TrueTomHarley

2 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

You showed little attempt to redirect my words. This is something what i wouldn't expect from you :))

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.

22 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

But of course your GB /Org do believe that ONLY BAPTISED JWs WILL GAIN SALVATION'. 

The point is that our personal salvation is not the central issue before all creation. It is a relative detail. God has bigger fish to fry and we do not imagine that it is all a about us. This is not the case with some faiths, at least, judging from the preponderance of their writings.

14 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Hmmm.... seems a bit off .... did you check it word for word before posting?

I am just guessing, and it has been a half- century or so., starting around 1966.

 

I did check. It is word-for-word accurate. (surprising even myself)

I did not know that the same passage had appeared elsewhere, give or take. I was very taken with one article long ago (and I wrote a post on it) that ‘we are not so presumptuous so as to think that our personal salvation is the central issue of the universe’—this after pondering the vast outstretches of space. Much of Christendom, especially the evangelical variety, does think this way.

4 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

12 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

They didn’t know that at the time, you dodo. It is only after the fact that...This is possible what you said Tom.

 

It is more than “possible.” He is definitely a dodo.

4 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

How you who are not inspired by God recognize that someone else is inspired by God? 

I don’t try to micromanage it. I back up and look at the bigger picture. I look at Holy Spirit as “the wind [that] blows where it wants to, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it is going.” It seems like a fool’s errand to try to stipulate just how or even if it operates in any given situation. (John 3:8)

 I take for granted that Holy Spirit does not stop a human from being human. It certainly didn’t in the first century. Why expect that it would today? I put stock in passages such as 2 Timothy 3:16....All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness,  Humans do their best, botch up many things, and somehow God pulls a rabbit out of the hat with it.

We carry on here at the WNMF as though these matters can be settled objectively, when the very nature of our being defeats the goal and ensures that all will be subjective. “Taste and see that Jehovah is good,” the psalm says. Some have tasted and seen that he is bad. How are you going to prove otherwise to them? Their experience is their experience and they process it as they will. It is more a matter of the heart than the head. The heart chooses what it wants and then entrusts the head to provide a veneer of rationality to give the appearance that it is the head. But it is the heart all along.

Why is it that so few people change in any interaction such as this? Why does not one ever persuade the other? Not just this forum on spiritual topics, but on any forum about anything? I have seen only the tiniest shifting of opinion from certain participants, and in most cases, none at all. It is not a matter of the head.

4 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

After uninspired men have collected some letters from dust and caves, their eyes were "opened" to see how what they have in hands are "inspired" by God

Assembling the Bible canon. It’s not a bad topic of discussion and it has been brought up several times. Lately I have been listening to a series of talks 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.

16 minutes ago, Matthew9969 said:

Another myth I heard about Christmas was slicing the vein of your jw spouse and drinking their blood while sacrificing her unborn child to tammuz.

This bastard just gets sicker all the time. Isn’t it time for @The Librarian to toss him?

My quote comes from “Worldwide Security.”

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

Anointed Christians back then were inspired of God, hence they wrote Bible books that we have now. 

They didn’t know that at the time, you dodo. It is only after the fact that their letters were collected and included in the Bible canon.

The example of Paul is almost as bad as that of Peter the Chicken (Galatians 2:21) and John, who lost every 2nd disciple, as I put before ‘hardening of the mental arteries’ JTR for his consideration.

“To the married people I give instructions, yet not I but the Lord, that a wife should not depart from her husband; but if she should actually depart, let her remain unmarried or else make up again with her husband; and a husband should not leave his wife,” he writes. (1 Corinthians 7:11)

And then...

“But to the others I say, yes, I, not the Lord: If any brother has an unbelieving wife, and yet she is agreeable to dwelling with him, let him not leave her.” Vs 12

Whoa! Going beyond what is written much?

”Now concerning virgins I have no command from the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who had mercy shown him by the Lord to be faithful.”  Vs 25

His opinion?!!

Can you imagine how @James Thomas Rook Jr., not to mention yourself, would have blown a gasket back then?

