TrueTomHarley

I like @AveragePub

With a mere phrase or two, he demolishes mounds of drivel.

#signherekid

"that they may be all one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me."..... John 17:21  RSV

Is this not a clear example of Fifteenarianism? Come to my church (Pastor: Tom Harley) and I will tell you more.

As I pass the plate on the ends of long poles, they will shake to the music, so that coins will loudly chink. What we want is quiet money.

On 5/8/2017 at 6:03 PM, Jay Witness said:

It could certainly be argued that when a religion becomes violent it becomes extremist. [says the Huffington Post]

Yes, perhaps you will not be pilloried if you make that point. Perhaps you can even be allowed to make the contrasting point that when a religion unfailingly avoids violence, it is not extremist.

From this week's Bible reading:

“this word came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying: “Take a scroll and write in it all the words that I have spoken to you … Perhaps when those of the house of Judah hear of all the calamity that I intend to bring on them, they may turn back from their evil ways, so that I may forgive their error and their sin.… Perhaps their request for favor will reach Jehovah, and they will turn back, each one from his evil ways, for great is the anger and the wrath that Jehovah has declared against this people… 

Baruch then read aloud from the scroll… in the hearing of all the people. 

… Then all the princes sent to…Baruch, saying: “Come and bring with you the scroll from which you read in the hearing of the people…Sit down, please, and read it aloud to us.” …Now as soon as they heard all the words, they looked at one another in dread, and they said to Baruch: “We must certainly tell the king all these words.”  
So the king sent … out to get the scroll, … Jehudi began to read it in the hearing of the king …  After Jehudi had read three or four columns, the king would cut off that portion with the secretary’s knife and pitch it into the fire that was burning in the brazier, until the entire scroll ended up in the fire that was in the brazier.  And they felt no dread; neither the king nor all his servants who heard all these words ripped their garments apart. Although [the princes]  pleaded with the king not to burn the scroll, he did not listen to them.” ….Jeremiah 36:1-25

Would the Huffington Post brand Baruch and Jeremiah extremists for rocking the boat? Or would they say the king was extremist?
 

4 hours ago, Eoin Joyce said:

 

Britain's good old "Aunty", the BBC, summed up the matter very simply when discussing the (not exclusive) beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses on the matter of the Trinity: 

Belief in the Trinity depends upon taking literally certain expressions that, in any other context, would instantly be recognized as figures of speech.

If they read 'beating around the bush' in an article, they understand the meaning. It they read it in the Bible, they look for the bush.

If they read of persons shedding 'crocodile tears' in an article, the understand the meaning. If they read it in the Bible, it is proof to them that the persons were really crocodiles.

Since I am retired and do nothing but write, I am putting together a short Ebook (which gets longer all the time) on the Russian ban, the letter-writing campaign, and things leading up to it. This one will be a freebee, unlike the others I have written that are on my profile banner – ‘free’ is more in keeping with the spirit of things. They should all be free, but unfortunately, writing is my sole gig. It’s either that or Mickey D. for me.

En route to gathering material, I came across a book entitled Dissent on the Margins, which is about the history of our people in Russia, published in 2014. The author, Emily Baran, is not a Witness, nor a cheerleader for us, but she gets it right with regard to her facts - she relates them accurately and impartially. She has been quoted on jw.org. Her book has given me much context, preventing what might be some clumsy missteps, and I recommend it. 

It’s pricey, but less so as an Ebook. And worth it, if you’re into history and non-biased commentary. Whereas my books are largely anecdotes and experiences, my ‘research’ mostly just nailing down the specifics of things or events I already know about or have recently come across online, she actually has done the academic kind. Her book is heavily footnoted with materials both from Witnesses here and in Russia, as well as government archives.
 

8 hours ago, AveragePub said:

Not likely.

sometimes the best answer is a short one

5 hours ago, Anna said:

(I blame @TrueTomHarley, his style of writing rubs off on me sometimes

! 

Should I apologize to JTR or not? If he wasn't so clearly on the other side, I would. THAT IS TO SAY, I WOULD!!! I might have actually done it if he didn't Mooooo to AvP.

"Stop your fighting in my library!" shrieks the Librarian. "Stick to the topic: total control! I love that topic, and in my own library I am not going to give up on it! How does an afternoon in detention sound to you?!"

1 hour ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

That is what makes average people, average people.

Oh, come off it! is this any more than another clear indication that the writer DOES NOT regard himself as average.

4 hours ago, bruceq said:

not human at all but an AI a computer algorithm designed just to irritate you. lol  

They can and they do. More often than not.

6 hours ago, Nicola said:

  I am new here and I am upset by the murmuring that I am seeing, and I am further upset that you would claim that I am judging him when he is picking apart our organization which is clearly condemned!  This is not a place where JWs should be hanging out, and I can see that now, and will see about deleting my account!  I don't like what I am seeing here!  

I think they're all crazy here, myself included. Well - if not crazy, at least they all have some special reasons for writing. Actually, some of them I like, and I may even cut myself a tiny bit of slack, but there's no getting around the fact that - this isn't the type of hangout the Watchtower has in mind when in speaks of associations, is it? Perhaps you could most charitably describe the atmosphere as avant-guard.

