TrueTomHarley

It is true that I resist all changes of all types. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. My wife even says that I extend it to:  'If it IS broke, don't fix it.'

That being said, the blue font is not the best choice, IMO. Black makes a better contrast. 

21 minutes ago, Noble Berean said:

They want to use it when it helps them out and not use it when it hurts them.

Yeah, that's how I interact with the police, too. Can you think of anyone who doesn't? Can you think of any organization that doesn't?

It may change, though. I have offered my suggestion for next year's yeartext: "Salvation belongs to the police."

The scoundrels will all append a B on the front end.

3 hours ago, Gone Fishing said:

when compounded by an unqualified belief that "the police have capabilities to uncover wrongdoing" can only lead to gross injustice.

Love those police! 

What strikes me here (this is no reference to @Noble Berean) is that people who loathe the police in some contexts absolutely love them in others.

They have a lot of capabilities that I sincerely appreciate. But they have a lot of capabilities in Russia, too, and they direct some of them toward our brothers.

2 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

You start that adventure as a child, and then work yourself up to maturity. After you have matured spiritually, you are commissioned by God’s Holy Spirit to TEACH those that oppose, or do not understand the meaning and Christ purpose in this earth; to proclaim God’s good news of GODS KINGDOM.

Okay

2 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

Where is it written in scripture, that you can recall, where a spiritually mature Christian can REVERT back to a child spiritually, and then, complain, they don’t understand?

Nowhere

2 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

Remember, my view as a theologian is in understanding the complexities of Scripture.

Theologian is not a word we generally use. I am not one.

2 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

This is where the intellectual, divide, with reasoning and wisdom by either using the understanding of secular structure or bible principles. The “chaffy” is, there is NO excuse for the mundane!!!

I am afraid I do not know where you are coming from, Allen. I think that I would like to. I am not sure of your role in this play.

2 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

LEARN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, it is a noble sentiment - but nobody is going to do it. We are just going to shoot our mouths off.

We have long been trained that way. It didn't start with O.J. but his is the oldest vivid example I recall. The public is whipped into near hysteria by constant repetition of a certain scene. That scene arouses powerful thought and (mostly) emotion, but it is only 2% of the facts. A few months later the jury convenes. They hear (ideally) 100% of the facts. But when they reach the 'wrong' verdict, there is universal outrage.

Consistently, there really shouldn't be any trials anymore. Put everything on Facebook and render verdicts according to likes. People are not inclined to believe a court verdict anyway, if it is not what they want. Why waste everyone's time? Nobody likes jury duty. Think of the money that would be saved! @adminshould get cracking on it because he wants to go big. He is tired of a website full of religious nuts. I mean, he likes it, but he wants to build. He doesn't want to cater to anyone's corporate agenda. He should expand into this. He will become so influential that he will be able to tell Mark Zuckerberg to use the service entrance. Even @The Librarian(the old biddy) will be able to do so. More children to tyranize - she will love it!

It's a horrible thing - for respected institutions to be so easily made impotent. However, the 'silver lining' for anyone being slammed in court, whether justly or not, is that they can say: 'Do you really believe that joke of a system?"

It is also why you should never criticize one who chooses mostly, or even solely, to read Watchtower publications. Yes, they will miss a lot, and their ability to relate to certain others will be impeded. But they will not have to experience the sensation of the ping pong ball ever slammed this way or that by Players intent upon dividing the human population. They won't have to weigh every word to figure out who is spinning them lies and what they are.

1 hour ago, AllenSmith said:

That in effect is what’s going on in San Diego by a Judge’s ruling that was struck down, and now, he is overreaching (abuse) by his authority and using it as an excuse to smite

I have stated before my thought that the Trump/Hillary election is a god-send for Christians. Not because of the results, but because it has forced all the crazies from their holes out into the open. It is ever so hard to deny 2 Timothy 3:1-5 now, whereas in the past if someone disagreed those verses especially apply today, there was not much you could do about it.

It is also demonstrated clearly that the biblical 'mountains' and 'hills' today consist merely of highly paid crazies. News means nothing in itself. You simply look for who or what the journalist is trying to torpedo.

It is true with the court system. Trump orders this or that and the Obama-appointed judges throw it out. It once was just the reverse, but was not so highly publicized. The point is that court rulings don't mean much of anything today - you simply have to look at which agenda has won out.

