TrueTomHarley

1 hour ago, Anna said:

He had a script, and that script was obviously vetted by the GB

Do you know this?

It may well be, and yet when I gave parts at the District Convention, nobody vetted my talk beforehand. They did vet whatever demonstration I might have had, and I did speak from a supplied outline, but nobody vetted beforehand just what I would say in the talk itself.

1 hour ago, Anna said:

they do not want to appear like they are praising themselves, they leave that up to the helpers or someone else

Again, do you know this? Or is it just a common sense deduction, an application of the scripture that it is better when someone else’s lips praises you, and not your own—like when that elder I used to work with who went apostate, and he used to assert facts of history at the door, and if he was called out as to how he knew that, he would say, “Because I’m an historian.” Finally I told him to knock it off—he was not an historian, he was a history buff. A historian is when other people recognize your credentials, not just you 

I almost had a heart attack when I saw that Srecko and I had both upvoted a recent post of yours. How did that happen? I asked myself in alarm. But then I saw that there was indeed common ground to agree upon. It is just that he took away an unjustified conclusion. He pumped his fist with a simultaneous high-five at your mention that the GB Covid update is just good sound human advice, and is absent any woo factor—a woo factor that Brother Glock may or may not have imputed. But Srecko chalked up too soon his victory. At most he should have flopped a limp fist with a simultaneous high-two.

BTW, the term ‘woo’ is a derisive term of the atheist/skeptics, as so much from that quarter is. It refers to how the intelligent people run past the dummies something the latter can’t understand, and so they attribute it to the supernatural, as in exclaiming like gullible clowns, “Woo-woo!” But sometimes they just kid themselves in their supposed enlightened superiority, as Srecko does here—just like the intrepid explorer did when he suddenly found himself surrounded by primitive cannibals! He pulled a lighter from his pocket, flicked, and a low flame emerged. The astonished natives gasped ‘Woo! Woo!’ and fell back. “MAGIC!!” the explorer said in a deep voice. “It must be,” the chief said. “That’s the first time we’ve ever seen one light on the first try!”

So Srecko thinks he has “won” with the admission that the Covid update is just good human advice? He thinks that it proves his case somehow—to win an admission that the GB is not drawing on woo? I never thought that they were in this instance. Nor, I doubt did many. Nor, as likely as not, did Brother Glock. 

Here is a statement from Harry Cheadle, in NewRepublic.com: “The current moment [of responding to Covid 19] is demonstrating just how far away we are from being able to come together to solve a planetary crisis. The pandemic is a test, and we’re failing it.” This is true because nobody agrees on anything. Propose a course, and find yourself lambasted by a faction advocating the opposite course. The Governing Body is the only entity that can issue an update of Covid 19 without my saying, “What is their real motive here?” 

There is a public talk on ‘making sound decisions’ that recognizes that it is often not so crucial that you have made this or that decision, but that you follow through on whatever one you do. This the greater world is unable to do. It is the paralysis of everyone challenging everyone else that collectively delivers the verdict, as Cheadle puts it, that “we’re failing” the crisis.

Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t failing it, and it is because of completely human factors that they enjoy and the greater world doesn’t. Witnesses have the ability to yield. They don’t insist on their own way. They do not have to “question authority” on every piddly little thing. They trust leadership. They see that the direction given obviously has their interests at heart, and that it is not too onerous—it allows for individual family headship, it allows that the circumstances of one family will not be that of another, and doesn’t try to tell them all what to do, even as it sets a greater overall theme of caution. In contrasts the direction of some human leaders range from draconian to complete laissez faire.

“Well, that’s just good sound thinking,” Srecko would say, “based upon Bible verses that show good sound thinking. We could have done that.” But the fact is that you didn’t. And in fact, you can’t—because you have a societal inability to agree, a societal inability to compromise, and a societal inability to endure delayed gratification. Return to the fold, and you will find it again, but it’s not to be found in the greater world that you have chosen

In fact, I have no problem if Brother Glock does think that a woo factor is at work, nor right would I ever rule out that there might be—it is just that you can’t “prove” it in the scientific sense. But the fact is, you can discard all the woo, and still have the greater argument. You still have Srecko swimming in a chaotic cesspool of argument, indecision, and waffling. You still have him, like an insane Jeremiah, at the bottom of a miry cistern, trying to persuade Ebed-Melech to come down and join him. You still have him trying to sell you the bill of goods that your life would improve if you would just step over to the morass that is his.

13 hours ago, JW Insider said:

The good guidance from Jehovah's Organization during this pandemic is just another proof that Jehovah is with the Governing Body."

Change ‘proof’ to ‘another indication’ and the whole problem goes away. This is much ado about nothing.

As a result of the GB’s direction, we are all skewed to be COVID 19-cautious. I don’t know what it “proves” but it sure doesn’t prove that they don’t know what they’re doing. Their counsel gives reflects the wisest balance: ‘Each family head is responsible for his or her own family’ they say, ‘and what is good for one family may not be good for another’. So they are ‘not telling anyone what to do.’ Yet by their own 3-fold advice cord of 1) love of neighbor, 2) obey secular authorities, and 3) don’t be casual about this virus, they nudge all in the direction, without ‘telling anyone what they must do,’ for the greatest preservation of life.

