TrueTomHarley

1 minute ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

One thing that lends credence to the idea that Jehovah's Witnesses really are God's people is how well we do IN SPITE of the Governing Body ... not because of it.

No. This remark just reflects your personal orneriness and incessant faultfinding.

It is the humanity that they spring from that is the problem. They work mightily to apply the scripture in their own lives even as they recommend it to others. It is hard for them to make headway in the face of ones like you. Fortunately, you are in the minority (even if the majority here).

John carries on that if something is not perfect, then it is filthy. He doesn’t like the GB. Nor do you. He apparently wants a person or persons whose credentials and calling are as uncontested as they were with Moses. He neglects the fact that his (and your) counterparts back then did nothing but whine about Moses, also.

1 hour ago, Srecko Sostar said:

You wrote interesting things in comment. 

So do you. 

If we accept that the Bible is God’s prime method of communication to humans (which I do), sooner or later we are struck by the fact that very little of it is lecture. In contrast, if you went to college, almost all of it is lecture. What to make of this?

Much of the New Testament, not only is not lecture, but is ostensibly not even written for us. It largely consists of letters written to other parties, from which we glean things about God, his thinking, and his dealings. What to make of this, too?

When I mentioned this before and how it had influenced me, Srecko tried to bait me, asking whether I considered myself inspired like the apostle Paul (who wrote the majority of the letters). The answer is no. However, I am inspired by his example. If it is good enough for him (and for God, apparently, because it is included in the Bible canon) why should it not be good enough for me? It inspired in my blog an entirely new category: Skirmishes.

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/05/skirmish-970621-vastly-simplified-tracts-.html

They are not all from this board. Some are from boards that are private. When they are, I do not reveal anything specific of the writer, but only my reaction to it. John will pop a vein over this, but in all cases they merely come from people who do not want to have their 15 minutes of fame before the whole wide world. In no cases are they “the smoking gun” that he strives so mightily to locate. The true smoking popguns are to be found here.

He should consider a Hercule Poirot observation from one of the Christie novels—that in the course of a murder investigation, everyone gets cagey and evasive. The initial conclusion is that they all are somehow complicit, if not guilty of the crime investigated, but really it is because they do not want to explain other things that they were doing that have nothing to do with the crime but they had no intention of going public with—things that they imagined (usually correctly) were none of anyone’s business.

1 minute ago, JW Insider said:

That sounds like a Saturday Evening Post article. 9/14/40. I bought it on eBay, and will read it again to refresh my memory about what it said re Covington.

Look Magazine....what was I smoking?

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

I don’t like the present series of tracts, but that does not mean that they are no good. I am very far from being typical. 

This is my own personal bitching thread, after which I will get back to my normal supportive self, with only occasional caveats.

What nettles me about the tracts, and many other things, is how we go on and on and on about what a blessing from on high they all are, as though THIS Item is the magic bullet that will turn the preaching work on its head, exactly what is needed at this particular time— and doubtless it will completely energize the work and swarms will thereby be attracted to the truth.

I wish we wouldn’t do that. I wish we would just say “Here’s a new tool. We worked hard on it. Give it a try and see how it works.” I even think that our failure to do it that way is where a lot of the underlying conception that the JW organization is “smug” comes from.

15 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Don't remember the quote about Covington in Look magazine. But I've heard that claim from somewhere.

Probably me. 

It drives me crazy—searching and searching in vain for something that you think you remember well.

This was a multi-page article, uncharacteristically favorable to JWs, in one of the large and now defunct (or so altered that it might as well be) glossy newsmagazines that I strongly remember as Look, but maybe, just maybe, it was Life or Saturday Evening Post. (I’ll probably find it someday in Popular Mechanics.)

The first paragraph or two was in the setting of some huge international convention, back in the days where there would only be one in a given year. The author framed it as threatening skies that looked like preparations would be for naught, but the brothers toiled on oblivious, as though confident that all would turn out well. And it did. Just before the convention was to begin, the skies cleared and the program got underway with nary a hitch.

5 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Olin Moyle, the previous Watchtower attorney

I have never heard of this fellow. What’s with him?

