TrueTomHarley
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Posts posted by TrueTomHarley
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1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:
ESTABLISHING DUTY IN CHILD SEX ABUSE CASES AGAINST THE JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES -
It’s an advertisement from a law firm, you dodo.
Even an accident attorney crows about verdicts he has won, not just the bluster he hopes will carry the day in the event that he finds a client.
WRITTEN BY:
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10 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:
All that Tom mentions is the world Leaders, not the ordinary people living their daily lives. And i never even mentioned trying to 'patch up the world' as Tom suggests.
Even the Devil would come around if he just was treated with love and understanding! He is only acting out of his pain. Be nice to him!
4Jah is on to something here, I think. He has make fine progress since he left God’s organzation. The world is not bad. The ordinary people wish to live their daily lives and they will be able to do so once the Devil turns over a new leaf, which he will do if we just do things his way. He will then persuade the world leaders to join him in his new course of love and quit making trouble for their subjects.
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1 hour ago, Srecko Sostar said:
[4Jah]: This whole JW thing about the whole world being wicked, is wrong.
Of course! 4Jah has made fine spiritual progress. Patch up that world! Tell Trump and Biden to get over their spat. Tell Putin to stop being mean. Tell Xi that Urgyers are people, too! Tell ISIS that we must make love, not war.
Yes. Fix the world! That’s the answer! Why did nobody ever think of this before?
“Tell me why you JWs always thing the world is getting worse?” someone asked me. “What is it that view does for you?”
”It helps me to explain why the Doomsday Clock is 30 seconds before midnight and not 10:30 AM,” I replied.
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6 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:
Long ago when she accused me of hawking my books because I was hawking my books, and I almost left—after several days I said I was going to spin a new fiction of her as a mean,
She also later on accused me of spamming and I said if she did it again I would leave. However, i also bended to her concerns. I told her i was not trying to draw from her site—I just wanted my posts somewhere together, uncontaminated by 4Jah, where I could readily locate them. Also my comment section would be very brief, would quickly expire, and if anyone want to haggle out something raised here, I would send them back here. It has been a fine compromise. I am grateful to the old hen for providing a forum with interaction where my writing has flourished. I never forget to post plenty of original content here and “pull my weight.”
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17 minutes ago, Anna said:
Yes, many ex-JWs can't stand him.
Well, maybe there is something redeeming about them yet.
Being flesh, it is so easy for attention to go to our head. I have had enough bad experience in life that I don’t think I am easily vulnerable. When your head is stuffed into the toilet, upon extracting that head, you do not say, “I guess I taught that toilet a thing or two, didn’t I?”
Still, I take nothing for granted, From time to time, brothers I do not know who have enjoyed this or that post want to Zoom with me. I won’t. Email is enough. It would be very easy to be leader of a movement. I won’t do it.
I tell such people tongue-in-cheek that with me it is 2 Corinthians 10:10, that while they might find my writing “weighty and forceful,” my personal presence was weak and my speech contemptible.
When I pulled that on Nemo—for from the moment I saw him he tried to lure me on his podcast, and I never had any intention of going, but I strung him along for a while, he taunted me for the longest time on how I thought my words were “weighty and forceful.”
He is so abusive. But I got in my licks.
Like when he tweeted certain woman’s groups the same “countdown” message for 50 straight days and they ignored him. His own people said ‘if they choose not to respond, you have to respect that.’ Finally I appended to his tweet, “It’s as though he says to these women, ‘G*******t, answer me when I’m talking to you!’”
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15 minutes ago, Anna said:
Yes, many ex-JWs can't stand him.
Speaking of the name, I did today block @originalJehovah on Twitter. He had responded to a tweet of mine with something snide. I told his two friends who had commented on the new thread before I had seen it, that I hoped he didn’t mind the block, and that it was not for anything he said. Rather, it was for his insolence toward the Divinity, as expressed through his handle.
(It was probably 4Jah)
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2 hours ago, Anna said:
what struck me was that at the end of the interview he was encouraging others who had doubts: not to worry about trying to do things God's way, because God doesn't mind i
Every so often I check Lloyd’s tweets—I have rechristened him Nemo. To my surprise, he has denounced the (huge) reddit forum as not a safe space for ex-JW’s. I think it is because someone there called him out on how overbearing and self-important he has become.
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1 minute ago, Anna said:
She is not a she! The Librarian is a HE
She is what I say she is.