I don’t know how serious the virus is in the greater scheme of things, and it seems impossible to tell. Every source spins the data their own way to fit their own cause. I had my annual physical, and asked my doctor how he and his practice are holding up. “They should have never shut down,” he said, of New York State. “They didn’t follow the science.” ‘Following the science’ has now become a buzzword phrase that each side uses to lambaste the other. Only the GB can make an announcement about Covid without my saying: “I wonder what their real motive is.”

The counsel becomes more important than the disease itself, for it gives uniform guidance to sail through a turbulent course. If Brother Glock want to say that ‘ewents’ prove God’s backing, I can say, “Well, ‘indicate’ might have been more scientifically precise,“ but otherwise I do not lose my cookies over it.

It may prove increasing providential, or at least especially timely. Pressures from Covid spill over into ever-more areas of societal breakdown. Big businesses are saved, as the small fry is wiped out. The economic forces unleashed by Covid 19 will have more repercussions than Covid itself. Ditto for the chaotic unrest in the wake of BLM protests. No matter who is elected in November, the other side will not accept it. The world is a powder keg ready to blow—and those who think that Brother Glock’s use of ‘prove’ is the REAL issue will think it right down to when the earth swallows them up. 

It may just be that we are soon to experience another application of ‘Go, my people, enter your inner rooms, and shut your doors behind you...until the wrath has passed by.’ And should that be the case, I won’t be upset at anything that Brother Glock says it ‘proves.’ I’ll just be glad I took his counsel and canceled my subscriptions to the Srecko Times, The Witness Chronicle, and the Daily 4Jah Cryer.

4 hours ago, Arauna said:

Scholars are prone to all the failings other humans have and sometimes more prideful - unfortunately

It is odd that so many here will deride scholars for their view on evolution—and will lap up whatever they have to say on every other point.

17 minutes ago, Arauna said:

Really?  Why would they be afraid to follow their convictions, when they have thought it through?  The follow their conscience... 

It was a question directed to JWI, not my own thought. And he says that he doesn’t think it.

On 6/25/2020 at 6:36 PM, JW Insider said:

This will sound a bit cynical, but I assumed that the GB have been on a constant lookout for a really good practical example to make that old quote from the 11.15.2013 Watchtower seem less "scary" to outsiders. They latched onto this one and hoped it would make sense to enough people, and then they searched high and low for a Witness or two who had been "living in a cave."

 

How about this one: ‘Go my people into your interior rooms until the denunciation passes over’ being fulfilled right now?

What with everyone partying hearty, waving the flag for Trump, or parading to scale back the police—wait to see how many drop of the pandemic before venturing forth? It may blow over in time, but you can easily get the sense that if may just escalate, ‘each one his hand at his brother’s throat’ for wearing or not wearing a mask, for wanting or not wanting to send the police packing, for the rich getting richer yet, and the poor falling off the table entirely—and pulling down the tablecloth as they go.

And that one is mine: not the GB. And, no, I am not planning a book entitled, “Rolf with me is Okay: The GB has lost their Way. I know the scriptures better than They.“

I get from you the sense that the GB sends up little trial balloons here and there to gauge the response. You think the line of ‘being obedient even if a given direction seems to make little sense from a human point of view’ one of them? I will concede that with some, it has become what for want of a better phrase I will take one from the skeptics: ‘a woo line.’

Still, it might not be that way at all. The scriptures are full of such situations. One that immediately comes to mind is that of sending the singers out front of the army and telling them they need not be prepared to do anything but stand and watch. How much sense does that make? I think they must be dumbstruck at how far certain lines of theirs go, while others fall flat on their face immediately—like the aforementioned instructions on not saving seats, or even not venturing outside the recommended hotel list during conventions. I am told that some cities have had to be abandoned as venues when exceptions to that direction proved so numerous that hotels began to not cooperate with the rooming department.

I think the GB just doesn’t want to find itself in the shoes of Lot—who’s sons-in-law thought he was joking. They want to do the biblically supported role of herding sheep. They don’t want to be overbearing, but at the same time they don’t want to be so loose and vague that they find themselves herding cats.

On 6/3/2020 at 12:27 AM, JW Insider said:

Now that I have kind of figured it out,

What does Rolf the Renegade think about counting time? Does he think it a good idea?

(Did he count his time writing his book, with the exception of the knifing sections? Or are those sections inseparable? )

Dennis Christensen was to be released after serving 3 years of his sentence—there is a formula in Russia for counting each day of pre-trial detention as 1.5 days of actual time—but the Ministry of Justice has appealed. He is now in a special holding cell. He was guilty of ‘misconduct’ during his term, the MOJ charges.