I read once in Look Magazine (if you know of it, please please please cite the issue) that Covington was unique in that he could “sass” the Supreme Court Justices and get away with it. Did Moyle argue any before the Supreme Court?

16 hours ago, Outta Here said:

Don't underestimate the power of a tract to spark a fire in an honest heart that cannot be put out .

I don’t like the present series of tracts, but that does not mean that they are no good. I am very far from being typical. Nobody on this forum that claims to be a Witness is typical. I’m just carrying on some because I would love to see the ministry more fruitful that what it seems to me to be.

I and many others here write more in a day that most people write in a month. So I can hardly expect the tracts to cater to me. The last CO cited figures from somewhere that the average youngster today spends 7 minutes with print (as opposed to 10 hours or so on some form of screen time) Going simple is obviously the way to go. The fact that I do not like it does not mean that it is not just the ticket for reaching the majority. Education is usually a last-place priority in today’s world. 1/6 of the world’s population cannot read. Most people barely know that these persons exist, and count them as nothing. Watchtower produces simplified versions of material already written simple so as to reach them. 

I defend the use of (vastly) simplified writing, even as I do not personally like it. “They can learn to read a few grade levels beneath them, if they are not too full of themselves,” is a line I put somewhere. I’ve learned to work around what is unpalatable to me, telling the high-brow people to consider this or that bit of writing as an outline, nothing more. Or telling them to not worry about whether this or that in the Bible is literal, but instead to take it as a metaphor and see if they can discern the underlying meaning of it. Mathematicians do something similar all the time: assume that this or that condition is true just to see where that assumption leads them. If it proves fruitful, then they come back and reconsider any initial objection to it.

Just after 911, when people were unusually subdued, I grabbed that tract ‘Who Really Rules the World’ and had several good discussions with it. I’ve always liked Luke 4 for its clear explanation of Jesus declining Satan’s offer of gov’t control but acquiescing that it lay in his power to make the offer. Yes. There is a place for tracts.

Everyone here beefs about everything under the sun, so I have joined in on what is our main mission—the ministry.  I probably shouldn’t. It really is true that ‘bad association spoils useful habits.’ I’ll put it all on this thread and then do my best to zip it. The Bible is not a template for democracy, with every Tom Dick and Harry telling HQ how it ought to be.

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

So I'm not always silly and I'm not exactly mentally ill, but I am a bit of a dog then  

 Even Jesus used an expression for dogs, softening it to “little dogs”—puppies. That’s probably what I had in mind.

3 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

So whereas you may like to say I have mental illness and am iinfantile

Having dispensed with the second part of this, let me go to the first.

I did not say that you were mentally ill. I have said that any mental health professional would say that the type of thinking that you were displaying at the moment (most typically “all or nothing” thinking) is unhealthy. That is not the same thing.

You also have to realize that I do not regard mentally ill as a pejorative label, and more than I would regard diabetic as one.

52 minutes ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

Quomodo enim tu loqueris de vero Deo?

I gave an upvote here, and everyone knows that I am stingy with them. I don’t think I have ever given a downvote.

My upvote is conditional. I am assuming that little bit of Latin does not translate into “TrueTom is a fink.”

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

So Tom, did you grant the GB leadership ?

Yes. When I signed on many years ago. They didn’t sneak up out of nowhere. Their role was known to me and everyone else from Day 1.

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

My personal opinion is that the GB are not that 'Jew' .  So i haven't 'granted those persons that leadership'. 

That is why you are not a Witness. Everything is exactly as it should be. Given how you feel, you have done exactly as you should. 

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

Maybe you should consider what exactly a person is taught when they start having a 'Bible study' with JW's.

Yes. Every Witness takes about a year to do that, studying and trying things on for size. Throughout, they are in their familiar home environment and routine. Perhaps 5% of their time is spent in unfamiliar surroundings. 

College is far more “manipulative” than anything with a Witness connection. Students are typically separated 24/7 from their former stabilizing routine, environment, and family—a classic tool of those who would brainwash. Plus, if you study with Jehovah’s Witnesses, you know full well that you are going off the grid—the very opposite of what brainwashers do. Going to college, on the other hand, is no more controversial than seeking good healthcare.

