TrueTomHarley

Inadequate attention has been paid, and is being paid, to the signs of the prophet Simon. In his writings, he declares how people will live in these latter days that include plagues: ”Hiding in my room, sacred in my room, I touch no one and no one touches me.” - Paul Simon He continues, indicating where people may find relief: ”I have my books. And my poetry to protect me.” Let the reader use discernment. The ‘books’ he is referring to are the 66 books of the Holy Bible. The ‘poetry’ consists of the poignant remarks he posts right here on the worldnewsmedia forum.

My favorite circuit overseer—an old fellow—long ago said that he doesn’t argue with trinitarians. “I’ve never convinced one,” he said. I’m struck by the verse that has cropped up a few times recently on how ‘wicked men and impostors will advance from bad to worse, misleading and being misled.‘ Trouble is, if you apply that verse to anyone, they just turn around and apply it to you, as Tom Henry discovers multiple times every week. Let whoever it is be firmly convinced in his own mind’ Paul said somewhere. It will have to be one of those things you leave in God’s hands, and see whether the blessings flow to wherever you have chosen to be. To quote an odd expression of Jesus: ‘where the carcass is, there the eagles will gather.’ Fine carcasses where i hang out, I think. My books—I think all of them—include contact information with the proviso that I’m not an arguer. “Sometimes people disagree. He can live with that,” I say in the third person of myself. God knows if he is a trinity or not. For atheists, he knows if he exists or not. For characters here, he knows if he has a ‘true anointed’ to pull from his sleeve or not. He knows if he is going to have all the heavenly bodies stand on their heads so we can draw conclusions or not. He knows if his home base is a Facebook page or not. I’ll preach truth as I know it and throw all the rest on his lap. He can handle it.

It took no time at all for the anti-cult crowd to latch on to that recent Stephen Lett video about how the brothers are doing worldwide in the face of Covid 19. (6 have died in Italy). Of course, he made remarks about being ‘deep in the last days’—and they were all over that. He was declared ‘oppontunistic’ and exploitive of current events so as to maintain control over members. Sheesh! Now, Stephen Lett is a very unusual figure—Witnesses love this guy—but there is no one who over-emotes like this fellow. Sometimes I think a spokesman less ‘polarizing’ in his mannerism would be better suited, but who can say? He shows love for the friends, and maybe that overrides all else. I wrote up a post on him previously. At any rate, I posted a few tweets of my own to kick back at some of these accusations—if that be what they are. As to the ringleader of the anti-cultists, who does not specialize in Jehovah’s Witnesses but also does not exclude them, I do not treat him as an enemy, and I am neutral as to his overall mission. To the extent he notices me, he doesn’t treat me as an enemy either, and if he does I take no offense. Mutual respect works here. I posted: A worldwide plague and concurrent financial collapse JWs do not dismiss as ‘one of those things,’ but their end-time words long precede this. Plus, they are nothing but cooperating with gov’t authorities in trying to contain virus It is irrelevant to general society if it is accompanied by complete cooperation with govt authorities as they try to contain such, which is the case with JWs. After all, it is not them partying on the Fla beach.....1/2 Also, people cannot be buffeted about by such calamities as world plague & financial collapse and just shrug it off. An ‘end-time’ view is as good as any to cope. Few cooperate with gov’t containment efforts as JWs do. They promptly calledoff their door2door & are not the problem...2/2 The trick is to allow other viewpoints to exist besides your own. Tolerance. JWs in no way undermine govt efforts to control virus. Besides, until all chips in, who are you to say they are wrong? It has to be a ‘wait and see.’

Well, it’s not as though one needs only swallow a pill and that’s the end of it. ”Stop being anxious” Bro Morris quoted Jesus at the Regional from Atlanta, and then reiterated: “Just stop it!” as though you would scold a child - planting the notion that it ought to be possible. Pssstttttt ! Ah.....that Miller is good. Where is that verse—it’s there somewhere, find it for me, about wine existing so that mortal man can forget his woes as the need arises.

“We made Miller the number two selling brand in the country and everybody said, ‘No one will drink that stuff.’ - Mickey Spillane

Lord, that fellow is a moron! Post a comment about the Corona virus and the worldwide financial collapse and he attaches a laughing emoji to it! Does it not remind anyone with a shred of decency of Jesus words? “How long must I continue with you? How long must I put up with you?” He really is losing it.

