TrueTomHarley

@JW Insider
Elementary, middle, and primary school schedules are staggered so that the same bus can make three runs. The last to let out in the afternoon was the middle school. I would arrive after two runs and take my place in a line-up of 6. There usually was a 15 minute wait, during which I might read. 
Two buses up the driver was some long-hair of my approximate age that I had briefly chatted up once or twice. One day he disappeared. It got around that he had taken his life, he had been bummed by being “just a school bus driver.” 
For me, being a school bus driver was a liberation—not being a school bus driver in itself, but what it represented, a purposeful departure from the materialistic upward climbing careerist life that I wasn’t comfortable with because I had no idea where I was going. Studying the Bible with subsequent baptism brought an overwhelming sense of being where I knew I belonged. 
Often we hear that the truth is like that—that we have to be at just the turning-point moment of dissatisfaction, even crisis. We reach a moment of realizing life’s conventional goals don’t lead anywhere. We are not sure whether that is true in general or just for us. We tend to say it is true in general, but that may be just us putting a good face on our departure. It is not so terribly different from what undissuaded ex-JWs do themselves—they reinterpret reality to conform to their own actions.
One is never quite sure just how Jesus “draws us,” nor do I think it is so crucial to find out. Suffice it that we have been somehow drawn to a life of better rewards and goals.
It is the reason I think the anti-cult movement is so corrosive. Explaining himself to a too-receptive Katie Couric, the CultExpert says: “People are in vulnerable moments in their life where they’ll be more receptive to a recruitment message or recruiter. So death of a loved one, illness, dislocation, losing a job, I mean seriously, the pandemic and the economic problems are huge susceptibility factors for the public going forward. Destabilizing country groups economic status is a major technique for doing mind control on people because you want to disorient people. You want to confuse people. You want to make people search for meaning and hope outside of the existing institutional structures. So the susceptibility of people now to look to, well, who knows the solution to that problem of how to make the world a better place now.”
Historically these have been turning-point moments during which a person might explore and find a deeper meaning in life. Under the anti-cult people, they are now moments of “temporary insanity” that one must brace themselves through, so as to once again acquiesce to the “reality” that is is no “meaning and hope outside of the existing institutional structures.”
The stuff is a cancer.
 

You know Tom, I'm sure you've known a lot of brothers & sisters who had issues. I remember one family who were quite musical, the boys did well in school and the congregation, but the mother apparently was passing on adult-onset schizophrenia and I remember when it happened to one of the young brothers. He'd worry about whether Jehovah wanted him to wash with hot water and then cold water or the other way around. We'd go over the scripture that it wasn't what went into you that made you unclean but what came out of you. Then he'd calm down. I'd work w/him in service during the week. He was real sweet and sincere (Rob). Fortunately his younger brother Em. was spared the bulk of the hallucinations, though he'd tell me he couldn't look at certain paintings because things would start to move around in them. The father kept the family together while he was alive. I remember sitting in the living room when the oldest brother (St) started to get a schizoid episode and F. just decked him. I was surprised to say the least, but having just finished an empanada made out of pumpkin road-kill (I asked where they got the pumpkin and F said they found it on the side of the road) I just took it in stride. F was a simple guy, but he loved Jehovah and did the best he could w/his family. The sad part was when he died of a heart attack, the family had issues (St was incapable, Em. took care of his mom, but Rob was a diff story). I'd moved away and I googled the members of the family and found that Rob was committed after he apparently bashed his roommate in the back of his head after his roommate said something derogatory about his mother.
Another young sister used to call me up at work (another case of schizophrenia) and told me she felt she was seeing important things and wanted to share them w/the cong. I told her I couldn't speak or deny whatever it was she was experiencing, but suggested that if she was somewhere and she wondered whether she was the only one who was hearing or seeing certain things, that she should look around to see if anyone else looked like they were seeing or hearing these things and if it was just her then she should probably not share.
She's OK today as she grew out of it.
So you don't ever know what's going on w/people. I know I can't judge.

