TrueTomHarley

It is too early for @admin. He gets up late and then has to putz around for some time before checking the mail. I’ll answer for him. As Monk says, he’ll thank me later.

Somewhat reluctantly, he finds himself hosting a religious JW forum, though he is not that way himself. No JWs on it are typical JWs because if they were typical they would be more acquiesent to their organization’s preference they not take part in such forums. One important reason their organization prefers that they abstain is the undignified mess that results when they do not.

For a variety of reasons, some Witnesses go there anyway, and, to be sure, there are parts of the forum largely innocuous. I avoid these parts and go right to the hot areas. It has helped me hone my writing, and about half of my ebook, Dear Mr. Putin - Jehovah’s Witnesses Write Russia, can be found in about 500 fragments scattered throughout. Mr. Admin is thereby my friend. I owe him.

As atypical JWs and their adversaries flail away, making points and counterpoints, some ridiculous, he has ‘lost it’ only twice to rebuke participants, once to say: “Jeez, you guys are a piece of work!” What could I tell him. That we’re not? 

It is so rare for him to chime in that when he does, it is like hearing a voice from On High. The only appreciable difference is that a voice from On High is unlikely to say, “Jeez, you guys are a piece of work.”

I think @admin will not mind this. it is clearly relevant and he is mentioned. Of course, he wants to keep traffic on his page. Every forum host does. That is why I do not seek to undermine his interests. I allow no comments on mine. Anyone wanting to do so must come back here. My post even links back to him.

http://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2018/10/high-praise-for-chuckles.html

2 hours ago, Paul Dedee said:

This is why I reject the advice of TTH and will tread lightly as not to offend the owner

Believe me, you have nothing to worry about. It's unbelievable what they put up with around here. Even @admin holds his nose and endures. 'Well, the nutcakes are driving traffic to my site,' he says. His occasions for rebuke are rare. I can think of only one other time, when he said: "Jeez, you guys are a piece of work!" Ha! What could I tell him? That we're not?

Tell him, Admin. Reassure the fellow. He means to stick around for a while, it appears. And he makes sense. Tell him 100 louts will go before you even think about tossing him.

42 minutes ago, Paul Dedee said:

But, I’m a newcomer here, so I will tread as though I’m walking on eggshells, as not to anger the owner.

I wouldn’t worry about that. They are quite indulgent. From what I have seen of your manners, it will snow in you-know-where before you have any trouble from  the bossman

If you are a Witness, as are some here, you might want to avoid it due to the association. Don’t look to me to set the good example in this regard. I am being a bad boy, beyond all question.

if it helps, I am considered a good boy in all other matters.

43 minutes ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

Lets see now. You say I'm plain loony. 

I did NOT say you are loony. (Or did I?) What I said was that you so closely resemble loony that I cannot tell the difference. See? I am willing to put the onus on myself.

Imagine. Here I propose what has never been proposed before, at least by me, making a magnificent concession, and the big baby just keeps saying hateful things about the Christian organization. 

2 hours ago, Paul Dedee said:

What I have seen. Not everyone gets a fair shake when it comes to being offensive here. I will do my best to avoid that. That's why TTH comment was confusing, to say the least.

 

I am not entirely sure of the meaning here, but it seems more and more likely that @admin had specific persons in mind when he blew his top at everyone, and that I was the one to sass him back, though I was the least of all targets. I do use humor a lot, sometimes to deflate those I think are whiners or windbags, (always on the other side of course, but this almost need not be said; none of my people would ever carry on this way) and humor often does not translate well. 

Ah well, if it is, it is. I’m not going to apologize to him again; I already did. I don’t necessarily read all comments closely, or even at all, before commenting. You cannot deduce everything through forensic methods. I miss some things. The threads drive me nuts, too, some of it. Admin and I may have more in common than he thinks.

Elizabeth Chuck wrote an article about Jehovah’s Witnesses and I would have preferred she write one instead about the PTA meeting in her town. It is a normal reaction, for it was news of a huge-dollar verdict against a religious organization I hold dear. Of course I hate to see it; that’s only natural. When you find yourself on the gallows you do not angle for a selfie with the hangman.

Still, if you must hear bad news, hear it from Ms. Chuck, for her news in this case is straight reporting, not one of the hatchet jobs we often get. The topic is the most white-hot topic of all, child sexual abuse, and temptations to whip it into fever pitch are not resisted by all. She does resist it. That’s not to say I might not write it up differently. With every story, it is a matter of which facts you put where. But she doesn’t make any up or deliberately misrepresent them. Having said that, it is not to suggest that even those who do misrepresent do so on purpose, as I will outline. Well…I guess it is to suggest that, but only to suggest. It is not proof positive. When your own people merely say that they ‘abhor child abuse and strive to protect children’, but otherwise do not comment, what’s a reporter to do?