Long ago when she accused me of hawking my books because I was hawking my books, and I almost left—after several days I said I was going to spin a new fiction of her as a mean, over-the-hill has-been of a school librarian who doesn’t like children and is counting down the days to her retirement. Moreover, her mischievous pupils knew that full well, I chief among them, would undertake mischievous tricks like replacing her gin with milk of magnesia.
I told her if she ever got tired of it, I would mend my ways. She never has. Alas, at this point even if she did, it might be too late. I am too settled into a routine and cannot change, @Anna
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1 hour ago, xero said:
The reason is that God's name tastes bad in their mouths.
Yes. Of course. Is no more complicated than that, although dressed up as pious concern and godly respect for this technical point or that.
It is always good if letters to the foe are short and sweet. I like how you typically do that as I also try, with but occasional caveats. You see what happens. He goes into hysterics, screaming over words, making ever more shrill and poorly supported charges, if supported at all. He wets himself in the presence of all.
Best to let him stew that way. Respond with pith to select short quotes. He wants miles-long verbiage on each one of his many complaints, all of which he has raised many times before, and it is best to just let him wet himself.
Let your short remarks be as persuasive and cheery as possible, as his are as shrill and bitter as possible. In the unlikely event that anyone will want to untangle all this verbiage, it will be clear how things are. That doesn’t mean you will “win.” Many people prefer the whiny claptrap he spins, with contempt for anything that smacks of cooperation. So be it. The purpose is simply to lay down thoughts persuasively and let it be seen that he really doesn’t know how to think.
In short, you know that this is a Witness forum, even if an avant garde one that the organization itself probably does not care for. The keeper (that old hen) is a Witness. She is a “theocracy dies in darkness” Witness, to be sure, who believes in dialogue, even with riffraff, but she is a Witness. A whiny little girl like him fills up pages, but should he move on he is easily be replaced with other whiny little girls. A Witness who brings original content to the table has little fear of going out of style.
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1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:
You said the young man needed help but instead was completely shunned and turned out of Bethel. He then commited suicide, and i think you said he jumped in front of a train.
You have it all backwards, as usual.
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3 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:
I think the clue is in the AL as in ALMIGHTY GOD.
You are calling God AL these days?
2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:so they do not know the true pronuctiation of God's name in any language. You know yourself that the letter J didn't even exist.
It’s called translation. You know (well—YOU probably don’t, but everyone else does) that John becomes Johann in some languages, Ivan in others, and is modified in many countries.. You would get up on your high horse over that and prefer to be called ‘Mighty4Jah?’
It is true, however, that when people began truncating TrueTom to TTH, in time a group of morons arose to claim that no one really could know if it was TrueTom or not.
2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:God indeed had YHWH put into HIS word. But HE did not have the name Jehovah put anywhere.
It only became worse after it was discovered I had released some notes without signature. Lawyers came along and said ‘since he didn’t put his name everywhere, we’ll assume it is not anywhere.
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6 minutes ago, JW Insider said:
My sexism wasn't in regard to misunderstanding the moniker as any kind of bluster but the fact that I had never noticed any real gender hints after years of participation.
Did you miss the sewing bee she was carrying on about? (Sorry
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1 hour ago, Srecko Sostar said:
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that it is their responsibility before God to respect and co-operate with the authorities."
I actually think the statement is a little clunky—for it doesn’t account for the reversal— and that i could have written it better, along the lines I have already said.
Still, it is such a white-hot issue, and some are trying to milk it for various reasons, that maybe it is just as well not to risk looking “defensive”—state what has been stated, and move on.
It is a good deal to have resolved. I am sure they are happy to do that. I am sure victims are happy, too. That is the nature of any reconciliation. People are happy when it is done.
I liked how Holly Folk did not shirk from taking on lawyers. Essentially, if you have money, someone will devise a means to take some of it. It will not be a completely fictional means, for that will seldom produce results. It will be something that is real, but overstated, exaggerated, and legitimate cases will be mixed with more dubious ones. It is in lawyers’ interests to portray people as victims, whatever happened to them was not their fault. Accordingly the “cult” mantra is hugely popular with them. At times, one wonders if they to some degree have invented the idea, for they surely benefit from it.