Yes. Of course. He will be merging “Almighty God” with Jesus Chrst presently, if he hasn’t already, and it may not be long after that he sends “Almighty God” to the ash heap entirely to worship Jesus.
There is a scholar somewhere—I wish I could put my finger on it—who says that the very reason LORD began to be preferred over the name was that it facilitates a merging of the two.
Call us old-fashioned, Xero, but we belong to the club that thinks if you put your name 7000 times in your book, it means you want it there, and may not be too thrilled with those who obscure it or even take it out.
By forsaking the Name, is he not distancing himself already from that One, even as he presents himself as holiness on steroids? Is he going down the path of what he does to you, calling you ex-elder, or what CC does to JWI, calling him ex-bethelite? It is an unmistakable sign of dislike and desired distance, and that is why they do it. In discarding the name for the title, is not 4jah all but calling God “ex-confidant?” If he drops the “4Jah” for “4God” we will know for sure.
As to CC, as you know, I go back and forth with him. At the moment, (and I really hope I do not drag him in here with rebukes to all) I am inclined to think he probably is a JW, but exceedingly unbalanced, hung up on one point to the near-exclusion of others. Is there precedent? I wonder. When Phineas pierced the two love-birds through their you-know-whats, and then led the charge to slay a ton of others, did someone at some point have to lay a hand on him and say, “Not them, Phineas! They’re okay. Granted, they are a little squirrelly, but we can put up with them. They have some good in them.” We may just have to put up with him, as we acknowledge that here and there he comes up with powerful points, and he certainly tolerates no rivalry before Jehovah. Who knows what inner turmoil people have gone through? Unless I cannot resist, I not going to squabble with him, even if he takes shots at me.
I dreamt up a fictional character and sometimes when a humanist ex-JW acts up I assign his words to Vic Vomodog, a former compatriot for whom against all reason and counsel, I still retain a soft spot, however so faint. Long ago, we used to pull shoulder to shoulder in the work. But Vic is unrelentingly atheist. He will not do for ex-JWs who still retain a recognition of God. How to solve that problem?
Meet Bob Sowmire, who will serve as the anti-type of 4jah. For some reason Vic and Bob are close—you would think they wouldn’t be able to stand each other, for they have nothing in common and have gone in mutually antagonistic ways. But like 4Jah chumming with Alan, with Srecko, with O’Malighan, with Matthew 4-5784, (you may not have had the honor with the latter two) people who in all other respects he would not be able to tolerate, but the mutual distaste of Jehovah’s people and now his Name unites them, so Vic Vomodog and Bob Sowmire are thick as thieves. 

Me too! And I've noticed that the majority of those who leave, stop using it. To me that says a lot.

Yes. Of course. He will be merging “Almighty God” with Jesus Chrst presently, if he hasn’t already, and it may not be long after that he sends “Almighty God” to the ash heap entirely to worship Jesus.
There is a scholar somewhere—I wish I could put my finger on it—who says that the very reason LORD began to be preferred over the name was that it facilitates a merging of the two.
Call us old-fashioned, Xero, but we belong to the club that thinks if you put your name 7000 times in your book, it means you want it there, and may not be too thrilled with those who obscure it or even take it out.
By forsaking the Name, is he not distancing himself already from that One, even as he presents himself as holiness on steroids? Is he going down the path of what he does to you, calling you ex-elder, or what CC does to JWI, calling him ex-bethelite? It is an unmistakable sign of dislike and desired distance, and that is why they do it. In discarding the name for the title, is not 4jah all but calling God “ex-confidant?” If he drops the “4Jah” for “4God” we will know for sure.
As to CC, as you know, I go back and forth with him. At the moment, (and I really hope I do not drag him in here with rebukes to all) I am inclined to think he probably is a JW, but exceedingly unbalanced, hung up on one point to the near-exclusion of others. Is there precedent? I wonder. When Phineas pierced the two love-birds through their you-know-whats, and then led the charge to slay a ton of others, did someone at some point have to lay a hand on him and say, “Not them, Phineas! They’re okay. Granted, they are a little squirrelly, but we can put up with them. They have some good in them.” We may just have to put up with him, as we acknowledge that here and there he comes up with powerful points, and he certainly tolerates no rivalry before Jehovah. Who knows what inner turmoil people have gone through? Unless I cannot resist, I not going to squabble with him, even if he takes shots at me.
I dreamt up a fictional character and sometimes when a humanist ex-JW acts up I assign his words to Vic Vomodog, a former compatriot for whom against all reason and counsel, I still retain a soft spot, however so faint. Long ago, we used to pull shoulder to shoulder in the work. But Vic is unrelentingly atheist. He will not do for ex-JWs who still retain a recognition of God. How to solve that problem?
Meet Bob Sowmire, who will serve as the anti-type of 4jah. For some reason Vic and Bob are close—you would think they wouldn’t be able to stand each other, for they have nothing in common and have gone in mutually antagonistic ways. But like 4Jah chumming with Alan, with Srecko, with O’Malighan, with Matthew 4-5784, (you may not have had the honor with the latter two) people who in all other respects he would not be able to tolerate, but the mutual distaste of Jehovah’s people and now his Name unites them, so Vic Vomodog and Bob Sowmire are thick as thieves. 