Here’s what I like about the Elizabeth Chuck story.

First of all, it is not like the Matt Volz AP article, picked up by many sources, that expressed seeming bewilderment that “the Jehovah’s Witness cases haven’t received the same national attention” [as the Roman Catholic Church]. Is not the reason a big ‘Duh’? The Montana case abuse under trial was all within a family and church leaders were accused of botching the handling of it, though blameless themselves. It’s a little different than church leaders actually committing the abuse, something which is very rare with Witnesses.

Ms. Chuck correctly (and atypically) makes clear that a “two-witness rule” used by Witnesses “is only for internal modes of discipline and does not prevent a victim from going to the police.” She correctly points out that “there are very strict internal modes of discipline within Jehovah's Witnesses.” Yes. It is not an anything-goes religion. She correctly observes that being disfellowshipped is often a painful experience and serves as a negative incentive to do what might trigger it. So far so good. It might not be as I would phrase it, but it is certainly acceptable reporting.

She stumbles briefly, though not seriously, when she says: “Jehovah's Witnesses are a misunderstood and very self-enclosed group, despite counting some celebrities among its ranks — including Venus and Serena Williams.” She is right that they are misunderstood. The only footnote I would add is about her seeming acquiescence to the common wisdom that groups are validated by having celebrities in their camp, many of whom are among the most silly people on earth, living radically different lives than anyone else. However, the miscue is minor, and, after all, I make use of poor Serena Williams, too.

Ms. Chuck does her homework. She consults experts on religion, such as “Mark Silk, a professor and the director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn [who says of Witnesses] ‘They don't vote. They don't celebrate birthdays and holidays. They don't say the pledge [of allegiance]. They are not just another Christian denomination.’” It is not her fault if she does not know that the guy (likely) has it in for us, spinning his facts negatively, and the reason is revealed in his very job title: he is a professor at Trinity College. If you do not accept the Trinity teaching, you are toast in the eyes of many of these people. Nonetheless, what the professor about voting and not pledging allegiance is true enough. He does not mention that if nobody pledged allegiance to human institutions maybe the national king could not pit them so easily against each other in times of war, but that is beyond the scope of his information request. At least he doesn’t inaccurately charge that Jehovah’s Witnesses are disrespectful to country, for there are few people as scrupulous about ‘rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s’ (taxes) than they. Reporter Chuck relates the words of another expert: “"Whatever belief they have or mode of internal discipline they have, they have a biblical justification for it.” I’ll take it. It’s true. We don’t apologize for it. I prefer it infinitely over church reporters saying we are not Christian because we do not accept the Trinity. The reason we not accept it is that its scriptural support is based almost entirely upon taking literally certain passages which, if they were seen in any other context, would be instantly dismissed as figure of speech.

She relates dutifully the sparse words of the Watchtower organization that they “abhor child abuse and strive to protect children from such acts,” attributing the sparseness to “a penchant for privacy.” She takes it at face value. She does not imply that they are lying through their teeth, like Mr. Gambacorta did in the Philadelphia Inquirer, dismissing the words as ‘boiler plate,’ and even ending his article with an anecdote of spying artwork at the JW headquarters captioned ‘Jehovah loves children,’ and using it as a pretext to wink at his readers as though to say: ‘Yes, I guess we know just how they love them’ before returning to his Witness-hating base on a Reddit thread, where he is hailed as a hero. He made me so mad that I responded by letter, and when it was ignored I put it online (and I wish it got more play than it actually does, for it is good, not the whole picture perhaps, but what is?  It represents facts not exactly shouted from the rooftops. It offers perspectives not heard anywhere else.)

