TrueTomHarley

Oh, keep your drawers on. I was not trying to offend you (this time)—it’s just that fascination violence that gets me every time. Proof that my senses are right on this is found in that new manuscript recently unearthed in the dessert—a portion of 2 Chronicles 20, starting with verse 15, that included additional verses never before revealed: “Pay attention, all Judah and YOU inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Je·hoshʹa·phat! Here is what Jehovah has said to YOU, ‘Do not YOU be afraid or be terrified because of this large crowd; for the battle is not YOURS, but God’s. 16 Tomorrow go down against them. There they are coming up by the pass of Ziz; and YOU will be certain to find them at the end of the torrent valley in front of the wilderness of Je·ruʹel. 17 YOU will not need to fight in this instance. Take YOUR position, stand still and see the salvation of Jehovah in YOUR behalf. O Judah and Jerusalem, do not be afraid or be terrified. Tomorrow go out against them. ”Do not listen to JTR, who says: “ An amazing find. Do you know that stuff holds up virtually forever in the dessert on account of the dryness?

Of course! Everybody knows that.

Yes. I suppose it is. A bit sloppy in my analogies, here. sorry. Separately, I was just reading about the first voyage to America and Columbus’s crew’s expressed fear that maybe the earth was flat. A brilliant answer from the captain, spurring on the crew on by appealing to their Bible knowledge. “In that case,” he said,

Oh, very well. I’ll get them to change it to: “Ask Jack.”

I originally attached a smiley emoji to my question about JWI pills but then I took it out. I didn’t want Allen to think I was a sycophant any more than he already does.

Everyone else gets the point of this illustration. They are not deliberately obtuse. I gave credit to your precious science for partially reversing the trend to recover from Dark Ages 30 to the present 80. What more do you want? Maybe you can keep going in that positive direction. Maybe science can bring back those life expectancies of 900 years. Maybe it can leave even that in the dust and go for immortal life. What do you think?

A favorite circuit overseer of mine, when he was in a joking mood, would furiously move his right hand up and down repeatedly on his breastbone. He was making the sign of the stake.

Did you forget to take your JWI pills today? It did. It ended in 1919. But the time of trouble it ushered in has not ended—the last days of Matt 24:7 start off with a bang if we are to connect the two events—the first time that the entire world is concurrently at war. Some time ago I wrote a post about how one might collect “turning point 1914” quotes, just as some collect stamps or coins. There are a lot of them. I’m close to doubling down on that comment I once made previously about Jehovah leading his people carrot and stick with the end always seen as immanent. One thing that influences me in doing this is seeing how optimistic ex-JWs are about humankind’s future, far in excess of the the average person’s optimism. For most of the latter, reading the Drudge Report is like reading the Book of Revelation. Not so with many apostates—they see nothing but blue skies ahead. Make him say “Shibboleth”

One can go further with the analogy. Those blades are spinning like mad when the plug is pulled. It takes a long long time for them to come to a halt. According, the lifespans reported on in the Bible steadily decrease—from around 900 (Genesis 5) to around 4-500 (Genesis 11) to Abraham’s time of 150-170, to the psalmist’s time of 70-80, to the 30 of the Middle Ages—at which point better sanitary and some scientific advance begins to kick in to bring it back to the present 70-90. Nor does the understanding of genetics that you or I learned as a child really account for imperfection being passed along in the way that JTR says. Whatever happened after the first couple’s disobedience would have been an acquired trait, and it was long thought that acquired traits were not passed on genetically. The recent study of “epigenetics,” however, makes clear that they are. Once again, science as it advances sheds light on something from the Bible. I wrote about the change here: https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2010/02/epigenetics-and-the-update-of-darwin.html

In fact, after checking to see if the malcontents were misbehaving here (they were) I did indeed have a share in the ministry. Did you? Yes, you may say that I did the ministry not of Christ, but of JW.org. Nevertheless I read scripture to a number of people and discussed it with them, and offered to do the same with several more. Did you? Did you this week? Did you this month? Have you done that even one day since leaving the organization of JW? I would not ask Srecko this because he does not think it worthwhile to preach a kingdom message, speak of God, or tell of his purposes. But you do—or at least you have said that that you do. Jesus says it is important to preach the good news of the kingdom. Do you do it? If you want to do it on your own completely divorced from the JW organization, that’s fine by me, but do you do it? Will that be a ten-year lunch? Do I have this straight? I look at the JW organization and say, “Nah—they’re far from perfect, but I appreciate what they do to facilitate the spread of the good news.” I cooperate with them and thus I have a share in fulfilling Christ’s command. You, on the other hand, have found them not pure enough, and so you do nothing. Are you not on strike against God? Are you not laying down the law with Him that He had better get His Act together and produce a true anointed good enough for you, and should he do that—THEN you will preach the good news, but NOT NOW. —even though it is crystal clear that people need the encourage from his word NOW and the promise of something better. How can you be so self-centered?