As signs go, a worldwide plague that crashes public health systems, along with decimated markets that will throw endless people into poverty, if not death, is hardly a yawner.

Disparaging remarks are harmful and counterproductive. All the more so since we are living deep in the last days. I am calling for an immediate moratorium on them—to commence just after I get my own licks in.

I probably go off on too many tangents and even a few meanderings. Still, ‘Dear Mr. Putin - Jehovah’s Witnesses Write Russia’ is the best of its kind, if for no other reason than it is the only of its kind. There is no other complete record of JW events that have broken in Russia over the past few years. It is a labor of love on my part, released free in ebook version. Alas, there were quite a few typos and punctuation bloopers in the original but they were cleaned up long ago. I’m a one-man show here. Even many of my own people will think I ought not go into Part 2 as I do, for it puts the machinations on the table, if only to gut them. I have made some revisions. The original consisted of Part 1, a collation of news reports regarding events leading up the ban, then the ban of the New World Translation, then the appeal, then the confiscation of property. Since the underlying reasons for opposing the Witnesses were not spelled out in court proceedings, I decided to spell them out myself in Part 2, along with how they ought be defended. (Not everyone knows that the word ‘defense’ derives from the Greek word ‘apologia,’ today more readily identified with ‘apology’ as though to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ Apologia means not that at all.) Part 3 is more of what we would call a ‘witness.’ To the extent possible for a Westerner, all topics are considered in a Russian context. There is now a Part 4, which covers significant developments of the last two years—updates. Some are almost comical, such as when Russian ‘experts’ declared Ps 37:29 (“The righteous will inherit the land”) ‘extremist’—extremist in anyBible (JWs had taken to using others when the NWT was banned), since it promotes the ‘doctrine of superiority based upon religious belief.’ I spun it that they are sticking up for the unrighteous in that land. Other updates are decidedly not comical—such as how ones arrested are invariably arrested by SWAT teams; if a group is “extremist,” you can hardly detain them as with a cop writing a speeding ticket, for that cheapens the word. And how—no way are we talking persecution like in Roman times, still, there are reports of torture, beatings, and personal belongings are invariably confiscated even when no arrests result. I have also dropped the chapter on child sexual abuse that was in Part 2. It never belonged there. Allegations of this sordid topic never arose in any Russian context. If it never belonged, why was it there in the first place? It is because when I wrote that book on opposition to Jehovah’s Witnesses in the East I did not then envision that I would be writing one on opposition to them in the West, and so when it came to apologia, I threw in everything but the kitchen sink. That latter book, ‘TrueTom vs the Apostates!’ deals with the topic extensively, for it certainly does fit in Western context. The only mention I make of the subject in Dear Mr. Putin is a few paragraphs at the end of Chapter 18: It makes this writer think of the uproar raised over child sexual abuse within Jehovah’s Witnesses today. It is a controversy that played no part in Russia’s efforts to ban the Witness organization—the topic never came up—but it is huge in the West. Jehovah’s Witnesses are comparatively successful at preventing it—nobody, but nobody, has gathered every single member on earth (at their 2017 Regional Conventions) to consider detailed scenarios in which child sexual abuse might take place so that parents, obviously the first line of defense, can remain vigilant. But the world has little success at preventing child sexual abuse, so it focuses on punishing it after the fact, securing the barn door after the cows have fled. Routinely, we read of individuals arrested over pedophilia-related allegations. Unless the arrest is of a member of the clergy, the one detail that never accompanies such reports is that of the individual’s religious affiliation or lack thereof. Yet with Jehovah’s Witnesses, that detail is never lacking. Why? The reason is that the Witness organization attempted to do something about child sexual abuse—they did not just close their eyes to it—and now detractors are trying to spin it as though they love the stuff. Jehovah’s Witnesses are well-known as a religion that “polices its own.” It is an attribute once viewed favorably, but now in the eyes of critics it is spun as intolerable “control.” In the course of such self-policing those taking the lead in the Witness organization came to know of individuals accused of child sexual abuse, and their “crime,” if it be one, is in leaving it up to affected ones themselves to report rather than “going beyond the law” to do it themselves. Time will tell how vile that sin is found to be, but it plainly falls far short of actually committing the abuse themselves, which is the pattern elsewhere, there being no mechanism for discovery elsewhere. As with Jesus’ remarks in the sixth chapter of John that can, in the scheming of dishonest ones, be spun into encouragement of cannibalism, so the Witness policy on child sexual abuse is spun by similarly dishonest ones to indicate that the organization is determined to nurture and protect it, whereas nothing could be further from the truth. Three times before the Australian Royal Commission, Geoffrey Jackson of the Witness’s Governing Body pleaded for universal, mandatory reporting laws, with no exceptions—if that could only be done, it would make the job of the Witness organization in policing its own without raising the ire of those outside the congregation “so much easier.” Continuing his cross-examination, Justice Angus Stewart said: “Leaving aside the question of overriding mandatory law from the civil authorities...” I almost wish that Brother Jackson would have interjected at this point, “I wish you would not leave it aside, for it would solve the problem.” The greater world cannot make a dent in preventing childhood sexual abuse, and so it puts the onus on those who are trying to do something about it. Alas, our best lines invariably occur to us too late—had Brother Jackson picked up my line, it probably just would have got their backs up—and then (gulp) he would have looked at me with displeasure. It’s not everything. But it is exhaustive enough for this book. There is otherwise only a single mention of the topic that never came up in Russia. Afterwards, the Russian embassy had apparently been reading Western headlines. It occasioned the following paragraph: Russia has been lately dealing with an avalanche of accusations—from meddling in Western democratic process, to invading foreign states, to cheating in the Olympics. It is a non-stop hate campaign of absurd charges, fumes Robert Bridge, the RT.com correspondent. He warns that the bear may only take it for so long before it responds with a bite, not just a growl.7 I know it when I see it—non-stop hate and absurd charges. We experience it ourselves. If only the kings could get along Jehovah’s Witnesses might not get caught in the cross-fire between them. Actually, that was my response from the sole pedophile Russian mention, that tweet from the Embassy relaying a defamatory headline. I replied: “One would think that a country that roundly condemns slander directed against it would not so immediately swallow it when it is directed at someone else.” Download it quick. Now is not too soon. The price is right. Remember: in these days of self-quarantine, experts who truly know anything, expect there to be a run on materials to read.