It is not just CSA. That is but a tiny part of the iceberg. In my community, there are about twenty legal firms that advertise on media, and some of them do it virtually non-stop. I can remember a time when manufacturers were the prime sponsors of TV shows. Now they are sidled aside by lawyers. What does that tell you as to the nature of society? It amounts to a global society-wide transfer of funds, with barristers netting a third.
I was a defendent in such a case. I don’t think many people have not had some such experience, unless they have taken care never to do anything in life. This one involved a house I rented out. Insurance kicks in and you have little to do with it, but if you don’t know that in advance, it is very disconcerting. Even knowing it in advance, it is not comfortable. The suit was for $6 million and the settlement was for $200K. “How can the insurance companies afford this?” I asked my agent. “They can’t,” was the reply. “They just keep raising their rates.”
”My lawyer got me 5 million dollars, 18 times what the insurance company offered.” Such ads are staples on TV. In satire, I append the following to them: “All my neighbors rejoiced with me. Then they opened their premium bills.”
My teenage daughter’s car was hit—not her fault—and within days the other insurance company was hounding me to “settle.” Settle what? I was not accustomed to this new normal. They offered thousands of dollars if only I would settle. Finally I told them, “I don’t think this is going to cost you a dime. Pay a few chiropractic bills and that will be the end of it. But I am not signing anything away, for I don’t know what the finale will be.” They paid a few bills. I never did settle. There was never any reason to. I was probably a chump. I probably should have hit them up for as many thousands as I could. I just didn’t know that mindset, and concepts like “honesty” got in the way. The latest prompting from TV lawyers is that you call them immediately after your doctor to find out what “your accident is worth.” I am of the generation where you didn’t call them at all. You had insurance, the other party had insurance, you relied upon them for fair compensation, and were seldom dissatisfied with the result.
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2 hours ago, Witness said:
It was still a CHOICE, just as it was a CHOICE not to cooperate with the redress scheme to begin with. Obviously, money is more important than reaching out to help the victims.
I would not be so sure that genuine victims will get a better deal with this program. It may be that handling complaints on a case-by-case basis, as was being done, will be more to their advantage. Governments with their agencies, not to mention lawyers, tend to seriously erode funds meant for victims. Plus, it has already been revealed that those churches that did sign on, to much fanfare, are subsequently dragging their feet and are being as uncooperative as possible. CC is right. These things tend to be facades, with everyone taking bows while raiding the till, and the victims don’t fare nearly as well as you might think.
It may turn out to be more like the vaccine court in the U.S. Though you can sue a manufacturer for every other defective product, you cannot sue for a vaccine injury. Pharma managed to legislate themselves immunity. There is a vaccine court for redress, funded in part by surcharges on each vaccine given. Ask any injured party and they will tell you that their cases are almost invariably denied, and it is only by fighting it out with lawyers that they may, after a few years, get a few thousand dollars, seldom very much. This is true even in cases of permanent paralysis.
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23 minutes ago, JW Insider said:
The US Army, on the other hand . . . or even New York University (NYU) has had as many suicides in a year, as Bethel has had in four decades.
Of course. You commendably refrain from ad hominem attacks, but I don’t. He is such a do-do. In any group of several million people, you will find many examples of anything. One must run the comparative numbers before reaching any verdict. You don’t reach your verdict first then ask around to assemble buttressing facts.
32 minutes ago, JW Insider said:Fair dinkum? Funny how things slip by. I never thought of @Thinking as female.
There is probably something unsavoringly sexist about this remark. Having said that, I thought the same. If sexist, it is not necessarily in an unflattering way, as in supposing women don’t think. With me, and probably with you, it was in a complimentary way, as in men are so likely to bluster on about their overpowering thinking ability, but women, though they will think every bit as much, seldom make such a display about it.
She has favored me with a direct message or two. She has a background and brings much to the table. She says she personally knows Witness and gives me insight on that one.
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40 minutes ago, xero said:
So you don't ever know what's going on w/people. I know I can't judge.
Well said.
The publications not too long ago made much ado about Solomon’s temple dedication speech:
Individuals of “your people Israel, because they know each one his own plague and his own pain; [would] actually spread out his palms toward this house, then may you yourself hear from the heavens, the place of your dwelling, and you must forgive and give to each one according to all his ways, because you know his heart.” (2 Chronicles 6:29-30)
We will never know it all with any given person. But he does. And he uses the knowledge for good.