1 hour ago, AllenSmith said:

LEARN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I suppose that's true - how can one argue with the value of learning - but the challenge is, as soon as you think you know anything about law, some orangutan throws in a - um - monkey wrench and you are right back where you started. The law is fantastically complex. The cynics (not me, of course) would say that it is made so deliberately for the sake of job security and expansion in a high-growth industry.

1 hour ago, Anna said:

Right.

1 hour ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Please, show me place where G. Jackson said that, that i would be able to check for myself, thanks! 

1 minute ago, Srecko Sostar said:

I thought that crime is crime, sorry for disturbing readers with inappropriate news

You are right. Crime is crime. Sorry. If we are discussing backing the dumptruck of toxic waste into the river, it is very important that you post your story of the guy caught littering. 

11 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

pleaded to two counts of lewd or lascivious acts

It is not good. No one says otherwise. But it is also not very specific - nor is it rape. If it was, he would have been convicted of it.

2 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

the teenager reported the abuse to the congregation, which then removed Gorski from his position as an elder, but allowed him to remain an active member

That's two, Srecko. Good job! Yes, and in the whole wide world there will be many  more. His crime:

pleaded to two counts of lewd or lascivious acts

We were speaking of countless cases of rape within another certain dominant religion. In that context, the contribution you've excitedly offered up  - so thrilled -  just doesn't cut it. It is not in the same 'league.'

"which then removed Gorski from his position as an elder, but allowed him to remain an active member"

After imposing what discipline?, for they invariably would. It would be rebuke of some sort with sanctions - something not mentioned in the story. Should they have shot him? What were the laws at that place at that time? If it is a scenario where critics say they must go "beyond the law" to prove their concern for children, doing that can get them in hot water in most places, because the default law is clergy/penitent protected confidentiality. That's why G Jackson pleaded to the ARC to make their laws uniform, which would make JWs job so much easier - it would be across-the-board policy, with no room for misunderstanding or misapplication, and it wouldn't matter if a given family head wanted to avoid airing his family's dirty laundry on the 11PM News. Even today, families do not line up to do that, whether religious or not.

On 5/14/2017 at 5:02 PM, The Librarian said:

“Had the thousands of convictions entered by the magistrates, police courts and other lower courts not been appealed, a mountain of precedent would have piled up as a giant obstacle in the field of worship. By appealing we have prevented the erection of such obstacle. Our way of worship has been written into the law of the land of the United States and other countries because of our persistence in appealing from adverse decisions.” In the United States, scores of cases went all the way to the Supreme Court.

I like these words of Covington. I like, too, the stable country that is the U.S. that would steadfastly allow itself to be reigned in by its own constitution. (this may be eroding somewhat, but it is still the pre-eminent example)

Unfortunately, there are also unstable countries, and some that are regressing, who, when you tell them of their own constitution, say: "Oh yeah! Great paper! We have it in the men's room for drying hands." #stopjwban

I love Blackwell's book. I quote from it in my own, and in the one to come. I got mine on a 'book tour' - when he was top-billed speaker for a special meeting at the Niagara Falls convention center. Another was our circuit overseer, Dave McClure, son of Lucy McClure of the case that reversed Gobitas. He told of getting beat up walking to and fro school. As only Dave McClure could do, he made getting beat up almost sound like fun.

The remaining speaker was someone I don't remember who rattled on about health, spouting opinion that would never happen today. "If you're not sick, don't go to them!" I remember him saying about doctors. I also remember McClure, who was sitting near me, say loudly after the talk: "Well, I guess I'm gonna go down there and get me a hot dog!"

These were back in the days when "each one did what was right in his own eyes."

McClure is (while I am in story-telling mode) the one who fell asleep while I was conducting a study and he was following along. He dropped his book, which woke him up. (he was a diabetic, and afternoons were not easy for him)

Later the two of us stopped at the home of a new person who asked who conducts the study when a publisher asks the C.O. along. He said: "Weelll, I just check beforehand with the brother, and if he wants me to conduct it, I do. But if he says he would rather conduct it himself, then I just nod.....

He is also the one (from my other post) who would make the sign of the stake. In my single days, I used to stick like glue to these guys. I was his chauffer when he visited our congregation, and he sat in his Chrysler's back seat.

On 5/1/2016 at 7:16 PM, The Librarian said:

picture of jw.org Lawyer Philip Brumley, in a joint project with scientology and other religions in 2006.

The picture was published on a scientology website, mentioning the joint project with jw.org

It's okay, he keyed their cars in the parking lot afterwards.

