TrueTomHarley

2 minutes ago, PeterR said:

We'll just put it down to "alternative facts".

KellyAnne explained what she meant by that expression. The media went apoplectic when she seemingly applied it to photos that plainly showed whose inauguration crowd was greater...I swear, he does it just to bait them.

The 'alternative facts' that she was referring to are the facts she feels they should have been reporting but were not because they were consumed with back-biting and trivia. Lest there be any doubt that this was her meaning, her Twitter banner for a time showed her peering over Trump's shoulder as he signed important looking documents. Photoshopped in was the dialogue box: "I'm 50. He's 45."

It is the same here. Grousers that complain would do better to consider the 'alternative facts:' ...how, for example, a person has opportunity to live forever on a paradise earth, and that being the case, is it really the best use of their time to piss it all away over relatively minor things?

18 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

and he has NO CONCEPT that there are people who are willing to risk their lives, their fortunes, their reputations and everything they hold dear to pursue Justice and Truth for its OWN sake .... and to defend the oppressed

This, too, gets very old. It is the slogan of every soldier of every nation on earth, collectively ripping each other's lungs out. Yes, of course you respect anyone willing to risk their lives for a cause. By that reasoning alone, you would respect ISIS, for they risk all to defend their oppressed back from where they come from.

Yes. You respect them. But at some point say: "You poor sap. Why didn't to give your life in a cause worth dying for?" Squabbling about the petty things you mostly squabble about hardly qualifies. Just suck it up and carry on: From: 'No Fake News..."

"After studying one book seemingly written for no other purpose other than to harp on dress and grooming and harangue about field service, the conductor said to me: ‘Tom, why don’t you comment? You know all these answers.’ It was a turning point. He was right. I did know them all. It was time to stop sulking. From the circuit overseer on down, they had stirred up major chaos in the family. They had been heavy-handed and clumsy - but never malicious. And it had never been Jehovah. I’d read of ill-goings-on in the first-century record. Congregations described in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 were veritable basket cases, some of them, but that did not mean they weren’t congregations. Eventually things smooth out. Should I stumble when it became my turn? I’d read whiner after whiner carrying on about some personal affront or other on the internet. Was I going to be one of them? 

Let’s face it - many of Jehovah’s Witnesses are nuts, but none are liars. In a world full of liars one should be able to overlook some nuts. If screwball things happened here, they happen everywhere - usually with consequences devastating to unity - usually with parties stomping off and forming separate factions. “That point the Governing Body just wrote about it?” Mike Tussen once said, referring to matters like the Babylonian exile. “You might have noticed that point, too, years ago. And if this was the world, you would have separated and formed your own religion over it.” Some points are arguable. They can be spun another way. But they are not the essential points. I’ll spin it the way Bethel spins it, out of loyalty. That way we can all move on and get something done. If they spin it another way later, I’ll spin it that way, too, if they demand it. But they don’t demand it – they never do - for these are peripheral points, not the stuff that the truth is made of. Jehovah’s Witnesses maintain precious unity to effectively proclaim a vital message. But everyone must take it on the chin from time to time, and not carry on forever about things that didn’t go their way.

Recovery didn’t happen overnight, for I have a PhD in grudge-holding. Indeed, I was so good at it that few noticed I held a grudge, for I had never left the library – I had only strayed from the same page. Now it was time to get on the same paragraph. Was that book truly a dog? They’re not all dazzling flashes of light, you know, for the treasure is contained in earthen vessels. Or was it the conductor? Or was it me? No matter. If life throws you for a loop, you thank God for the discipline and move on. ‘For those whom Jehovah loves he disciplines, in fact, he scourges everyone whom he receives as a son,’ the Bible says. Tell me about it. ‘Half of those at Bethel are here to test the other half,’ the old-timers said. Yeah – tell me about that, too. My training wasn’t even then over – it never is. 

4 hours ago, PeterR said:

If that's true he abruptly changed the subject, as you can see by following the thread.

He certainly seemed to understand that I was talking about the convention video in my first comment about it.

Can this not be taken as 'imputing motive?' almost an ad hominem attack?

Alas, perhaps we were speaking past each other. If the thread is long, I skim before posting, and barely touch ground on certain posts, as you would if walking through a cow pasture. Apparently, I missed the change of topic. Sorry.

12 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

The rules were changed when Bro. Nathan H. Knoor decided to get married.

