TrueTomHarley

17 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

When you or some other JW member seek/use statements from other people who defend the WTJWorg position on one issue,you must be aware that that same person is defending the position of other religions

So?

Did anybody say she has to be a Terminator towards everyone else?

If she loved everything about JWs she would be one. She’s not, so it must mean she doesn’t.

It makes her defense of JW all the more powerful.

1 hour ago, xero said:

They don't have any alternatives, they aren't building anything better.

The thing to keep coming back to regarding the CSA accusations is the Holly Folk posts. I’ve not heard anyone put them so succinctly in a long time, if ever. I’ve put them under one roof and will keep referring to it as the need arises. Notice that nobody here has poked any holes in it 

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2021/02/holly-folk-speaks-to-child-sexual-abuse-among-jehovahs-witnesses.html

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

Or if you know they speak truth and you don't have an answer Elder. 

Or if they keep bobbing back up when knocked down like one of those inane bottom-weighted plastic clowns and you begin to feel there must be something better to do with your time.

2 hours ago, xero said:

Sometimes you have to block people who have nothing positive to say Tom. On some day's I'm sure that applies to me too.

 

I prefer when people rabidly opposed are nonsensical. This fellow obliges nearly always. He trips himself up with almost every word. He is so intent on posting any challenge to the Christian organization, he doesn’t notice when what he posts aligns him with what is unrighteous. It is similar to how he used to align himself with Alan the Atheist, who said the most hateful things against God.

On the other hand, it is possible that I should just let the remark slide. On a platform other than this, I would indeed block him.

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

One described a culture of “insularity” in the Jehovah’s Witnesses,

“Insularity” is just a derogatory way of describing “no part of the world.” You think Christians should be part of the world, then.

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

and how it fostered mistrust of secular authority

You feel that secular authority must always be trusted, then.

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

Another said that coming from a Christian background had led her “to rebel against my parents, leading me into the arms of a sexual predator”.

You feel that no child except those raised in Christian households have ever rebelled against parents, then.

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

The article would not allow me further access, so this is all I have. 

It is enough.

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

Such committees can decide to take action against members who are found to have disobeyed the church’s protocols, which outlaw practices like nonmarital sex, homosexuality, and abortion, the agency said....

 

You are sticking up for nonmarital sex, homosexuality, and abortion, I see.

2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

No, it was written in amongst other sentances over a picture. That is not a studied paragraph or certainly wasn't brought out in the group i was in. 

You know, now that you mention it, I do recall that when the assigned reader read that paragraph....

“It is not claimed that the explanations in this publication are infallible. Like Joseph of old, we say: ‘Do not interpretations belong to God?’ At the same time, however, we firmly believe that the explanations set forth herein harmonize with the Bible in its entirely”

....he was taken out back and shot. I thought even then it was an overreaction. 

Yes, I think you’re on to something, 4Jah. March on.

41 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

Oh no, BUT the Rev' book was studied three times, and they never even mentioned the page 9 bit, which was carefully hidden amongst other writing

What do you mean they never even mentioned page 9, you idiot? It was studied paragraph by paragraph.

53 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

So why did your GB / Org write the Revelation book pretending to understand it ? Why couldn't they just be humble and say 'We don't know' ?  

See how @xerosays he has been comparing many different sources for Revelation interpretations? Ask him if he has found one with the preface: “This is probably a load of manure, but I’m putting it out there anyway. I have nothing else to do with my time.”

2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

I put on my computer and i have 16 notifications from this forum.

16 notifications??!!!    You’re joking!

2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

But i suppose I will waste a couple of minutes answering you, because the weather isn't good enough for me to go work on one of my vehicles.

Are you kidding me? This appears to be your life obsession.

2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

BUT, I'll repeat one thing. Your GB tells the Anointed NOT TO GATHER TOGETHER, 

Walking my beat here in Adhominemville, I saw two of them skulking together. “None of that, now! Move along, NOW!!” I barked.

2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

And that is probably why they stopped the study. Oh dear, the bosses were losing control.  It was the one meeting per week that people could actually 'be themselves' and talk almost openly. 

Not when I was conducting! “Alright, you’ve got you dose of mind-control!! You are forbidden to discuss it! Just go do it! And I’d better not hear otherwise!” That’s what I would tell them.

You are so paranoid.

16 hours ago, xero said:

but when people act as if they have it all figured out, I just think "I don't know. Seems stretchy from here."

For all the brouhaha about the Revelation book being THE TRUTH and YOU’D BETTER BELIEVE IT OR ELSE!! It plainly says that it is not to be taken that way.

