TrueTomHarley

1 minute ago, Anna said:

I just thought she might be a bit savage  😁

Doubtless just a misunderstood saint who will immediately change her ways upon encountering the pure righteousness of my page.

16 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

I worked with an IT consultant who was on the autism spectrum, and he swears (!!) that when he was growing up he thought swear words were part of a special language only used by school-children. He never heard these words from grown-ups or his straight-laced parents.

In my entire life, I only heard my dad swear once. Long ago, when entirely families would swim at the beach, a group of teens walked by and one of them said “s**t” He reared up like a grizzly bear and hollered that there were decent families around, and they scattered. If they ridiculed him, it wasn’t till they were far away.

The one time I heard his swear was when he was 90 with dementia. He would ask the same question over and over again, each time immediately forgetting the answer. It weirded my brother out, and he tried responding by just ignoring him. “G******T, ANSWER ME when I talk to you!!” he roared, and my brother never did that again.

”C’mon bro” I said. “You just can’t ignore him. Answer him. It doesn’t matter what you say. You don’t have to translate and come up with the right answer. Say anything. He’ll forget it. But you can’t just ignore him like he were a bratty child.

26 minutes ago, Anna said:

Not so sure about DaVinci Dy Savage 😂

I’m sure I let some sleazeballs and if they act up once, they’re gone. I delete more readily now. But the reason I did not from the get-go is due to what you said about varying standards of dress. If the profile pic is okay, they’re in. I may later find I was too hasty. Immodest dress in itself will not ban them, but a deliberate strutting ones stuff, trying to be as provocative as one can, will get them the boot. It is sort of pathetic really, and sad, and not anywhere near as provocative as some of these ones seem to think. But I’m getting tired of doing this. I am either going to show up with a ruler, just like teachers in old-time high school, or I’m going to insist upon everyone wearing barrels. 

On 3/11/2021 at 9:35 PM, TrueTomHarley said:

No wonder I can’t get them to answer the phone.

I did call them some months ago. There was a digital side note somewhere, explaining some passage or other, that began with: “Does God care about women?” and the answer was “No.”

It was purely a format thing. The “no” was in response to something else, but the formatting put it as answer to the above question.

I explained it to whoever answered the phone and was put through to an extension. I explained it to that brother and he seemed slow to recognize the problem, then inclined to shrug it off as one of those things. Well, this is not the right department anyway, he said, and he rung me through to someone else. 

The phone rang forever and ever and ever and with anyone else I would have hung up. Finally the original brother answered, was surprised that it was me again, then said, well, for some reason they’re not picking up the phone, and said he’d send them the message.

Maybe they were all doing the Happy Bethel dance.

13 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Maybe I will make my own: “Are you a floozie?” I will ask anyone new. Don’t answer ‘yes’ though, unless you want to be tossed or unless you promise to be a floozie no more.

Sigh—I don’t want to be crude, but the unaccustomed volume of friend requests means I’d better not see much cleavage and preferably none at all. To say you are approving friends based upon not seeing cleavage, I know sounds crass, but there you have it. I can see why social media wears people out. My wife has those things too, you know.

Don’t people know that I do nothing but think about God all day?

7 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I sighed at that tiny square at the top of the right-hand scrollbar, which indicated a novella below. But it was mostly pictures that required only a quick glance and a chuckle. The entire piece literally takes about 3 minutes tops. And I needed something light as I just watched the "Trial of the Chicago 7" on Netflix. I recommend both highly. Thanks xero; and thanks, Alan Sorkin.

Okay, I went through it. Yes, I do like it. I just needed the energy of a brand new day. I only put my daily Bible reading ahead of it—I hope nobody minds. The spies getting all weak-kneed in the promised land, bunch of wusses.

The blog & artwork is generational, and I am of an older generation. But I did like it, the simple drawing with bright colors.

My daughter keeps sending me a similar set of cartoons that are likewise generational, but they grow on one. Beings from another planet poking gentle fun at customs by describing it in words they don’t quite have.

I’ll check out Chicago if I can. I may have a hard time sneaking it past my wife. I see some review that there is language throughout. I get it that it would be historical, but to her a #@!* is a #@!*

It’a hard even to get a murder mystery in, since they always start with someone being killed. 

We did recently watch Bridge of Spies (for the 2nd time, and I rarely watch anything a 2nd time) But Tom Hanks can turn anything into gold and this Spielberg movie is gold to begin with. 

18 minutes ago, xero said:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/11/dogs-dont-understand-basic-concepts.html

 

What’s this? A new teaching? 

Look, I have to draw the line somewhere. I am not getting anything done. I must soon turn off notifications. After years of one FB friend request per month, the algorithm have shifted and I’m getting 50 a day. My page is public so I let most anyone in. But there are floozies among them!

How am I going to weed out the floozies?  How will I, now that I am alert to the problem, I wasn’t at first, going to ensure I get no more? The profile photo usually suffices, but even there I am inclined to be “merciful,” unless it is outrageous. Maybe they are Mary Magdelines. (dream on, you dope)  I mean, I do get to witness to anyone there. Still, there ought to be a FB standard question, “Are you a floozie?” It would make life easier. 