THEN the arbitrary tyranny stopped.

While you were scrapping, I acknowledged that:

https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/forums/topic/39002-the-judge-of-the-entire-earth-will-always-do-what-is-right/

I managed to do it without slandering a good man as a tyrant.

I've got them all. I printed them up for posterity. My visitors walk right past the booze I offer them to leaf through the pages. Unfortunately, I've had to jack up that side of the house.

6 hours ago, PeterR said:

Slander is a very strong accusation TrueTomHarley. And you throw it around like confetti? Please point to a post where I have slandered the GB or any other person, or calm down and show the strength of character to withdraw such a statement.

And while I'm at it, what is it with your showboating this? You just want to keep your complaints on center stage for as long as you possibly can. Our history only goes back two threads. We've had no exchanges in secret. Just scroll back is all you need to do.

I'm sure it will be subjective, as everything else is here. Your chums will agree with you, mine with me. Just scroll back, find something I've said, and argue with it. You don't need my help. That way, I can do other things.

6 hours ago, PeterR said:

which although not surprising to me, ought to be a red flag to readers.

Oh, please. Once again, you demonstrate you are full of yourself. There will be no Putizers awarded here. This is a 'here today, gone tomorrow' internet thread. It will be completely buried in no time at all. Most likely the only readers we need be concerned about flagging are the immediate participants here. Rest assured that I am ever mindful, before I post anything, that it never actually disappears and always could potentially resurface some day. I always take that into account. But in all probability, these words will never be seen again. (unless someone like me is saving them)

2 hours ago, PeterR said:

But many of them don't, having had their hearts hardened to a "greater cause".

This, too, is a common gripe of those who detest Witnesses. Those who say it most live in the West.

Few except in the West have any problem with setting aside one's personal interests in furtherance of a "greater cause." Everyone else knows 'you can't always get what you want.' Only in the West, intoxicated with independence, where the year text every year is "Nobody's telling ME what to so," do people think you should always get what you want. It is the 'spirit of independence' that the Watchtower frequently speaks about, yet it is hardly just them. Anyone concerned for the future of humanity must take note of it.

Christianity is nothing if not sacrificing to a "greater cause." Don't use the phrase perjoratively. To the extent one does, it indicates that one is poles apart from Bible-defined Christianity.

4 hours ago, PeterR said:

At the end of 1968 this brother would have been studying the following Watchtower in the congregation:

This has nothing to do with anything. For all I know, he wasn't even alive at the end of 1968. His experience is about keeping his head in view of totally unrelated happenings probably 20 years previous.

It has nothing to do with material in print even, least of all, prophetic doctrine. You are flailing more with each word you write. Stop doing that.

Look, you don't like the Jehovah's Witness organization. Got it.

Not to mention that you will soon offend the orderly senses of the anal @The Librarian, bringing up a topic brand new. Please don't cry again if you find yourself again at the head of a thread you did not start.

Oh, for crying out loud! You post the remark, one of a long list of complaints and criticisms: "Sure it's a "minor matter" when a vulnerable person finds themselves in a room with three elders for not believing man-made doctrine. No doubt that's what the scripture means." 

What would you have us all believe? That you came out smelling like a rose? 

You feel free to malign persons, and slander the GB. You ridicule teachings that others have accepted and have never said you had to embrace. You insinuate all sorts of wrongs and injustices you have been victimized over, yet you are cagey with clarifying details. you do everything possible to present yourself an enigma - blatantly wronged, but not able to provide any clarification.

Yet as soon as anybody 'speculates' about you, you cry like a baby!

21 hours ago, PeterR said:

Sure it's a "minor matter" when a vulnerable person finds themselves in a room with three elders for not believing man-made doctrine. No doubt that's what the scripture means.

Nevertheless, let us give PeterR the benefit of the doubt. I think he is devious as they come, but this is the internet - I could be wrong. There's no way the situation would have unfolded as he presents it. But it may not be as blatant as my hypothetical example with JTR. Peter pointedly says he will not spill clarifying details so to protect persons. Probably the persons who would most look bad with clarifying details are himself. But there may be others, and one must commend him if he shows restraint for that reason. We can't know for sure.

On the internet one cannot settle these matters, just as we cannot settle matters when the media repeatedly plays a clip of this or that wrong, everybody makes up their mind about it, and then raises hell when the jury later gets it 'wrong,' notwithstanding that the jury alone has heard all the facts from all the parties.

