TrueTomHarley

It is great news. I certainly hope I will not be forced to admit that @James Thomas Rook Jr. is a true prophet

Let us suppose that an anonymous and/or unknown person writes an endlessly long letter to an established mechanic and explains in great detail the basic principles of car manufacturing and the interaction of the engine components, while making clear from very early on his belief that the mechanic is incompetent and doing everything wrong. Even though the mechanic loves cars, wants to improve in his ability, and engine talk is ‘music to his ears,‘ he will still toss the letter in the trash as one from a self-important, tactless know-it-all. If he answers all, it will be to say: “You have your own ideas as to how things should be done, I can see. Open up your own shop and let me know how that works out.” The problem is one of hubris but it is more than that. It is also the purely practical reality that “we have this treasure (the ministry) in human vessels (us).“ One of the limitations of being human is that you do not have all day to attend to a any given thing. Any writer with the slightest bit of sense knows that he has to structure his introductory letter accordingly. God, how can people have such little self-awareness?!!

Yes, of course. What is it with people? You have to craft your letter. It may be that they get hundreds of these per day. Does he really think they are patiently going to plow through a letter from straight out of the blue that is plainly telling them how to do better what they think they already are doing pretty well? His very self-assumed air of being their corrector virtually guarantees that they will hang with him through three paragraphs at most. People are so full of themselves today.

Well, the Ukraine girls really knock me out, They leave the West behind. And Moscow girls make me sing and shout, and Georgia’s always on my mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind! (sorry)

A man of style, grace, and polish will always match his slippers to his tie.

The fellow’s got a screw loose, and that is partly why I have exercised no authority to have him deleted. By being so histrionic he makes his side look bad

The gray boxes suddenly appear with name only. It is like a drum roll announcing the appearance of yet another friend. Then the video comes online, as though the cymbal crash. I can get used to this. There are some aspects of it I even prefer—such as wearing my slippers.

Sigh.....the idiots

I admit I have misjudged you at times. Fortunately, it doesn’t matter. I have no pull at all in the heavens, Statements such as this prompt me to recalculate. What the new sum will be I am not sure. But I am tweaking the algorithms.

And just as an aside, I put the new post about Jacob and Esau in the JW only club. It is what I will be doing from now on, most likely, at least posts of a spiritual nature. I’m a little tired of seeing 4Jah piss all over everything.

I haven’t seen that one (that I can recall—actually, I probably have but cannot recall it, for I have seen many. There is a certain ‘hoakiness’ to Star Trek that I can at times overlook and at times not. In general, the latter episodes of ‘Next’ were better than the former, and infinitely better than the Shatner ones. They have a way of being ‘preachy’—showcasing modern concerns in an outer space setting. When I read up on history of the genre, I learned that this was by design. Guys like Roddenberry (and Serling before him) knew certain themes did not play well to everyday audiences, who were not ‘ready’ for them. But put them in a sci-fi setting, and they went down just fine. I haven’t seen any of the new Picard series either. Have you? Are they any good? One person said of a certain episode that it was almost too ‘intense’ for him. I think we can see it free if we like—we have CBS streaming, which we presently make use of to watch Perry Mason shows. It costs a little bit per month, but since otherwise our television has always been entirely what comes from antenna, overall, it is pretty affordable. In last night’s exiting Perry Mason, Perry backed into the villain and impaled him on the tail fin of his Cadillac.

You are.

How much do you ‘clock in at?’ I won’t even ask about your wife.

Whoa! Something within that link—a specific answer to your question. I learned that Brother Herd, who may not even know what political correctness is, will never reprove me for ‘fat-shaming.’ Establishing the point that it is the heart that matters, he floated the quandary of marrying the woman—an excellent catch—with the heart of pure gold, even though she “clocks in at 200 pounds.” Is he a diplomat or what?