However, eclipsing her skill at side-stepping all these landmines is that she puts her finger on the real problem in the very first paragraph of her article: Jehovah’s Witnesses are ‘insular.’ She doesn’t even try to spin that into a crime, as do some. Most Witnesses would not agree to the label ‘insular’, but that is primarily because they are unfamiliar with it and unsure just what attachments might come with it. They will instantly, even proudly, acknowledge two closely related phrases: they are ‘separate from the world’ and ‘no part of’ it. It is a scriptural imperative, they will say, because if you want to lend a helping hand, you must be in a place of safety yourself. Not all will agree that life today is constantly-improving. Some will say the overall picture more closely resembles the Titanic floundering. Did I not just read that generalized anxiety has replaced depression as the number one mental health malady? Can that be because there is nothing to worry about in life today? I think not. It is the ramifications of these two views, society is ever-improving vs floundering, that causes most of the ‘misunderstanding’ that opponents of Witnesses speak of. Witnesses are ‘insular,’ biblically mandated, and here is an instance where that insularity has contributed to a significant tragedy. Witness leaders find themselves in a situation parallel to certain vehicles being exempt from normal traffic laws—say, cops and fire emergency vehicles. Yet, in making use of that exemption, a terrible accident results and the public outcry is so great that they are convicted even though following the law. Or, to apply it more accurately, public anger is so great that the law is reinterpreted so it can be established that they did break it.

I am not a lawyer. I can quickly step out of my depth. Yet most persons reading this section of the Montana child abuse reporting laws would, I suspect, agree that the Witness organization followed the letter of the law as stated. They make every effort to do that. The prompt appeal of any Witness judicial committee to their Branch organization is not to see how they can evade child abuse laws, as their opponents often spin it, but how they can be sure their actions are in harmony with them.

On the very bottom of the document ‘Montana Mandatory Reporting Requirements Regarding Children’ is a section labeled "Members of the clergy or priests are not required to report when the following condition is met....a member of the clergy or a priest is not required to make a report if the communication is required to be confidential by cannon law, church doctrine, or established church practice.”

Even “established church practice?” It seems extraordinarily loose, and yet there it is. It is a part of a doctrine called ‘ecclesiastical privilege.’ It has long been encapsulated into law, as has the privileged nature of the doctor-patient relationship and the attorney-client relationship, on the recognition that these relationships cannot function without the expectation of confidentiality.

If such is the law, why is the Witness organization found culpable despite stringent efforts to follow it? Because the war today is against child sexual abuse, deemed the most critical crusade of our time, and they were expected to ‘go beyond the law’ so as to facilitate that end. Thus, the law was reinterpreted so as to allow that they did violate it.

The Witness organization finds itself in a situation similar to that of Joe Paterno, the coach who was universally praised throughout his life as an excellent role model but then was excoriated beyond redemption when he merely obeyed the law regarding an unspecific allegation he heard of child sexual abuse but did not 'go beyond it.'  He followed it. He reported the allegation to his superiors. But he did not ‘go beyond the law,’ reporting it directly to police. When the allegation turned out to be true, his career was over, and even his life, for he died two years later.

If it is so crucial to ‘go beyond the law,’ then make that the law. This is exactly what Geoffrey Jackson of the Witnesses’ Governing Body pleaded for three times before an Australian Royal Commission. Isn’t that the purpose of law – to codify what is right? Make the law clear, unambiguous, and allow for no exceptions. Jehovah’s Witnesses are universally recognized for meticulously following secular law even as they are primarily guided by biblical law. Make universal mandating the law, with no exceptions. Requiring parties to ‘go beyond the law’ only enables Monday-morning quarterbacking to assign motives, invariably bad ones, to unpopular parties failing in this regard.

An article in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle dated November 20^th, 2011 observed that: “it's a mistake to think that the failure…to report the abuse is a rarity....Studies over the past two decades nationally have consistently shown that nearly two-thirds of professionals who are required to report all cases of suspected abuse fail to do so....."I think that we fail miserably in mandated reporting," said Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Kristina Karle...” Is it not hopelessly chaotic to excoriate those who did their best to follow the law when two thirds of all professionals, for a variety of reasons, do not? Does anyone charge, as has been done with Jehovah's Witnesses by their opponents, that two thirds of all professionals do not give a hoot about children? Plainly there are other factors at work. Yet when the crusade against child sexual abuse reaches fever pitch only one factor is deemed to have any significance.

(The Democrat and Chronicle article is behind a paywall. Snippets of the above quote exist here and there, but to my knowledge, the only complete package is found in a JoePa follow-up article I wrote at the time. All is not lost. Your employer will pay to get you behind that wall, and probably already has an account. Alas, my employer is me, and he likes to cut costs, seeing no need to return there, as he already have what he needs.)

End of Part 1. Part 2 to follow soon.

Never did I dream that I would one day tussle with @admin. And now I see that I have erred in attributing to him what in actuality originated with the Librarian (the old hen).