He had organized an English class for fellow inmates—how bad can his ‘misconduct’ be? They are trying to break him, Watchtower HQ says, and everyone with a brain in their head knows it is so. His ‘misconduct’ was not renouncing his faith.

I couldn’t believe it when I heard of his early release. Two days later, I saw that I was right not to believe it. The reason I could not believe it is that it flew in the face of recent Russian escalation of efforts to stamp out the faith. The stiffest prison term yet had just been imposed upon sixty-one-year-old Gennady Shepakovsky. Is he not a little old for such harshness, especially when his “crime” is no more than worshipping God per the tenets of his faith? The judge of the case suggested that Jehovah’s Witnesses (there are 175,000 of them!) go to a country where their faith is “more needed.” I thought of how the prophet Amos was told exactly that by rebellious servants of the king:

“Off with you, seer, flee to the land of Judah and there earn your bread by prophesying! But never again prophesy in Bethel for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple.” It is exactly how an anti-God world responds to hearing his words.

This comes directly on the heels of the MOJ appealing its own victorious verdict against another Witness because the sentence imposed was insufficiently harsh. This comes directly on the heels of another Witness having his citizenship revoked.

These penalties are unheard of—even a crime-boss does not have his citizenship revoked—the Ministry of Justice comes across as unhinged in its hatred of a faith—for that’s all these ones are—members of a faith—and everyone of sense knows it. Russian enemies are fighting Christianity, for none of these convicted ones are guilty of anything other than being Christian—and the most exemplary of Christians at that: Christians who will not kill, Christians who will not steal, lie, fall into sloth, do drugs, abuse alcohol, Christians who do more than their share to contribute to the common good.

It is possible to overplay one’s hand and in so doing provide a glimpse into a deeper reality. There is no human explanation that makes sense for such over-the-top ill-treatment. Therefore, it dawns upon some to look for a super-human explanation. At the Kingdom Hall, a weekly segment for 2 or 3 years running has been a consideration of the book, Jesus’ Life and Ministry, detailing events of his life in chronological order. Last night, his post-Passover final meeting with his disciples came up for examination. Was it to be always easy sailing for those who would stick with him?

“Men will expel you from the synagogue. In fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he has offered a sacred service to God”—Jesus’ words of John 16:1-2 were reviewed. See why Dennis is not unprepared? He has been fortified with these words all his of his life. 

He has also been fortified by Revelation 2:10: “Look! The Devil will keep on throwing some of you into prison so that you may be fully put to the test, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Prove yourself faithful even to death, and I will give you the crown of life.” It is also to be mentioned John 15: 19-21: “If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because you are no part of the world...for this reason the world hates you.  Keep in mind the word I said to you: A slave is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me [Jesus], they will also persecute you; if they have observed my word, they will also observe yours.  But they will do all these things against you on account of my name, because they do not know the One who sent me.”

So Dennis is not unprepared. He is bummed, no doubt—how could anyone not be? but probably not unprepared. He knows who he is battling, and it is not men. If I didn’t believe his early release, he probably didn’t, either—“not until it is in the bag,” he would have said. He knows he is up against the Devil, standing up as a test case almost like that of Job. The humans don’t matter—if one of them forgets his/her lines or has a change of heart, he is replaced by someone true to the wicked cause of a play that has not only continued from Jesus’ time but is coming to a head. A friend who has traveled to Russia tells me that the brothers there are cautious—but they have always had to be cautious. They find satisfaction in knowing that their resolute stand answers the taunts of the Wicked One before the entire world.

Of course, Dennis had no way of knowing that he would be the test case—no doubt he does not like that. Or maybe he does. You never know. Some Witness survivors of the Holocaust are on record as saying that they would not have traded away their experience if they could, for it gave them opportunity to give answer to the Devil before the world. They mirror the attitude of certain first-century Christians who, upon release from abusive treatment, went out “rejoicing because they had been counted worthy to be dishonored in behalf of [Jesus’] name. (Acts 5:41)

Is it a coincidence that the weekly Bible reading schedule that Witnesses adhere to has rolled around to Exodus chapter 5, about how Moses’s first foray to Pharaoh initially went badly for the Israelites?

‘Afterward, Moses and Aaron went in and said to Pharaoh: “This is what Jehovah the God of Israel says, ‘Send my people away so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.’”... “The king of Egypt replied to them: ‘Why is it...that you are taking the people away from their work?’... That same day, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters and their foremen: “You must no longer give straw to the people to make bricks. Let them go and gather straw for themselves.... Make them work harder, and keep them busy so that they will not pay attention to lies.” (Exodus 5: 1-9)

“Hmm. Is there anything today that corresponds to supposedly good news being turned on its head like in Moses’s time and unexpectedly made harsh news?” I asked myself, and then I read about Dennis being shoved back into the slammer. The events even parallel in how the faithless ones back then charged that Moses had made a hash of his assignment and should have left matters alone—just as faithless ones today have charged that the Witness organization reads the situation wrongly and makes it worse for the Russian Witnesses. “They’re no Moses!” the villains will say. Maybe not, but in this case the developments could not have paralleled those of Moses more closely. In fact, the modern Russian brothers put the Israelites to shame, for the latter did blame Moses for their problems. “May Jehovah look upon you and judge, since you have made Pharaoh and his servants despise us and you have put a sword in their hand to kill us,” they accused the one assigned to deliver them. (vs 21)