Do you belong here, Nicola? You come across as a very good person, a trusting person, who expected something very different than the exchange of remarks here. Even with your exchange with so and so, I suspect you would be fine friends in the congregation where you would work shoulder to shoulder, interact face to face, along with the other friends, and readily get to know where each other is coming from.

On the internet, there is no way to determine anything about anyone other than their comments themselves, and that takes a while and can never be known for sure. There's no point in asking someone if he is a brother or not. How would you know if he is being truthful? You don't even know if the profile picture he uses is genuine. The internet is not the congregation.

After an initial skirmish, I have carried on at great length about the ignorant, disgusting, controlling battleaxe of a Librarian, who I'm not afraid of one bit. My DESCRIPTION fooled even HIS LOUDNESS. In fact, she is a he.

1 hour ago, Melinda Mills said:

One or two of the contributors here have recently said that many of us could have been better off with a little more education and more purposeful planning of our lives, though not leaving out spiritual things.  However, even with this mistaken idea that you cannot be a spiritual person with a sound secular education, many of them have been able to provide for their families albeit with some difficulties.  The person is still a Witness along with his family - so there is still some success. (Hebrews 6:10)

A while back there was discussion of the NPR story:

"Lack Of Education Leads To Lost Dreams And Low Income For Many Jehovah's Witnesses" 

I read the article, but I didn't have to. The title says it all. Just where do you look for fulfillment of your dreams? This system of things or the one to come?

1 hour ago, Jay Witness said:

 

TRUE JEHOVAH"S WITNESSES did not dedicate themselves to a Governing Body. They dedicated their lives to Jehovah and Jesus...

..... [and they don't] study and preaching to an elite few in a studio from New York 

 

As a practical matter, this appears to be a case of persons sitting in the terminal because the old pilot retired and the new one isn't the same as the old one.

Nonetheless, they insist to everyone at the airport the they are yet the True Passengers, even though everyone else left for their destination long ago with the new pilot, whose updated airplane even includes video screens.

As far as I can see, pretty much everyone watches the presentations.

5 hours ago, Nicola said:

And how can the commission find wrongdoing if it isn't required by law?  They did say that if they truly suspect the child is at risk, they do report them

If 'going beyond the law' is the new gold standard, why doesn't that become the law? Could any solution be more straightforward?

Who knows? Perhaps the God of Messing Up Your Mind will toss out the decision when everyone least expects it.

On 4/24/2017 at 11:33 PM, The Librarian said:

In the future... let's post the article with the source..

then at the bottom state your concern about it possibly being "fake news" instead of in the title.

At this point no one can prove it is false.....what if it turns out to be true?

Maybe I can't spot fake news but I can spot Librarian mentality a mile away. A fetish for making order out of chaos. Sheesh.

If it is fake news, then who are all these Russians that i've taken into my house? They're wearing ties. They must be Witnesses.

I actually didn't fall for this one, though, like Anna, I gave some pause due to the Kushner connection:

"5.   Jehovah’s Witnesses (my people) moved their headquarters from Brooklyn Heights, where they had been for over 100 years, to way, way out in the sticks.

6.   Jerod Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, bought their old building. Video of him saying nice things about Witnesses appeared on jw.org. I had no idea who he was at the time, but when I found out, I worried anew. See - I caught a heavy dose of news each day while I was writing, and it irritated me, but I stuck with it – how else would I learn about the snowfall outside my window? Now, no one is capable of total non-bias, but they are capable of trying. I’m not used to the referee leaning on the scales – it never used to happen. But when I would grouse about the media, which I did a lot, some took it as support for Trump! I could picture the Watchtower sign going down, a Trump sign going up, and fellow Witnesses, who weren’t paying overclose attention saying: ‘how did Tom manage that?’"

18 hours ago, JW Insider said:

 

• Is it OK to believe that all the creative days were not exactly 7,000 years long?
• Is it OK to believe in 587 BCE for the destruction of Jerusalem?
• And, my favorite, "Is it OK to believe in evolution, at least while I'm still in school?" 

I like the frank statement in Paragraph 12 of Sunday's Watchtower stuydy: “The Governing Body is neither inspired nor infallible. Therefore, it can err in doctrinal matters or in organizational direction.”
 
There is no finer way to get some grumblers going than to say: “oh, we changed that.” Hostile people scour past publications, discover where you’ve once said ‘A’, whereas now you say ‘B,’ and pounce all over the ‘flip-flop.’ They thereby reveal that they themselves reason like 10-year olds.
 
It's not a piece of cake looking into the future - everyone knows that - so if you mess up, you back up and tackle the subject anew. We do it all the time. For decades, we have spoken of ‘tacking’ and the ‘light getting brighter.’ What is that if not an admission that we’ve often been wrong? We’re very open about it. So when the grousers come around with their grousing over teachings that have changed, they look pretty silly if they harp on it – we’ve never said that they don’t. There are many examples in the Bible of faithful ones doing or saying things that did not pan out.
 