I don't revel in the role. I am very grateful to both for providing a forum in which I could hone my writing skills. I have tried to repay both. Even though I put my stuff on my blog, some of the hottest items I also reproduce here. Even should there be a link within to my blog, I entertain no comments there, thus going there may even help the folks here, since if you want to beef about anything, you must do it here. I simply want to keep all my writing under one roof. I don't care if it also appears elsewhere. I make no money on it, and even the third ebook I wrote, ‘Dear Mr. Putin- JehovahÂ’s Witnesses Write Russia, with chapter 12 entitled ‘Pedophiles,Â’ is free. Should anyone want to ‘pay me,Â’ buy the other two. To date, the overall project is a money-loser, but that is not my chief concern.

I will further repay by raising a new topic that I have not raised before: "Is it Time for Jehovah's Witnesses to Apologize?" It will appear here very soon.

[Edit: Okay, here it is: 

 ]

51 minutes ago, Judith Sweeney said:

 This especially insults the faithful who have been imprisoned and faced yes, even death to adhere to their faith.  

This is a very good point. Recently I read a report of women who had been kidnapped by ISIS. They had been exhibited in cages, driven about in the back of trucks, raped any number of times at will by multiple men , burned with cigarette butts when they resisted. THESE are the people John’s lying new friends try to equate Witnesses with? C’mon! Even @admin will cease to think this an unseamly squabble between co-religionists and recognize it for what it is: Decent people that may not be his cup of tea, though decent nonetheless, under attack from the despicable.

John does have one genuine circumstance that, in some measure, excuses his unhinged hatred. He has written, here or on another thread, of a truly horrific childhood involving sexual abuse. It had nothing to do with Jehovah’s Witnesses, a faith he discovered much later. But it appears to have seared him permanently. To that extent, I can sympathize with him.

32 minutes ago, Judith Sweeney said:

 Who cares what "john butler" does or says?  I cannot stand a cry baby.   All of his beesmerching of people who really Try to live according to the Bible and do the right thing, just insults the Faithful.  This especially insults the faithful who have been imprisoned and faced yes, even death to adhere to their faith.  

Judith, I think John is just plain loony in his single-minded obsession over one and only one thing. But I want also want to be fair to him. He was assigned the title of this thread. He did not choose it himself, and he has griped about it. It often happens that a thread starts to go in multiple directions, and then an administrator will break it up into separate threads, choosing what he thinks is the most appropriate title, oblivious to how the title subject himself may not like it. 

 It has happened to others. After slamming some ‘apostates’ I found myself heading a thread entitled ‘TrueTom vs the Apostates’. I protested. I don’t go out of my way to pick fights with these guys. I weigh in only like Elihu, when I spot three of them beating up on my friend Job.

My protest fell upon deaf ears. I was stuck with the role. So I warmed to the task and went after them with such ferocity that the same @admin that put me on the thread pulled me off it, slapped me with an A for abuse, and removed the entire thread, something I don’t think has happened before or since!

Should he criticize me for ‘attacking apostates’, I say, as did the Joker to Bstman: ‘I made you? YOU MADE ME!!!’ My, what a freak I have become.

Huh! Here is another one. Where have we seen the parallel of this before?

45 Therefore, many of the Jews who had come to Mary and who saw what he did [raised Lazarus from the dead] put faith in him,  46 but some of them went off to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.  47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the Sanʹhe·drin together and said: “What are we to do, for this man performs many signs?  48 If we let him go on this way, they will all put faith in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”  49 But one of them, Caʹia·phas, who was high priest that year, said to them: “You do not know anything at all,  50 and you have not reasoned that it is to your benefit for one man to die in behalf of the people rather than for the whole nation to be destroyed.”  51 He did not say this, however, of his own originality, but because he was high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was to die for the nation,  52 and not only for the nation but also to gather together into one the children of God who were scattered about.  

He was going to kill Jesus himself so as to protect his own career! So he tries to pre-spin it as some holy event!

A little ‘gem’ from this week’s Bible reading:

John 11:21 “Martha then said to Jesus: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Yet even now I know that whatever you ask God for, God will give you.”

Jesus had had two days advance notice, yet he just sat there. (vs 6) Martha did not have to respond as she did. Could she not have ‘gone apostate’ and yelled: ‘What in the world is wrong with you?! You might as well have killed him yourself!’

10 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

I HAVE BEEN THERE AND DONE ALL THAT.  It's hype. They are conditioned to 'like the programme'. We were all expected to applaud. 

