28 minutes ago, John Lindsay Barltrop said:

English is not Queen Esther's first, or primary language and sometimes she may not quite get the point of something we find easy to understand....

Okay. Well, she knows one or two languages more than me, and that is a good thing. She may not realize that there are certain - how can they not be apostates? - who jump upon some of her posts and undercut / ridicule them. She would not like that if she knew, for she works so hard to provide upbuilding content.

The USPS is ever in financial crisis because fewer and fewer use actual paper mail. It seems Jehovah's Witnesses have bought them some breathing space.

20 hours ago, John Lindsay Barltrop said:

.I am not sure, but I think!!, that you may have misunderstood True Tom's comments to a degree.......

It may be that I owe Queen Esther an apology, for she posts much fine content.

If you see someone accosted by an apostate and the reaction is far afield from what you would expect it would be, it can be hard to get your head around why that would be. It is my bad, perhaps. I'll just have to work harder to get my head around it.

@johnlindsaybarltrop "This is also true..........no pun intended True Tom!!"

Sorry, John, I missed something. I don't know what you're referring to.

Upon reflection, the title of this NPR piece says it all:

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

What are your dreams?

4 hours ago, John Lindsay Barltrop said:

I thought this was an interesting comment that I came across.

2 minutes ago, Queen Esther said:

@TrueTomHarley  .........

Please,  I  don't  want  here  such  of  comments  under  my  post...  AGAPE !

AGAPE, my foot.

On 3/22/2017 at 1:04 AM, INTREPID TRAVELLER said:

John Lindsay Barltrop ANSWER THE QUESTION STOP ATTACKING THE PERSON - A HIGHLY PRACTICED JW TRAIT !

Nonsense. You always attack the person. It is the way to go.

Of course, you do not attack him in his own house. That would be rude. You don't attack him on his own blog, for that would also be rude. Possibly, you may not even attack him on his own thread. There, if you visit, you must be polite.

But therein lies the problem for the apostate. Nobody comes to his own house or his own blog, often not even to his own thread, because he is a loser, and everyone knows it. So he comes to your house, blog, thread, to make trouble, and there, as far as I am concerned, you blast him out of the water.

Now, this is Queen Esther's thread, and Queen Esther poses as one of our people. If she is (for all are liars on the internet...in other words, don't be too gullible), then she is my spiritual sister. So she will understand it when you are not nice to one who tries to invade a loyal ones' thread with disloyal comments.

You pour coffee for your welcome visitors, but your Rottweiler takes out the thief climbing through the window. What's so hard about that?

And JTR is here too, I see. Excuse me for a moment why I hunt up some asinine, bombastic, offensive, photos.

If you get too many thieves climbing in your window, then you move to another neighborhood.

Though our letter-writing campaign will surely catch their attention, we should not 'laugh' at the spectacle of these guys not being able to move because we have flooded their mail. If anything, we should apologize for it, with the caveat that the situation is desperate for us, we didn't know what else to do, and we felt we had to get their attention somehow.

Fear the king. Do not treat him with disrespect.

I am glad to read Mr. Pshelintsev's statement.

She brings her gift to the altar, as do we all. In her case, her gift is not so much her letter but her fame.

They will know there is a nation in which every citizen cares deeply about every other citizen. They have never seen this before. They will not forget it, regardless of the outcome. Not to mention the encouragement it will bring our Russian brothers.

As our brothers in Russia brace for their greatest trial, Mark Sanderson speaks to them on JW Broadcasting in Russian! Who would have thought?

As our brothers in Russia brace for their greatest trial, Mark Sanderson speaks to them on JW Broadcasting in Russian! Who knew?

Yes, of course he is our brother. But he is still putting on the Christlike personalty. I tried to counsel him about martial arts and he beat me up. Ouch.

Russian authorities know what their own constitution says. Tell them what they don't know. Perhaps how Bible education benefits ones, even us personally.

Here, Putin is routinely reviled by politicians and media. Respectful letters from ones who have every reason to gripe may make more impression than we realize.

On 3/22/2017 at 0:38 PM, Ann O'Maly said:

 

... If they choose to stop dissenting and change their beliefs back to those currently held by the Org.

 

This reminds me of the fellow who went to the doctor: "Doc, it hurts when I do this."

Doc: "Don't do that"

You don't even have to embrace everything, necessarily. You can simply acquiece that this is the understanding of such and such at present. Maybe it will change some day. It has before. Just stop your dissenting, bitching, whining, bellyaching, trolling, and let yourself be molded by the means God is using.

You're willing to suffer divisions in your family? Just how far are you willing to go to 

prove

yourself

RIGHT!!!?

The time you have to interact with loved ones is short. Don't fritter it all away in a pissing contest as to whose right.

On 3/21/2017 at 9:05 PM, AllenSmith said:

Thank you for making (Prove) my point 

Perhaps I am not exactly on the same page as Allen, but I am close. In military terms, I believe the expression is "Loose Lips Sink Ships."

If I disagreed with something the Governing Body was doing, I would not say it here. I probably would not say it anywhere. At the very least, I would not say it to anyone without the ability to address it, and I would be slow about doing that uninvited. Surely Sunday's study material on modesty has taught us how to behave.

It is too easy to follow the example of the Western media: Expose and tear things down. It's the dream come true of a ten year old. They have no interest in rebuilding or replacing. That's someone else's job. Meanwhile, they'll look for more things to expose and tear down. It's good not to be that way.