We had Farmer Mort over to the house following his public talk. Before eating, we made him take the City Slicker’s Quiz:

If you want to eat, identify all eight items:

1. Credit card

2. Necktie

3. Shoe polish

4. Pictures of Wegmans (where food comes from)
5. Roll of toilet paper (replaces Sears catalog)
6. Kitchen faucet (where water comes from)
7. Refrigerator (where cold comes from)
8. Stove (where fire comes from)

We did this as payback because Farmer Mort had made everyone take the Farmer’s Quiz at that Grad Party on the Farm. “Identify all 5 items before eating,” it said, and nobody was able to do it—Come on! he had bags of individual seeds in there—soybean, corn, wheat—how’s anybody going to know that? In the end, he relaxed the requirement so that guests would not starve to death.

Farmer Mort has farming on the brain. He has been known to give people stalks of wheat, bagged and tied up with a bow, labeled “pre-donuts.” He puts it all to good use when his turn rolls around for public speaking—the title of his talk was: “The Earth Remains Forever.”

He pulled a plastic bag of seeds from the paper bag he had brought up front with him. It contained wheat seeds. If you drop one on the ground in late summer or autumn, chances are pretty good that you will get a wheat stalk next year that includes 125 of such seeds. “That’s not a bad deal,” he pointed out—125 for 1—and man has not been able to ruin that—yet—but if for some reason that deal is not good enough for you and you want a better one.... He pulled out a bag of soybeans, for which the ratio is 210 to 1. If even that deal is not good enough for you....he pulled out a bag of corn seeds—500-700 to one, he pointed out, once again with the reminder that man has not been able to ruin that....yet.

Then he branched off into how there is the UCS today, the Union of Concerned Scientists, raising the alarm of environmental abuses worldwide. And yet—if you just leave the earth alone, it is pretty good at healing itself. Pour oil on man-made concrete and it is there for a long while. Pour it on grass—(“Don’t do this!” he forbade everyone) and in short order the grass is lush and green again. Visit that abandoned factory after a few decades and you will say: “THAT was the parking lot?” Earth has reclaimed it. The earth has enormous powers of recovery, Farmer Mort pointed out, pretty much like we do—cut your finger and there is very little that you must do to it—it heals itself.

Then he turned his attention to wrappers that clog the landfills. “I sort of like the wrappers Jehovah made,” he said, as he pulled out a banana from his shopping bag. This wrapper—he pulled out one from a candy bar—takes 50 years to decompose, but that of the banana? Forget and leave a banana on the dashboard of your car—it goes black in a few days—toss it and, as to the contents within—you plow it back into banana bread. He likes other wrappers as well—wrappers Jehovah made—in each case superior to those of man—the husks of corn, the shell of nuts, the skin of fruits—that wrapper you can even eat. 

There is a spiritual crisis today, he observed as his talk unfolded, manifested in the shameful manner that humans treat the earth. He quoted Deuteronomy 32:5, about a “crooked generation” that is “not his children”—the “defect is their own” as they “act corruptly.” It will not always be. Farmer Mort read Psalm 37:29: “The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.”

(Incredibly, Russian authorities have declared this specific verse extremist—because it furthers the “propaganda of inferiority based on religious identity”—do they really wish to stick up for the “unrighteous” over there?)

What about when you take your family for an outing at the park? Farmer Mort presented the picture for us, and you see the sign of all the things you can’t do: no driving on the grass, no animals, no alcohol, no loud music, and so forth. “Well....I guess,” you say and as you enjoy that grass so lush that you don’t need shoes or socks, and—what is that delicious smell wafting in the air—honeysuckle? clover fields, linden trees?—and then it is all spoiled by the thunderous sound of choppers that spin out on the grass. Kegs are pulled out of the pickup truck. Raucous music blares from the speakers and...was that a shotgun blast? “Come on, kids. Time to go. It’s not safe.”

