TrueTomHarley

3 hours ago, biddy2331@gmail.com said:

"Witness" and others like him/her only ever criticize people but never offer anything to replace the beliefs they are trying to pull down.

Yes, but she can quote scripture without application by the wheelbarrowfull

38 minutes ago, derek1956 said:

I wondered when that partner of witness would have their say

It’s a symbiotic relationship. He is looking for a True Anointed. She is clear that she is one.

35 minutes ago, Witness said:

and left the organization perhaps without a house

Buy another one. They built a lot of them, you know. Or rent.

35 minutes ago, Witness said:

and left the organization perhaps without a ... job, 

Find another one. 

It is pathetic so see a so-called anointed woman of faith who excoriates her spiritual betters to be so clingy about the prizes of this world as though they are life itself. 

People lose houses and jobs for all sorts of reasons—to care for an aging family member, for example. They don’t cry about it for the rest of their lives. It was 45 years ago. They adjust and move on.

9 hours ago, derek1956 said:

Oh by the way I`m very happy it didn1t come because I was not in the truth in 1975.

I was. I came into the truth during 1973. 

Robert Redford The Natural’s teammate was tagged out, but I could have gotten away with it:

Roy Hobbs: “Why didn’t you slide?”

Teammate: “I had a cigar in that pocket.”

I didn’t have to slide. Nor did I have a cigar. And they’ve been good years since baptism, all things considered. Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.

58 minutes ago, Isabella said:

She explained that it beats her imagination how a group of people whose religious principles frown on voting to elect a government will eventually benefit from that government after others have voted to form it.

and yet the people who directly voted AGAINST  her—I wonder if she sacks all of them.

57 minutes ago, Emma Rose said:

That's right.

Of American politics, a non-JW neighbor said it best:

“Its like a bad accident. You know you shouldn’t watch, but you can’t look away.”

19 minutes ago, Anna said:

Uh oh, you don't want to start that! It has already been hashed out here:

I, too, heard the Jaws music playing.

7 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

That's because  you are a 'wind up mercant' Mr Tom. But I for one, just laugh at you. 

This is the second time I have said something derogatory about you but have left you unnamed so as to spare you embarrassment (“crying about it for their next five posts”). Each time you say: “Me! It’s me you’re talking about!” Sheesh.

10 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

And with his latest 'problem' too, it does not look easy for him.

Maybe he will have to go through a little purgatory first.

1 hour ago, Anna said:

I suppose he was a bad good guy, or is that a good bad guy?

He is actually the only person on this forum that I have ever seen change significantly. This he did only at the end, and so who can say how enduring it will be? But even at his most outrageous, I did come to respect him in that if I hit him over the head with a baseball bat he would strive to give as good as he got without complaint. There have been some here that if I so much as step on their toes they cry about it for their next 5 posts.

9 minutes ago, Anna said:

Now you are making it sound like he really died

It does sound that way, doesn’t it?

Nah, he reappraised what he had been doing and discontinued his posts here with this final goodbye:

I miss the old pork chop. I hope he succeeds in turning over that new leaf. He even got 8 likes—more than I have ever registered.

23 hours ago, Space Merchant said:

Something I have been telling Rook for sometime.

Are you a stranger dwelling alone in Jerusalem and do not know the things that have occurred there during these days?” 

He bid us his final adieu some time ago.

Probably this will necessitate many hard-to-reach people visiting jw.org to see whether it is extremist. What will be the response when they see that it is not?

After all, ISIS has taught the world what extremism is. 

3 hours ago, Emma Rose said:

On 10/29/2020 at 6:41 PM, TrueTomHarley said:

Ahem

You Tom?

Sorry, I was just clearing my throat. No. I’m not the owner. It’s sort of an inside joke.

Some of the more paranoid participants here (have you noticed not everyone plays with a full deck?) began asserting that I was the owner (along with JWI) and that from time to time I would delete persons. 

It did no good to deny it. They would just insist upon it all the more. So I reversed course and took ownership instead.

@adminowns the site. Several years ago @The Librarian(that old hen), who had been running a separate JW site, combined forces with him. Just digital, you understand, they may not even know each other. As far as i know, Admin is not a JW and the Librarian is. I think the latter will not disagree if I say that his philosophy, akin to that of the Washington Post, is that: ‘theocracy dies in darkness.’  Hence, the variety of characters here, some the type of people that AM3 was referring to.

42 minutes ago, Emma Rose said:

Who owns this site?

Ahem

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

And all this, of course, was presented, just as a setup for the old H₂O₂ joke:

Angel on the right shoulder: “Don’t say it, TrueTom. Just don’t. Everyone has heard it a million times. Haven’t you embarrassed yourself enough?”

Devil on the left shoulder: “Go for it, TrueTom. They’ll fall over themselves laughing and they’ll think you SO witty. Think of the great NAME you’ll be making for yourself!”

Yes, but so far no one has answered the question: “What is H2O 4?”

2 hours ago, Anna said:

Tom is always complaining about what a cheat his brother is. 

