TrueTomHarley

Write them. Ask them to explain it, unless the context of the article does.

6 hours ago, Anna said:

What are you talking about, you never upvote anybody anyway.....you're mean

Just for that, lady - you so much as breathe and I'll downvote you. You will never get TOP PRIZE again! 

Just now, J.R. Ewing said:

That's where you and I part company!!

Parting is okay, just like Abraham and Lot did.

I once said I half-suspected this entire forum is apostates playing good cop - bad cop to wreak havoc on newcomers. I'm still not 100% certain that's not the case, though I'm getting there.

28 minutes ago, J.R. Ewing said:

Believe me, there’s a disfellowshipped ex-bethelite, and his loyalist, rejoicing that another loyal witness bit the dust, so stick around and prove them wrong!!!!

On the other hand (and I do NOT know which persons you refer to) we all know how there are movies that, if you see them, you feel you ought to take a shower afterwards. The internet can be like that, too.

Nobody should be coerced to keep up the fine fight here because it isn't that fine. Often it is better to stick to the field where the likelihood of finding a 'listening ear' is far higher and the likelihood of finding a honed hating ear is far lower. 

Nor do I agree that anyone 'bit the dust.' More likely, he was Mary who 'chose the better portion.' 

12 hours ago, bruceq said:

We know. Satan can say things that are true also. But Titus 1:16 - he is not approved by God anymore than a blogger is who upvotes apostates and agrees with their haughty attitudes or "special interpretations"

In the end it is about not stumbling 'one of these little ones who believe' so as to avoid having a millstone thrown about your neck.

If upvoting villains on the rare occasions they behave can trigger someone's stumbling, should I assume the right to do it? It doesn't matter whether I've figured it shouldn't trigger stumbling. It only matters that it does, or can. Should I give the impression that I am having a most pleasant party here with characters who loathe everything Jehovah's Witnesses stand for? Isn't this an "if eating meat causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again" situation?

JTR will shed many a tear, but hopefully he will understand as my upvoting dwindles. No WWI 1914 Christmas truce here, I think it must be..

8 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

5 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I upvote ANYBODY when what they say is true, and/or really applicable.

 

I am rethinking it.

56 minutes ago, bruceq said:

And since a forum such as this one it is impossible to determine who is or is not an apostate, disfellowshipped or pretending to be a brother while dispensing divisions  and we are obviously associating together here it is my decision to now leave as I wish to cherish true Loyalty to my Creator. 

I mentioned once that I assume up front that everyone is a liar. You have to do that online. It's takes a while to sort them out here, and some you never know for sure. It's probably best just to stay off the darn thing, but I'm not the most balanced guy in the world.

Besides, new or naive ones come along and play here like kids on the street. Villains are trying to run them down, swerving like ISIS to take out as many as possible. Sometimes I can flatten their tires and thwart them, or at least slow them down and cause them to pull out their air pump to imbibe more hot air.

Not to mention that I suspect some here don't have both oars in the water.

29 minutes ago, bruceq said:

I realize that I am not an elder or former elder such as some of you are but I know what Loyalty to Jehovah is.

You do. This is not a great place to be for most Witnesses, and maybe none of them. You've brought a lot to the table. Thank you.

1 hour ago, bruceq said:

Makes one ponder when so-called "brothers" upvote an apostate.

(Gulp!) I have done this on the rare occasions that they behave and say something worthwhile.

Remember, even you-know-you says a good word every now and then. Besides, there is a certain air of comedy about this entire forum. Going for the jugular of your nemesis no matter what he says only lends it a ridiculous flavor.

in

42 minutes ago, J.R. Ewing said:

However, keep up your condescension

I try not to be condescending. I don't think I am. 

Everything is subjective, though. Apparently, you think it.

6 hours ago, J.R. Ewing said:

That would be my sentiment: I'm afraid you'll have to explain this one for me. I don't know what you mean.

I may have expressed something inelegantly but, in general, if it goes back from before I was born, I lose interest. If it also it requires eyestrain  - I am not an eagle-eyed kid anymore - it disappears almost entirely.

