TrueTomHarley

2 hours ago, Shiwiii said:

Why would all of these countries be looking into the wt

Because the Watchtower did what no one else was proactive enough to do. 

With an eye to keeping clean as a congregation before God's eyes - as clean as possible - which the Bible obligates Christians to do, they chose to look into reports of abuse, and not hide their heads in the sand, as did everyone else. That is why there is this list of 1006 over 60 years that you and Rook have focused on. 

Everyone else (except for clergy) have had crimes of child sexual abuse discovered independently by authorities, and no connection is ever made with whatever religion they belong to.

The home of the typical forum participant here:

TrueTom's modest abode:

4 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

so you know that in the past few weeks the "Onion" has been peeled back to reveal that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party and their cronies are the ones that have been colluding with the Russians, and it goes all the way back to Ted Kennedy.

sigh ... If you only did one tenth as much to support the Christian leadership that has proven 10 times more effective in preventing child abuse, as you do your favorite politician.

2 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Unlike you, my loyalty to its leaders is only when they deserve it.

They clearly do deserve it if their leadership oversees a 90% decrease over the child sexual abuse of the general Australian population. 

2 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

How should we honestly evaluate them, based on THAT?

So now you seem to be walking back on your acknowledgement that the JW organization is 10 times more successfull in preventing child abuse than the general Australian population. Or are you? I am not sure what you are doing. It may be you just gag at the thought of saying anything good about them, though they have clearly earned it.

However, to draw an analogy that I think is parallel:

Unilke Jehovah's Witnesses, who are politically neutral, or at the very least, keep their politics to themself, you wear yours on your sleeve. You have made it very clear who you regard as the better political leader, even calling HRC the Devil.

Trump, in your eyes, is (at least) 10 times better in leadership than Hillary.

Therefore, I would expect you to be maligning and castigating him, as you do here with the ones whose record is 10 times better. Don't let anyone give him any credit for anything. Blast him away. Say something nasty about past business dealings, or comments to Billy Bush. Don't let them tell you there is nothing to Russian collusion. Dig into it!

You do not hesitate to do it and more with Christian leadership. Do it with the political leader you favor. 

5 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

(What the hell does that even mean, anyway?) 

It [brazenness] means (among other synonyms): 

audaciousness, cheekiness, discoutesy, disrespect, effrontery, impertinence, insolence, rudeness, 

I can see where you might have a problem with it.

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/brazenness

5 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

My concern is not what happened for the very reasons you stated ... but the institutionalized coverup,  and the intimidation

Yes, I understand this. 

Pursue this point if you wish, but also point out, at least in a footnote, that the ones you are castigating are 10 times more successful in preventing child sexual abuse in the first place than the general Australian population.

9 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I find myself  agreeing with both your premise, and conclusion

Since this is the case, you might rethink how you approach this topic.

Many of your posts would indicate - to the casual reader, which is what most of us are - that JW land should be re-labeled "Child Molesters R Us." But now you have agreed with my premise and concluson, which essentially is that children are 10 times safer in the JW community than anywhere else.

Can it really be that this is despite the headship of the present human arrangement? It is they who put the diet of spiritual teachings together through print, media, and meetings. Okay, if you somehow feel they are still messing up everything, then you could assert that children would be 15 times safer in the JW community than without them. But that is the factor that you should always highlight, for that is the factor with the most implications.

After all, were all Australia able to duplicate the success of Jehovah's organization, the country's abuse rate would be 90% lower, and they probably would not have felt a need to assemble a Royal Commission in the first place.

On 2/21/2018 at 4:45 PM, Shiwiii said:

Why won't the head of the wt org admit that abuse is a problem within the society

Because it is not, relatively speaking.

Study 54 of the report, a follow-up to Study 29, makes possible an apples-to-apples comparison. Study 54 looked at the 17 instances of child abuse from the Witness organization that had been reported in the interim, from August 2015 to January 2017. Nine were historical cases and none involved an elder. All occurred in a familial setting. Of the seventeen, two had refused to report as they were adult survivors and it was their right not to report. The number of Witnesses in all Australia at the time was 67,418.