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

Many of the books that have been used as study books are now long gone and would cause embarrassment to 'modern day' JW's. The GB hide this by saying they have 'new light'.  

You keep playing this as though it were your trump card, the coup de grace—as though it was something meant to be hidden. They are very open about it. They have called it “tacking.” As you say, they have called it “new light.” Don’t you think that means there used to be “old light?”

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

So whereas you may like to say I have mental illness and am infantile

Not usually. Maybe never. I said that your last bit of reasoning was infantile. I said that because it was. I didn’t say you were. 

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

Do you really think it is the aim of most on here to totally destroy the JW Org  ?

Not totally, no. No one here, to my knowledge, is calling for anyone’s execution. It is what they stand for that is the target. Everyone knows that. 

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

Will you ever say on here, “you know, you’ve raise a good point there.” 

Not everything that you say is silly. I have acknowledged that some points you have raised are valid.  Not always to your face, because you are such a pit bull. But I have put them in other writings.

39 minutes ago, Witness said:

Jesus must be appalled....”The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Pet 3:9

“but, to you who suffer tribulation, relief along with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels in a flaming fire, as he brings vengeance upon those who do not know God and those who do not obey the good news about our Lord Jesus.” 2 Thess 1:7-8

I’m not one to pound verses like this to death, but there is something to be said for not misrepresenting scripture, particularly when you claim to own it, presume to explain it for everyone else’s benefit, and quote it more than everyone else here combined.

34 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

My first name I chose for the forum was the "Bible's Advocate" ....So at the last minute I changed my name to "JW Insider" without really thinking through how it might sound to other

In the spirit of full disclosure:

I wanted my online name to be just Tom Harley, but I found that it was already taken on various platforms. So I thought of RealTomHarley, but I didn’t want to be confused with Trump. So I settled on TrueTomHarley.

It has a certain ring to it that squares with us referring to the faith as “the truth,” but I did not choose it for that reason.

2 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

TTH's main problems seem to be that they do basically worship the GB / JW Org / Watchtower, and therefore will not have anything bad said against those things, even if the criticism is constructive and true. 

This is so silly. It is so infantile. 

Every project needs leadership. Once you grant persons that leadership, you refrain from undercutting them at every step. Why in the world should that be so hard to understand?

You don’t set 15 rows back and swipe at the bus driver, “you missed that turn, you could have avoided that pothole, you hit the brakes too hard, why didn’t you know there was a roadblock ahead?” You know that the roads are poorly maintained, that the route is unfamiliar, and that the weather is terrible.”

There are any number of things I am not crazy about with regard to the theocratic organization. If you read with any sort of critical skills you would know that. That does not mean that when I appear on a forum where the majority seek its destruction and level one attack on it after another, I will say “you know, you’ve raise a good point there.”

The suggestion to lead with a scripture is not something original on my part. From time to time it has been suggested by the theocratic organization. I have run with it as a staple more than is usually emphasized, but the idea is not mine. I mean, how can it be going off on one’s own tangent by leading with a scripture? If one finds that it works well. one tends to do it more and more, and that has been the case with me.

Similarly, the working with the video ‘Would You Like Good News’? which leads to the ‘Good News From God’ table of contents & the invitation to the householder to choose any one he/she likes was not my idea at all. That came from the circuit overseer on his last visit. I was at almost every meeting for field service and he worked to make us all familiar with how videos could be used. Not once did he mention the current CLAM presentation of ‘Where are the Dead?’ Was he going off on his own tangent & thinking he knew better than God’s organization? No, he is just showing that there are a lot of ways to present the good news and he was putting emphasis on a method that works well.

Q: Recently I went out with one of our elders and was a little disappointed when he was only delivering tracts. He was not trying to initiate conversation at all. 

Q2: Different ones will often fall back on old habits, even bad ones (and even Elders).