You have to be an historian for something that long ago, and that's not my thing - not for the sake of some piddly item that may have been no more than a bad hair day. If the man says he can't translate, what do I care? The fact is, it is translated by someone, they all remain anonymous there, who knows what was farmed out and to who? Of maybe God wrote it himself. (sigh...I'm being facetious here) The fact is, the translation exists and it get high marks. Not by Trinitarians, for it messes with some verses that cannot be rendered literally because it louses up their teaching. And there are some academics who look askance at the Name in the New Testament - inclusion of which is explained in an appendix. But other than that, it's well thought of.

If you have to go back 70 years to dig up dirt, there can't be much dirt to dig up. Statements play differently at different time periods - just watch a movie from that time, or reflect that John differs so much from the other three gospels because times had changed and the foremost needs of the congregation had changed with them. So I don't necessarily want to unravel mindsets back then that accommodated statements that today's mindsets do not, especially if I think an opponent simply wants, and cannot get his head around anything but, a sound byte.

Anyone can go back and have at it debating events back and forth and I'm not suggesting they can't or that it is a waste of time if they do. I'm just saying it it should hardly be considered mandatory after many decades, and a perfectly valid possible response is: 'who cares?' Even were a report from that long ago completely true, in our times complete scoundrels overhaul their image in far fewer years. So it doesn't interest me much to go there. Others will differ. More power to them if they do. But it's not mandatory.

Similarly, I have little taste for things having to do with chronology, because even if opponents were to be absolutely correct, it amounts to little more than misreading a bus schedule. In athletics, runners jump the gun all the time, and they simply restart the race; nobody makes a big deal over it. It's the runner sitting on his rear end at the starting blocks that you wonder about. Grumblers here ought to specify whether they still even believe we are in the last days. Some do. But some have gone atheist, and dismiss ISIS as just one of those things - why, there have always been bad people.

i like the truth also because it makes you nicer over time, when applied. I follow many sources on Twitter, which is the best way to get news, because you can choose your feeds. I choose all kinds of villains, along with the agreeable, so as to keep tabs on them. Few persons are as openly condescending and contemptuous than certain prominent atheists. Sometimes I worry that their cherished evolution is true and that they are the end result. If so, it's good-bye to the human race, for they do not suffer fools gladly. And a fool is anyone who disagrees with them.

46 minutes ago, J.R. Ewing said:

That’s an odd statement coming from a supposed liberal, TTH. Are you trying your hand at censorship now?

 

 

I would think, that direction would fit first with JTR, then others! or am I hurting the bottom financial line.

I'm afraid you'll have to explain this one for me. I don't know what you mean.

5 minutes ago, J.R. Ewing said:

If anyone wishes to “read” the “TRUE” transcript of the case, it’s available online. Just be careful, since “apostates” have rewritten some pages of the transcript to bolster their ignorant claims. One, that has been submitted here already is a good example since it was gathered by an apostate book.

Or you could just say 'it was 70 years ago. Who cares? Even if it was 100% faithfully reported, they've had plenty of time to shape up.' Everyone knows the world 70 years ago bears little resemblance to today.

If someone insists on acting as a 10-year old, there's no need to go there with him.

37 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

"Hey. Has anyone seen Brother One-hour?"

I think I saw him with his cousin, Larry Largatherin

I figured she could help me break into the business, so I dropped by. She eyed me briefly, and then pulled the trap door.

And she calls herself a sister!

What does this one mean at Ezekiel 39:15?

"When those who pass through the land see a human bone, they will set up a marker beside it. Then those assigned to do the burying will bury it in the valley of Hamon-Gog...And they will cleanse the land."

Bethel has never commented on this verse, so I am not allowed to speak of it until they tell me what to think. (I just threw that in for @Albert Michelson and crew)

But if I could comment on it, I might offer that it tells how every last vestige of human thinking is cleared out after Armageddon, some of which are so skillfully interwoven by governments, business, contemporary thinkers and the like, that their effects are unnoticed, yet they affect us nonetheless. After Armageddon - gone!

For example, even without ill intent, we are hearing endlessly of the displaced in Houston where (at last count) 37 have died, and are completely ignorant - or it is mentioned only in passing - that over 1000 have died in India - same cause. Repeat this to Americans again and again, as with any other news story, and it plants the subtle notion - not easily dislodged - that American lives are the ones that matter. It is probably the same in all nations. 