Honestly, John, I don't know why you act as though I am your adversary. Have I not stated that they wet themselves at the thought an elder may glower at them?

I will go further to confess what I have never confessed before. Our BOE used to rent a prison bus to round up the publishers and make them go to the convention. They made me drive. I didn't want to, but they made me. Also, when they told me I had to drive, they made me applaud their words until I thought my hands would fall off. 

They publishers didn't want to go. None of them did. They used to hide in the bushes when they saw me pulling up in the prison bus. But the elders had ordered me to stuff them in nice clothes by force when necessary. Oh, how my conscience torments me not. I hate them I hate them I hate them

10 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

That kids are ordered to answer up in Watchtower studies and made to pre-study for hours and write down long answers, which in truth they don't even understand. They just answer parrot fashion. 

That's nothing! I have seen children actually confined in oversized parrot cages until they finished studying their lessons, at which time, if they were lucky, they might be fed a cracker.

In hindsight I spoke too sharply to @admin. I apologize to him.

He is our host after all. I appreciate it that he puts up with us.

23 hours ago, admin said:

LABEL and KILL seems to be the way most groups continue to operate nowadays.

When you cite Jehovah's Witnesses, you are citing almost the only example you could cite that disproves your point. Categorically, they will not be kill or be maneuvered by the national king into killing. How bad can they be?

23 hours ago, admin said:

This technology alone is proving far superior to any fear based religion. 

Is it? I'll even call you on this. The general reality is that social media is more apt to spread hate than resolution. Religion, however, at its best, will spread love in a way that your technology could not even dream of. 

And what is this idiocy of 'fear-based religion?' Methinks you are in danger of drinking too much of the Kool-Aid yourself. How often in Scripture is the expression 'Fear God' or 'Fear Jehovah?' Almost 40. I counted. It is 'fear' in the same sense children used to routinely fear their parents, out of love and respect, fear of displeasing them, with 'punishment' only a background concern. 

Increasingly the ones to be feared are the 'anti-cultists' who expand the definition of a PEJORATIVE word so as to cover people they don't like. Under the guise of 'protecting' them from ideas they don't want heard, their Russian soul-brothers have gone so far as to arrest them and steal all their property.

If you must carry on about 'this technology,' consider this paragraph from a book from (blush) a favorite author of mine as to how the Witness organization has used it:

"In recent years, the Watchtower organization even offers its own programming through a JW Broadcasting streaming channel, a refreshing and most unusual alternative to mainstream TV. Members of the Governing Body thus repeat the pattern they are known for with any new technology: They eye it with suspicion. They advise caution. They know that when the thief switches getaway cars, it is the thief you have to watch, not the dazzling features of the new car. They follow the thief for a time. Convinced at last that they still have a bead on him, they examine the car. They circle it warily, kicking the tires. At last satisfied, they jump in with both feet and put it to good uses its inventors could only have dreamed of."     Tom Irregardless and Me

15 minutes ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

The line that invariably brings down the house with applause is: 'Would you like to send your greetings to the brothers in Bethel?'

 Yes it's all puppet fashion and tradition. It is so corny. It is the expected thing, so they have to do it. 

You know, you may have a point. I have looked closely at these times and I can tell that they don’t want to applaud. They REALLY REALLY DON’T want to applaud. But then they notice an elder glowering at them and sweat breaks out on their brow. In some cases, they pee their pants. In the end, even though they hate the thought, they clap and clap and clap. Sometimes their hands turn to mush and the paramedics have to haul them away for first aid.

I mean, it is possible to overplay the paranoia card, John.

They applaud because they liked the program and appreciate the work of those that put it together.

Apostates and loyal ones unite! At last we have found common cause! Let us band together and beat up @admin, who presumes to break up our riotous party! If we want to ruin his website, what's that to him? I will even be gracious and concede that you guys won a round. You correctly predicted that he would 'lose it' on a weekend. I could have sworn it would have been on a weekday. 

Probably admin knows that not one Witness he sees here on these controversial threads is a typical Witness. They are all 'rouge' to one degree of another, myself included. They all have their own individual reasons for being here, as do I. None of them are heeding the Witness organizations' preference not to engage in disputes with determined opposers.

Witnesses are encouraged by their organization not to dispute. 'Put your version of truth out there, and if they reject it, they reject it.' Whatever one may think about Witnesses, one must concede that they endeavor to present their message with dignity, whether it be door-to-door, their website, or the recent innovations of 'cart witnessing.' The dignity all shreds when they come here and similar places (there are actually very few where both sides mix together - you can take a bow for hosting I think the most prominent one) which is why the organization prefers they stay away.

