TrueTomHarley

Whatever announcement that was made would have taken the form, “4Jah is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.” And you’re not. So go your way in peace, for crying out loud. Exactly. At one time you were. Now you are not. And now everyone understands this. So it’s a win-win. Yes, I know you would like them to keep your new status under their hats so that maybe individual congregation members will stop by out of concern and you can fill their ears with vitriol about the organization they’ve chosen. I know that you would like them to call a special assembly so that you could explain to all your beefs and why you are choosing your “high road.” It’s not going to happen. Not everything is about you. And everyone at the KH has the opposite opinion. They approve of that organization. It is not good enough for you, but it is good enough for them. So why in the world are you so upset? It is no more than the elder’s lowering the boom on anyone who would promote sects or cause division in the congregation—and they are scripturally bound to do this. Yes, I know you are just dying to try to sway them. This fine forum may be as close as you will get.

Please don’t tell me that you have kept your online hate campaign a secret from your wife, perhaps giving her to think that maybe you are just “discouraged” and might respond to shepherding. Assuming that she has both oars in the water, there is no way she would not have known that the tirades you continually express would not result in congregational disapproval. The announcement they have made for many years now, which covers disfellowshipping or disassociating, is that, “[So-and-so] is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.” What—are you going to tell us all that you are? No one here has heard any witnessing at all out of you. Your only “witness” is to accuse Jehovah’s organization. Well, that I can believe.

On the other hand, since you carry on endlessly that he and his are full of BS, what do you care? Besides, “basically” condemning you to death is not actually condemning you to death—you know he didn’t phrase it that way. He may think of it that way, barring your (astronomically) unlikely repentance, but if so, that will be because JWs are a “one true faith” religion, and there are many of those. What is this guy—a glutton for punishment? Look, save him the trip, will you? Put him in the know. If he will call back, it is because he is concerned about your spiritual well-being, and you should tell him not to waste his time because you are well beyond caring what he says. Or rather, don’t tell him. Just call his attention to your performance here, and he will get the point. Make sure to tell him about how you believe we may just be a few short years, even months, to the end, with no anointed at all to help us out, but you are confident that the “True anointed” will manifest itself from nowhere and, as it were, slide into home plate with just minutes to spare in order to save the day.

‪“Can’t you give us someone like our imposing TV anchor persons,” the people say, “who will teach us like our scribes?”‬ ‪“We’ll see what we can do,” Bethel says, and then they double down with Brother Lett‬.

Out of the blue someone tweeted a 15 minute video to me of someone challenging 1914, apparently just assuming I would drop everything to do it. He tweeted it three times in quick succession! Three times for emphasis? Three times for the Trinity? Three times to establish his digital ineptness? Who knows? ”Look, I think I know where this is going, and this fellow is a little dull,” I replied. Don’t you have something in print form that I can review in 1/10th the time? What is it with these yo-yos that think they can throw any clod your way and you will drop everything to analyze it? I did not tell him, but will if he fires another salvo, that I do have something in print, and that it is not boiler-plate dull. There is some originality to it, and not just parroting what other ideologues have said. JWs may be the first to attach the spiritual significance to 1914 that they have, but they are certainly not the first to attach secular significance to it. There was a time when few people with historical consciousness did not. Thus my “1914 quotes collection”—a fine hobby for the student of history. https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2010/01/the-1914-collection.html But now people revise history at the drop of a pin. WWI rolled into WWII, but WWII did not roll into WWIII. Instead, it devolved into a constant stream of smaller atrocities so numerous that they have come to be accepted as standard fare and nothing to make a fuss over. Thus, the “facts on the ground” that @Outta Herespoke of get trampled into the ground. Granted, to undermine Jehovah’s Witnesses through attacking this teaching has become a cottage industry today—thus the dullard’s video sent to me. So? It is a cottage industry to attack them on a dozen unrelated points, and they are opposed, sometimes violently, in different parts of the world on these grounds that have nothing to do with each other. Surely, “if you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own, but because [Jesus] has called you out of this world, on this account the world hates you” covers it. Okay, I got it that we are out of sync with the majority scholastic view on this matter. So? We are out of sync with the majority scientific view on the origin of humankind, too. Must we all be like that sycophant Alan, who panics as soon as he learns he is out of sync with the “educated” world, and so promptly throws spiritual things overboard to toe the line with his new mommy? Anna DMed me his signature online article, and I didn’t read it, but later while looking for something else I came across it again and did read it. I was struck by how quickly he abandoned long-held beliefs to get into step with his new professors in college. You can see it in his unrelated matters of interest. It is very important to him to show himself smarter than others, and you don’t do that by taking a minority view. You take the majority view and then use the lofty credentials of your new friends to bludgeon others. It is all about ego, as @Araunahas said of some. Not to worry if you are out of sync with the mainstream Just wait for the next headline to proclaim: “Everything you thought you knew about [such-and-such] is wrong!” Things change, and one way to handle your “cognitive dissonance” is to say that you don’t have to know everything. Another is to say that you don’t have to know everything now. You think it’s a piece of cake looking into the future? If they’re wrong about 1914, they’ll change it. They do it all the time and are very open about it, calling it tacking and the light getting brighter—the only ones who go apoplectic over it are the ones who already oppose them. Cite a place in which they seem to claim all-knowing authority, and I will say that they changed that, too. Look, they are the ones who are doing things, and few others (certainly regarding this 1914 topic) are doing anything—they just sit on their posteriors and work to sabotage the doers. Besides, it is a Mark Twain “reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” type of thing. If it were wrong, definite proof of such will not manifest itself for a long time to come. In the meantime, maybe they are right. There is no sense in letting the “kingdom of God overtake you.” Why make a name for yourself ignoring the advice of Gamaliel?