Next thing you know these yo-yos will be saying that Bethel cooked up the virus themselves so as to carry out this nefarious scheme.

Many of those who carry on about anointing here have or will soon lose all sense of there being 144K and even the reason for anointing. It seems to be that they largely go back to the church model that ‘all good people go to heaven.’ As for me, a huge draw to the truth was the hope of living forever on earth—where I can well imagine future activities—like that camping trip that you wished would never end—as opposed to everlasting life in heaven, where I can’t imagine what I would do. In service, I find I almost never talk about anointing because it is irrelevant for all but the tiniest fraction of people. People here in the States who obsess about government are called ‘inside the beltway’ ‘wonks’ —fascinated to always have their finger on where they imagine the power to be. That’s how I feel about expounding on the anointed— I stay away from it. It hardly matters to most people, whose hope is life on earth. That partly accounts for AM playing it low-key about not prying anointed ones about just how they knew they were anointed—as though to say ‘Don’t be a wonk.’ There was one ridiculous person here who tried to apply Matthew 23 to him—‘he isn’t good enough to go into the kingdom himself and he tries to bar the way for others.’ What a bunch of loons.

It really is rather amazing. 2 weeks ago would have been too early. 2 weeks from now would have been, ‘well, better late than never.’ The study article yesterday “You can ‘be a source of great comfort’” written months ago, came at just the appropriate time.