Still, let us grant Peter his premise that he was wronged. No one would say it is impossible. Human secular justice fails all the time, with penalties much more severe than family and friends shunning you for a time period mostly under your own control. These days there are many who have been imprisoned for years, even decades, now declared innocent based upon DNA evidence. Since human justice is imperfect, should we suspend all attempts to apply it?

Why doesn't he just 'do his time' if he must? There is a mechanism under which he will unfailingly be reinstated in time, should that be his desire. (assuming he is DFed, which he has not said) Nothing is going to hinge on his swallowing or not swallowing the overlapping generations. Unless he is unhinged with paranoia, or contaminated with GIGO reading, he knows this.

Of course, if he is truly the victim of injustice, as we are here granting his claim, he can always says: 'screw it! I was right! These guys are jerks.' I would say it, at least for a time. It would be hard not to. 

The reason such a person eventually comes around and suffers injustice if they must, is because that is the course the Bible disposes one towards. It is either that or devolve into a collection of loose cannons, still believing the dominant church teachings of Trinity and hellfire, most likely, for it is the GB that is most responsible for our breaking free from those false doctrines. And, as far as doing Christ's assigned work of preaching the good news of the kingdom? Forget it. Each one will be too concerned about their own individual beefs to collectively get the job done, insisting their own complaints be resolved before anyone can move forward.

In the end, it is: 'Do I want to be part of the apparatus advertising the new system of things, declaring this good news of the kingdom to all the inhabited earth, or am I content with being a sanitized subset of this system of things?'

59 minutes ago, PeterR said:

Yes, that's probably how it works.

Given that you agree, simply pull up one of many Bible verses about reviling or abusive speech - the kind that Bible writers say congregation members should be disciplined for - and you have answered your own question.

Your beef was never with the GB at all. It was with Christianity as described in the Bible. 

9 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Usually, it works something along the lines of this:

JTR posts this graphic on his congregation's information board. It is taken down. He posts a similar one, for he has hundreds. In time, he is disfellowshipped for violating one of the many verses discussed here and on other threads against public rabble-rousing in the congregation.

Then he TELLS everyone he was just minding his own business one fine day, when he casually let slip he didn't buy the overlapping generations' explanation, and he was summararily DFed for that reason alone.

1 hour ago, PeterR said:

I'll just say in passing though that they are effectively putting up someone as a good example because he was ignoring what was in Watchtower print at the time in favor of what he understood from the Bible.

This is absolutely incorrect. He was ignoring prevailing opinion at the time. His quote specifically states it was not the organization's view at the time. (hence, not in Watchtower print) I didn't drill down any further, seeing no need to challenge every word from trustworthy persons. But frankly, I thought is was their view at the time, with regard to Bethel service.

If you want special privileges anywhere, you may have to conform to some rules. These are not binding for Christians in general, but only for those who wish to officially represent JWs, as elders and MS's do. With Bethel service, I believe it is more a matter of conforming to family headship, Bethel often being called 'the Bethel family.' Among actual families, one family head decrees this or that rule for family members, another does not, or has different ones.

Nobody has to serve in Bethel. Nobody has to pioneer. Nobody has to serve as an elder or MS. But if you do, there may be additional requirements beyond that which apply to Christians generally. It is that way with representing anyone anywhere.

4 hours ago, PeterR said:

I hadn't realized that people could create new topics under your name without your say so. 

Sigh....tell me about it. It led to my Scarlet A.

Without watching the video, I would not hand a tract to a child, or would do so only with asking the child whether he thought that okay. Even then it can backfire, but if you've laid the groundwork is easy to mitigate trouble.

at one door in the evening, I met a teenager. After brief innocuous discussion, I told him my quandary: some parents don't like unknown visitors showing anything to their kids, and did he think I should or not? He said 'yes.' I should him the video on social media, a video that cannot even remotely thought to be proseletizing. I returned a week or so later, caught his brother, and did much the same.

Finally I returned and met the mother. She was miffed that I had shown things to her kids. I told her I had never wanted to speak with them in the first place - it was she I was looking for. Besides, I had specifically asked them if it was alright to speak, and they had said it was. "you know kids - they will say anything," she responded. I assured her I would not call again, she relaxed at that, and I was able even to explain why we come in the first place, referring to Matt 24:14. 'Obviously, the ones who will do this are those who believe in it - who else would be expected to?'