Now it is an ongoing struggle. Paul says we are 'overturning reasonings against every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.' Every dividing thought, every undermining thought, every debased thought - thoughts that cannot be completely screened out even if we live and breathe jw.org - in the new system - gone in the new system!

Unless there will just be a lot of bones to pick up, and the mens' wives drive them, as mine does me to my howls of protest, to keep everything neat and tidy. 

2 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

It's as if the King of England back in, let's say, the year 1033 CE, just gets into power and says "I am now the King of England, and I now have all authority over the land: both over peasants and land-owners alike.

'There's a new king in town'

4 hours ago, Queen Esther said:

Example, by FB is NO sign of a JW  and no word about Jehovah, nothings...  only her many Model photos !

A celebrity JW - we have precious few of them - would necessarily keep a low profile out of modesty, in addition to any business reasons. Imagine how she might be idolized by immature Witnesses otherwise. 

Still, if she wants my seal of approval, I'd better see a literature cart on her next photo shoot.

2 hours ago, Nana Fofana said:

Okay.  So You're right and I was wrong, this once.  So what???  I *told* you it wasn't a disproof necessarily.

Just kidding .  it's embarrassing-yes.

Origin and Etymology of antitype

I've been trying to answer you for the longest time but I keep making types - um, typos.   

Between the Supremes and Led Zeppelin, you are starting to reveal the arena in which you are a prophetess.

1 hour ago, Albert Michelson said:

You are, the witnesses telling my wife and I that we're going to die and calling us horrible names because we aren't going to meetings aren't. 

I was actually being facetious. We aren't, in many cases, and that's especially demonstrated online. 

Granted, it is not easy. Online conversations everywhere about anything are seldom more than screamfests. However, I suspect there are some Witnesses who go online because they can dispense with the manners that would get them kicked off the doorstep in a heartbeat.

It is the human condition - certainly not primarily true of Witnesses. it is the same situation as persons 'nice as pie' publicly who let down all restraint at home. Witnesses should be better, for they represent Jehovah - that's all I am saying - and that is not always true.

Again, I backtrack a bit. To some extent this forum is fake news, in that it bills itself as a Witness-friendly site, drawing people in from Twitter (which is how I got here). Whether that is right or wrong, who can say? This is the internet and people can do what they want. But many of our people come aboard under false expectations, rove around a little, discover some poisonous people (not you) who are as in-your-face obnoxious as can be - and they lose it! They reach for the spear like Phinehas, not realizing they leave a permanent online trial. (which is quickly buried, however) 

If they anyone spoke mean to you and your wife, I apologize. Not that it matters that I do, but I do anyway. On the other hand, when my daughter was asked whether one had to be a Witness to survive Armageddon, she said: "Well, I'm not Jesus. And I don't know."

I would say so, but I think that is a catch-all term and not a denomination per se.

On another site, I did have one commented who said (from family experience) that nowhere is disparity of income so great then in churches where they preach prosperity income, where the foremost prosperous one is always the preacher.

http://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2011/06/income-religion-and-jehovahs-witnesses.html (comments from 'Dave')

Many in the greater community of churches don't like Osteen - it is not 'birds of a feather flock together' in this instance. They decry the lack of substance.

Just ban JTR and his graphics machine and you'll do fine.

Sometimes you have to do a brain dump so thoughts do not back up. There is much to spur them on lately.

For example, astronomers have spotted an asteroid which will make the closest approach ever to earth. Is this reason to take cover, as timid ones have suggested? No! Rise to the occasion. This is your moment. 

Knock it out of the park! Batter UP!!

They have also pointed out that daylight hours have been receding - so gradually that many do not notice. Their inattention will kill them, as some Bible verse says somewhere or ought to. This could be a worse crisis than global warming. Act now! Do not wait until it all disappears - when it will be too late.

On the movie front, two men have proposed an update of Lord of the Flies, that film where boys stranded on a desert island go savage - with an all-female cast. "Women wouldn't act that way!" critics have cried.

Question: How would they act? One moment while I take cover. Or maybe I'll just step into the path of that asteroid.

http://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2017/08/lord-of-the-flies-with-females-how-would-they-act.html