Q2, I am going to be very very bold here and suggest that if he is merely offering tracts and making no effort to start conversations it is because he finds the suggested presentations cumbersome and awkward, and he would benefit by trying the scripture-first or the video one. I mean, he is an elder. He wants to be seen taking the lead. Everyone varies the pace and settings vary, as does one’s mood on any given day. Yet limiting one’s ministry to offering tracts with no effort to converse is faithful, but it is not taking the lead, and unless I am very mistaken, his conscience is letting him hear about it (unless he has switched into auto-pilot, turning it off.)

One disadvantage of some of the CLAM presentations is that they require getting one’s head around. They require preparation. One advantage of the scripture-first or the Would You Like to Hear Good News presentation is that they do not—to just read a verse with a sentence or two as to why you chose it is not hard. We all know the experience of working with a new presentation and the first householder or two becomes a lab rat while we work the bugs out. The problem is gone with scripture or video first.

Q3: I also try to talk about something that is interesting to any person, to cite a scripture and direct the person to our website at the end of the presentation

Yes. Whatever works. By all means give the suggested presentations a try, even a workout if you like, but don’t feel that they must be adhered to in order to be following Jehovah’s direction. 

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

And i presume you know it was YHWH or actually HWHY  as the Hebrew writings were from right to left. 

Around here it is my way or the HWHY, John. Get used to it. 

The Librarian (that old hen) like me better than you.

2 hours ago, derek1956 said:

Did you Know Jehovah is God`s Name or do you not use  the Name of Almighty Jehovah?

 

Like cultured people fleeing a fart in the concert hall, they can’t get it out of their Bibles quick enough.

2 hours ago, JW Insider said:

She gave the name of a few of these medicines, so I started looking them up, and it turned out that quality statistics were more problematic (and lethal) when these same medicines were USA manufactured.

Hmmm. Is the lesson here to run like mad when the nurse comes with meds because they may be made in China...

or to run like double-mad because they may not?

FD: I am not a fan of too many meds, having had not so good experiences:

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2017/04/should-pharma-be-expected-to-cut-its-own-throat.html

On 5/22/2019 at 11:19 PM, JW Insider said:

Similarly, the fact that China has rolled out so much true 5G is going to make it hard for US companies to claim that they were the 5G pioneers 

It may be just as well. The same people who carry on about chemical & pharmaceutical & food pollution also carry on about 5G, far more intense than 4G, and impossible to get away from.

Watch those Chinese to see if they light up.

On 5/22/2019 at 11:19 PM, JW Insider said:

To reduce interest and international competition, the USA once simply relied on the claim that China only "steals" US and Western technology,

I hear this so often from businesses themselves, not just the government, that I accept it as true. That doesn’t mean that, having done so, they might not use whatever intellectual property they have hijacked to build upon.

I also think it will be a difficult point to negotiate away. If what I know about communism is true, there is no private intellectual property, nor private property of any sort. The property of one person is in theory the property of all.

5 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

My name here is EXACTLY as shown on my birth certificate, my home mortgage, my Publisher's Record Card, how I am known in the Congregation 

I do respect that for the sake of showing guts. I really do.

5 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

actually, casually it is Tom Rook

I would appreciate it if you would go by James. Or, just tell me if you insist upon Tom and I will go to James.

I am really curious. Can it really be, with you being so open and all, that you have triggered no sanctions in the congregation? You never let on that you have, one time relating a current field service experience when you were packing a gun and the sisters  commented how they should fell safe.

As deliberately as offensive, accusatory, and outrageous as you are—have you truly never heard about it?

As an experiment, I am going to quote a Bible passage that was recently cited on our weekly program. See if you can spot the words I have cleverly substituted (look very hard).

Looking intently at the Sanʹhe·drin Paul said: “Men, brothers, I have behaved before God with a perfectly clear conscience down to this day.”  

At this the high priest An·a·niʹas ordered those standing by him to strike him on the mouth.  

Then Paul said to him: “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall. Do you at one and the same time sit to judge me in accord with the Law and, transgressing the Law, command me to be struck?”  

Those standing by said: “Are you reviling the high priest of God?”  