I’m sure you have taken notice how frequently the verse of Job’s “wild talk” comes up for play, after decades of never hearing of it at all. “If a brother or sister engages in some “wild talk,” don’t be quick to jump to conclusions. You don’t know what they have gone through.” Counsel along such lines has become frequent.
Before you came along, @Thinkingtold how David Splane had said something to the effect of, “there are those who engage in wild talk, and we may just have to put up with it, because they have been injured and It’s part of their healing process.” I didn’t hear it myself. Thinking may have inadvertently skewed it. But I regard her as a reliable source, and I suspect she is spot-on. It certainly is in keeping with 2 Chronicles 6:29).
- JW Insider, ComfortMyPeople and xero
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6 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:
What should we say, or not say about this Tom ? JTR, a JW and online Child pornography.
While he was here, he sided with you almost always.
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9 hours ago, xero said:
The crusty old atheist reminds me of a long-standing call I had w/a chip engineer at intel.
And your experience reminds me of a man I placed magazines with a few times. Finally he said he didn’t want them anymore. His wife was allergic to newsprint, and in any event, they were moving soon.
”Oh, come on!” I thought, but didn’t say it. “What a stupid excuse! If you don’t like them, just say so.”
I few years later I met them at a District convention, both baptized. The organization had upgraded to a higher quality paper.
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2 hours ago, xero said:
I'm always suspicious when people avoid using "Jehovah". The argument about not knowing the exact pronunciation would then apply to Jehoshaphat, Jehoram or pretty much any name in the Hebrew scriptures, but for some reason the punctiliousness is applied only to "Jehovah".
Yes. Of course. He will be merging “Almighty God” with Jesus Chrst presently, if he hasn’t already, and it may not be long after that he sends “Almighty God” to the ash heap entirely to worship Jesus.
There is a scholar somewhere—I wish I could put my finger on it—who says that the very reason LORD began to be preferred over the name was that it facilitates a merging of the two.
Call us old-fashioned, Xero, but we belong to the club that thinks if you put your name 7000 times in your book, it means you want it there, and may not be too thrilled with those who obscure it or even take it out.
By forsaking the Name, is he not distancing himself already from that One, even as he presents himself as holiness on steroids? Is he going down the path of what he does to you, calling you ex-elder, or what CC does to JWI, calling him ex-bethelite? It is an unmistakable sign of dislike and desired distance, and that is why they do it. In discarding the name for the title, is not 4jah all but calling God “ex-confidant?” If he drops the “4Jah” for “4God” we will know for sure.
As to CC, as you know, I go back and forth with him. At the moment, (and I really hope I do not drag him in here with rebukes to all) I am inclined to think he probably is a JW, but exceedingly unbalanced, hung up on one point to the near-exclusion of others. Is there precedent? I wonder. When Phineas pierced the two love-birds through their you-know-whats, and then led the charge to slay a ton of others, did someone at some point have to lay a hand on him and say, “Not them, Phineas! They’re okay. Granted, they are a little squirrelly, but we can put up with them. They have some good in them.” We may just have to put up with him, as we acknowledge that here and there he comes up with powerful points, and he certainly tolerates no rivalry before Jehovah. Who knows what inner turmoil people have gone through? Unless I cannot resist, I not going to squabble with him, even if he takes shots at me.
I dreamt up a fictional character and sometimes when a humanist ex-JW acts up I assign his words to Vic Vomodog, a former compatriot for whom against all reason and counsel, I still retain a soft spot, however so faint. Long ago, we used to pull shoulder to shoulder in the work. But Vic is unrelentingly atheist. He will not do for ex-JWs who still retain a recognition of God. How to solve that problem?
Meet Bob Sowmire, who will serve as the anti-type of 4jah. For some reason Vic and Bob are close—you would think they wouldn’t be able to stand each other, for they have nothing in common and have gone in mutually antagonistic ways. But like 4Jah chumming with Alan, with Srecko, with O’Malighan, with Matthew 4-5784, (you may not have had the honor with the latter two) people who in all other respects he would not be able to tolerate, but the mutual distaste of Jehovah’s people and now his Name unites them, so Vic Vomodog and Bob Sowmire are thick as thieves.
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You are such a whiny little girl you don’t even notice when the barbs you hurl contradict themselves. Here you advocate building an immune system and would condemn anyone neglecting to do so:
4 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:You don't want children to build up their own spiritual immune system....
