TrueTomHarley
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Posts posted by TrueTomHarley
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6 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:
When you selectively edit to change the meaning of reference material, you may qualify to get a job with the FBI to create dishonest FISA Court warrant applications.
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:
15 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:Everybody today are pansy studded sheep, at least among our contemporaries ... but back then, it was common knowledge that if you were in hand-to hand combat with another person for your life, that the forehead is the hardest bone on your body, and you do not stand off and do fisticuffs. You get in close, and you get in fast, and you have daggers in your hands, and you fight with your weight, smashing their face with your forehead. Do it hard enough and you can smash the nose through the bottom of the skull, into the brain, and hopefully blind your adversary with his own blood. ALSO, you fight with your elbows, being MUCH harder , and harder to damage than your fist and fingers. For massive blows, fingers often break before the other guys jaw, but an elbow is stronger than a jaw.
Also, an edged weapon, such as a sword, or a cudgel, such as a bat, is ineffective at contact distances ... but if you are fighting with your forehead, elbows and two daggers, you want the combatant's blows to hit your arm at a glancing angle, not at 90 degrees, where either a bat or sword can sever your arm off, more readily.
The rest depends on divine providence, and pure dumb luck.
Now... go out and have a nice day !
.... and be sure to floss regularly.
“
An amazing find. Do you know that stuff holds up virtually forever in the dessert on account of the dryness?
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5 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:
smashing their face with your forehead...smash the nose through the bottom of the skull, into the brain, and hopefully blind your adversary with his own blood...Also, an edged weapon, such as a sword, or a cudgel, such as a bat, is ineffective
Of course! Everybody knows that.
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1 hour ago, JW Insider said:
I think the proper motivation that can come out of a belief that the end can occur at any time, and that it might be very close, is probably what TTH is referring to with the carrot and stick proposition. Not that it is just meant as a tease to get more work out of us.
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,
1 hour ago, JW Insider said:“the end is just around the corner, because it is. It is always as close as our own lifespan.”
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Fake Faith
in Topics
On 7/7/2018 at 3:14 PM, Jack Ryan said:How to use the website jw.org to guide you answering a peer asking “Why do you believe in god?”....The answer to that question can and should not be guided. If the question was about the flood or the end of the world ...
Oh, very well. I’ll get them to change it to: “Ask Jack.”
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34 minutes ago, JW Insider said:
😉 There's a reason that I have no problem preaching that we are in the last days, and that so many people see the world with fear. We live in a time of excessive troubles and people see no way out. It is our privilege to offer comfort to those sighing and groaning over the situation in this system of things.
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.
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35 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:
Obviously, something else we need, and not fan, as more understandable explanation why psalmist speaking about 70-80 years as sort of proper normative
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?
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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.
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2 hours ago, JW Insider said:
With all the global problems, terrors, and fears, isn't now the most likely time to see ourselves in that final generation?
Did you forget to take your JWI pills today?
2 hours ago, JW Insider said:As one person on this forum commented, maybe WWI never ended.
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.
1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:Are you actually a Watchtower writer, a 'Talk' writer for Sundays, or a ghost writer for the GB ?
Make him say “Shibboleth”
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1 hour ago, Srecko Sostar said:
You helped me a lot to understand. Thanks :)))
... how many days or years dead fan spins, in your example?
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
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5 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:
Wow I can see how urgent your Armageddon is, you are still sat at your keyboard.
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?
5 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:As I believe it could be ten years away or more, I'm now going to have lunch.
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?
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2 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:
Death was punishment for Adam sin. I don't recall what verse said Adam and Eve will live this or that number of years before they die.
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.
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3 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:
Who can tell it is wrong or right context ?
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.
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3 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:
I actually said originally that Judgement day would probably be 10 years away or more as it would take a long time for the JW Org to get back into good standing with God and therefore be useable
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.
7 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:He offers nothing that is upbuilding but just loves to ridicule others.
If you didn’t say such ridiculous things, it wouldn’t happen.
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9 hours ago, Arauna said:
let alone tell others that they are stupid for serving Jehovah by insinuating that we serve an organization.
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.
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2 hours ago, b4ucuhear said:
Oh, and while we are on the subject, do you also believe that the true anointed will be manifest within 10 years and make the date of the judgment known? And if not, why not?
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.
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51 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:
You write a lot of words, as story tellers do, but you say nothing of importance.
Go back and read it again with more meditation.
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16 minutes ago, b4ucuhear said:
Well, less than "10 years" anyway, cause you know what happens then...;)
Maybe considerably less, I’ve been told.
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48 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:
Say wha?....Oh, I get it.....nevermind.
Can I have that footage of you cutting your fingernails or blowing your nose?
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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?
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)
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1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:
Oh dear Mr Harley the story teller thinks he is so funny. I see you've found a friend so that you can both pat each others back.
Maybe. You have hundreds of pals here. Why can’t I have a few chums?
29 minutes ago, b4ucuhear said:Let's turn that around for a change and give you a chance to explain
This is exactly what you do to these malcontents.
29 minutes ago, b4ucuhear said:It's not enough to snipe from the sidelines
Yeah!
29 minutes ago, b4ucuhear said:If you've got something better to direct people to, let's have at it.
Can you wait ten years? 4Jah says it may even be ready before then. Nothing but squat right now, though.
29 minutes ago, b4ucuhear said:We don't have any clear examples of how you shouldn't drive a car recklessly over the speed limit either, do we? But we do, as has already been stated, have laws, principles...
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.
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2 hours ago, b4ucuhear said:
“Whole-souled devotion" to Jehovah does not mean whole-souled devotion to imperfect men - even when we respect what authority they have as part of Jehovah's arrangement and offer scriptural obedience.
Pretty good answer yourself.
2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:Only baptised JWs will be saved' 'Armageddon is so very close, it's just around that very close corner'. ' You must be one of us now to be saved'
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?
2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:Then there is the third kind. The kind that will give his time willingly to gives warning to others to keep away, because the ex in a known danger.
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.
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19 minutes ago, b4ucuhear said:
So Jesus and Jehovah give us laws, principles and boundaries. But they don't remote control our/elders' decisions by means of holy spirit.
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.
- the Sower of Seed, b4ucuhear, Anna and 1 other
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9 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:
if the marriage partner turns unpleasant, selfish, dishonest, disloyal, and even cruel, then it is understandable that one may choose to leave and maybe even divorce. So it is with the JW Org. It has changed.
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?
3 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:HIGHLY recommended by Moose and Squirrel.
Beavers, too, are highly educated. They are graduates of Dam U.
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33 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:
happy to be alive now, in this time... and in this place ... and with my wonderful wife, dogs and chickens, who somehow we all eat regular, and have superb medical care ... and if Jehovah remembers me, all the better.
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.
1914
in Topics
Posted
In all discussions about how inspired of Holy Spirit different ones are, I have not seen the verse (nor have I thought to bring it up myself) Acts 5:32
“And we are witnesses of these matters, and so is the holy spirit, which God has given to those obeying him as ruler.”
It is simply left out of the equation, and it probably shouldn’t be. “Obey God as ruler” and one may expect a measure of Holy Spirit. Drag one’s feet on obeying him and that will not be so. To my mind, the GB do obey him as ruler—they do their best.