TrueTomHarley

I like how at the annual meeting, Mark Sanderson examined Hebrews 2:15, of how “through [Jesus’] death [God] might bring to nothing the one having the means to cause death, that is, the Devil, and that he might set free all those who were held in slavery all their lives by their fear of death.”
He then spoke of the Nuremberg trials, in which various Nazis who had committed unspeakable atrocities were asked the simple question, “How could you do those terrible things?” “What did they say?” he asked, and then related the answer they had given: “We had no choice. If we didn’t obey they would put us to death.” 
“Those people could be manipulated,” Sanderson said. “They could be controlled. They could be made to do the most wicked things because they were afraid.”
That’s manipulation. That’s control. That’s the consequence—shall we say it?—of not being one of Jehovah’s Witnesses benefiting from the program of spiritual food directed from the Governing Body. And here is Witness (and numerous others) sniveling about “brutal peer pressure!” The woman is a joke, as are all those who rage against the “control” of the GB. Had there been similar “control” among the Axis population, there would have been no need for the Nuremberg trials.
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2020/02/if-youre-going-to-bewail-manipulation-bewail-it-where-it-counts.html

No. Sorry. I just highlighted some words of yours to get your attention. It does sort of look that I am attributing them to Glock, doesn’t it?
Do you mean they feared that if they left, Jehovah’s Witnesses would kill them?
When Fauci says people may die if they do not wear a mask, do people take it that he means to kill them himself? When the fire department says you may die if you don’t change the batteries of your smoke detector, does it mean they are going to do the deed themselves.
Of course not on all three. The game is too stupid to play. Such opposers are just upset that faith has power—they wish it were gutted. Of course, the Witnesses say that departing from Jehovah’s organized way exposes one to eventual death. A very good tell that such might be true is that whenever ones do it, in no time at all they come to think the Name itself is a hill of beans, and that it hardly matters if it is used or not.
 
 

How can one be so obtuse as Srecko? He fusses on and on about the GB’s counsel, as seen through the appreciative eyes of Glock. “It’s just good sound human advice,” he says. “What’s God got to do with it?”
He misses the point most powerful so as to focus on the petty. Tell Jehovah’s people to obey the secular authorities, and they will. Tell ones of the greater world to obey, and they won’t—as a group, I mean—obviously there will be a Bell curve, but it is where that Bell curve falls that determines success of failure.
Here is a post from CNBC entitled, “Salesforce’s Marc Benioff: Face masks can end the U.S. coronavirus crisis within weeks.”
Within, Benioff says: “If everyone in the United States wore a mask for 3 weeks — just 3 weeks — we would not have anymore coronavirus because there would be no more spread, but people do not want to wear masks.”
One would think that Srecko would be cheerleading for Jehovah’s Witnesses. One would think he would be urging all to come under their umbrella—for there is to be found the end of Covid-19 within three weeks. “People do not want to wear masks,” Benioff says. Witnesses do not want to wear them, either, but they are ready to 
It is as though it is a dirty word. Consistently Srecko uses it this way—he and all his cohorts raging on about the ‘control’ and ‘manipulation’ of the GB. In this case, such obedience, which JWs by and large will render, and huge portions of his people will not, will serve to rescue the earth from the pandemic.
In fact, the very position of the Governing Body makes clear that they do not attempt to control people. They set an example—and people will take note of their example because they are highly regarded—but they make clear that each family head is responsible for the course his own family. As states open up—they are all over the board on this, just as they are all over the board on CSA laws—“obedience to secular authority” translates differently to different places—some localities require masks and some don’t—and there are further variances as to the circumstances that masks ought be worn. 
Suffice it to say that, if governments universally mandated masks in public, Witnesses would comply. Vast swaths of the overall world would not. It may be human advice, but Witnesses will comply because of the Bible requirement to be obedient to secular authority. At least some of the CultExpert’s followers will use their #FreedomOfMind to tell the government where it can go with it’s regulations.
That is why the GB must be credited—for presiding over a culture in which people will obey laws of Caesar, providing only that Caesar does not over reach into matters of God. And on mandating masks for a limited period, he does not.