“There’s something happening here—what it is ain’t exactly clear,” sings the Buffalo Springfield—50 years too soon and on the wrong stage. The fog is dissipating fast. Russia becomes the most visible nation to fight against God. “The kings of the earth take their stand, and high officials gather together as one against Jehovah and against his anointed one” (Psalm 2:2), and Russia acts as though wanting to lead the charge. You never know when a given king will read ahead and decline to play the game, for the ending bodes ill for them: “Ask of me, and I will give nations as your inheritance,” God says to his son, “and the ends of the earth as your possession. You will break them with an iron scepter, and you will smash them like a piece of pottery.” So far, though, most are adhering to script.

Matters are coming to a head—you can smell it. Is it reasonable to insist that Exodus 5 finds a parallel in today’s Russian events? No. But it’s reasonable to suggest it—just as it was reasonable to suggest that the then-scheduled Bible reading of the Assyrian army assaulting Jerusalem prepared the hearts of Russian brothers who were facing immanent ban of their organization in 2017.

Is it reasonable to look at these parallels? It hardly matters. Reason has had its day in the sun. It has been weighed in the scales and found wanting. The point of 2 Timothy 3: 1-5 is that in the last days people would forget all about reason, and a host of other stabilizing qualities. Does it seem that reason is the order of the day in light of the Covid 19 epidemic, as punctuated by protests escalating to riots as a black man’s death at the hands of police stokes mayhem around the world? Jehovah’s Witnesses are among the few—at least in my American home—who without fuss don masks. Normal meetings and methods of ministry are suspended, and it is almost as though ones are retreating to interior rooms until the denunciation passes. Anger, not reason, becomes the order of the day, and it is not so foolish to lie low.

The world is not friendly to Christian values. The persecution that Jesus guaranteed would visit his followers is not to be averted. But it can be guaranteed, as Paul said to Agrippa, that this thing will “not be done in a corner.” It will receive maximum publicity so that whoever is of good heart will be moved by it. This the Witness organization has done and continues to do.

...This post will soon be appended to the free ebook: Dear Mr. Putin - Jehovah’s Witnesses write Russia. The book is in ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ version—the only difference being that in ‘safe’ version, all quotes from Watchtower publications are redacted. Even if is the New World Translation quoting Jesus on how we must love our enemies. “Redacted for reader safety,” it will say.

31 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

So that brother in 'Writing / Service Department' had inside information. and he said EVERY congregation of 100 people has had at least one paedophile.

You moron, nothing was said of “inside information” and he didn’t “say” anything—he “estimated”—there is a difference. Moreover, you ignore the overall inference of the above remark that everyone else likely has significantly more CSA than within JW.

I’m not sure that you care about children at all. If you do, that concern is far overshadowed by your mission to run down the Witness organization. What a hateful loon!

49 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Even back in the early 1990's a brother in Writing who had worked in the Service Department for several years estimated (to me) that every congregation of 100 people has had at least one. (That's also 1%.)

A pretty good guess, I would imagine. I like to think that is still quite low, in view of Invisiblechild.org  reporting that 1 out of every 5 children in the US will be suffer molestation before age 18. But such will never be known for sure because practically nobody other than JWs made note of abuse cases within the membership; Witnesses did so in the spirit of Romans 2:22– to ensure that they ‘practice what you preach.’ In doing so, they produce a ‘paper trail,’ the 1000 ARC cases that nobody else produces because everybody else was content to not look.

Their vigilance is readily used against them. It is the classic example of the cynical phrase, ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’ Had they stuck their heads in the sand, as was the pattern elsewhere, and cried like Sergeant Shultz: “I know nothing!!” they would have fared better.

Here’s one of them:

25 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

unless you just want to keep Arauna happy

I don’t dare cross @Arauna

40 minutes ago, Arauna said:

those usually have a problem with all types of authority.  Hmmmm.

I wonder if the yo-yo has taken to plastering a ‘Question Authority’ bumper sticker on his Yugo. Probably not, because there is only one authority that he cares about—unless he has modified it to: “Question GB Authority.” This will cause all his neighbors to think he is nuts, but perhaps they already think it.

You don’t have to question authority on every piddly little thing—that’s why the world is chaotic and most of what is done is quickly undone.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (He wrote books, 4Jah, he was a writer, he goes on and on and on, and sometimes readers tire after a paragraph or two because he doesn’t slam the Governing Body and place a laughing emoji at chaper’s end) wrote of Hester Prynne, that “It is remarkable, that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society.“ Nobody speculates more boldly about this world than Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Hawthorne didn’t say it, but the opposite is also true. This who cannot conform with the most most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society tend to be the most timid of all.