From page 9: “It is not claimed that the explanations in this publication are infallible. Like Joseph of old, we say: ‘Do not interpretations belong to God?’ At the same time, however, we firmly believe that the explanations set forth herein harmonize with the Bible in its entirely.”

Don’t quite buy this portion or that? It’s not an issue. It is then “state of the art” interpretation, but nobody says it must be spot on in all aspects. If you burst into a Kingdom Hall Rambo-like with a flamethrower you may encounter some trouble, but otherwise nobody says you have to eat up every word.

Still I am not sure what is so terrible about it. I still think it more than serviceable. Other than a few places where they might have said, as Morgan Freeman did to Miss Daisy, “We’re not going to worry about what’s in the middle?” (some of those early conventions, which I always thought were stretching it) I think it holds up well.

2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

Repetition for emphasis, and then for the book to be removed and discarded. 

You are so paranoid. You can download it on the JWLibrary app right now.

3 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:

JW members...supports "collective responsibility idea" and by that shares "guilty" for their GB "sins" (false teachings, wrong instructions, disobeying secular laws in many cases).

Yes. This is why no Israelites crossed the Jordan River. Moses got himself disqualified, so everyone else climbed atop the mountain to die with him.

3 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

From this it could justifiably be concluded that all organizations are similar and that none meet the “divine” criteria.

So what are we to make of this comment from Srecko? He yields on his ridiculous comparison of institutional abuse in various religions to abuse in families that happen to be religious. He yields on it because it is ridiculous and he can no longer support it.

So what does he do? He takes a “heads I win/tails you lose “ new argument. “Well, since other organizations have people who sin, and you do too, there is no reason to say you are any different.”

Will he say it of the hospital? “Well, since there are plenty of sick people in the world and also plenty in the hospital, there is no reason to go there.”

11 hours ago, Thinking said:

It would have been best if the brothers had done this by themselves instead of the ARC forcing them too...BUT...they have changed..been corrected....we are being refined.

In writing about the May 2019 Watchtower, I mentioned how opposers would say, “It only happened because of our prodding.” They would claim “credit” for the “clarification.”

So? Give it to them, so far as I am concerned. Everything in life is action/reaction. “Out of sight/out of mind” is the universal human tendency that operates towards any who have gone out of sight, and in the case of former JWs who have suffered abuse from which they have not recovered, these opposers did not permit it to happen. I have no problem acknowledging their role.

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/02/the-reproach-of-child-sexual-abuse-falls-on-the-abu.html

Even if you have to call them out on their excessive vendetta you can still recognize they have spurred on valuable change.

7 hours ago, César Chávez said:

How many perfect people do you know TTH?

None. You do realize that the Terminator reference was to Alan, though, I trust.

7 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Now, by just seeing someone, can you tell if that person has diabetes, or another medical condition that will contribute to someone’s weight gain?

No. All good points.

Sometimes, probably not often enough, I write out a comment and then sit on it for awhile, even to next day. If I still feel it good to go, I let fly. Sometimes I think the remark is better canned or put elsewhere.

36 minutes ago, xero said:

the question of course that occurred to me now, was whether the servant in the aforementioned was discreet or not.

About as discreet as the Terminator.

12 hours ago, xero said:

This makes me feel like I'm one of the characters opposite Adam Sandler who hasn't a clue what's going on.

It’s about time we had an entertainment correspondent here. 

I hadn’t seen Waterboy, so I watched these clips. Um.....well, I hadn’t seen it before.

36 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

This time, I'm ready and waiting to have my constitution violated, after the Librarian, hasn't tossed out AlanF for his more abusive language.

Well, you DO raise an excellent point here.

1 hour ago, César Chávez said:

This POST was poorly thought of.

It was not poorly thought of. It is as valid as any other. And it was not @xero(now added to your list of villains, I see) who brought the GB into it. It was the wicked witch of the west up to her old tricks.

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

I actully thought the booze topic was not necessary.

It wasn’t. It had nothing to do with anything.

It is a perfectly valid viewpoint to say this is an apostate site. But having done so, what a bizarre example to set in playing continual pit bull on it, as though some self-appointed Theocratic Enforcer, when the theocratic organization itself will say stay off of it—and in the process, bringing up gossipy stuff that even none of the opposers thought to bring up!

I can see why @JW Insiderhas speculated he might be an opposer himself, determined to portray Witnesses as abusive and intolerant. Lots of attacks here. Straighten up and fly right, CC. Behave yourself. You are capable of good content. But get that anger under control. Otherwise, not only with the Librarian (that old hen) toss you on your ear once again, along your instantly recognizable new profiles—most will applaud her for it.

3 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

How many JW members regardless of status (rank and file, MS, elders) have committed CSA over other people's children? When this became known, then the "institution" through WTJWorg elders, took "institutional measures" in this regard.