I wonder how the Fonz would do playing God?

Well, I wouldn’t say that they were “outraged.” But they recognized that it is their song, it is for what they see as pure worship. It is not to be sung by every Tom Dick and Harry, each with his or her own peculiar notion of God. It is amazing that BMG wouldn’t see afore time that you just can’t assume anyone will be delighted if you take their song. “Listen, obey, and be blessed” as a interdenominational song? Obey what? Obey the call the contest the election? Obey the call to promote “choice?” Obey the call to defy authorities and pack out your church, Covid notwithstanding? And suggest that you will be “blessed” regardless of who, how, what you obey? Of course JWs won’t like it. Of course they’ll take action to stop it. BMG should know better, dealing in copyrights as they do. During his lifetime, Theodor Geisel fiercely resisted offers to commercial his work, the Dr. Seuss characters. After his death, his wishes were outmaneuvered, and now those characters are everywhere, dressed up like puppets and written into any crass and sappy narrative. His widow subsequently said, “If Ted could see this, he’d say, ‘I’m glad I’m dead.’” In the Prince chapter of Tom Irregardless and Me, I wrote of how Prince tried to do that, with much better motive, but still he didn’t get away with it. The only backdrop one must have for this is that some doctor said that Prince died of ‘VIP syndrome’—that is, maybe his doctor was so awed by celebrity that he forgot to do his job, that he neglected to lay down the law for his famous patient: “New to the faith, it didn’t take long before Prince cast his eye upon the Kingdom songs that are sung at each meeting’s beginning, midpoint, and end. Maybe he could – you know – spice them up a little. Remix a few. With the best of motives, he began doing just that. CDs were released and began to circulate among the friends. Whenever that sort of thing happens among Jehovah’s Witnesses, it happens fast, for every Witness knows every other Witness. The Governing Body caught wind of it. Would they be flattered that Prince stooped to iron the kinks out of their music, like Mozart repairing the little ditty his employer’s (another Prince!) house musician had composed? Would they be jellified with VIP syndrome? If the learned doctors had turned to mush, what chance had bumpkins like they? “Prince is reworking our music, and rightly so!” Would they say that? “They excoriated him: ‘Get your hands off those songs! Those aren’t your songs – they’re OUR songs! They’re not pop, they’re not rock, they’re not funk! They are KINGDOM SONGS! Do you know how to spell ‘copyright?!’ Touch them again and you’re toast!’ “Then they sent out letters to the congregations telling Witnesses not to play those CDs because they weren’t authorized. They managed to overcome their VIP syndrome pretty well, didn’t they? (Dr. Klitzman’s colleagues would have let Prince gown up and lend a hand in the operating room) They told him to keep his hands off their songs! Of course, they were nice about it – they always are. Their letter acknowledged his good intentions, but they laid down the law. I’ll bet Prince found it refreshing to be told off! What a change of pace from toadying doctors.”