And your experience reminds me of a man I placed magazines with a few times. Finally he said he didn’t want them anymore. His wife was allergic to newsprint, and in any event, they were moving soon.
”Oh, come on!” I thought, but didn’t say it. “What a stupid excuse! If you don’t like them, just say so.”
I few years later I met them at a District convention, both baptized. The organization had upgraded to a higher quality paper.

Does the first party have a name?

Why do you ask me a question and then answer it yourself? You are such a shrill bonehead.
In fact, when we homeschooled our kids, we integrated them into the overall community, while still keeping our own standards. Both served as volunteers at the public library, for instance. My son joined the local lapidary club (stone carving), where the older ones made a great fuss over him. My daughter took part in a dance troupe that would give performances at local venues. It was a small African dance troupe, and sometimes my wife would say to people, can you spot which one is my daughter? (Everyone else was black, though there was also an Asian) I don’t say that Witnesses typically do this, but no one ever gave us any grief over it.
I worked with both of them in the ministry. One quirky axample involved an old communist. I had found him while working alone, and he wasn’t very nice—“religion is the opium of the people,” and so forth. But I asked him a lot of questions and a conversation ensued. During that conversation I leaned he took pride in his collection of antiques.
I stopped by a few weeks later with my daughter, then around 10. He was even nastier than before. “So what do you want?!” he barked. Just as sharp, I shot back, “I came to show my daughter your antiques!” Without a word, he opened the door, invited us in, showed us as a tour guide his Edison phonograph and a dozen other ancient items, and could not have been more pleasant.

You are such a whiny little girl you don’t even notice when the barbs you hurl contradict themselves. Here you advocate building an immune system and would condemn anyone neglecting to do so:
Here you go in exactly the opposite direction as you draw on the pandemic.
The last people you want in these pandemic days are those who trust in their immune system. These are the ones who protest the most about wearing masks accepting vaccines. Before you let fly, think of whether what you say makes any sense. It usually doesn’t.
You may not have noticed, but not all parents in the world are ideal. There is good reason to test the waters before you toss your child into it. What did I just to your ally? It’s not uncommon for children to be completely neglected emotionally and physically. They fall into depression, anxiety, and suicide as the reassuring world Srecko promises them falls apart. They become addicted to violent gaming, to online porn, to cyberbullying. They are afflicted with STDs. They are unsupported even in gender and are persuaded that maybe switching them is the pathway to happiness.
To touch upon your favorite topic, if you can hold families together, as Witnesses do to a far greater extent than the overall world, you are taking a huge step in fighting child sexual abuse. There is no place more conducive to it than in ever-changing boyfriends and girlfriends in the wake of a divorce. A step family is far more fertile grounds for CSA than a natural family.
You would think that receiving a child-like letter from a child would be a small price to pay for knowing that child is raised in an environment that will spare him those calamities, even if it presents some unique circumstances of its own. So much hatred does the world have for meaningful religion that there are few Witnesses not familiar with the scenario of someone having cleaned up their act, quit their smoking, drinking, thieving, carousing, and generally odious ways, saved their marriage,  only to find that people, sometimes even family, prefer them as they were.