3 hours ago, Anna said:

 

I don't think I could stomach showing concern for Russia's leaders. We don't have to "brown nose" to put our point across. We would surely be hypocritical if we did that...

I disagree. In most countries, if you taunt the king too much you risk your neck. But if you make it your aim to live quietly, as Christians do, won't they leave you alone?

It is a different form of government, that's all. "What, you think we're so righteous here?" Trump said. If they tolerate interference less than is done here, there is yet no reason to think they are not genuine in their desire to provide stability and good government. At the drop of a pin, Western media and politicians will describe them in the most insulting terms. We need not play that game. Our perception of the king there need not be formed by the king here.

Having said that, I've not been there. But most of those saying vile things have not been there, either.

When you are writing to the Russians about their proposal to ban Jehovah’s Witnesses, there may be a temptation to speak of legal and constitutional issues, for their recent conduct flies in the face of many of them. There may be temptation to observe that, surely, ISIS provides the template of what extremism is. But I suspect leaders there are aware of these things and, for whatever reason, have chosen to ignore them.

Tell them something they don’t know. Tell them about eight million people, from every nation, who don’t know their Russian brothers personally, but care about them anyway. Let them ponder the significance of what if the whole world was like that. When they look to the outside world of international relations, all they see is bickering, bitching and bellyaching. Let them see another world.

Convey that we are ordinary, decent people, the sort who appreciates government’s role to preserve social order and improve the moral fabric of persons within its borders, and that we everywhere cooperate with governments as they pursue such goals. I like the suggestion at jw.org to relate some practical way in which the truth has helped us personally.

Imagine! An invitation from Bethel to write to high Russian officials about the proposed ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a fine way for individual Christians, most of whom feel quite helpless, to ‘bring their gift to the altar.’

14 hours ago, Ann O'Maly said:

One issue alone? Maybe you should read more than one thread.

It is true i have not read Ann's memoirs as she would wish. But her conduct on the threads I have read speaks loudly enough.

At the funeral of a certain apostate the other day the casket lid suddenly burst open. The deceased had just realized that there were some in the audience that had not heard her views..

Better to compare it to more recent letter writing campaigns, imo, and not Hitler. Hitler was doing unspeakable things to our people and many others. Russian officials, however, are probably only yielding to pressure from opposers in the house church.

It's hardly a slam-dunk, but neither should it be thought of as a lost cause.

1 hour ago, Ann O'Maly said:

 

Really? Thank you for deciding for me what I have and have no problem with. 

One can only assess people by how they have represented themselves. And you have written so prolifically on one issue and one issue alone that it seems safe to say nothing else really registers with you. At any rate, the organization that is most proactive in combating the things I said you had no problem with is the organization you do all in your power to destroy.

Moreover, one is only 'banished' for 'life' if they choose to remain so. It is always possible to mend fences. It's just not possible to remove the fence, when that is your aim.

10 hours ago, Ann O'Maly said:

There are hundreds of examples. Christendom, its churches, its clergy, its beliefs and practices have been called 'apostate,' 'disgusting,' 'worthless,' 'deserving of destruction,' 'God-dishonoring,' 'liars,' 'pagan,' 'blasphemous,' 'faithless,' etc, etc, etc.

At the non-Witness church, they neglect to teach what happens to the dead / the hope for those who have died. They like the 'immortal soul' model. When an infant dies, they say it's because God has an opening in his beautiful garden and only your baby can fill it. Surely you'll be comforted by that! What's that? You're not? Tough.

Ann has no problem with this.

At the non-Witness church, they neglect to teach the reason for evil and suffering. When people reel from atrocity, they say 'Shit happens. God works in mysterious ways. Had you voted another political party, it may not have been that way.

Ann has no problem with this. 

When war breaks out, the non-Witness church resumes its unfailing role as cheerleader. Could the World Wars have been fought without clergy herding parishioners on both sides into the war machine? Could Hitler have gotten off the ground without enthusiastic backing of the church? Even to have said 'no' probably would have stopped him in his tracks

Presumably, Ann does have at least a slight problem with that and would think criticism appropriate, but it must be respectful. It must be polite. Don't be vitriolic.

Even on her self-proclaimed cause of safeguarding children, Ann is conflicted. Does she have a problem with children being deluged with violence and perversion aimed at them as entertainment? Does she have a problem with children targeted with 24/7 advertising, even employing AI to do it? Does she have a problem with an adult world that profits from loading students up with tens of thousands of dollars of debt, crippling their future freedoms? She doesn't seen to, because she strives with all her might to take down the organization most proactive in safeguarding their youth from these things. 

How tiresome Ann is as she ignores everything to flail away at her single-focus issue - take down the 'org!'

"the dog has returned to his own vomit," Peter writes.

"Wow! Vomit! How cool is that?!" apostates say. "Let's roll in it!"

4 hours ago, Ann O'Maly said:

The point slipped right by you. You appeared to be blaming the 'intolerant' Trinitarian bunch for the JWs' persecution in Russia. However, other Trinitarian groups are also being persecuted. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to scapegoat the Trinitarians for JWs' ills because Trinitarian groups are in the same boat. You follow?

Yes, of course I follow, Ann. Leave it alone. It's but icing on the cake of persecutors. I never said it was the prime reason. The NPR story [not me] stated: “Dvorkin says that the Jehovah's Witnesses are not Christian because they don't believe in the divinity of Christ." What do you expect his further rationale to be?

'Fine reason to leave them be, they're nice people'?      or

'All the more reason to drop a ton of bricks on them'?