An apples-to-apples comparison becomes possible with a pool size large enough to be significant. Out of a total national Australian population of 23,968,973, The Australian Institute of Family Studies reported 41,622 notifications of child sexual abuse, (2014-2015) and the Commission likely reviewed some of them. Seemingly, the safest place a child could be was in the Jehovah’s Witness community, for proportionately, one would have expected 117 incidents, 100 more than the actual number. (The disparity is even greater, since a 17 month period for the Witnesses is compared to a 12-month period for all Australia) Do the math discover from these figures that a child is ten times safer in the Witness community than in the overall world.

What the ARC criticized was procedures for handling abuse cases that have occured. It was not their mission to look at whether, in a given setting, abuse was more or less likely to happen in the first place. Had it been, they would have awarded JWs a Family Glory award, just like Putin did to the Russian Witness family.

10 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

where whatever folks were available could take this simplified, paraphrased English version ... and translate it into local Languages by whoever was available that would work for free, and spoke both English and any of several hundred other languages 

Well, now that you put it that way, the work stinks. 

But you shouldn't put it that way. It is a ridiculous description. 'Brazen' is nebulous whereas 'loose' is crystal clear? You're just beating a familiar dead horse, possibly one that has thrown you.

1 hour ago, Matthew9969 said:

 But there are religions that do bring in a lot of money, but also put out a lot of money in charity. 

No argument with this. It might be good to acknowledge this more frequently than is done.

Nonetheless, it is a bit like you hire a worker to reroof your house and he paints the house instead. Even though it did need painting, you are not happy. If he had painted in addition to reroofing, you would have been thrilled. But he painted instead of.

So it is with preaching good news and charitible works. Preaching always has the priority. See, for example, Matthew 9:35:

And Jesus set out on a tour of all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the good news of the Kingdom and curing every sort of disease and every sort of infirmity.

6 minutes ago, Witness said:

@James Thomas Rook Jr.

Only enter this section if you feel strong enough spiritually to defend yourself biblically. As you probably are aware, not everyone on Facebook, Twitter and the Internet is nice and civilized. Some are rather rude. You are hereby forewarned.

 

There is only one person in the world that this warning does not have to be given to.

(Hmm. a twinge of hesitation as to whether I should even say this, for he does have significant redeeming features. Ah, well - one must go with the online persona one has adopted)

For example, I just read that Billy Graham died today at 99, the grandpa of the TV evangelists.

I don't recall any financial abuse with him, and his final circumstances appear to be reasonably modest. When he traveled, it was not via VW Beetle and he didn't clip the Pennysaver, but they conducted operations as would anyone else on tour -  I can recall Carlin or someone making fun of his expensive suits, but it is a cheap shot and everyone knows it - even he himself, probably, who was just doing what comedians do.

"Ah, Babylon 4, we have a report of a madman on the WNM forum creating a disturbance. Could you run by there and check it out, please? Careful not to provoke him though. He is the fastest gun in the West - and east, north, and south."

"Roger, that, Dick Tracy - I'm on it, after I finish this donut. I'm pretty sure I know who you mean. He's a pretty harmless old pork chop, with stray dogs everywhere, but he sure does make a lot of noise."

Jehovah's Witnesses are absolutely unique in that they live the Word and present it worldwide. Aspects of it presented nowhere else they broadcast: the Name, the paradise earth, no immortal soul, no Trinity, nuetrality, and so forth.

Any Witness looks around himself and see abundant evidence that whatever funds they have anonymously donated have been put to good news.

But if you hate the message, you will hate the organization that facilitates its spread, ad leave no stone unturned in denigrating it.  It is no more complicated than that.

Nonetheless, the 'wealth of the clergy class' can be overstated. They are not all that way. Prosperity gospel preachers notwithstanding, most live pretty much like the parishioners they serve. Even at the top of, say - the Methodist world, I am not aware of any unspeakable lolling about in luxury. I doubt it compares to those at the top of business corporations.

The GB does not have to live like hippies on a commune. Branch facilties are comfortable. They get room and board. But they are dormatories . Nice dormatories, to be sure but still dormatories.

The striking difference is that they recieve no salary, and perhaps more stiking still, no funds amassing for retirement, like the 401K's that are everywhere else. When Ray Franz took off over a dispute of doctrine, he recieved a settlement of about 10K, I think, and the same people that bellyache about wealth bellyached how he had worked for a pittance.

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

I did read a source from Russia decrying the barbarism of Americans with their guns. Someone replied 'how many Russians have died because they were powerless when government thugs showed up to corral them?'

the anwer to this tweet was given by another. 'You think the most heavily armed nation in the world is going to be defeated by your AK-47?'