Maybe I will make my own: “Are you a floozie?” I will ask anyone new. Don’t answer ‘yes’ though, unless you want to be tossed or unless you promise to be a floozie no more.

You floozies in there had better behave, that’s all I can say!

...Whoa!!! Someone with the handle “Good Luck” just sent me a friend request. He (or she) has no idea he has put himself on the chute to the bargain basement.

All this is making serious inroads on my time. And now you throw in some hilarious dog blog that will take some time if I intend to go through it!

”

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

No Holy Spirit involved there then. 

You wouldn’t know Holy Spirit if you choked on a cup of it.

29 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

Xero is back to his/her jealousy of the True Anointed ones. He/she is also back to the GB's idea of mentally unbalanced. We all know the scripture at Zechariah 8 : 23

Whatever the thinking behind the new light of the GB being the faithful & discreet slave, one thing it undeniably does it work for “God not being a God of disorder or one of peace.”

When the ONLY criteria for being anointed is to say you are, & then immediately demand a stage, as Witness does, wowee! What a formula for disorder that is!

Of course, the anointed that we all knew and grew up with did not demand a stage at all, nor lay claim to any special Status or Audience as anointed, unlike some “anointed” today, who could be genuine, could be nuts, could be sincere, could be unbalanced, and even could be liars, since the only “requirement” is to say, “I’m anointed.”

With the present arrangement, a prospective GB member will not be a Johnny-come-lately, and will have spent decades in full-time service, giving ample opportunity for existing GB to look that one over.

4 hours ago, JW Insider said:

True. I've made that very clear many times.

I think maybe JWI and others here and (gasp!) myself are part of a yet-to-be-identified great multitude class who is faithful, but not AS, faithful, and perhaps needs a special designation & place to go. 

I see Brother Cesar is on the upcoming speaking roster in Washington. I wonder if he will tell this class where to go?

12 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Sand = silica. In Silicon Valley, 1K=1,024.* So, 144K actually equals 144*1024=147,456.

*The kilobyte has traditionally been used to refer to 1024 bytes (2¹⁰ B).^[5][6][7] The usage of the metric prefix kilo for binary multiples arose as a convenience, because 1024 is approximately 1000 -- Wikipedia article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobyte

JWI the Science Guy

9 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I'm sure that to some, this would have sounded too similar to Mormon teaching

I have a thing for Mormons and have an entire Mormon category on my blog. Several similarities. We even both had child superstars of the 70s. Michael Jackson to their Donny (and Marie) Osborn. Alas, ours flew too close to the sun and crashed to earth.

1 hour ago, Kick_Faceinator said:

will be like the grains of sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. A

As a test, I tried this yesterday at the local beach. It was hard counting the grains at the local beach, but it was not rocket science. If you put you back into it, it can be done.

There were 145,732. It is close enough, allowing for human imperfection.

1 minute ago, 4Jah2me said:

I am totally in agreement with you on this Tom.  Prayer should be to God through Christ....

NOT to Jesus Christ or anyone else.  

An olive branch from 4Jah? I’ll take it. It doesn’t happen too often.

23 minutes ago, Witness said:

Maybe Sir Isaac Newton was anointed.

He set the date of the end at 2060. Be there and you can razz him as a hypocrite and liar, as you do the GB here.

29 minutes ago, Anna said:

You have examples in the Bible where faithful servants of God did not say everything they knew

There was a time when speaking only to ones specifically involved in something was not interpreted as an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of everyone else.

12 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Just for a laugh, people should know that Russell did also claim to be "The Christ." He claimed that all 144,001 members of Christ's body were "The Christ."

Ah well—if he did he took it back, didn’t he? All’s well.

20 minutes ago, xero said:

BUT when I'm in my private chamber....different matter I may ramble.)

Yeah—I don’t really have a problem with it, though it’s not occurred to me to do it myself. We train our conscience by Bible principles and then in accord with our best judgment use it as our guide. 

It reminds me a little of a friend whose teenage son wanted to join the high-school golf team. He knew his boy, he knew the specifics, but he also knew that others would stampede him with their “concern” over whether this was a good course. “Look just do it,” he told the kid, “and don’t blow a trumpet over it.” 

It is one of those foibles that happens in any collection of humans. You never quite know the line between genuine godly counsel and minding your own business. You could rail against it as “control” or “hypocrisy” or whatever the malcontents might do here, but it is just human relations that must be navigated anywhere, a bit more intense here because we are, as one circuit overseer put it, one large, united, productive, happy, somewhat dysfunctional family. Aren’t we all?

4 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Who is "too much", TTH ?

The one who I said. She is too much. She defines the expression “waterless cloud,” drowning everyone in gallons of verse, but then not being guided by them.

Someone says, “but I want to talk to Jesus.” Rather than be guided by scripture which, strangely or not, seems to make no allowance for it, she spins a gooey human analogy. You can speak to anyone you want, she says (and you join her) Sometimes a child has to speak with daddy, sometimes mommy, sometimes grandpa. It’s enough to make a guy heave. 