There is a WT study today that I am sure Jack Ryan will start a thread on, if he hasn't already, about internet sources reporting on Witnesses and how it is best not to get carried away by what they may say, since they generally present 'distorted facts,' the germ of which is not untrue, necessarily but 'distorted.' It will be Jack's turn to 'lose it' over this. is the Watchtower wrong not to comment specifically on this or that news report? Many charge that. But since polls consistently show that trust in the media is abysmal and that people take for granted that they are often inaccurate, they tend to say 'why go there?'

They encourage their people to 'persuade,' but not 'debate. They encourage them to follow the example of Jesus, who routinely did things that would infuriate any devotee of debate. He continually answered questions with counter-questions. He raised many a straw man argument. ('gaining context', it used to be called) He spun complex parables that he rarely explained. Let the heart figure it out.

What! Is it cheap entertainment we are speaking of? Jesus said religious truth would be 'the pearl of great price' that you must 'exert yourself vigorously' to lay hold of. He didn't say it was a fine thing to sit on your butt and wait for the 'winner' of a debate to toss it to you. Debate invariably focuses attention, not on the merits of any given idea, but on the skill of the debater. In debate school, one is taught to argue both sides of a given argument. That fact ought to suffice to assess 'debate' as a way to arrive at truth. 

You would never know it from here, but the best way to uncover how most Witnesses feel about their governing arrangement is to attend a Regional Convention. The line that invariably brings down the house with applause is: 'Would you like to send your greetings to the brothers in Bethel?'

7 hours ago, admin said:

Why does anyone in 2018 still subscribe to this antiquated way of thinking?

 

Because it is a significant sub-theme of the New Testament. There is no NT writer that does not deal with it. Two entire chapters are devoted to it. Jude was about to write a bland letter that would have entered the dustbin of canon history, but

“I found it necessary to write you to urge you to put up a hard fight for the faith that was once for all time delivered to the holy ones.  My reason is that certain men have slipped in among you who were long ago appointed to this judgment by the Scriptures; they are ungodly men who turn the undeserved kindness of our God into an excuse for brazen conduct and who prove false to...” and so forth.

One having regard for the Bible can easily make the case that the genuine successor of first-century Christianity will also have voracious apostates, as they did. If they existed then in droves, why not today? Either that or the opposition melted away because Christ succeeded in transforming the world. But that hasn’t really happened, has it?

7 hours ago, admin said:

They have MOVED ON.....Try to keep up people 

Possibly they have moved on, but the overall state of the world does not make clear that having ‘moved on’ is for the best. Gadgets have improved, granted, but an overall sense of well-being? Whether ‘keeping up’ in the sense you mean is a good thing is highly debatable.

Furthermore, if you think this is so horrible, show me the civility in the greater political world. Be sure not to miss the ‘gentleman’s disagreement’ involving the Supreme Court today. Show me the love-in between GOP and DEMS, or medical vs alternative, or atheist vs religious person, or scientist vs metaphysics. And make sure to tell me how the Russians and Chinese are allegedly hacking into Western computers so that say a friendly ‘hello.’

it could be argued that you are missing the most significant development of all time, as you lambaste those debating issues of eternity in favor of those squabbling over matters that will only be personally relevant for the few decades until they die.

End of rant.

Having said that, I can easily see how this could drive a guy nuts. Just for the record, I think some participants here are barely sane. I won’t say that I have never used the word ‘apostate’’ but I try to be sparing with it, in favor of such words as ‘opposer’ or ‘detractor’ And I often deliberately try to defuse super-intense threads with what I hope passes for humor.

 I stay primarily because I benefit by testing out lines that I know will be thrown back in my face & refine my own writing thereby, like a scientist studying data. I’ve been able to write a book absolutely unique in several ways in this manner. A writer not only needs a muse. He also needs a villain & there are villains galore here.

It is pretty rough on those who don’t speak the lingo, though. I do appreciate that. I hope that you take it in the right spirit when I jokingly put you entering the annual Conference of Internet Magnificents, casually mentioning your traffic so as to impress the big boys, only to be told ‘Big Deal. They’re all religious nuts. Come back when you have people who are in touch with reality.’

20 minutes ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

Over to you Tom. I have other things to do right now....  

No you don’t 

He is even wrong here:

’Tom's next statement is so much a blanket statement that i would have thought it was beneath him.’

If it was really a blanket, it would be on top of me.