The logical extension of this is that with any new understanding, one can always accept it as tentative, the best understanding available at the moment. Nobody expects you to herald these new understandings from the rooftops. They are not the basic fabric of the truth that we teach to our Bible students – they are for our own edification. So long as you don’t go setting yourself up as a counter-authority with your ‘better understanding,’ everybody gets along just fine.

It’s all a matter of respect for authority versus contempt for authority. That point the Governing Body just clarified? You may have noticed that point some time ago in your own private study of the Bible. And if this was the greater church world, you would have run out and started up your own sect over it. Instead, we wait on the human authority Jehovah has provided.

One character hoo-haws over the fact that growth among Western nations is quite modest and sometimes has even reversed. He thus reveals his bias that these are the only people who matter. One explanation for what he observes is that nowhere is contempt for authority of any sort more prevalent than in the West – independence is the revered goal held before all here. Another is the effect of this world’s ‘higher education,’ which pushes with all its might an atheistic view. 
 

40 minutes ago, Anna said:

This is what I always say when the friends start quibbling over how short is too short on a skirt, or how tight is too tight on some pants. Perhaps all that would be solved if we were all naked  

There ought to be a 'dress and grooming' servant in each congregation so that everyone else could forget about such nonsense and focus on things more important. Sigh....if only the sleazy style hawkers in the commercial world would leave people alone.

Dave McClure was the son of Lucy McClure. She, along with two other families, were defendants in the case that overturned Gobitus on Flag Day, 1943. He was our circuit overseer for a time. A real favorite.

"David McClure, our former circuit overseer, found his faith in God put on trial when he was but a boy. He was the son of Lucy McClure. Along with two other families, Lucy sued a West Virginia school district after Dave and other Witness children were expelled for refusal to salute the flag. Years later, the grown-up Dave spoke at a special assembly in Niagara Falls, NY. He related those harrowing experiences of ‘West Virginia State Board of Education v Barnette’ as seen through the eyes of a child. He spoke of regularly getting beaten up walking to and from school. As only Dave McClure could do, he made getting beaten up sound almost like fun."

4 hours ago, Eoin Joyce said:

 

My favourite is:

*** w62 5/15 p. 320 Questions From Readers ***
● Is there any objection to a dedicated Christian minister’s belonging to a nudist group or living at a nudist camp or resort?—M. D., United States.
 

Well? Don't just sit there. Tell me if I can do it or not.

One brother said about such articles: "I read the question, then I skip to the end to see if I can do it or not."

Alright, alright, he was not being serious. He was kidding. But there were likely some who did it just that way. After all, it's not a joke unless there's a kernel of truth in it. People are people, inside God's organization or out.

Really, really staunch Church members do not cease being Church members when they are not attending Church - say, when they are working at their government jobs.

2 hours ago, bruceq said:

 

In the event of a ban, Jehovah's Witnesses will go underground. "What is expected from the Jehovah's Witnesses after the ban? 

They will be as those who can neither buy nor sell without wearing the number of the beast.

40 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

 

• Is it OK to believe that all the creative days were not exactly 7,000 years long?
• Is it OK to believe in 587 BCE for the destruction of Jerusalem?
• And, my favorite, "Is it OK to believe in evolution, at least while I'm still in school?" 

Is it okay to celebrate Groundhog's Day?

I like the description from Acts 15:26 of those with authority in the first-century congregation, discussed during Sunday’s Watchtower study. They were “men who have given up their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It is a marked difference between leadership in the JW congregation versus leadership in the outside religious world. There, generally speaking, you go to specialized college. You pocket a degree. You get a church to hire you as pastor or priest, and, if you desire, you climb the promotional ladder. Thus you may eventually become a church leader never having truly followed.

With those who have served on the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses it has been different. They have spent decades in full-time service performing a ministry more lowly than that of most persons they will one day lead. It is only after, not before, they have ‘given up their lives’ that they receive the specialized training to lead.

The greater world today positively slobbers over ‘education’ and offers it as the cure-all to almost everything. The world such educated ones have collectively built strongly suggests that model is a sham. Frankly, unless people have proven themselves to be of good heart, you are frequently better off not educating them – they can do less damage that way. If janitors and car wash attendants had run the financial world back in 2007, they might have found a way to beat the taxpayers out of a day’s wage. As it was, highly educated MBAs ran it and found a way to sink all future generations in inescapable debt.

The Economist magazine, covering the ban, has coined a new term. I will use it.

"The ruling is a testament to the growing influence of the Russian Orthodox church, especially of a radical wing who see the Jehovah’s Witnesses as a dangerous sect that deviates from the official version of Christianity."

The 'official version.'

I haven't said 'Christendom' in years. Instead, I've said 'traditional.' No more. Now the churches represent 'the official version.' 

Just who are the officials? In Russia, they are the Russian Orthodox Church. In America, they are the Evangelicals. Post something about the faith in their hearing and you will be flooded with outcries of "cult" due to rejection of their favorite doctrines. Yet, unless I am very much mistaken, the two official versions would not get along. In fact, I suspect they would hate each others' guts, though for the purpose of maligning Jehovah's Witnesses they might form a temporary 'best buddy' relationship.