12 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Your continued personality projections are becoming insane ... with your advice to me to not worship the Governing Body.

Alright, worship them if you insist! But as you know, they will say, like Peter, 'rise, for I too am a man.'

9 hours ago, Noble Berean said:

Well, at this point I definitely think JWs can throw out that old line "Look at those wicked Catholic Churches with their child abusing priests!"

I disagree. To the extent your statement is true it is only because media has managed to muddle perception - today,  'rape' is equated to 'too free with the hands' which is equated to 'having investigated it for purposes of discipline/protection but never having done it themselves.'

IMO, it is disloyal to God to not always point this out, regardless of how culpable one may think the modern-day organization is. In this case, the subject truly is a convicted rapist and he was an elder, but that is extraordinarily rare, whereas for the Church, it was a dime a dozen. In a collection of millions of persons, you will find examples of anything. Everybody knows that. JW Elder abuse is essentially unheard of. No large group of anything human has a better record

Having said that, I am not one for beating up on the Church over this. It is too much like rejoicing over another's downfall - regardless of whether they deserve it. It has become public knowledge - I do not have to pile on. If I mention it, it is only a mention. I do not harp on it. Their deeds are between they and God, as are ours.

5 hours ago, Gone Fishing said:

Let's give him some credit then:

http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/crux002.pdf

And me, who gives him credit and properly frames his deed:

http://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2010/11/did-jesus-die-on-a-cross.html

One thing I like about @AllenSmithis that he does not yield the moral high ground. Why should he?

I will concede that for one brief instant of time it may be that this or that advocate seems more a protector of a child than its congregation organization. But not too long after his or her back is turned, that child is tossed right back into an unprotected cesspool. The world has compiled a list of abusers that is so long it is absolutely worthless to enforcement. Consequently, being put on 'the list' is largely a matter of revenge or public shamimg - not undeserved, but it does nothing to solve the problem of protecting children. To some extent, it has devolved into a job machine and a platform for grandstanding politicians to declare how they are tough on pedophiles.

England's top cop recently recommended all men found with pedophilia on their computers not be prosecuted. It pained him to say it, he said, but the simple fact is that there is so many that police cannot possibly keep up and are distracted from monitoring the real nasty ones - the ones who they say are like Medusa - look at it once, and your heart turns to stone.

All the time, we hear of children abused by persons who were already on the list  - why - they were right down the street! The world chokes on its abusers. For that matter - the world is so nuts - it ought to put every victim on the list as well, or at least on a watch list, for it is common knowledge that an abused one readily becomes an abuser. Completely unfair - but it makes perfect sense for a world that thinks it can snuff out abuse through pedophile registries.

Rapists are the ones who should be aggressively punished. No punishment is too great. As to the rest - look, even someone who recently confessed to being a victim of an extended family member - it probably would not have happened in these days of Caleb and Sophia, who are told: "If anybody tries to touch you - even if it is someone you know and trust ...  and then tell mommy or daddy." An extended family member doing abuse is common. A parent doing it is very uncommon, except in the case of a step-parent. The training of every Witness in the world via the Regional convention would also have gone a long way to prevent her calamity.

Allen is right to never yield the high ground. It is a huge court mess the brothers dealing with and I don't know how it will resolve, but Allen will not allow others to pull the 'righteous' card. Even with this mess, we are more righteous than they. The court cases are a classic example of getting slammed for doing the right thing: monitoring any abuser so that they can  be punished and any other congregations protected by their slipping in and feigning innocence. Nobody else even tries it. Do they have 1 abuser per hundred, or 50 per 100? Nobody knows or wants to know. Only Jehovah's Witnesses have the courage to stand up to a moral outrage and they should not be maligned for it.

20 hours ago, Witness said:

I was abused as a girl by someone in the extended family. Because my parents thought so highly of the individual, I never had the heart to tell them of my abuse

It explains (to me) many things, or at least puts them in a different light. You are rather bold to share it, even anonymously.

I didn't view the videos. Perhaps I will in time. For now, I'll take @Gone Fishing's word that they are a bit "out there."

The Kingdom Hall is a building dedicated to pure worship. Many things that are not disapproved in themselves nonetheless are not sponsored there because that is not the purpose of the building. To some extent, they would water down the purpose.