They’re not all that hot at writing dialogue, nor are the modern videos, despite clever film technique and historically accurate artifacts, ..um....well, they wouldn’t win the Best Picture Academy Award. The brothers are in a bind. They don’t want to go beyond what’s written but what’s written is pretty sparse, so they compensate by staying thoroughly “safe” with the result of characters who appear to eat Bible sandwiches. Counsel is generally laid on with a trowel. I was very pleased at the little quip in the Jonah video of he explaining to a traveler just what was his mission—not so much the line, but his facial expression afterwards, because it displayed a light touch not often seen. Let’s face it—not many of the brothers are actors. Lower your dramatic expectations just a little, and the Jonah and Hezekiah videos went tolerably well, with some fine moments. I thought the Nehemiah video was a step backwards, and I had a hard time with the video of the Witness kid who leaves his happy construction-business home to take a job in the big city and immediately comes to ruin, because it fulfills every Witness stereotype to the tee. Ah, well. They are what they are. They’re teaching videos for ones who like that means of learning—in short, most people. Do people in the greater world flock to the critically acclaimed movies? Nah. They like schlock, so don’t say it is an attribute just of the brothers. I just came across the factoid that Moby Dick pretty much sank Herman Melville’s career. It was too esoteric for anyone to get their heads around. He had been a well-liked author up that time, but afterwards he fell out of favor and didn’t resurface till much later with a few offerings like Billy Budd. Besides, the brothers don’t want to go the Hollywood route in which you swoon over the sensitive performance of the leading man, only to learn later that in real life he is some lowlife narcissistic scumbag who beats his wife, snorts heroin, and beds every other man on the planet. Jehovah’s people are nothing if not upright and real.

Cameron and Jon would be crushed.

I have unchained my inner hermit and he is doing okay. It is tougher on the young people, though. Trying to be flexible for whatever comes down the pipe.

Not to that extent, and hopefully that extent will not come. However, those Witnesses who lived in Soviet times say the persecution today is worse than that of Soviet times. Beatings were uncommon then. Today they are routine. And torture was unheard of then. It has taken place in the modern day.

I didn’t want to spotlight that you know so little but you just push and push with each statement more ill-informed then then the next that you back me into a corner. In fact, nearly everything you say is wrong. You were the one who insisted that all minority religions are persecuted in Russia. Nobody made that case louder than you. Now we see through Rachel that the targets are almost exclusively JWs. You should at least make amends for your previous blunders before committing new ones.

Maybe not so much sense as you think. Probably, Putin would know how to “look at it from a government’s viewpoint.” Yet, he is the one who said, “I don’t know why we persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses,’ since “they are Christians, too.” Nonetheless, those are the verses that apply, particularly since your “answer” is so easily debunked. Ignoring the obvious regarding spiritual things, you might even find that “the kingdom of God has overtaken you,” particularly since you offer NO substitute for the kingdom proclamation that they do. Why allow that to happen?