I took a great many notes with the intent to write up a post or two that never happened, crowded out by too many other things to do. It was in between days that I, for the first time ever, blocked several apostates at once as they had, for the first time ever, ganged up on me. They had pierced my up-to-then successful armor of always linking to a post with my replies, effectively answering their 50 words with my 1000. Like charging a hill, caring not if they got mowed down, they came at me anyway. I would return to the hotel from a day at the convention and find a score or more of nastigrams from them, eager to call attention to the ARC or something—all this with a wife who wanted to go out to supper or walk or unwind, and who is not terribly enthused about my online activity in the first place. So I blasted them all away, and for reasons I no longer recall—I must have been watching Star Trek reruns, I drew heavily on that show for symbolism: https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/08/blocking-trolls-the-star-trek-way-i-didnt-want-to-do-it.html There you go. Your first comment. Happy?

We are all playing the roles that we think we must and there is no sense in taking anything personally. Fortunately, that is in my bag of strengths—a bag that doesn’t have as many of them as I might like, but it does have that one. Once again I take note with some approval that Kos does not return evil for evil—an undeniably good quality. I will continue to indirectly slam him, no doubt, because I think his ‘theology’ is downright loopy, but it is nothing personal. I would hope he would get his Act together and work in harmony with his wife’s spirituality, but I concede that seems most unlikely. Even the bellicose Captain with the head of Cement—all mixed up and firmly set—seems very unlikely to ever change in the slightest degree.

Of course! There is no question in my mind that you should be running everything.

Facts are nice, but they are overrated. They are downright dangerous things in the hands of some, who handle them as deftly as a surgeon with a jackhammer. Facts mean little in themselves. It’s how you put them together that counts. That’s why the Bible lays relatively little emphasis on the head and instead lays it on the heart. The heart determines what it wants and then entrusts the head to devise a convincing rationale for it, giving the appearance that it is the head running the show. But it is the heart all along.

The reason they want to keep banks afloat, rife with ‘moral hazard’ though that course is, is that all employment depends on them, and no one wants to throw most people in the world out of work. It is sort of like how Abraham Lincoln said that he is not smart enough to lie. Once you tell one, you will be telling them till the end of your days in an attempt to shore up that first one.