(Now watch him go ballistic that I have attributed a Yugo to him—a sly JW trick he knows well, he will say.   )

Not only was it a good try—it knocked the ball out of the park.

With a certain type of hyperbolic person, sarcasm is well-nigh irresistible. It may be the ‘language of the Devil’ but there are certain times when it is exactly the way to go.

It’s true. With Zoom, I thought I could get away without wearing a tie. When the speaker noticed it, he told the cable company to cancel my ISP, and now I have to communicate through smoke signals.  I had imagined that the beard I have grown would have covered up the lack of tie, but no such l**k.

On the other hand, it might have been the Farmer Mort pants my wife has taken to wearing.

3 hours ago, Arauna said:

Why would one read a book by Dawkins? because he is at the top of the book charts?

Moristotle, an atheist character with whom I interacted for the longest time on my blog, would all but plead with me to read his books. But I would respond that I had looked over many atheistic arguments individually and had not been impressed. Why think that would change were I to read them in orchestral form?

I’m not even opposed to reading them, per se. It is just that there are so many other things that have more desire to read, and other things I want to do, that practically speaking, I will probably never get around to it.

It is pretty much that way with a book from Rolf or someone else who finds fault. I can see why some with certain backgrounds might want to read it. But for me, there are just too many other things that I want to look at first. I know the subject as well as he. It’s sufficient for me to see blurbs of his book, commentary of it, and on that basis decide if I want to devour it whole. So far, no such desire has emerged. 

2 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

Elders are known to break the Org rules

They do not—not according to what you say again and again and again and again—that they are complete puppets of the GB, do not do anything without being told, and would never go beyond what the GB has ordered them to do.

28 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

I was obeying the Organisations procedure.... In the congregations I have been in, the rules have been that at meetings children must sit with their parents, and on the ministry children must be with a parent.

To the extent that this is true, it undermines everything else you have said. You should take a month—it will take that long—to delete all of your tweets.

They have “rules,” do they, that children must sit with their parents, and in the ministry they must be with a parent? Then what is all your eternal beefing about, since you here state there is nothing to it?

Are you sure you are sane? A sub theme of virtually every post of yours is that JWs do anything the GB tells them to and do not do whatever they are not told. Well, here they tell them to do what in your eyes is the safest, most wholesome, practice in the world! What is it with your nasty tweets?

2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

I quote you here to show how perverted you are Tom,  "I take from this that you were not stalking the child."  it's a sort of semi-accusation i know.

It’s not a “semi-accusation” at all. I’m clearing you of any ill-intent. The very fact that you get all exorcized over this makes me reexamine that ‘clearing’—maybe it was unwise for me to have done this.

2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

Not long ago, and for no reason it seems, you mentioned masterbation in one of your comments. Prior to that you have mentioned 'Getting all wet' over something....You seem to have a serious problem

These are earthy things that are part of the universal human experience, and I occasionally make reference to them when if fits the context. If there is one thing that I cannot stand, it is the fellow who basks in his “righteousness,” going apoplectic at hearing a “naughty” word, and imagining he is thereby proving his holiness to God. It is stomach-turning—that sort of self-righteousness.

The only point I made in the prior post was that groups that insist upon separating children from parents and then fail to protect them ought to be held to more stringent standards than those that do not. There is nothing wrong with that point. It makes perfect sense. 

2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

Elders take young children, that are not their own children, on the ministry. Older brothers ans sisters do likewise. Brothers or sisters take children, that are not their own, to meetings in their cars.

Of course it has happened, and still does—though in view of persons like yourself who want to stunt children by suggesting any contact an adult other than their own parent is perverted, they do it less and with much more caution. Always in the situations you describe, it happens with full approval of the parent & often at their request. I’ll give you an example:

My wife and I were in the ministry, along with a sister with her two children—ages probably 2 and 4. We’re all going at a snail’s pace, working In and out of the car, for the sake of the children. The sister, too, needs adult encouragement—she doesn’t get out all that much—and that’s why the “righteous” solution you might hit on: ‘work with your wife, and let her work with her two kids,’ does not work. 

When I am alone in the car with the two-year old, I get impatient to do another door or two. “C’mon, Seth,” I swoop the kid up, “Let’s take a door.” I ring the bell and a woman answers. I tell her I am working with my friend Seth, whom I am carrying, and “he wants to show a video to you.” I thumb through a few Caleb and Sophia videos on my IPad, ask Seth which one did he have in mind, and act as though it is he making the decision. .Meanwhile, the woman seems bemused by this—she’s playing along—it doesn’t happen all the time. We play the video, she views it attentively, Seth even more so, and when it is all done, I thank her, acknowledging “You’re a sport,” and we take our leave. I had the feeling that she was playing along simply for the child’s sake, and I stopped in sometime later to discover that I was right. I still reaffirmed that she was a good sport.

Now, I know child’s the mother well. I know the chemistry here. This was not a stranger’s child. I know you are probably dying to make a molestation scene out of this, but anyone not completely warped in own their values will instantly see if for what it is—a win-win-win for the child, the householder, and me—and even another win if you include God, for it is advancing the ministry.