The fan goes dead the instant you pull the plug. That doesn’t mean the blades seize up. They may spin for awhile. But the fan is dead.

Excellent point, Srecko. Smart of you to bring it up. Who is he to say what is the right or wrong context? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to wash up and strip down. I’ll be laying on my side for the next few weeks staring at a brick in order for the malcontents here to know what’s coming down the pipe.

That’s setting a date. Close enough. After all, AlanF stated the year 2000 on the basis on some throwaway statement regarding ‘the end of the century’ and your chums were hitting the upvote button like rats in a Skinnner cage. If you didn’t say such ridiculous things, it wouldn’t happen.

Yes. It is so ridiculous. The purpose of organization is to magnify an activity. The purpose of opposition to organization is to defeat that activity. There are some nuances, back eddies, and addendums—anything in which humans are involved will have blemishes—but in general the above statement says it all.

I love it! A date from the one who lambastes the WT for having issued them. Let’s see—10 years from now is Christmas 2029. JTR has an ear for a jingle. Let’s see how he feels about this one: All will be fine post-29!!! And where does this ten-years-out date come from? He just pulls it out of his hat, so far as I can see. At least when WT flubs a date, they have a scriptural rationale for having set it. II I didn’t know better I’d say he has a project on tap that the expects to take ten years, after which he will board the Good Ship Anointed.

Go back and read it again with more meditation.

Maybe considerably less, I’ve been told.

Can I have that footage of you cutting your fingernails or blowing your nose?

If Bethel was in the east and not the west: Maybe theocratic warfare would not be so much like John-Wayne—hardening your forehead so the lout throwing a punch breaks his fist on it, a la Ezekiel: “Look! I have made your face exactly as hard as their faces and your forehead exactly as hard as their foreheads. Like a diamond, harder than flint, I have made your forehead” (Ezekiel 3:8-9) Why should everyone have hard heads? Maybe they should be more like those of eastern martial arts—duck the punch and the big slob’s own momentum sends him hurtling off-balance, and as he stumbles by you kick him in the rear. You’re better off yielding than resisting. “Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but yield place to the wrath,” says Paul at Romans 12:19. Take for example, the charge—detractors say it all the time—that Jehovah’s Witnesses have the highest rate of mental illness of all Christian religions. How in the world are you going to prove or disprove that—at a time when pharma has succeeded in putting 1 out of every 3 Americans on some form of anti-depressant? Drive by the psych ward of the hospital and look inside. Are they all our people in there? No. Usually, there is nobody at all, but sometimes there is one. Don’t be the western scrapper who says it couldn’t possibly be so. Be the eastern scrapper who embraces it. Say: “Well, maybe you have a point,” and then observe that, if true, Luke 5:31 would account for it: “In reply Jesus said to them: ‘Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but those who are ill do.’” Is he speaking of tuberculosis? Or is mental distress, such as might accompany anguish over the ills of this world and the blame assigned to God for it more to the point? The ones you should worry about are those who are not greatly troubled by the stressors of life today—those who sail blithely through the injustices and cruelties without a care in the world. What about when the scoundrels say: “If you look at the ‘turnover’ among JWs, you find it is one of the biggest turnovers of all religions.” Don’t say: “No way!” Say: “What do you expect? There is a cost to being a disciple of Christ. Why bother leaving a faith that asks very little of you? Besides, a high attrition rate is easily offset by the high participation rate of those who stick. After all, with many faiths, people might not actually leave, but how would you know if they did?” Use the blaggard’s weight against him—it is key to every Eastern martial art—it can work for us, too. Take the origins of Christianity. It is plainly a working-class religion, and as to it’s early leaders? “Uneducated and ordinary,” says Acts 4:13 (“untaught and ignorant”—KJV) This is embarrassing to Western religionists. If acknowledged at all (I had never heard it before becoming a Witness) it is treated as an obstacle overcome. “They may have started low, but look how they pulled themselves up!” is the attitude, thus taking for granted that more secular education is what everyone needs. The clergy of many faiths bristle with degrees—considered essential as a qualification. The degrees require a broad command of the “humanities.” They often even require an examination of their own topic through the lens of critical thinking, ensuring that faith will lose out, since the two are opposed. A case in point is a series of talks I have been listening to from the Great Courses company entitled: “From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity.” The speaker is Bart Ehrman, Chair of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he with a Masters of Divinity degree. You’d almost think that the Chair of a Religious Department would believe in God, but he does not appear to. If I took a science course taught by one who thought Newton and Einstein were well intentioned but misguided zealots, I would smell a rat. Questions for Study at the conclusion of one lecture includes: “Why do you suppose such people as Perpetua or Ignatius—who presumably had so much to offer people in this world and who could have no doubt led happy lives here—were so eager to sacrifice their bodies and leave this world?” Thus he indicates that he does not have a clue as to what he teaches. The entire motivation of a Christian appears to be a totally foreign concept to him, notwithstanding that he is recognized as the smartest person in the room. Another case in point, which I have not yet expanded upon, though I mean to, is the New York Times review of Amber Scorah’s book—a review written by a faculty member of Harvard Divinity School. It seems pretty clear that she is an atheist. Don’t you go to Harvard Divinity School because you want to learn about God? https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/08/a-review-of-a-review-of-the-scorah-book-leaving-the-witnesses.html A third case in point—and a minor one—is those few elective courses I took in religion from my own college days. The professor was a retired Baptist clergyman. I can still hear him chuckling about how at Divinity School, the Gospel of John was called the Gospel to the Idiots on account of it’s simple language. The early disciples might be “untaught and ignorant,” but these characters meant to run rings around them. Another project for one of his classes was to write a paper about “entering into God’s rest” and how there “remains a Sabbath for the people of God,” as written in Hebrews chapter 4. What was that passage supposed to mean? I ended up taking most of my paper from Watchtower publications. I didn’t want to. It was against the rules to rely on any one “sectarian” source. But I found that I couldn’t help it. None of the other suggested sources made any sense to me. They all struck me as pointless pontificating. This would have been in my senior year, and during the summer recess before, I had been introduced to the Bible study of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I had the sense of the puzzle picture coming together and was beginning to glimpse the mountain vista on the box cover. I had no patience for the logical machinations of those whose presentation made clear that their puzzle lay unassembled in the box on their closet shelf. No. Don’t go groveling over the education that those early Christians didn’t have but which is now thought essential. Tell them to show us the magnificent world that their brand of education has collectively produced before we start fawning over it. Christianity started off as a working class religion. It still is and the leaders of the faith among Jehovah’s Witnesses are still as they were then—“untaught and ordinary.” Don’t hide your head in shame over it. Embrace it. When the “educated” people come along and say: “Okay, here we are, we’ll take it from here,” tell them to take a hike. (to be continued)