Rebels have destroyed the beautiful park—they always do—rebels who cannot obey the rules—but God will get rid on the rebels. Revisiting the promise expressed at Psalm 37:29 that everyone can read except for those in Russia, Farmer Mort read Proverbs 2:21-22: “For the upright are the ones that will reside in the earth, and the blameless are the ones that will be left over in it. As regards the wicked, they will be cut off from the very earth; and as for the treacherous, they will be torn away from it.” Farmer Mort loves the earth and he looks forward to that time.

Furthermore, “you will see it” when it happens. “Hope in Jehovah and keep his way,” says Psalm 37:24, “and he will exalt you to take possession of the earth. When the wicked ones are cut off, you will see it” Humans cleanse things on earth with “Arm and Hammer,” he said (did he pull out a box of that, too?), “but Jehovah has something called “Armageddon” that will get the job done much more thoroughly and, most important of all, lastingly.

What is it with this guy? Why did I enjoy this talk so much? Is it that I could picture Jesus doing it this way—spinning parables all having to do with rural life that his listeners could get their heads (and thereby hearts) around? Was it Farmer Mort’s low-key but indestructible enthusiasm —he retained the excitement he had from Day One upon discovering God’s purpose. 

It had created shock waves in the community when his family embraced Jehovah’s Witnesses. Staunch church members—known and highly regarded by everyone—there is even a street named after Mort’s forefather—they had not been unhappy. His wife in particular had been fully involved in her traditions of the rural community. Only one thing nagged at her—a hunger to understand the Bible—a hunger that she was unable to satisfy anywhere but in just one place—and she resisted that conclusion for the longest time—how could it be Jehovah’s Witnesses, who were so ill-regarded? As for Farmer Mort, he was always busy out hauling the hay—“We used to plow all this land for the Temeris family,” he told me as we drove about in field service. When he saw his wife accept Bible teachings from the Witnesses, he finally took notice, and embraced it in a heartbeat, blanketing his community with such zeal that some thought he had taken leave of his senses. It is a perception that may remain to this day—“a prophet is not unhonored except in his home territory,” Jesus stated at Matthew 13:57—and when Farmer Mort and I worked in service in our territory, he exclaimed: “Wow! People are actually listening to me! I may have to start making sense!” 

The joyful task of those post-Armageddon will be to transform the abused earth into paradise, he continued in his talk. They will have plenty of company, “Even though he dies he will come to life,” Farmer Mort quoted Jesus at John 11:25. He referred to God’s mandate—“being a plowboy, I have to look up words like ‘mandate,’” he said, and enthused over how “God is not a mere man who tells lies”—and how ademic conditions will cover the entire globe. Disobedience may work in the short run, he said, but not in the long run. 

In the resurrection, people will appear who will say: “I was a Danite...I was a Ruebenite...I was a Simeonite.” Farmer Mort suggested what his reply to them might be: “Um...we really didn’t do it that way.” Did he really suggest that he might say: “I was a Trivialite?”

“Oh, and this one is worth getting out your glasses for” (which he did), as he read a quote from a 30-year old Watchtower publication—never repeated that I know of:

“To all eternity our earth will bear a distinction that no other planet throughout endless space will enjoy, though the earth may not be the only planet that will ever be inhabited.[underlining mine] Uniquely it will be where Jehovah has indisputably vindicated his universal sovereignty, establishing an eternal and universal legal precedent. It will be the only planet on which Jehovah of armies will have fought “the war of the great day of God the Almighty.” It will be the only planet to which God sent his dearest Son to become a man and die in order to recover the planet’s inhabitants from sin and death. It will be the only planet from which Jehovah will have taken 144,000 of its inhabitants to be “heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ.”

He was like a little kid on Christmas morning, Farmer Mort was. Later on he identified almost all of the items on my City Slicker’s Quiz. I was bummed. I had hoped to flummox him like he had flummoxed us with his Farmer’s Quiz. He missed only #6—the kitchen faucet—which he incorrectly identified as a grab bar in the event of an earthquake. I think he was just pulling my leg. I think he really knew what it was. He just saw my spirits sink as he effortlessly ticked off the correct answers and threw me that one as a bone.

3 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

However, in a debate forum searching for Truth, all those things would be brought out and analyzed, both positively and negatively.