I’ve never posted one of these here, but I do on other media:

My cheating brother took this game right into the toilet and even made the disgusting word. What is wrong with him? 

There ought to be a law against only scoring 50 on an X played triple letter tile both ways—ex and ax. Fortunately, there is not and I took it. Sanding is mine, too, for 73. For the longest time, my brother clobbered me each game, but now the momentum has shifted and justice again prevails. 408 to 327.

2 hours ago, Anna said:

Ahhh....ok. But is he even on this forum?

I told my brother about this game that is unfolding and he is finishing up digital equivalents of loaded die and marked cards right now.

(and I lowered the price, solely on JWI’s reaction)

7 hours ago, Anna said:

We will just have to wait and see

I think most have some sense that not everything dovetails, and they dismiss it with: “Is not the judge of the entire earth going to do what is right?’

If the circuit of Israel will not be covered before the end comes, plainly some will not be covered as thoroughly as we would like. Maybe there is a thought that God will prove a “soft touch” at the very end, observing, like he did to Jonah, that “ought I not feel sorry for these dumb animals, who don’t know their right from their left?” Maybe persons like you speak of will go down in the End crossfire and promptly rise in the resurrection.

Why doesn’t the org say this? They’re not authorized. ‘One faith, one Lord, one baptism’ is the line they must stick to. Besides, start speculating on how God will cover all bases anyway, and how can it not be a disincentive to preach, as Christians are supposed to be doing?

5 hours ago, Emma Rose said:

he then put his finger to his mouth as if to say hush and closed the door.  For me, that meant he recognised God's name, Jehovah.

I had my own experience of 30 years ago recounted to me by the one who was my companion at the time:

During one of the early pioneer schools, testing out what we had learned, we had been paired together. Upon my ringing the bell, the householder asked: “Are you Jehovah?”

”Oh, no,” I modestly replied. “I would never presume to call myself by the name of the Most High God. I am but a lowly servant of his, trying in my own imperfect way to serve him.” Thirty years later I ran across that companion again and she recounted how every time she reviewed it in her head, she was so impressed at my abject humility.

It never happened! She had reworked it in her head. Never trust urban legends.

What I had said when the good-natured woman asked “Are you Jehovah?,“ through the screen door, from the far-removed kitchen, for she was distracted in cooking, was: “Well—no, actually, I am not.” Whereupon she realized just what she had absent-mindedly said, and laughed uproariously at the joke. 

We did end up having a pretty good discussion, and maybe it is from that circumstance that my companion elevated me to near sainthood. I’m not really all that deserving of it.

1 hour ago, Srecko Sostar said:

We, ex JWs worked very hard to get this status :))) 

Escaped the clutches of Cesar, did you?

3 hours ago, César Chávez said:

It's a stretch to find a JW in good standing in this place. Someone like me that tells the truth is "never" liked

Come, come—I didn’t insult you. Why do you carry on as though I did? You are not exactly Mr. Rogers, you know. Moreover, that advice from you has worked for the most part—I have stayed out of your way, and you have stayed out of mine. What is wrong with that? We’re not enemies. You’re abrasive, but that doesn’t make us enemies.  I had no particular person in mind when I posted that jw.org link about not responding to all accusations.

But now that you bring it up—

Since you excoriate anyone who deviates a single iota from what has been published, why do you not heed this one? Everyone else’s answer is simple: they don’t follow each item to the nth degree, and in the case of those who oppose, they don’t consider it at all. But you do. So why do you not follow this bit of counsel?

6 minutes ago, Emma Rose said:

There would be catastrophic confusion if we were all called Mister or Miss  

Yes, but it would be partly offset by the fact that anyone coming close could be described as a Near Miss.

9 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Wow! HAHAHA!!!

In a previous incarnation, Cesar told me: “You keep out of my way and I’ll keep out of yours.”

That works well enough. Look—it’s the internet, not the congregation. There’s only so much one can do in coming together. You can’t even be sure that people are who they say they are.  It is enough that he settles on the side that is right, even if he does take a flamethrower to not just enemies, but even ones who would call themselves allies, though less rigid.

And as long as I’m at it, how about this one on Why Jehovah’s Witnesses do not respond to accusations:

https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/respond-to-accusations/

Don’t misunderstand. This is not a reproof to anyone. Or if it is, it is mostly to me. Probably I should mull over it more. But as Anna said, each one has his/her own specific reason for being here. It is safe to say that NO Witness here is typical, excepting only those who come, stick their toe in the water, make a comment or two, and then disappear, never to be seen again.

12 minutes ago, Emma Rose said:

Either or either 😉

Or even ether.

My favorite is one of those Hollywood blockbusters of decades past—I think ‘The Ten Commandments.’ 

Early on the distressed Israelites complain that they don’t even know their God’s name.

Later on they are as happy as pigs in mud. They have learned it. It is ‘The LORD.’

20 hours ago, Emma Rose said:

You'll get there Tom  

Ha. I’ll get there in knowing what she is doing?

Or I’ll get there in knowing what I am doing?

Either one works.