“Russia’s religious persecution focuses almost exclusively on Jehovah’s Witnesses,” said Denber. (See below article) This is much stronger than I would have put it, but it is also from someone more in the know. Rachel Denbar is a spokesperson of Human Rights Watch. She spotlights human rights violations in Russia for all causes—not just religious, but also political, journalistic, persecution of gays, etc. When it comes to religion, there is only one worth mentioning, she reports. I have said that all minority religion in Russia is harassed, but that JWs are in the vanguard; I said in Dear Mr. Putin - Jehovah’s Witnesses Write Russia that JWs are banned, but others are shaking in their boots that they will be next. Turns out I was wrong. They can rest easy. For all practical purposes, it is only Jehovah’s Witnesses. “You don’t see this kind of ban on other sorts of religious life,” Ms Denbar says. https://www.christianpost.com/news/russia-sentences-66-y-o-jehovahs-witness-to-6-years-in-prison.html “In the 2017 Supreme Court case, the actual verdict wasn’t about condemning beliefs, it was about liquidating legal entities. Whether or not someone is a believer, really has nothing to do with liquidating a legal entity,” he said. “They’re using that law as a weapon and misapplying it to attack Jehovah’s Witnesses religious beliefs.” Of course! The notion of outlawing a religious organization but not the individuals of that religion is so duplicitous that ordinary people cannot get their heads around it and just carry on as though the people themselves were outlawed. It may have been planned that way. Or it may simply represent manipulation from devious ones, even a Devious One, who prefer to remain hidden. The 66-year old just sentenced to prison, where he will rub shoulders with violent criminals and risk getting COVID-19, says: I have found myself being accused not of a crime, but of being a follower of the religious teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I have no enemies, and for my almost 67 years I have never been brought to administrative or criminal responsibility. I am against any form of violence, be it verbal, psychological or physical.” Everyone knows it is true, save for a few fringe anticultists who equate not hanging out with those who turn 180 degrees against you as “psychological violence.” Everyone else instantly realizes the truthfulness of his statement. “The law targets those who are extremists or terrorists or dangerous. It’s a gross misapplication of the law.” Of course, again. And what are the chances, in any kind of a sane world, that these are the persons who would be persecuted, when there are so many who in the blink of an eye will turn to violence, and a few that specialize in it? It makes no sense from a human point of view. Therefore, persons can be forgiven if they look for a superhuman point of view—and there they can find one. “The Devil has come down to you, having great anger, knowing that he has a short period of time....[He] became enraged at the woman [mommy, according to Alan] and went off to wage war with the remaining ones of her offspring, who observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness concerning Jesus.” I think of a local brother with a certain dramatic flair decades ago taking a globe onstage for his public talk. He quoted Matthew 24:14: “This good news of the kingdom will be be declared in all the earth for a witness and then the end will come,” and as he did so, he put his finger down upon this or that small area of the globe in which the area king said, “This good news of the kingdom WILL NOT be be declared in my part of the earth.” The unspoken question carried an implied answer: “Who will prevail—the maker of the globe or the one who would defy God on this small section of it?” Sometimes those who don’t like Witnesses will carry on about how they overstate their “persecution complex.” We see here from the Christianpost.com that, in reality, Witnesses understate it.

Alas, it is too late for the mask. The poor guy already has Covid.

Ever since they reported Fred Flintstone’s lower facial discoloration as evidence of masking during a prehistoric pandemic my faith in them has been shaken.

I like the acknowledgment that neachers may find it hard neaching the nen nimes nable.

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These would be the only cases that correspond to the abuse cases of other groups—and they are a very tiny minority. If they were the rule, as is the case elsewhere, then yes—signing on to a redress plan might be appropriate. But they overall make up a very small number. The vast majority of cases comes from a quarter that is not even tracked anywhere else—individual incidents that have nothing to do with leadership. It is why the ‘one size fits all’ model that fits most if not all other signees does not fit JW. You think it is the elders’ place to forbid any child to leave its parents side, then.

The key words here are “we think.” The WT thinks differently and their thinking makes more sense. To my knowledge, every other party in this redress plan is structured so that children will be separated from their parents—it is not optional—it is standard operating procedure. That being the case, it stands to reason that they should be penalized if they so separate children and then fail to protect them. With WT, there is no program that separates children from parents. Almost all abuse reported is cases among the ‘rank and file’—those from elders or servants are unusual. So—it is “within the ranks” in the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses. In these other organizations, there is not even a means to track abuse entirely among ordinary members—let alone the supposition that anyone other than the actual perpetrators ought be held responsible. So the WT should sign on to some plan that equates them to groups that systemically separate children from parents? I think not, and so apparently do they. Next thing you know Hyundai will be penalized for any abuse that occurs among its customers. No. The WT being substantially different, it is better to handle all cases on an individual basis rather sign on to some plan that lumps everyone together as though they all operate the same. And, goodness knows, these things are often a wedge to drive in further concessions. Even a formal apology that some seem to feel is so important, will no doubt have huge implications in the world of lawyers—who will seize upon it as though a guilty plea.

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you know you’ve arrived when you are regulatable.

Yes. “While they were listening to these things, he told another illustration, because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the Kingdom of God was going to appear instantly.” Luke 19:11 No. Unrepentant wrongdoers would be expelled, as happens today. Yes. “As they traveled on through the cities, they would deliver to them for observance the decrees that had been decided on by the apostles and the elders who were in Jerusalem.” Acts 16:4

With reasonable certainty, I am. Or at least I have been up till now.