So Jimbo will take out a few before he goes down, but go down he will. Will he come up again? Was it not Jesus who said: 'those who live by the sword will die by the sword?'

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

I don't mean to sound sexist, but my guess is that wives probably insisted on a change of pace, away from regular branch routines.

Hmm. It is Pastor Inqfist's wife salivating over her upcoming stay at the resort during the Lutheran minister's retreat, which they colloquially renamed 'stampede.' At long last she can sit around a swimming pool in a two piece bathing suit, sipping a drink, without triggering frowns. But then the befuddled pastor discovered he had mixed up the tickets. He has the expired ones from two years ago. The event this year has already taken place.

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

He was traveling on WTS funds that covered flights and basic hotels for both himself and his wife.

grumble, grumble... Well...he stayed in a Coleman tent in my back yard when he visited here.

About 3 he knocked on the door to use my bathroom. I told him that there was a perfectly fine outhouse in back. Then I made him pull my millstone, and I wouldn't let him eat off the threshing room floor.

1 hour ago, John Lindsay Barltrop said:

they don't really know why they are the only country in the world with this problem

I just kick back at Rook because he is  - well, because he is. But it is not as though I do not concede that there is a 2nd amendment or that I push for its repeal - it is just his relentless cheerleading for guns that grates on the sensibilities.

I did read a source from Russia decrying the barbarism of Americans with their guns. Someone replied 'how many Russians have died because they were powerless when government thugs showed up to corral them?'

So I see the other side. It is not our concern, anyway, as we stand for something else. But I am reasonably confident that not one of the 17 children who died thanked his lucky stars for the 2nd amendment before he breathed his last.

All the children want to do is go to school and not get shot up. Is that too much to ask? It happens anywhere else. They shouldn't have to propose the solution. That is for their mentors to figure out. That one kid said it right - and he has been apparantly preened and given front stage by a manipulative left - but nonetheless he said it right: "We are the children. You are the adults. You are supposed to protect us."

To quote James again: 

What part of DUH ... do you not understand?

4 hours ago, John Lindsay Barltrop said:

.....this has made them a violent, gun loving society, many who still think that they are living in the days of the 'wild west'.......a bunch of would be, if they could be, cowboys.

Americans are a curious blend of gunslinger and crybaby.

3 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

What part of DUH ... do you not understand?

The part that guarantees schoolchildren will continue to be shot in school while you refuse to give an inch to the other side, and they the same to you. It is not as though you haven't had plenty of time to pound them into submission, is it?

On the other hand, I think it was an Australian cleric who said it best - when will Americans come to love their children MORE than their guns.

Look, one or the other. Strong gun laws or armed veterans. Either will arguably work - probably armed vets in the short run and gun laws in the long run. But neither will come about until kids put adults toes to the fire by permanently boycotting school until a fix is in place.

I mean, there is no possible way Rook is going to yeild on this. He doesn't think there are persons just as intransigent on the other side? So nothing will be done and a few dozen kids will be picked off yearly while these guys scream at each other over who is right.

But if the kids actually stop going to school.....

My wife has done skydiving, but I never did.

7 hours ago, Matthew9969 said:

fly first class,

Given the scope of their responsibilities, it is sufficient that they do not fly private jet. It seems the characters @Space Merchant highlighted all do.

21 minutes ago, Michael Krewson said:

@TrueTomHarley this is what you were referencing the other day?

I think so, but it has been politicized. I see nothing about any walkout being permanent, pending the problem being fixed.

Of the new plans for symbolic actions and parades, I read: (from the posted article) 

"A number of people have told me it's frightening and powerful, and really sends a message," the 16-year-old told the BBC

Yes, it sounds fearsome, perhaps. But the actual tweet I posted, if acted upon, might have actually gotten something done. The kids have been hijacked by the grown-ups and sold the line that "sending a message" is the same as solving a problem. I can send 200 messages a day online, most of which will be forgotten by the next day.

TrueTom returns to his abode after another hard day fleecing the flock.

 

1 hour ago, Matthew9969 said:

stay in 5 star hotels

I would be very surprised if a GB member has even stayed at a Motel 6. 

When they travel, they stay in one of the branch facilities or in homes of fellow believers. 

Possibly you can dig down and find where they were once at a fancypants place on vacation as a gift from a personal friend. But I doubt even that. I don't  think they even like that sort of thing. They like being with the friends.