How many? No more than anywhere in the overall population, and probably much less. It is almost always rank and file, in contrast to all other institutions on the hot seat whose leaders themselves were the abusers, and no mechanism even exists for tracking the rank and file.

What I much appreciate is HF’s righteous indignation that this vendetta from exJW’s redirects rage from child sexual abuse towards what is essentially a non-factor, or even a mitigating one, just to satisfy their hate. Thus, those exJWs serve to short-circuit legitimate efforts to curtail it, diverting resources. In pursuit of their greater goal, they actually show themselves friends of CSA.

If just cracks me up when someone downvotes a comment that undermines whatever they harp on—as though without a downvote, nobody would have any idea they might disapprove. 

It’s even more so when people downvote insults to themselves. Duh.

I think I’m going to collect a few insults and upvote them all as a subtle means of ridicule.

On 2/12/2021 at 1:53 PM, xero said:

Because there are some fatties out there who need some discipline.

Alas, this fine thread has devolved into a cat fight. But I’ll bring it back on topic, thus redeeming myself in CC’s eyes. I’m not entirely sure how I fell from his good graces.

On 2/12/2021 at 11:42 PM, Anna said:

I have noticed they are getting a little chubby, that does tend to happen with age. I would by no means call them obese though. Plus, as I mentioned, you don't know people's circumstances.

This is pretty much the standard in the land in which they live. They by no means are out of place. I think one reason no one gets too serious about clamping down on “fatties” is that the causes are difficult to quantify. 

I have known people to eat like hogs. It’s no surprise when they get fat. But I’ve also known people to eat sparingly and still put on weight. Moreover, cutting food does not necessarily make them lose weight. You would think it would but it doesn’t.

There is an acronym of SAD, “Standard American Diet,” which is sad in that it virtually assures packing on the pounds. Look at any TV show of 50+ years ago and note how rail thin the backdrop characters are as opposed to today. The processed foods, meat and potatoes, high carb, high sugar diet is conducive to overweight even without overeating, even with moderate exercise. Add a sedentary lifestyle, which comes with the job for some of these guys, and the waistlines start to swell. 

Alas, there is chicanery in the food industry. Fast food will make you bigger than a house. But even regular sold food will point one that way... Google and you can find how that campaign to go low-fat was actually started by the sugar industry in order to deflect damage from their own offerings onto someone else and sell more stuff. Starchy, sugary food is very addicting yet is not on the list of what anyone would call gluttonous. Everything is high sugar, even things you would not suspect, such as ketchup.

I think some weight campaigners cease being such when they reach a certain age and find that, even though they eat no more, even though they were once thin, they start to pack on the pounds with the same diet as before. 

8 hours ago, César Chávez said:

I understand, since you are only a jerk to me and no one else. However, apply what you learned as an Ex-Elder and NOT throw the baby out with the bath water!

I do not try to be a jerk to you. I honestly cannot read you and so have no idea how to answer earnestly. That, and a certain innate playfulness, results in the comments that it does. To me, you have a way of issuing veiled, unpredictable, and sometimes unaccountable rebukes. But I have nothing against you, really. I just can’t follow your thinking.

”Come, is not the land big enough for the both of us? I’ll even grant you the greater portion, so that you can keep kicking the stuffing out of JWI and I will do other things.”

1 hour ago, César Chávez said:

When you start with an obtuse thought about grammar and language, you start in the same path insider and TTH

2 hours ago, xero said:

This doesn't parse into anything meaningful:

Oh mother, tell your children,

not to throw away their decorum

Spend your life in sheer lunacy

On the World News Media Forum

2 hours ago, xero said:

So that's why when I'm asked to pretend that our organization is the purest of them all. I can't. I don't know. How am I supposed to know?.

This might help:

“Out of nowhere a scholar has appeared who talks dispassionate sense on the subject of child sexual abuse as it relates to Jehovah’s Witnesses and is unswayed by secular jingoism. Are/were you a Jehovah’s Witness who was abused as a child? That is very bad, Holly Folk agrees, but she cautions such ones that they must be on guard not to be abused a second time. It may happen at the hands of those who mostly feign interest in their trauma so as to enlist them in their greater goal of taking down a religion they hate. “All I ask is that you consider, for a moment, that you might be being used again, by people who care little about achieving justice for victims,” she says.”

More... https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2021/02/holly-folk-speaks-to-child-sexual-abuse-among-jehovahs-witnesses.html

22 minutes ago, xero said:

(In this one it's Donald Trump)

Here is one in which Trump is the greater Moses:

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2020/03/moses-addressing-the-israelites-trump-style.html