant contribution here—he proved the resurrection. I messaged him privately, or maybe he messaged me—I forget—and in the course of a very nice exchange, I gave him a copy of Tom Irregardless and Me, which he said nice things about, as well as nice things to me. So I don’t think that he was you at all. Hear that, @Witness, @JW Insider, @James Thomas Rook Jr., @JOHN BUTLERand others? He’s not the same guy. Billy is mean to me. Allan was not.

I would still think it over beforehand. I doubt that is so. You can always blow away a chipmunk with your sharpshooter.

I have altered posts after they have been commented on, but almost always it is for something minor—to plug in a better synonym, for example, or to smooth something out that was initially said too clumsily JTR has been caught in the crossfire of this once or twice, and he screams because he thinks that he is writing the Magna Carta. If he didn’t have such an itchy trigger finger and could wait a few minutes while I worked the bugs out, he wouldn’t find it pinched in a closing window. Technically, I should not do this and JTR is right to object to it. But it is hard for me to imagine it is such a big deal. If it were my defense before the Sanhedrin, that would be a different matter. There I might polish up every word beforehand.

Last I checked, they had not hacked into my bank account to take anything. It is others who try to do that, and that is why a simple command on my computer may takes seconds, even minutes to execute, due to security measures in place to thwart the theives.

Are you sure that you just didn’t leave your hearing aid home that day? Look, in the entire big wide world of theocratic doings, I would never say that such and such could never happen. What I can say is that it is nothing of which I have ever heard. Even Mark O (who blocked me), who cries how people are after him, even “high-level” people, and who is victim prima dona in some circles, does not allege that anyone is unnamed: https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/04/he-has-blocked-me-i-think-that-says-it-all.html In view of your astonishing disrespect and never-ending tirades, perhaps some extraordinary measures were resorted to, but even then, I can hardly imagine it. Why in the world would they withhold their names? It is not anything that we do. UNLESS, in view of your open enthusiasm for carrying weapons, they began to fear, rightly or wrongly, that they might be risking life and limb to be more candid. I mean, in the courts of law that you revere, steps can be taken to protect ones thought to be at risk from suspects supposed violent. Not so in the congregation, where they are unlikely to try to enlist a cop should they fear that someone might get ornery. When I worked a part time job that attracted some backward characters, and my immediate supervisor was fired (for explosively angry speech in front of all the customers), I later tried to get his job back for him—it was a crummy job and they used him shamelessly—‘the most selfish company in the world,’ one former manager told me, but it was all he had. Much as they liked me, they wouldn’t hear of it. They had locked down the HQ office for a week after firing him, fearing reprisals that never came. They were not necessarily overcautious to lock it down, either, for he did have a violent temper. He had legitimate things that could provoke it, but that does not mean that it did not exist. It is just speculation on my part to apply parallel perceptions to you, but in view of your love of guns and the crass way you sometimes express that love, it is one way to explain something that is otherwise inexplicable. If so (and if it is not this, it will be for some other good reason, because I have never heard of such a thing as unnamed judges, even though I have been around forever) it is rather like drawing a foul in basketball. Or it is like ones who carry on so outrageously that authorities finally deal with them with some harshness, after which they scream how they—lovable, harmless they—have been viciously attacked for no reason at all. I think of arrangements in the Law of various penalities for various offenses—if you had done this, then you were to do that as a penalty. But if you blew off the whole arrangement as nothing and simply refused to comply, you were put to death. I can picture allies of the lout back then misrepresenting things as someone being put to death for a relatively minor offense, whereas it is really being put to death for contempt toward the arrangements that God had put into place through Moses. Perhaps something akin to this was active in your case. I would not be surprised.

For the life of me, I don’t know why anyone would ever downvote a comment. I can easily see why one would upvote, but to downvote? It is like booing and hissing the villains when they appear on the stage. They’re villains. That is understood. Why the need of all the theatrics to boo and hiss?

The trick is not to deny that Jehovah’s Witnesses are a cult. The trick is to say that they are if and only if the Bible is a cult manual. If you accept the first bit of nonsense, then you must also accept the second. Srecko has done that, I think.

Since all these parables are explained in the context of working for kingdom interests—largely, in the preaching and disciple-making activity, I think this line translates into the “wicked” slave refusing to do that work and throwing it back in the Master’s face, as though to say: ”You want disciples? Then get off your lazy rear end and make them yourself!”

that old hen

Okay, time’s up. I am not rescinding that part of how judicial committees are superior to the world’s system of justice, even if you give me 100 likes. I mean, you must really really really give them a run for their money, if you are even the slightest bit there as you are here. Yes, maybe they should exert superhuman effort to discover that beneath your incendiary manner, there lies a loveable fuzz ball. However, I have exerted such effort and even i could not swear that it is the case. I mean, with me........ ”A better adjudicator.you never will find. If I was a griper who’d seen it all, being hailed by opposers both great and small, would I start weeping like a cesspool overflowing? or carry on as if my home were in a tree? Would I run off at the mouth, not knowing where I’m going? WELL, WHY CAN’T JTR... be like ME?”

What an accusation!! Have you no shame?

If I edit it out, can I count on your ‘like’? It is just a little blip tossed in at the end anyhow—hardly the main point.

I never comment on what the lawyers are up to because it is a tangled mess that they must operate in where justice does not necessarily prevail. The courts, particularly the civil courts, are not so much a forum to establish truth as they are a forum to establish blame. There is some overlap here, but they are far from the same thing. In a real forum for establishing truth, you lay out each and every fact, in no particular order, without regard for whether it makes you look good or not. If you do that in the courtroom modeled on the adversarial system of justice, your adversary sifts through the facts, seizes the one most to his advantage and your detriment, and beats you over the head with it. Is it not so? Anybody who has ever watched a lawyer show on television knows it. Lawyers themselves know it. “Anyone who acts as his own lawyer in court has a fool for a client,” they say. Why would they say this were it not common knowledge that there are endless headgames and intrigues played out in the courtroom, and anyone who does not know how to play the game gets his head handed to him on a platter. In many areas, a significant conflict of interest is enough for a person to be removed from the venue. In the field of lawyers, it is the name of the game. I would prefer my case heard by a judicial committee any day. No, they are not perfect. It is just that they have a better track record than the alternative.

And don’t think that you are springing any sneaky traps on anyone. Talk to my financial advisor, @Witness And then just link to the thread that already exists. I’m not about to reinvent the wheel here.