You are such a whiny little girl you don’t even notice when the barbs you hurl contradict themselves. Here you advocate building an immune system and would condemn anyone neglecting to do so:
Here you go in exactly the opposite direction as you draw on the pandemic.
The last people you want in these pandemic days are those who trust in their immune system. These are the ones who protest the most about wearing masks accepting vaccines. Before you let fly, think of whether what you say makes any sense. It usually doesn’t.
You may not have noticed, but not all parents in the world are ideal. There is good reason to test the waters before you toss your child into it. What did I just to your ally? It’s not uncommon for children to be completely neglected emotionally and physically. They fall into depression, anxiety, and suicide as the reassuring world Srecko promises them falls apart. They become addicted to violent gaming, to online porn, to cyberbullying. They are afflicted with STDs. They are unsupported even in gender and are persuaded that maybe switching them is the pathway to happiness.
To touch upon your favorite topic, if you can hold families together, as Witnesses do to a far greater extent than the overall world, you are taking a huge step in fighting child sexual abuse. There is no place more conducive to it than in ever-changing boyfriends and girlfriends in the wake of a divorce. A step family is far more fertile grounds for CSA than a natural family.
You would think that receiving a child-like letter from a child would be a small price to pay for knowing that child is raised in an environment that will spare him those calamities, even if it presents some unique circumstances of its own. So much hatred does the world have for meaningful religion that there are few Witnesses not familiar with the scenario of someone having cleaned up their act, quit their smoking, drinking, thieving, carousing, and generally odious ways, saved their marriage,  only to find that people, sometimes even family, prefer them as they were.

The crusty old atheist reminds me of a long-standing call I had w/a chip engineer at intel. I suspect she was either high functioning autistic or aspergers, in any case on the first call I made a presentation and she was emotionally flat during the magazine presentation, so I stopped and asked her "Am I boring you? Would you prefer I stop?" and she said w/the same deadpan "No. Please continue, this is interesting." Then she set me a schedule to visit her. It was not surprisingly mathematical in precision. I was expected to be at her door at 10 AM every other Saturday (no excuses). We never got much past the magazines, as after a year she moved out of state, but it goes to show that you can't tell what's happening inside someone when the exterior is less than inviting.

Why do you ask me a question and then answer it yourself? You are such a shrill bonehead.
In fact, when we homeschooled our kids, we integrated them into the overall community, while still keeping our own standards. Both served as volunteers at the public library, for instance. My son joined the local lapidary club (stone carving), where the older ones made a great fuss over him. My daughter took part in a dance troupe that would give performances at local venues. It was a small African dance troupe, and sometimes my wife would say to people, can you spot which one is my daughter? (Everyone else was black, though there was also an Asian) I don’t say that Witnesses typically do this, but no one ever gave us any grief over it.
I worked with both of them in the ministry. One quirky axample involved an old communist. I had found him while working alone, and he wasn’t very nice—“religion is the opium of the people,” and so forth. But I asked him a lot of questions and a conversation ensued. During that conversation I leaned he took pride in his collection of antiques.
I stopped by a few weeks later with my daughter, then around 10. He was even nastier than before. “So what do you want?!” he barked. Just as sharp, I shot back, “I came to show my daughter your antiques!” Without a word, he opened the door, invited us in, showed us as a tour guide his Edison phonograph and a dozen other ancient items, and could not have been more pleasant.

Do you think so? I would submit that the entire letter is strange, and all of it might trigger outrage from an intolerant person.
Suppose you were an atheist, for example. Would you not find the 2nd paragraph as objectionable as the third?
Suppose you are a “traditionalist” who thinks the role of children is to have fun and play games. Would you not find it really weird (and therefore “cult-like”) that a ten-year-old hopes to “comfort” you? Why, the ten-year-old down the street called you an old fart. That’s the kind of conduct you anticipate from 10-year-olds these days.
“Comforting” neighbors is not the expected role of a ten-year-old, you will say, but rather that is the role of adults. Then you will hope they don’t notice that you have nothing to comfort them with.
So the letter is all “strange”—not at all what one would expect from a ten-year-old. The reason you find no fault until you reach the third paragraph only reflects your stance that points of view different than yours should not exist. 
You will allow Christianity but only if it doesn’t carry the 1 Corinthians 12:12 stigma of the body, in which all members are unified and work seamlessly together. You don’t like it that body members should be attached. You especially don’t like it that the body should have a head. If the “body” consisted of amputated limbs, eyes pulled from their sockets and ears torn off the head, you would be okay with it. 
In short, you are apparently prepared to tolerate Christianity, but only your version of Christianity, in which each member celebrates their independence, in which “everyone does what is right in his own eyes,” the Judges 21:25 type of Christianity. Never mind that God speaks of that period as primitive and undesirable.
That said, I’m glad my own children are raised and out of the house. I have no idea how I would train them today. Homeschooling advocate John Holt used to say the reason children go delinquent is that they are shut out of the adult world under the guise of “protecting” them.