22 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

I've been on the ministry in the past and a child has actually asked to be with me on the doors. I've declined as I think children should be with their parents. 

You probably did the child a favor by not exposing it to your screwy personality. That point notwithstanding, why in the world would you not agree to this?—unless there is some twisted background that you are not conveying. I would do it in a heartbeat if a child asked it of me and if I knew the parents would have no objection.

Do you think you are proving yourself virtuous by your all but criminalizing contact between adults and their non-offspring? Do you think the interests of the world’s children are advanced by the Boy Scouts of America being driven into bankruptcy as retribution for the injuries inflicted upon a handful of children? The Boy Scouts take you out camping. They teach you how to tie knots. They teach responsibility. “Eagle scout project” are seen everywhere in my area—deeds of civic enhancement, education, historical illumination, ecological projects—deeds that are not likely to be done otherwise. They provide opportunities for children growing up that parents will most likely not be able to provide. And now your type deprive them of that by bankrupting the organization—all the time basking in your holiness about how you are ‘protecting children.’

You suggest all contact with a non-related child is wrong, even twisted, and then you think you are doing the village of children a favor? Back in JoePa days—American example, you may not know of it, when a man outstanding for molding generations of youth was suddenly destroyed because in a certain instance, he did not go “beyond the law” to penalize something he didn’t know was happening—a former coach of youth sports, Bob Cook, wrote: “The most upsetting thing about many child-protection rules is they assume any adult is capable of doing something bad. If you think of yourself as a good person, and the people around you as good people, you can’t help but be taken aback. You can’t help but think a wall has been put between yourself, the children you coach, and the families you deal with. It’s a wall that seems patently ridiculous when, in the case of the Catholics involved in my Virtus meeting, were tight-knit, south side Chicago parishes where families had known each other for generations.”

3 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

I quote you here to show how perverted you are Tom,  "I take from this that you were not stalking the child."  it's a sort of semi-accusation i know. It is a thing that JWs do well.

I cleared you previously on this, but now I walk it back some. With you, it may well be an example of the verse: “All things are clean to clean people; but to those who are defiled and faithless, nothing is clean, for both their minds and their consciences are defiled.” Nothing is clean to you, and with you vengeful crusade, you would penalize generations of children from the adult interaction that helps them grow into balanced adults themselves.

I surprise myself for getting into this thread so. I hadn’t intended to. I literally wrote the book on this topic of JW accusation—several chapters are on the topic, and I think there is not another like collection anywhere. Since it is free, I can link to it as simply another information source.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/917311

It covers events up to the initial verdict against JWs in Montana, and has not been updated to include that verdict being thrown out. Maybe there will be a “Round 2” or maybe I will tack additional chapters on Round 1: At any rate, I’ve done my share on this and did not intend to involve myself much beyond—because the topic will never be dropped, and there are other things to explore. But your demented notion of ‘nothing being clean’ draws me in despite myself.

3 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

On other issues, you seem so unaware of how JWs think that I’ve even questioned whether you ever were one. "Just another accusation from you Tom.  Please give me examples of this if you can.

You donkey—it’s in the other thread, in a comment you attached a heehaw emoji to without reading. It’s found in your obtuseness as to how JW’s will not construe the many attacks on them as but examples of what Jesus said—how ‘if you were part of the world, the world would be fond of its own. Now because you are no part of the world, on that account the world hates you.’

22 hours ago, Isabella said:

organisations like the Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to join the national redress scheme.

Actually, I rather like their reasoning:

“The Jehovah's Witnesses have not sponsored any programs or activities that separate children from their parents at any time," it said in a statement to AAP.

The statement said the Jehovah's Witnesses did not operate boarding or Sunday schools, did not have youth groups, choirs or sponsor any programs for children, nor run youth centres.

"Jehovah's Witnesses simply do not have the institutional settings that result in children being taken into their care, custody, supervision, control or authority."

Less than 10 redress scheme applicants have referred to the Jehovah's Witnesses, it said.

How many groups did the ARC look at? Was it not 30 -40? Every one of them involved some program in which children were separated from parents as a condition of participation. Separation was necessary for participation, and in the case of government schools, mandated by law. It seems reasonable that if you sponsor a youth group and/or even require children to congregate, you have a greater responsibility to provide a safe environment for them.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, and they alone (so far as I can recall) of the scrutinized groups, have never had any such program. They ought not be lumped into the same basket of mutual culpability with those that do.

11 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

I've been on the ministry in the past and a child has actually asked to be with me on the doors. I've declined as I think children should be with their parents. 

I take from this that you were not stalking the child. Are there no situations where an adult might come into contact with a child not his own? Of course there are. Your own experience testifies to one. But they are the sort of incidental thing that could happen anywhere—if your child frequents the home of a friend and it turns out that friend’s dad is a pervert, for example. 