To another teenager, years earlier, I had said I would return later when her folks were home, and left. I was with a Spanish sister, not long in this country, who said she would have witnessed to her. It is that way in Latin America. Children take on responsibility at a very young age, and few have any problem with their kids being addressed with the Bible or anything else. They mature far more quickly than do American kids, who are sometimes still silly as can be at age 30.

5 minutes ago, PeterR said:

Only people like you and TTH actually meet Jesus' requirements to receive unique revelation. I imagine that must feel quite special.

Uh oh. There is an ad hominem attack that I will let slide.

11 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I guess I will note here that I called True TomHarley's bluff in the previous thread, and challenged  him to explain the "overlapping generations" in such a simple manner that EVEN AH could understand it ... and he looked at his cards, and folded.

I shouldn't do it. Apologies to @Annaand others engaged in serious discussion. I will not do it again (ideally). I certainly will not if this character does not misrepresent me, and I am too petty not to respond....

I did not fold. I did explain it. What I could not do - could anyone? - is rise up to the additional condition that he added: "explain the "overlapping generations " in such a simple manner that EVEN AH could understand it"

There! No more. Even if he (predictably) chimes in with something equally outrageous and insulting. My apologies to everyone else present.

11 minutes ago, Shiwiii said:

lol, superstitious much?

He needn't worry. I nudged him over the edge.

If someone would pay for advertising tattoos, I would get several. It is an area in which I would be able to beat out the kids, since older people tend to aggregate more space over time.

3 minutes ago, Jim Seward said:

Gen 1:29 specifies vegetation for humans. Gen 1:30 is not stated as directly for animals who also ate carrion when Gen 1:30 was declared. Thus, it is not declaring that all animals were created as herbivorous. Stating otherwise, that it does, is a misinterpretation.

"BY whom?" The Governing Body. They used to teach that all animals were created as herbivorous. Apparently, not any more. Hurray!!! That's progress.

I just saw a fox wolfing down a Big Mac yesterday. Or was that a wolf foxing down one?

Answer dutifully noted and appreciated. Now it is time to expand upon it with addendums, footnotes, and JTRisms. Time for anyone who has a lick of common sense to leave the room.

In a mellow mood, I once strolled into a tattoo parlor and asked the artist whether, when a tattooist is doing intimate areas of the body, they 'get off' on it. Or is it just art?

"It's art!" he responded angrily.

1 hour ago, Melinda Mills said:

I still think they will eat vegetation though. Nothing is impossible for God. There is a reason God is not telling us everything.

You could easily be right. I sometimes think it is possible that 'eating straw' will go the way of the heart, once thought literal, later conceded as figurative. I will hunt you up in the new system to shake your hand if it turns out you are right. (and I will ride my giraffe to find you)

For that is the ultimate answer to many a question: 'Be there, and you will find out.'

With outdoor temps in the 90s, I was at the swimming hole yesterday. A lot of young people were there. Tattooed have never offended me, but the kids do look like walking billboards these days. 

I once knew a young woman of artistic bent who was heavily tattooed, including her neck and face. She came to regret it because people formed an instant impression of her different from what she wanted to project.

I refuse to even wear a tee shirt with printing on it, though I may one day have one printed up with an image I like a lot.

I wouldn't be shocked if all this animal stuff is blown out of the water someday, (probably in the new system, when reality confronts us all) with all that remains being animals retain their instinctive shyness to man. You'll be able to pal around with them, but only if you work at it.

All the hay that JTR is setting aside for them he will have to eat himself.

5 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

someone in the back of the courtroom will stand up and scream "I DID IT!, I DID IT!"

I'm clearing my throat as we speak.

A note for @James Thomas Rook Jr., [Trutom, are you nuts? Why are you flagging him? He just carries on like Kathy Griffin at a Trump birthday party!]

Note that all evils discussed here are before the 'clear and present danger' GB.  As is, of course, the Joseph example from ancient times, and the Peter example and one other from next week's material. 

And don't get me going about Rutherford or Miracle Wheat Charlie. Or the twelve disciples always doing dumb things - even the one who got to be big cheese having run out on the Lord during his hour of need. 

The treasure is in earthen vessels. (2 Corinthians 4:7) Always has been. Always will be, until those vessels are made perfect, scheduled for a time well ahead of ours.