A lot of things are that way with our apostates: completely upside down.

Okay, we have reached the point where discussion starts to fragment and can go in that direction for a time until the Librarian (the old hen) looks up from her bottle and charges over to scream at her pupils turned unruly. Let’s branch into something closely related about our ‘apostates.’

While they may not be lazy, they certainly are deceitful. They push for all it is worth the idea that all you have to do is disagree with the GB and you will be expelled! Well, what do they disagree with them ABOUT? It’s amazing how many of them go on to embrace the homosexual lifestyle or become activists in this or that aspect of the greater world, newly determined to fix whatever they think is wrong with it. 

Essentially, they don’t like the idea that Christians should be separate from the world. That is being ‘insular’, they charge, which has become the greatest of all sins. It’s not exactly a ‘gentleman’s disagreement’ that can’t even be tolerated, as they charge.

In fact, many of Jehovah’s Witnesses disagree with this or that aspect of theocracy. But they also put it in perspective. They know that in any organized arrangement there will be some things that don’t go your way. They also are modest enough to know that maybe it is they themselves who are wrong. We are, after all, being taught by Jehovah . Everyone knows from Day 1 God does not run it as a democracy.

4 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

Who inspected the tightness of their trousers ?  No one. 

Who asked them if they masterbated and told them not to ? No one.

There were more important issues then. 

I almost expect a certain chainsaw character to post a cartoon that he thinks is hilarious about these things happening in that setting, until the senior one of them cautions that HQ might find out. 

It would be a new low for him, but only by a matter of degree. 

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

JW Dress Rules is the topic, not, being in a concentration camp. 

Even there they were not heedless of personal appearance, and it’s not because they were terrified of the GB, either.

49 minutes ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

As for JW's thinking bold thoughts, that's a laugh. JW's are not allowed to think, they just follow orders the same way as soldiers or police officers. 

 Orders come from HQ, GB, via Elders. ' You must obey, or be, exterminated exterminated exterminated. 

When they offer to release you from the concentration camp if you will but renounce your faith and you tell them no, it means you are bold.

it also means you are unafraid of actual extermination, let alone the silly things that you whine on about.

Don’t go there, John. They are bold. Someday you might learn from them.

On 9/29/2018 at 11:52 PM, The Librarian said:

@Jack Ryan  You are being unreasonable.

Try conforming to our higher JW standards and you too will be happy again too.

You will lose all desire to look fashionable. That is a worldly quality anyway.

What Jehovah wants from even beautiful women is to be of a quiet and mild spirit and to dress modestly. 

‘People who think the most bold of thoughts have no difficulty conforming to the outward norms of society.’  Nathaniel Hawthorne 

Nobody thinks thoughts more bold than Jehovah’s Witnesses.

He didn’t say it but I think the converse is also true: Those who declare their independence over such small matters are usually the most conformist of all on large ones.

There was a series of tweets from former Jehovah’s Witnesses hoping to stir up discontent with present ones. The politics involved are likely not of interest to the general reader so I pass over it here. Suffice it to say that it is that way.

It turns out that when the Watchtower organization oversees disaster relief they afterwards suggest to ones that happen to have insurance that they might donate whatever insurance might pay out to the Worldwide Work relief fund itself. Why this should infuriate the ex-Witnesses I’ll never know but infuriate them it does. To me, it seems only just that those who do the disaster rebuild should receive the insurance monies if there are any. I could be wrong but I suspect insurance companies will love it that way; the work gets down promptly and without haggling over amount. However, the more important question to be raised is, if the Watchtower doesn’t get the insurance money, who does? The more I looked at these tweets the more I came to feel that I was looking at encouragement to commit insurance fraud.

With that backdrop, here are some of the tweets. I have excluded irrelevant ones as well as those from opposers calling me an a*****e. Apparently, a recent shipment of relief supplies was destroyed and that is how the topic is introduced. I will reproduce a few tweets which may or may not interest the reader, all in italics, and then return to the main point. I am TTH. Others I will refer to by their initials. Everything is captured in screenshots.

EDL: The donations from local Jehovah's Witnesses caught fire - but the article fails to mention that JW donations and disaster relief is ONLY ever for other JWs.  JWs only support their local community by preaching to them, never with practical help.

TTH: Yes. They cannot do everyone because they are near exclusively volunteers using vacation time. The best they can do is set an example for others to imitate so that they will not be beholden to astronomically wasteful agencies. 