There was a time when my father-in-law, a man with little formal education, asked elders to study with his high school son. The elders said no—it was for him to study with his own son. It may not have even been a wise decision, but the point is there is no program for elders to wrestle children away from their own parents.

The typical abuse case among Witnesses involves congregation members—often members within a step-family. The culpability of the organization, if there is one, is that elders left it to the disgression of the aggrieved parties to report it. The culpability of the other groups is for systemically separating children from the parents and then allowing someone in authority to abuse them.

11 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

Please remember I was a JW for 50 years. I do know what I'm talking about.  

I doubt this. So single-minded and vitriolic are you that I think you’ve come unhinged.  On other issues, you seem so unaware of how JWs think that I’ve even questioned whether you ever were one. I’ll accept on your say-so that you were—but only barely. This statement of yours on the other thread is suggestive: “Even if I get into the 'New World' (very doubtful) I would still prefer peace and quiet and being alone. ”

So here you are—purer than anyone because you could not bear to look upon anything bad—and yet you still think it doubtful you will make it into the new world. There is something very unbalanced here, very unhealthy. Jesus doesn’t want his followers on pins and needles that he will bar them at any time from life. If you think your spirituality is in danger, then DO something about it. You appear to be moving in the opposite direction. For all that you carry on about how you don’t need the CCSW / JVWWT / JWBWKFC you don’t appear to be doing so hot on your own. With you it is an almost a literal “promising them life while they themselves are living in corruption.”

2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

I've noticed he's stopped advertising his books. 

Obtain your copy now at the link below while the supply lasts:

‘Tom Irregardless and Me’—Starting with Prince, a fierce and frolicking defense of Jehovah’s Witnesses. A riotous romp through their way of life. “We have become a theatrical spectacle to the world, and to angels and to men,” the Bible verse says. That being the case, let’s show some theater! Let’s skewer the liars who slander the Christ! Let’s pull down the house on the axis lords! Let the seed-pickers unite!

All persons with names like ‘Irregardless’ are real though generally composite. You can meet them in my circuit or even yours. Events related are faithfully depicted except for a few that I’ve made up. Persons with names recognizable from history or current events – you’re nuts! – it’s not those people at all!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/686882

”Puts Rolf’s book to shame!”.....Oscar Oxgoad

”A highly entertaining author—especially if you’re not fussy”.....Tom Brexit

”Acceptable after a fashion. But his grasp of science and is weak, and his critical thinking abominable.”....Bernard Strawman

”A pack of lies! I hate it!”.....Vic Vomodog

”His chapter on blood transfusion taught me some valuable lessons.”....Dr Max ‘Ace’ Inhibitor

23 hours ago, Anna said:

Wow Tom, that was a long reply! At first I thought it was JWI 😂.

If it was JWI, you’d still be reading it. 

23 hours ago, Anna said:

(in fact as we know, the writing department does all this, the GB merely proofread and put their stamp of approval on it). So how can it be said that God is communicating through the GB, 

Because that “merely” is a pretty big merely. 

23 hours ago, Anna said:

which you could do as well. 

What if my roof caves in tomorrow and I decide it’s God’s fault? What if I park on the Kingdom Hall lawn, the elders tell me not to, and I say, “Oh yeah?! Well I show you right here on my blog!!!!” If I do it at Bethel, the GB will “merely” decline to put their stamp of approval on my rant—they will put me on potato-peeling detail in the kitchen instead, and call up someone from the bullpen who has his head screwed on straight. But if I am a loose cannon with my own blog—there is nothing anyone can do when I go haywire. That’s why I don’t ever expect to be acknowledged for my self-appointed role as an apologist, much less commended for it. Even the real apologists of the early centuries have not fared will at the hands of the writing committee, that tends to focus on things they got wrong.

No, the “merely” is a big deal. It makes for constancy and consistency. Call it a “think tank” at Bethel if you will. It is a concentration of gray hairs and experience, of meeting trials, of knowing they are to be judged for their actions (or inaction), of following up on having brought understanding of the sacred writings to begin with. 

I can just shoot my mouth off here, say whatever pops into my head, insult 4Jah whenever he deserves it (which is almost always), praise the Benoit Blanc movie even though there is crude language—and perhaps I have never faced a care in the world. But they can’t. 

What are my morals? I could (to paraphrase Bob Dylan) “be respectably married—or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aries.” Nobody knows. But the Bethel writers are vetted, not just for being good writers, but for being good Christians. They take it for granted that if your conduct is sullied, somehow that will come out in your guidance, even if it doesn’t seem to at first glance.

I had a friend that, eccentric though he was, had a gift of making complex things simple—even oversimplifying to drive the point home.  I can still hear him recounting to someone just how it works in Jehovah’s organization: “At Bethel, the Governing Body study their Bibles. An idea will occur to one of them. They will discuss it among themselves and when they all come to agreement, it will appear in print.”

“Now, the thing is,” he continued, “you also study your Bible. The same idea might have occurred to you, maybe even before it occurred to them. ‘And if this were Christendom, you’d run out and start your own religion over it.’  But because you know it is not a free-for-all, and you know that Jehovah is a God of order, you wait for material to come through the appointed channel.”