Maybe. You have hundreds of pals here. Why can’t I have a few chums? This is exactly what you do to these malcontents. Yeah! Can you wait ten years? 4Jah says it may even be ready before then. Nothing but squat right now, though. I know from my Bible study that murder is wrong. However, guns were not invented at the time of writing. It is probably okay, then, so long as you use a gun.

Pretty good answer yourself. When the new & reformed & true anointed manifests itself in just ten years, as you have said will happen, will it also state that Armageddon is close? Or will it say not to worry about it—it is far off? Will it also say that one must be in association with it? Or will it say that any ol person believing any ol thing can be saved so long as he/she is sincere? Follow your ex around so as to warn others to stay away? In the actual world, this is called stalking and it can land you in jail. Police will question your motives and sanity before they question hers.

Of course. If Jesus “controlled” elders in the remote-control sense that these characters seem to think he should, then his message to the seven congregations of Revelation would consist of seven thumbs-up.

If you want to use that analogy, that you divorced them, then you must see it all the way through.. Either way you cut it, divorce is a traumatic experience. There is the person who realizes the importance of picking up the pieces and moving on. There is also the psycho ex-mate who just cannot let go and who pours all his energy into destroying his former marriage mate. This is never thought healthy and sometimes restraining orders must be issued. Which ex-mate do you resemble? Beavers, too, are highly educated. They are graduates of Dam U.

STOP SAYING THINGS LIKE THIS!!! I make up my mind to take you out as with a bazooka and then I read a remark like this and lose every bit of steam.

Come come. Don’t be unkind. It was just a throwaway line at the beginning. I went on to devote several paragraphs to the points you raised. I’m human, too, you know. And he is a dodo. He (unlike you) cannot find a single charitable thing to say about his former faith or those within it. In light of this, the question that begs to be answered is: How could he possibly have been so stupid to have joined it at all, given that he now insists it is wrong (and wicked!) in every particular? BTW, this is where the ‘victim of a cult” defense comes from.. People brilliant in their own eyes cannot admit that they made a colossal mistake, so they pass it off as a sinister cult that “brainwashed” them—something that can happen to the most intelligent of persons (such as themselves). To his credit, 4Jah2Me does not do this. Though he may have other faults, he is not high in his own eyes.