The premise, and apparently the hope, of this entire thread Kos stated early on: “I told my wife that maybe there will never again be meetings as before. I hope the JWs will wake up and start to examine the scriptures seriously and search what all this could lead to.“ In fact, it looks like meetings are pretty much going on with barely a hiccup. They have simply switched to conference-call software, with telephone tie-in for any not up to speed on this. If Kos foresees that every child in the world can download apps showing the alignment of the planets, I don’t why he would have any problem foreseeing this, but it doesn’t appear that he did. Rather than take his self-predicted five years to make himself even more insightful and pure than he already is, maybe he should repent if possible and try to get into that new format with his wife rather than being a drag that she must contend with. Our congregation will start with the conference calls at this mid-week meeting, Zoom in our case. (We will meet in Zoom Rooms—who would have thunk it?) Over the weekend we streamed it from apparently one of the Bethels. I could not help but think how the contents would have been disappointing to any ‘anti-cultist’ because there was not a bit of alarmism and everyone treated the virus threat as just one more run-of-the-mill challenge to adapt to. Referred to several times in comments, it wasn’t even called the ‘Chinese virus.’ They didn’t get into any squabbles if they should be able to do it that way or not—since it gets some all incensed, they avoided the term, and just said virus or Covid 19 or Corona or whatever. It is so much like this world to ‘taunt’ the other side, deliberately getting them going usually for the sake of putting down, if not ridicule, but they didn’t stoop to that for a moment. It almost made me ashamed that i do stoop to it (but probably not ashamed enough to stop), though I am trying to restrain myself, not always easily. They didn’t sensationalize this virus even a little bit, much less use it to ‘scare’ people. It easily could be used that way. They didn’t. Not even a hint of it. So I will—just in a speculative bent, you understand, no more. For the longest time we have said our preaching will end someday. What if this turns out to be it? It’s not impossible, though no one suggests it. I expect this to blow over and normal preaching and activities will resume, but there is no reason to accept that as a foregone conclusion. What if the world leaders who just assume you can shut down the entire world economy and start it up again are wrong, and instead another worldwide Great Depression ensues? The deaths then will dwarf anything that the virus itself brings on, including many a suicide. Will people endure it as resolutely as they did 90 years ago? I wouldn’t hold my breath, not with the belligerence and non-cooperation that defines the overall culture today. And wouldn’t that be a decisive verdict to the facades men have erected? The worldwide financial bedrock, that everyone depends on and have taken for granted will endure no matter what—dissolving so easily in the face of what might well be an overreaction to a virus only two or three times more nasty than the regular flu—bad, to be sure, but not nearly as bad as the devastation triggered in the all-out war to contain it, a war that leaders can only hope will be won but do not know. As that mighty structure crumbles, who knows what efforts nations may go to in their desire to shore it up? Then all these ones on the outside lambasting the Witness organization every time one of them so much as farts may begin to feel less comfortable. For the Witness brotherhood appears to be holding up pretty well, and it is holding up well independent of material assets. If worse comes to worse, you can run the whole program from a server in Brother Lett’s dorm room. It might even be that conditions could devolve to Acts 2 mode, in which Christians are physically caring for the needs of others. If you have kept yourself plugged into the brotherhood that, with all its flaws, is one run on love, you will be able to weather whatever shaking of the world is going on. Those who have put themselves outside it and are united in nothing other than their finding fault—of them I am not so sure. A speaker quoted from Numbers 12 recently. “Face to face I speak with [Moses], and not in riddles. Why then, did you not fear to speak against him?” Yes, I know, I know—those taking the lead today are not Moses, but I am not so unfearful to declare they are not filling exactly the modern role that he did the ancient. Yes, they are not Moses, but then Moses was not Moses in the eyes of his critics. What were they murmuring about? His Hittite wives. He really did have Hittite wives. It was not an invalid complaint. God accepted him anyway and struck down those who would rise up against him. I can easily extrapolate, based on the snarling hate expressed by some here for the theocratic organization, and current events showing that opposition shifting into high gear, most notably in Russia—I can envision that attack on the city ‘existing without bars’ and ‘the city that seems open to plunder’—I can easily envision it—not as a slam-dunk gonna-happen-now, but certainly as a possibility. Will religions in general hold onto their own as JWs hold on to theirs? Time will time, but I’m dubious. How many will so easily switch to new methods of keeping in touch? How many are so organized into not just congregations, but groups within congregations, so that no one other than those who willfully keep their distance is overlooked? Revelation presents scenarios of people ‘warring against God’ and one can’t help but wonder: ‘Who would be stupid enough to do that?’ Now some scenarios emerge. ‘Do not meddle with these men so that you may not be found actually fighters against God,’ Gamaliel said. It was enough to dissuade the Sanhedrin. ‘Forget that!’ enemies say today as they go in for what they imagine is the kill. The view of the humanists is that human solutions must prevail, and they are livid that any would look to another source. They are livid that any would put their trust in anything else. They attack and put the most ridiculous interpretation on Letts’ words about what doesn’t bother him at all, because they can’t stand what he looks to for salvation. To one of these yo-yos ranting about how he uses calamity to ‘exploit’ members with fear so as to keep them in line, I said that ‘the entire premise of the faith is that we are living in the last days of this system of things in which difficult times will prevail. To point to evidence of that does not frighten them; it strengthens them—it validates their faith.’

Did Tom Henry pass off the scene so that we now see the Ghost of Tom Henry?

Not this weekend, but starting with the mid-week meeting, we will be. They will be held in ‘Zoom rooms’—who would have thought it? In the meanwhile, different options for different friends, even entire congregations. Many have streamed meetings from jw.org. A trial meeting which would ordinarily be the meeting for field service was held Saturday. Most took some time to get their heads around the app, including me. Some never made it at all. But I have not the slightest doubt that anyone desiring will be brought up to speed in fairly short order. It is not that hard. Meanwhile, though not an elder, I make it a point to phone one or two each day, and I try to think of ones who may be at some risk of falling through the cracks.