4 hours ago, Matthew9969 said:

but my child hood was very intense and violent, which I won't go into,

Understood. Thank you. We spend decades coming to grips with our past. Almost always it consists of separating the wheat from the chaff - after figuring out which is which. Sometimes we even walk back on that initial figuring.

4 hours ago, Matthew9969 said:

But I find your response insincere, judgmental, defensive and accusatory, since you immediately accused me of being a hater

That does happen sometimes here. This is a rough and tumble site, that features black, white, and many shades of gray. I have made similar mistakes. I appreciate that this remark was not directed to me, but at another place, time, and person,  it could have been.

4 hours ago, Matthew9969 said:

which I won't go into, if you would like to hear about it send me a message

This shows restraint. It is a quality not everyone has. If you like, you can send it to me. Do not feel you have to.

Going big, are you? Here is a fine scene from 'Network.'

photo: beforeitsnews.com

21 minutes ago, Melinda Mills said:

Another problem is that we seem always eager to identify with celebrities.  Don't know why.   Why should we rush these things to the site - what is the benefit to us. 

Some of the silliest people on the planet are celebrities. All of them, really, except our handful.

They lead very atypical lives. They are not subject to the same pressures of everyone else. Their opinions don't matter.

16 minutes ago, Anna said:

Wow, your life and ministry workbook looks different to mine last night!

Go ahead, lady. Make my day.

11. Eat plenty of beans

4 hours ago, Anna said:

He looks a bit like John Wayne.

God said to Rookie: "Go down to Nineveh and kick some butt." 

So Rookie proceeded to board a nuclear-armed ship headed for Tarshish and slipped a few nukes into his holster. In time, God sent a big fish to make trouble. "Die, sucker!" Rookie screamed, as he blew the beast to smithereens.

Rookie approached Nineveh and the gates were closed. So he cut them it two with blasts from his guns. King Ninny wet himself as Rookie put a gun to his temple. "You feel lucky today, punk?' he sneered. "Well, do ya?" King Ninny ran to the intercom. "Attention all Ninevites. Mayday! Mayday! Rookie is in town! Get that sackcloth on!

Rookie slammed his gun back into its holster and popped open a nice cool beer to enjoy under the gourd tree. God said: "That King Ninny got those people to straighten out and fly right. I'm not going to smush anyone."

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Rookie cried in disgust. "Are you wimping out on me?"

19 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

I just got off the plane (from Vancouver) and see this when my wi-fi comes back

Don't ever disappear like that again! We were worried sick! 

I was concerned that you had taken Amos 7:12, which we just covered at the meeting, to heart:

O visionary, go, run away to the land of wherever , earn your bread there, and there you may prophesy. But you must no longer prophesy [about]  Bethel.”

3 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

All in all, look at the laws that were on the books at the time of the circumstance, NOT TODAYS LAWS!!!!

It has long been common knowledge that Hollywood was a cesspool but no insider would rat on anyone else. At last the dam has broken and these guys are falling all over themselves to swear, like Sergeant Shultz, that they knew nothiiiinnnnggggg! (some are wetting themselves thinking that they are up next)

When the world at last wakes up to a problem, it swings wildly the other way. In this case rapists are lumped together with harassers, who are lumped together with those whose misdeeds were once called "getting fresh." Few women ever appreciated men getting fresh, I think, but they did not mistake that for rape.

It is similar with widespread condemnation of the founding fathers. Revered for centuries, they are now reviled because they kept slaves, notwithstanding that every agricultural person of means kept slaves at that time - and with no regard for whether they were kindly or vicious administrators.

It is the same with the world's outrage over child sexual abuse, now at full boil. Whenever zealots catch the wave, they invariably apply today's enlightenment to criminalize those of the past, as Alan points out. Sodomizers are the same as those too free with their hands who are the same as those who learned of it but practiced nothing themselves. Notwithstanding that back in my day child protective agencies sent abused children right back into the homes of the parents who abused them, in the naive belief that the abuser could be rehabilitated. It is naive by today's standards, but it was enlightened at the time.

The world's record of protecting children is absolutely dismal. News reports indicate a breathtaking percentage of adults have abused children. That is why the education of children on how to protect themselves is essential, as is the education of parents on how to protect their children. Nobody does that better than Jehovah's Witnesses, who trained every member in the world via last summer's convention. That addresses 95% of the problem. All that remains is to take out the sodomizers. If the world was serious about justice, it would apply capital punishment to such ones, for the common wisdom is that these persons cannot be rehabilitated.