So if they have called themselves “Jehovah’s  mouthpiece” in the past, I can live with that. They have the greatest think tank collection of gray hairs that per the scriptures denotes wisdom, of experience in Christian works, in safeguarding and extending the king’s belongings, in knowing the will be held accountable before God. They have the  greatest sense of direction and following up on momentum. No, I will not do a Miriam and say—“does not Jehovah speak through all of us?” I am happy to have a thought that makes sense—I don’t go thinking I am God’s gift to the brotherhood for it.

The trouble is that there are so many literalists who see the expression “crocodile tears” and take it as proof that the one shedding them is a crocodile. There are so many literalists who do not strive to think of how phrases like “Jehovah’s mouthpiece” might apply, but they strive to think of how they don’t. It is the same with “being led by spirit.” It is almost too explosive a phrase to use because of the literalists—if you go to the bathroom—well—how can you be guided by spirit? since holy spirit would never do THAT!

It’s the same with elders and servants being “appointed by holy spirit.” How do you know they are? To my mind it is because the qualifications are in the Book inspired by holy spirit and the judgment as to how they measure up is made by a (small) “think tank” of holy spirit, and seconded by a traveling minister patterned after scripture—another repository of holy spirit. It works for me. But there will be some who think that if an appointee ever goes bad afterwards it must be that they were not appointed by holy spirit. I think not. Any of these terms must necessarily be “watered down” some when put in the context of humans, “in whose heart the inclination to do bad” is ingrained from youth up.

I think of certain brother appointed upon the recommendation of the BOE. The circuit overseer, an older and very experienced man, okayed the recommendation, with the observation: “He’s not the most humble brother in the world.” He didn’t have to be. All he had to do was to meet each of the qualifications to an acceptable degree. Alas, the CO should have listened to his gut, for the man in time went apostate. He was the one who was a history buff and used to impress the householder by answering, “Because I’m an historian,” when asked how he knew this or that about the past. Once I said to him, “Will you knock it off?! You are a history buff. An historian is when other people acknowledge you, not just you yourself!”

I could be wrong, but I bet the GB has learned to be very leery of such phrases and terms as “mouthpiece” and “inspired” and “spirit-directed”—not just for all the literalists, but for all the critics (who are often the same).  Some things if they say just once, it is magnified 100 times. Other things they say 100 times, only to find it ignored. “Don’t save seats for everyone you know,” they would say about the Regionals, “think of the elderly.” Finally, they gave up, and said to let the elderly in early, and everyone else only after the oldsters were seated. Innumerable directives went unheeded. Yet if they speak just once about “forums,” theIr words are enshrined for all time. I alluded to this in Tom Irregardless and Me. The organization would say that the Governing Body does not endorse such and such, and the friends would accordingly have a helpful sense of priority and focus. And then Oscar or someone would be found doing it, and Tom Pearlandswine would descend to tell him that the Governing Body DOES NOT ENDORSE!!! such and such. You never know what quote will be magnified and what will be forgotten, but I bet they are advancing on the learning curve.

13 hours ago, JW Insider said:

So he probably only commuted to a small town community college in Hebron.

I’ve heard of that school. “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” He should have been more cautious.

Ben Franklin once remarked of the parents of their graduates:

“I reflected in my Mind on the extream Folly of those Parents, who, blind to their Childrens Dulness, and insensible of the Solidity of their Skulls, because they think their Purses can afford it, will needs send them to the Temple of Learning, where, for want of a suitable Genius, they learn little more than how to carry themselves handsomely, and enter a Room genteely, (which might as well be acquir'd at a Dancing-School,) and from whence they return, after Abundance of Trouble and Charge, as great Blockheads as ever, only more proud and self-conceited.”

9 hours ago, Thinking said:

 

Can I ask what the book was called..I would be interested in it ...

No Greater Love - How My Family Survives the Genocide in Rwanda

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

You must be confusing Akeldama with Acedemia. I see no evidence that Judas was from Jerusalem.

Where does that come from then that he was? I know I have read it.

37 minutes ago, Thinking said:

Well you are funny as well..and witty I’m sure if we were all in the same cong we would get on great...🤗

I have no doubt of that. Do you know that I am blocked on Twitter by the Liebster Arnold foundation—the ones who published the recent book of the Tutsi brother who survived the Rwandan genocide? I went there upon reading that book and found that I had been blocked! I then followed them via another account (with the same banner that I use here as well)—it is not only here I have multiple personas—and I was instantly blocked again! (I did not follow them with my third account)

I said the same thing that you just said—‘in the Kingdom Hall we would work it out in two minutes.’ The internet is not the congregation and cannot be made to behave like one. They probably came across me when I was exchanging barbs with a few villains, and do not know that I subsequently carted them all out to the curb. In this case, bad association truly did spoil a useful habit.

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/08/blocking-trolls-the-star-trek-way-i-didnt-want-to-do-it.html