It may well have been “brought out and analyzed.” But not by you and not on your “debate forum” Then—as now with the ones endeavoring to follow their lead—you would have been foremost in calling for his head.

You would have pointed out the BREATHTAKING INCOMPETENCE of those taking the lead then—you know you would—for they knew or should have known that Peter was a wuss—hadn’t he denied the Lord three times?

You would have savaged John, too. ”I rejoice very much because I have found some of your children walking in the truth,” he wrote. “SOME of them?!” you would have hurled back at him, “SOME? It would have been ALL of them if you had not been so grossly inept!” and you would have appended a few cartoons and then charged their blood on his hands.

You know you would. Or, if you don’t, everyone else does. I think your brain is every bit as calcified as that of Allen, and probably far more—for I can’t figure out exactly what game he is playing, but yours is crystal clear. You have a mind of concrete—all mixed up and firmly set.

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

@TrueTomHarley quite often mocks me for having the faith i have.

He does not.

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

Mr Harley says that i still believe in Father Christmas. So who is Mr Harley actually mocking ? 

Father Christmas. I hate that idiot.

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

BUT Mr Harley....do[es] not believe that God can set up a true spirit Anointed Organisation here on Earth within our time or before Judgement time.  

He does believe God can do that—what are you smoking? But he also believes that God will not bother, since he already has an acceptable one.

16 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

I don't even think the Holy Spirit flows.

You could easily make the case that it didn’t flow in the first century either.

“However, when Ceʹphas came to Antioch, I resisted him face to face, because he stood condemned.  For before the arrival of certain men from James, he used to eat with people of the nations; but when they arrived, he went withdrawing and separating himself, in fear of those of the circumcised class.  The rest of the Jews also joined him in putting on this pretense...” Galatians 2:11-13

This is an astounding bit of cowardice from one who was a leader in the Christian community—in fact, he could be said to be the most prominent leader, he being the recipient of the “keys of the kingdom.” There are schoolchildren who will not allowed themselves to be bullied so. Verse 13 makes clear that his cowardly example messed up many from the Jewish community.

Imagine how Peter—and everyone that allowed him to stay in his place—would have been savaged here on the World News Media Forum.

5 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Fortunately, we can avail ourselves of the pragmatic, practical technology that makes Smart Phones, iPads, GPS and the like just by knowing how things operate,

You should check yours very carefully, because I am not sure that they do. The most absurd collections of words come out of them.

Ho ho ho

Today’s Twitter gem from @rhetorical_rory:

lest we forget, the true meaning of christmas eve is sneaking up on one's enemies in the dead of night and slitting their throats 🙏🏼

1 hour ago, Matthew9969 said:

Merry Christmas everyone, I will be worshipping the Almighty God and His son tomorrow as I do everyday. And I will be so glad it's over cause I can't stand Christmas music.

This reminds me of a truly old Italian woman that I met ages ago. She brought the subject up, and I answered that, actually, Jesus was not born on that day.

”Yes he was,” she hurled back at me. “at midnight!”

On 12/21/2019 at 11:49 PM, Jack Ryan said:

David killed 200 hundred Philistines in battle and brought their foreskins back to king Saul so he could marry his daughter. That apparently was okay!

It wasn’t okay with them. They disapproved.

6 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I suspect that can be reduced to a single page of six paragraphs, and never need revision.

If so, Srecko has dodged many a question in declining to do it.

1 minute ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Few fundamental things which Jesus thought.

Which are?

1 hour ago, 4Jah2me said:

Because the last 4 or 5 pages on this topic have been total rubbish.   I've noted only 3 sensible comments

You have only yourself to blame. I have commented many times more than that—each one is a masterpiece.

53 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:

You made excellent point... question is not should we preach, but what to preach. 

What do you suggest that should be?