And Paul said: “You lying son of a b***h! I’ll revile you if I want, you odious fool! Your mother’s midwife probably slapped her instead of you!!!”

There. Did you catch it? Honestly, why don’t you be more like Paul actually was?

6 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

, i just walk on by. 

Not everyone does. The notion of living a happy life (see above photo) does not strike many as being such a bad thing. There are many people who do not have it at all and it is not necessarily clear to all where it is to be found, or even if it is to be found.

Some will be curious as to what is our formula for it. They may or may not cotton to what they read but it can hardly be a horrendous thing to offer it for their examination.

1 hour ago, Matthew9969 said:

. Is this just a easy cop out for those jw's who are afraid to talk about their belief?

 It is what a congregation is apt to do if they want to participate in cart witnessing but there is little foot traffic anywhere in their assigned territory. They always opt for foot traffic whenever it is available.  I think it is being phased out due to exactly the concerns you mentioned. It always did strike me as a little silly and not too effective.

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

mentioning a person's mental health once again.

Perhaps it is appropriate here. When you single-mindedly hone in on one and one thing only,  time and time and time again, and you ignore much greater examples of that evil in any other place, I think it becomes an appropriate possibility to float.

That does not mean that there is any shame in it, necessarily, any more than in any other type of health woe—unless you actively aggravate it, like the fellow with bad arteries who stuffs himself full of chips.

“My territory is part of a large metro area and is apathetic and unintested. Middle class suburb that has achieved the American dream.”

Karen, you never know. Recently my wife and friend approached people at the service station. Her friend’s first contact was dismissive. So was my wife’s first contact. But the second person her friend spoke with said, “I think you must have been sent to me.” He spoke of his  16-year-old daughter who is trying to help a friend and it is starting to take a toll on her. “Well, we do have a website that offers a lot of practical help and...” my wife’s friend began and showed the magazine online Is Life Worth Living, which greatly interested the man. It turned out that my wife had a paper copy (they were working separately) and the friend sent her niece (they were a threesome) back to see if the fellow wanted it. (He did) “I know how hard it is to be 16,” the 16-year old niece said. 

The day prior my wife was making return visits with another sister who didn’t have any so my wife was pulling out all the stops. Being right in the area, she stopped in where a once seemingly interested woman had told her not to return because the boyfriend was opposed. “Maybe the creepy boyfriend has moved out,” my wife said. She spoke with the woman who answered the door, and got a puzzled expression on her face, and my wife realized that both of them had moved out and this was someone new. So she explained what she had been doing and the woman told her that her husband’s friend had just taken his life. This, too, made the magazine Is Life Worth Living? just the right food at the right time. 

These experiences are many. Don’t assume that the fancy suburbs are immune to them. They are not. The facades just hide the problems inside.  Do what you are doing, friendly as can be. If it is safe, work alone from time to time, with a companion just within sight, or even all by yourself—it helps you think of your ministry and nothing else. Don’t worry about English being your second language. If anyone puts you down for not being polished, agree with them. It is ordinary people that make up the congregations. It always has been. “For you behold his calling of you, brothers,” the apostle wrote at 1 Corinthians 1:26, “that not many wise in a fleshly way were called, not many powerful, not many of noble birth.” Say to whoever you must: “It would be nice to have sent someone smoother, but they are not available, so you are stuck with me.” 

What does Srecko or Jack have to offer on these matters? What might they reply? That there are agencies? That there are anti-depressants? People routinely fall through the cracks of sieve-like agencies, and they do not necessarily help long term (and sometimes even short) even when they are firing on all cylinders. What people need is a fresh way of thinking to help them cope, and a source of power greater than themselves. They may or may not grab hold of what we offer, but it is certainly well to offer it.

The JW year text for the present year is Isaiah 41:10: “Do not be anxious, for I am your God.” The year text of the greater world? So far as I can tell, it is “S**t happens. Maybe we can hold someone accountable and make them take responsibility.” I like ours better.

Last year it was “S**t happens. Maybe we can vote out these current turkeys and vote in a new crop of politicians who will fix things.” I forget what the JW one was for last year, but I do remember that I liked  it better.