Go with the scriptures. If they seem counterintuitive, as they might in this case, see if you can get your heart and head around how they still are the arrangement and still for the best. Don’t say, Well I want to talk to Jesus, and to say I shouldn’t is unloving, and we know that God is not unloving so that must mean I can talk to Jesus whenever I want.

21 hours ago, Kick_Faceinator said:

It’s not just the Bible students, the witnesses keep repeating the same exact message.

Whenever someone posts covers like this, particularly when accompanied by remarks on how the WT is scaring children, I refer to a certain Newsweek cover a few years back. Over stark background, it listed 4 or 5 horrendous calamities that had visited over the past week, then dropped down to its subheading, “What the #*@! Is next?”

Total despair on the cover of a national newsweekly. But had they no reassuring words for the children? Ah—yes, they said: “What the #*@! Is next?” The generation that has failed its young in so many things now even fails them in reassuring rhetoric. “What the #*@! Is next?” is the best they can offer.

To this day, that post is a favorite.

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/01/what-the-is-next.html

It even made it into the archival section of TrueTom vs the Apostates! 

After I wrote all I was ready to write, the book still wasn’t long enough. So I threw in posts written over the years that anticipated various brouhahas now coming to a head.

7 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

The guy gets smarter by the second.

I actually didn’t know that it was possible to block on this forum. 

Why I would choose to block one villain on this forum, and not another, I don’t know. They all equally want the downfall of Jehovah’s organization.

Were I going to do that, I would block them all by not coming to the open site. I’d stay on the closed one. As it is, I usually do with threads I originate. Yesterday I posted something on this week’s assigned Bible reading. There has been some discussion. I didn’t post it here becasue I did not want soreheads urinating on it with completely irrelevant remarks about how they think the GB is no good.

1 minute ago, 4Jah2me said:

Xero's last comment directly to me was 'I'm blocking you' 

The guy gets smarter by the second.

I actually didn’t know that it was possible to block on this forum. 

3 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

Or just blocking them completely  

Well, sure, but you won’t be on this forum at all if you follow that advice.

3 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

Actually the GB say that ONLY THEY are the F&DS

But they don’t take credit as individuals. They even afford much input to “helpers.”

1 minute ago, xero said:

Sometimes I'm thinking I have no business talking about anything. I imagine myself smirking and laughing at someone elses' pecadillos and sins (are they?) and meanwhile a cement pie is headed for my own face.

If she’d lay off with her venom directed to the GB, I’d leave her peccadillos unremarked upon. I like those guys. 

48 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

I notice that the “balanced view of an anointed one” (Witness) ends in the same way that her typically unbalanced views do—that the GB is no good, and that you ought to consider her and her “renegade anointed” as your true source for guidance.)

The woman is too much. Even the GB members do not say “I hope you will consider the balanced counsel of an anointed one.” When they speak, they make clear that it is as one of a “multitude of counselors,” in which there is wisdom.

Nails on a chalkboard anyone?

7 hours ago, xero said:

what is respectful speech to Jesus? Am I not supposed to talk to him? ...Anyway...I'm just thinking aloud.

I guess I never really thought of it that way. Jesus himself sets the example  as to whom to pray to. He appears perfectly content with his role of “simple mediator” and I’m not sure I would want to do end runs around it, as though it is enough for most people, but not enough for me—as though I have extra appreciation and extra love, so I have to speak with Jesus, too.

Can you pass along a simple hello or some such appreciation just to him? Well, I dunno, maybe you can, but in doing so I begin to feel that maybe I am trying to be more appreciative than God, more righteous than he, more loving than what he lays upon Christians to do through his written word. 

Is it a little like when Jesus makes to wash Peter’s feet, Peter says “No way!” then upon reproof, says “also my head my hands!” and Jesus says, “Just do the feet, won’t you? That’s enough. That works. You don’t have to go beyond it.”

I think when we fervently thank God for the gift of his dear son, which we especially do around Memorial time, Jesus counts it as enough. If we say, “I must talk to Jesus, too,” will he not say pretty much what he said to Peter?”

We can’t just waltz in and talk to either one of them as though we are chums. The only reason we can speak freely with Jehovah is through the merits of Jesus’ ransom sacrifice. What is the basis for speaking directly to Jesus? 

Why not say hi to all the angels, too? They also do plenty in our behalf, though of course, they don’t approach Jesus. 

I’m sure its not the worst faux pas. The sentiment probably is appreciated, as when Jesus did not think ill of Peter for wanting the complete bath. But having laid out the “chain of communication,” I am not sure the merit—and it may even cause offense—to try to go beyond it. Jesus is perfectly content that all glory should go to the father. Having done that, does he say, “You know, it would be nice if you thanked me, too?” There’s no indication of it.

He himself takes no liberties with avenues of communication. When immersed in a squabble over Moses’ body, he says to the Devil, “May Jehovah rebuke you!” He doesn’t say, “Well, I am the son, the first-born. Surely I can handle this one.”

Same as you, just thinking aloud.

(I notice that the “balanced view of an anointed one” (Witness) ends in the same way that her typically unbalanced views do—that the GB is no good, and that you ought to consider her and her “renegade anointed” as your true source for guidance.)