The blockhead Now you’re talking

Sometimes weeds turn out to have medicinal uses and are thus not so bad after all. If I put my car keys in the wrong drawer, it does not mean they no longer exist. It doesn’t mean I can never drive my car again. Nor does it mean I should have my license revoked for being reckless. Instead, when I next need to drive, i discover my keys are not in the right place. I find them and put them there. It is the same with weeds. If the org put them somewhere improper, that does not mean that Jehovah does. It does not mean that they are in the wrong drawer forever. It does not mean that the ones who put them in the wrong drawer ought have their spiritual license revoked. Nor need it be any huge priority to revisit the drawer of 2000 years ago and put them into another when you need not do anything with the updated status for the foreseeable future. They misjudged, perhaps. It happens. Probably Revelation 2:2 accounts for it: “I know your deeds, and your labor and endurance, and that you cannot tolerate bad men, and that you put to the test those who say they are apostles, but they are not, and you found them to be liars.“ You know how our people are about keeping without spot from spiritual contamination. When the Sons of Thunder raged about people not doing things right, they were not booted out from the 12 on that account. Brothers probably overreacted and will in time rethink it. There is hardly any hurry with people that have been dead and gone for 2000 years. You mentioned before about how Bart Ehrman is not nearly so annoying when he is just recalling background history, and not desecrating the scriptures themselves. So when he highlights how almost immediately Christianity began to be divided into factions—moving up the date of such to the minute after Jesus died—whereas we would say till the death of the apostles, who themselves had to strain for all they were worth to keep it all together—and so Bart outlines how unity (which he never thought was there to begin with) promptly went the way of the four winds. JW HQ of the past doesn’t want to hear it, so brands them all false. I don’t think it is across the board. They have covered apologists, also ones like Waldenses throughout history and described them as mixed bags—doing some things right but not others, and probably Jehovah will take that into account. People are only responsible for aging upon what they know, and Bart makes clear no one knew too much of anything after a myriad of self-styled reformers and reformaters pulled the faith this way or that. The germ that was left was still precious enough for people to die for, and in the resurrection they can fill in the blanks, like Phillip did for the eunich. The departure from unity that begins directly after Jesus death is reflected here, where a dozen people weigh in with a dozen different takes, and only a few try to hold the fort—and they presently give up because it is the internet and the internet is not the congregation. Though those who oppose are united in their opposition, it is easy to see that they are not united themselves and each promote their own views which cannot long coexist with each other—unless it is all a spectacle for social media, where getting along is not important.

I took note of how quickly everyone at the Kingdom Hall Sunday embraced a new routine. There had been an announcement about a need to “keep your greetings simple” and handshaking has instantly been replaced by elbow bumps, etc. There is an advantage to being ready to comply. I worked up a post about it 4 days ago, starting with how if you wore a mask like they do trick-or-treating, or even a Guy Fawkes mask, that would be one effective way to avoid touching your face. https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2020/03/corona-as-of-march-8th.html

Naw. I had a correspondent there. He tells me that people barely paid attention to the match after your little quip.

Let me know if you’d like Dr Mike ‘Ace’ Inhibitor, Professor Bill ‘Hammer’ Urabi, Robert Cumulus, or any of my other friends to chime with a remark in your defense and/or favor

Wow. You know, when I post photos (seldom here) I generally make sure that they are either my own, of common domain, or acceptable to post if giving credit, which I do. There have been times, however, when when it just seems too picayune to go through all this for just a Insignificant post in social media that will be seen once and never again—who could possibly care? Your experience gives me me pause for thought. I hope it was not me who was the bad boy that posted what made you trouble. Profuse apologies if so.

I am well beyond attempting to figure you out.

There! You see? All you nasty people came in to carry on the way you do and you spoiled it for good people like me.

What do these four new books that you have brought in out of nowhere have to do with anything? You have not stated a connection.

I didn’t know when I wrote that book that there would also be a TrueTom vs the Apostates, so I threw everything I knew or thought I knew into that chapter. For all the reasons that you say, I am going to revamp and truncate it for the next edition, on the fly.

It’s how it is with the overall world and JWs. You want some acknowledgement or recognition but then whenever that is granted they botch things up so spectacularly that you wish they’d just ignore you. It’s like when Hollywood decides to tackle a Bible topic—Moses gets the girl and pops Pharaoh in the nose.

It was. Sorry. I should have made that clear.

This is not exactly on topic, but since I included mention of my books along with his, it is. You said you ‘cringed’ at reading the Pedo chapter of Dear Mr Putin. Can I ask at what, beyond the obvious? I’ve said that in my last two books that I am top-heavy with CSA content, because I allowed myself to be driven by what was trending. I may rewrite some things. Already I am prepping Tom Irregardless for audio and in doing so am cleaning some of it up—substituting some ‘they’s where the original has ‘we’. Bit player & one-time hero of mine for his interview skills, Charlie Rose, has been sent out to pasture too, since he turned out to be a perv. Bear in mind with Pedo that I consider it impossible to appeal to a certain type of person (Butler would be an example) who has suffered it, and so I don’t try. It is like trying to persuade a Trump person on the virtues of Obama, or vice verse. It can so rarely be done that it is a fool’s mission to go there. We are not nearly so rational as we like to pretend that we are.