Oh, for crying out loud! It may be because there is only a thimbleful of JWs who feel any need to vote—we are not exactly immersed in politics here—and so nobody who really knows the answer to your question. I also rely on humor, and find it a very resilient way of addressing anything. The only downside is something you yourself pointed out: there is a huge percentage of people—did you say 1/3?—who have NO sense of humor. And there is no requirement for them to do so. It is not one of the fruits of the spirit, so that I try to cultivate the ability to turn it on and off as needed. Yes. That is why people put up with you here, even when you stretch their patience to the breaking point. I have acknowledged that both of these qualities are your strengths and the reason that you and I would probably get along with each other in person very well, even with your pigheadedness You expect much of people. They don’t always deliver. I think of one published interview with an elderly sister who has hung in there through thick and thin. “Don’t expect too much from people,” she says. ‘Accept with gratitude whatever it is they offer; don’t harp on where they fall short.‘ And to walk back on any ‘snarky’ impression I may have left about Andrew Cuomo: He is doing a press conference right now, and he cannot be faulted, at least no more than any human leader can be faulted. He is erudite where Trump is blunt and hyperbolic, and he makes a very good impression. He nannies, but many feel that is exactly the ticket. He believes in the power of government. Those who think like Reagan—‘government is the problem’—will not like him, but there is no question he is working his tail off. It is human leaders doing their best. They reach no consensus as to what way is the best, but overall I am impressed that they work so well together (the ones that I have seen) and ones who I know full well cannot stand one another are publicly cooperating and saying good of one another. It is some in media who stir the pot, but then many think that is their job. Trump took someone’s head off the other day for a fairly innocuous question—I think there is some bad blood in the past and he may have read a ‘false positive.’ On the other hand, the question—about ‘What message would you give to the American people?’—well, isn’t that the entire purpose of the news conference? so Trump may have taken it as a set-up line, to be followed by the typical criticism. Dunno. But those at his own network consoled and preened over him and wished that ‘the President had displayed as much professionalism as did you.’ That is why you do not continually find fault. In the event that you want to change tack, you find your overture is found suspect, if not outright rejected—there are fundamental facts of human nature that too many people are oblivious to. Human leaders doing their best. They actually seem upright at the moment, but with inadequate wisdom for the occasion. Is it good to handle things as they are? Horrible though a pandemic will be, nothing is worth bringing on another Great Depression, others have said. I am very content to be in Jehovah’s organization at the moment and I have little problem forgiving men their trespasses. There are some who you think if ones could only come to do that, most of their problems would resolve. To the extent that they do not, they go through life shooting themselves in the foot.

If you like, you may be able to vote for Andrew Cuomo, seeing as you are so eager to vote. You can vote for him. In the best of times, he is a nanny, and now that it is the worst of times, he has gone into overdrive, oozing his concern for everyone, and there are many who are blown away by his caring (and contrast him with Trump, who is so heavy of tongue that some wish they would get Aaron to fill in for him). I am seeing in comments to his tweets: Cuomo for President. There is a hashtag for it. This crisis is made to order for him, as he does best when there is no scrutiny whatsoever about the price tag. Someone speculated that if Biden gets the nod, it will somehow end up being AC running the show—probably starting with a VP nomination. You would like him, James. He would tell you to be cautious with your chickens in case there are any health risks to living in close proximity to them. He tells New Yorkers to bundle up when it is cold. He explains how when the temperature drops it can get dangerous to be out in the weather. He refers on occasion to the ‘family of New York,’ notwithstanding that one family member wins the Nobel prize and another family member lands in the hoosegow for knifing yet a third. They are all family members. You would make a good family member, too. This is human government, James. Do your bit to smooth his way. Or do your bit to oppose him and smooth someone else’s way. He will take your guns, probably. On the other hand, by doing so he may be saving you a lifetime of trouble, for if you use one and kill/injure somebody you may spend the rest of your days fending off litigation of one sort or another. Savor in the blessings that human government can bring, if you like.

Bart Ehrman no doubt claims that this little twist of theology got him banned as a ‘false prophet.’