If he would be equally outraged at a child expressing support for his school, love for his country, support for some local cause, rallying for some local politician, selling Scout cookies, knocking on his door offering to shovel snow, & such things, then he would be consistent. However, I think most other people would tell him to get a life.
Come come, 4Jah, you still claim to be Christian. Srecko may think evangelizing is child abuse, but you should not. What if he made no mention of jw.org, but just encouraged Bible reading, or just spoke of God and Jesus? Would you be as upset then? You’re just snarling every time you see JW.
 

If he would be equally outraged at a child expressing support for his school, love for his country, support for some local cause, rallying for some local politician, selling Scout cookies, knocking on his door offering to shovel snow, & such things, then he would be consistent. However, I think most other people would tell him to get a life.
Come come, 4Jah, you still claim to be Christian. Srecko may think evangelizing is child abuse, but you should not. What if he made no mention of jw.org, but just encouraged Bible reading, or just spoke of God and Jesus? Would you be as upset then? You’re just snarling every time you see JW.
 

If he would be equally outraged at a child expressing support for his school, love for his country, support for some local cause, rallying for some local politician, selling Scout cookies, knocking on his door offering to shovel snow, & such things, then he would be consistent. However, I think most other people would tell him to get a life.
Come come, 4Jah, you still claim to be Christian. Srecko may think evangelizing is child abuse, but you should not. What if he made no mention of jw.org, but just encouraged Bible reading, or just spoke of God and Jesus? Would you be as upset then? You’re just snarling every time you see JW.
 

It is funny, but more importantly, it is instructional.
This is not hypocritical, 4Jah, nor is it hard. Don’t be such a little girl over it.
The Aussie authorities devise a plan that fits all other parties for the institutional abuse of their youth clubs, youth schools, youth camps. They invite organizations to join. The WT declines because they do not have such settings. Whatever outlier cases may occur with them they will handle on a case by case basis.
The Aussie authorities then say they MUST come aboard, on pain of losing the tax status that is afforded every other charity. At that point, it becomes an operational cost. They still don’t think it is justified, but it becomes a cost of operating in Australia.
There are times in life when it is all about money. One of those times is when someone is trying to take it from you and you alone. 

It is funny, but more importantly, it is instructional.
This is not hypocritical, 4Jah, nor is it hard. Don’t be such a little girl over it.
The Aussie authorities devise a plan that fits all other parties for the institutional abuse of their youth clubs, youth schools, youth camps. They invite organizations to join. The WT declines because they do not have such settings. Whatever outlier cases may occur with them they will handle on a case by case basis.
The Aussie authorities then say they MUST come aboard, on pain of losing the tax status that is afforded every other charity. At that point, it becomes an operational cost. They still don’t think it is justified, but it becomes a cost of operating in Australia.
There are times in life when it is all about money. One of those times is when someone is trying to take it from you and you alone. 

I was walking along the dockside when I felt a brushing at my pocket. I clamped my hand down instantly upon another that was trying to lift my wallet!
”What hypocrisy!” the fellow bellowed. It’s all about money money money with you, isn’t it?!!!”
Conscience-stricken, I handed over my wallet to him.
 

What a strange alliance has taken place, for 4Jah frequently makes this point as well.

Are you kidding me? She is the patient who begged the most.

I was walking along the dockside when I felt a brushing at my pocket. I clamped my hand down instantly upon another that was trying to lift my wallet!
”What hypocrisy!” the fellow bellowed. It’s all about money money money with you, isn’t it?!!!”
Conscience-stricken, I handed over my wallet to him.
 

I was walking along the dockside when I felt a brushing at my pocket. I clamped my hand down instantly upon another that was trying to lift my wallet!
”What hypocrisy!” the fellow bellowed. It’s all about money money money with you, isn’t it?!!!”
Conscience-stricken, I handed over my wallet to him.
 

What a strange alliance has taken place, for 4Jah frequently makes this point as well.

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