27 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

Quote " he submitted to congregation discipline "

Yes, of course. The fellow in Corinth submitted to congregation discipline as well:

Before: “Do you not judge those inside while God judges those outside? “Remove the wicked [man] from among yourselves.” (1 cor 5:13-14)

After: “so that, on the contrary now, YOU should kindly forgive and comfort [him], that somehow such a man may not be swallowed up by his being overly sad.” 2 Cor 2:7)

25 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Look. Biblical beliefs is broad term. 

Only because you have made it so in an attempt to muddy the waters. 

Since those old-time practices you mention are obviously not relevant today, that is why I did not include them. How do you feel about the ones that are relevant today?

58 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

What would you say about those items, then—those teachings referred to—trinity, immortal soul, kingdom is in your heart, all good people go to heaven, etc. ?

Do such things matter at all to you one way or the other—or have you enlightened yourself beyond that?

Meanwhile....in other news.....Downvote the delightful picture of Jael driving a tent pin through the scoundrel’s head? For the life of me I cannot understand 4Jah2Me’s value system.

25 minutes ago, Matthew9969 said:

he's gonna kill the ones living in North America with hailstones, the ones in Africa he'll kill with fireballs, the ones in Russia, grizzly bears...so on and so forth.

Grizzly bears falling from the sky—what are you, nuts?

Destruction of “the wicked” on the Lord’s Day/Day of Judgment is a persistent theme of the Bible. I believe you still pass yourself off as religious. How do you deal with such verses? Do you sweep them under the rug as something embarrassing?

8 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:

That explanation can be very good trap. ....Dangers is outside and we are inside, so we are safe.

What would you say about those items, then—those teachings referred to—trinity, immortal soul, kingdom is in your heart, all good people go to heaven, etc. ?

Is there any longer for you any concept of some beliefs being biblical and some not?

I worked with someone in field service recently who was—shall we say—in over-enthused mode. The householder, accordingly, was doing all he could to ensure that the brother did not lay a glove on him. He did not want a fire and he was trying for all he was worth to hose us down. He brought up how he believes each one has his own belief, and furthermore, each one has the obligation to respect the other person’s belief, and so forth. 

Did the brother take the hint? Not a bit of it. He remained convinced that just one more point—just one more sentence from him would turn the whole situation around—and so he kept pressing, while the poor householder was practically working himself into a frenzy.

I interrupted. I rarely do. Contrary to those videos in which the two witnesses stand side-by-side in oddly choreographed behavior, or at least it seems that way to me, I usually hang well back and give the appearance that I am just barely paying attention—this is so it does not appear to be two ganging up against one. I especially do this if it is a woman that answers the door.

With the householder getting agitated—an entirely reasonable response given the brother’s full court press, I interjected: “Let me tell you how it works with Jehovah’s Witnesses.” They both paused. “We ARE going to ask you to convert,” I told him. “But it is not going to happen until the 100th call, and what are the chances anything will go that long? In the meantime, it’s just conversation.”

The tension instantly broke. The person visibly relaxed. “Oh—it is just conversation,” he reflected. Then he allowed that over the years JWs had already probably called upon him 100 times, but even so he (and the other brother’s) demeanor changed. We wrapped up without fuss and moved on. It is a method I heartily recommend, having seen it bear good fruit many times. Search for those who are interested without putting into a panic those who are not.

I probably also said something at the end about how we come without appointment—something that is almost unheard of today—so if someone is gracious to us—as he had been (for he was not at all unpleasant)—we truly appreciate it.

8 hours ago, Arauna said:

I knew a brother in USA who had an extremely quirky personality

I don’t know what in the world you are talking about. There are no such brothers in the USA. Maybe in other places.

39 minutes ago, Arauna said:

I do not agree with you- the "man of lawlessness" is not JW elders.

The WT has long identified the “man of lawlessness” as the clergy of Christendom, not primarily for its conduct, but for its teachings—trinity, immortal soul, kingdom is in your heart, all good people go to heaven, etc.

If Witness truly thinks that the “man of lawlessness” is JW elders, does that not mean that she finds no problem with all those teachings of the churches?

1 hour ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I am not CERTIFIABLY insane.....The dog ate the paperwork.

For multiple reasons the scriptures do not portray dogs in a favorable light.

I just thought of another one..