CF: Interestingly enough, WT usually pressure any JW’s they help to “dontate” the insurance payout they get back to WT to “thank” them.

TTH: ‘Pressure is a subjective term. However, if they do the work voluntarily at no cost that certainly would not be an inappropriate way to acknowledge it. Many people have no insurance at all, especially in the case of flooding. It is something immaterial to JWs. They do not check beforehand.

SL: Agreed, the WT does not do the work on the understanding the insurance cash will come their way…

 For a brief moment, I thought I had found an ally, but it was not so:

SL: I've given up my time in my JW past to do this work and it's lovely to feel you are helping someone in need.  In my experience few, if any, feel the need to solicit thanks from a victim of disaster let alone "suggest" the insurance money comes one's way.

CF: To clarify - it’s not the individual JW’s helping who do this. It’s something that happens afterward, organized via the branch and handled by the elders. Most JW volunteers never even know this has happened. JR is putting together an article that exposes multiple instances of WT leaning on JW’s after a relief effort to hand over the insurance money.

I was getting a little fed up at this point. In three tweets combined, I said:

TTH: Tell him to not ignore the end result: distressed persons quickly having life & property restored, vs waiting weeks or months for relief that will only come if they are adequately insured, insurers sometimes being known to weasel out of full coverage when they can. Tell him also to spotlight the atheist and opposer agencies that do the same for their people so that they do not find themselves sh*t out of luck when insurance or build execution proves inadequate. And make sure he tells of the premier agency in the Haiti earthquake, squandering practically to the penny the half billion dollars donated. (I linked to a Propublica article detailing breathtaking incompetence in America’s chief relief agency and (alas) even exaggerated some, for they didn’t waste all of it, just most of it.) I am looking forward to this article, confident John will not forget these things.

Someone made a snotty comment about Watchtower making a lot of money off their volunteers and the insurance companies. I replied that it was in return for doing exactly what the insurance company wanted done

The former Witnesses turned bitter opponents work tirelessly to stir up discontent in those loyal. They do a great deal of talking amongst themselves, but present Witnesses are their target audience. While the Watchtower organization may well afterwards make the suggestion, I doubt very much that they ‘pressure’ anyone because the idea of simply pocketing both work AND insurance payment would never occur to most Witnesses. And even if they were to ‘pressure’ anyone, it would clearly be for their own good; otherwise they would be committing insurance fraud, and the insurance companies are very good at sniffing such things out.

Say they succeed in finding some Witnesses who are outraged that the Watchtower Society should mention money after they have restored a person’s life. What are they recommending these ones do? Are they recommending that they say to their Christian brothers, who are generally on the scene long before relief comes by any other way, “Brothers, no. Don’t bother. I am afraid that the organization may afterwards mention money. I will wait instead for the insurance company to pay and hope that the amount is enough to restore what I have lost and that when the harried contractors at last get around to it they will not in their haste do a half-assed job.” I don’t think so.

I have never heard that advice from these characters or anything even approaching that. What the opposers appear to be doing is encouraging disgruntled ones, if they can find any, to accept the Watchtower’s help and then refuse any suggestion that they sign over an insurance check. What, then, will they do with the insurance money? Give it back to the insurance company? Again, I don’t think so. Why have they been paying premiums for all these years? No, they are encouraging them to keep the money, perhaps to thereafter spend on a new car, overseas vacation, or college tuition.

Look, this may be an overgeneralization, but this illustrates exactly why people who are Jehovah’s Witnesses should think twice before they leave the faith. I see these former Witnesses on Twitter. Some excoriate Trump and some excoriate Obama. They once had unity. Moreover, they cavalierly float an idea that would shock most Witnesses: take the money and run. What is wrong with these characters? I mean, who would propose repaying the work of volunteer rebuilders with closed fists, and who would propose chiseling the insurance company out of their money at the same time? There is such a thing as hating so much as to lose all decency. My bet is that when insurance companies do sign over checks to the Watchtower, they find it a pure joy, knowing well how difficult customers can be when under extreme pressure. Jerod Kushner said with Jehovah’s Witnesses a handshake deal means something when he bought some of their Brooklyn property. Even arch-enemy Barbara Anderson says that, overall, they’re very nice people.

Look, possibly what they are advocating is not illegal. Perhaps it is just astonishing mean and ungrateful. Either way they look very small as they focus their unreasoning hatred to cripple the most effective disaster relief program the world has known. Parts 2 and 3, which will follow, are not specifically on matters of insurance and can be skipped by those interested in those matters alone.