Here you go in exactly the opposite direction as you draw on the pandemic.
4 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:And that is all apart from the legality, even from the Org's viewpoint, of posting letters through people's doors, during a serious virus problem.
The last people you want in these pandemic days are those who trust in their immune system. These are the ones who protest the most about wearing masks accepting vaccines. Before you let fly, think of whether what you say makes any sense. It usually doesn’t.
You may not have noticed, but not all parents in the world are ideal. There is good reason to test the waters before you toss your child into it. What did I just to your ally? It’s not uncommon for children to be completely neglected emotionally and physically. They fall into depression, anxiety, and suicide as the reassuring world Srecko promises them falls apart. They become addicted to violent gaming, to online porn, to cyberbullying. They are afflicted with STDs. They are unsupported even in gender and are persuaded that maybe switching them is the pathway to happiness.
To touch upon your favorite topic, if you can hold families together, as Witnesses do to a far greater extent than the overall world, you are taking a huge step in fighting child sexual abuse. There is no place more conducive to it than in ever-changing boyfriends and girlfriends in the wake of a divorce. A step family is far more fertile grounds for CSA than a natural family.
You would think that receiving a child-like letter from a child would be a small price to pay for knowing that child is raised in an environment that will spare him those calamities, even if it presents some unique circumstances of its own. So much hatred does the world have for meaningful religion that there are few Witnesses not familiar with the scenario of someone having cleaned up their act, quit their smoking, drinking, thieving, carousing, and generally odious ways, saved their marriage, only to find that people, sometimes even family, prefer them as they were.
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1 hour ago, Srecko Sostar said:
It is good to learn children about charity and sharing with others. But, is it really proper to do that with Institutional Cartoons of Company who have real-estate riches, stocks, etc?
Since the beginning of time, parents have taught children to be generous. You just don’t like the recipient of that generosity. What if she had donated to some charity? You think the United Way is operating on a shoe-string budget?—they spend a dime only when they receive one? That they don’t know what real-estate or stocks are? You’re almost as ridiculous as 4Jah, attempting to pawn off your dislike of Jehovah as human altruism.
58 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:So, it is not bad for children to be involved in humanitarian matters, but with measure and with what children are and should be ... The future of a better humanity.
Oh, give me a break! Is that what you think is the prime export of schools today? Then why is suicide, anti-depressants, STDs, porn addiction, online bullying, and so forth, off the charts among them?
Facebook just told me. “Today is so-and-so’s birthday! Let him know you’re thinking about him.”
He died years ago.
In the greater scheme of things, it probably does no damage. Or maybe it does, in firmly planting the notion that things in this system are insincere & phony
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37 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:
And you don't think children should have fun and play games ? You don't think children should be allowed to live a 'childhood' ? Of course not, because your Leaders tell you that children must be kept away
Why do you ask me a question and then answer it yourself? You are such a shrill bonehead.
In fact, when we homeschooled our kids, we integrated them into the overall community, while still keeping our own standards. Both served as volunteers at the public library, for instance. My son joined the local lapidary club (stone carving), where the older ones made a great fuss over him. My daughter took part in a dance troupe that would give performances at local venues. It was a small African dance troupe, and sometimes my wife would say to people, can you spot which one is my daughter? (Everyone else was black, though there was also an Asian) I don’t say that Witnesses typically do this, but no one ever gave us any grief over it.
I worked with both of them in the ministry. One quirky axample involved an old communist. I had found him while working alone, and he wasn’t very nice—“religion is the opium of the people,” and so forth. But I asked him a lot of questions and a conversation ensued. During that conversation I leaned he took pride in his collection of antiques.
I stopped by a few weeks later with my daughter, then around 10. He was even nastier than before. “So what do you want?!” he barked. Just as sharp, I shot back, “I came to show my daughter your antiques!” Without a word, he opened the door, invited us in, showed us as a tour guide his Edison phonograph and a dozen other ancient items, and could not have been more pleasant.
Robins Kaplan Justice Report Winter 2021 | VOL. 15 NO. 1 ESTABLISHING DUTY IN CHILD SEX ABUSE CASES AGAINST THE JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES -
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Posted
Of course! Why would any advertiser make any exaggeration at all? It is the most reliable bedrock indicators of truth there is—almost up there with propoganda.
And when the TV news anchorperson looks you in the eye, you just know you’re getting truth and nothing but the truth!