Sometimes all you have to do with a statement like that from the Glock is to show a little flexibility. Like the boy that was spanked by his Dad and protested that he hadn’t committed the offense he was being punished for. “Well—in that case, that’s for something that you did do for which you should have been punished but weren’t,” dear old dad said.
So it is with Glock’s words. Covid doesn’t fit as well as we might like? Try the arrests in Russia—110 homes burst into, with persons—many elderly, many women, children among them, by cops in with assault weapons—in a single night.  Maybe his words will fit better there:
 

No. Sorry. I just highlighted some words of yours to get your attention. It does sort of look that I am attributing them to Glock, doesn’t it?
Do you mean they feared that if they left, Jehovah’s Witnesses would kill them?
When Fauci says people may die if they do not wear a mask, do people take it that he means to kill them himself? When the fire department says you may die if you don’t change the batteries of your smoke detector, does it mean they are going to do the deed themselves.
Of course not on all three. The game is too stupid to play. Such opposers are just upset that faith has power—they wish it were gutted. Of course, the Witnesses say that departing from Jehovah’s organized way exposes one to eventual death. A very good tell that such might be true is that whenever ones do it, in no time at all they come to think the Name itself is a hill of beans, and that it hardly matters if it is used or not.
 
 

When the song “Give us Courage” was released at the 2018 Be Courageous Regional Conventions, an accompanying video displayed soldiers in full military gear closing in on entirely ordinary and manifestly harmless Jehovah’s Witnesses, who were doing no more than minding their own business. “How cult-like!” said the ridiculers. “What is it with these people and their “persecution complex.”
If fact, the video prefigures events that have come to pass, as absurdly unlikely as they might seem. After all, arresting entirely harmless people is crazy in itself. But what multiplies the craziness 100-fold is to arrest them in full military gear. There is no possibility of them offering resistance and everybody knows it. They are almost the only group whose entire history demonstrates that under no circumstances do they resort to violence. Yet they are arrested as you would terrorists.
Assuming that arrests are called for (a ridiculous assumption that we will let pass so as to pursue a greater point), why would arrests be made in such a violent manner? Two reasons present themselves,
1) Outright hate.
2) Saving face.
If you declare people “extremists” and then arrest them as you would a jaywalker, you are only making yourself look silly. You are only proving that they are not extremists at all, and that you well know it—and so what does that say about you? It is why Abraham Lincoln said that he was not smart enough to lie—he knew he would have to adjust every subsequent statement and action to accord with that first lie simply if he would retain an ounce of credibility. Having lied to assert Witnesses are extremists, you have to act as though they are.
The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses foresaw this. It is the most unlikely scenario in the world, and yet they foresaw it. Does this “prove” that Jehovah is with the Witness Governing Body—to transfer Brother Glock’s remarks to more readily adaptable content?
 

A lot of them a kind of stupid—I doubt that will happen.

A lot of them a kind of stupid—I doubt that will happen.

Sorry. That was just for 4Jah’s sake. He’ll believe anything bad about a JW.
I likened it to the ingredients of a sandwich disappearing. When that happens, what’s the point of keeping track of the two slices of bread that enclose it?
When the ingredients reappear—well, we know that God’s people are to be between a rock and a hard place. Who corresponds to that? What two parties during the World Wars hate each other’s guts, and also give the covenant people grief for the same reason, that of neutrality?
I agree with you. I think things become very clear as we near the end.

Tell me about it. I had a real crush on her.
”And Zenob’s the name of his latest flame”
 

I will mourn her loss of prophetic fulfillment. Women in the role of "Kings of the South" will now be "scarce as hen's teeth." What's "sauce for the gander should have been sauce for the goose," I always thought. But now "this bird has flown" south, I presume, for the winter of my discontent.
And speaking of hen's teeth, (definition), I will miss the type of writing she inspired. How many articles can you think of that were written in a way to make ancient history so interesting, and toothsome, and colorful? Like the Watchtower article below:
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1999046
“The Dark-Haired Mistress of the Syrian Wild”
HER complexion was olive, her teeth pearly white, her eyes black and lustrous. She was well-educated and was a proficient linguist. This warrior queen was said to be greater in intellect than Cleopatra and perhaps equally beautiful. Because she dared to stand up to the dominant world power of her day, she fulfilled a prophetic role in a Scriptural drama. After she was long-dead, writers praised her, and painters idealized her. A 19th-century poet portrayed her as “the dark-haired mistress of the Syrian wild.” This highly acclaimed woman was Zenobia—queen of the Syrian city of Palmyra.
How did Zenobia gain prominence? What was the political climate that led to her rise to power? What can be said of her character? And what prophetic role did this queen fulfill? Consider first the geographic setting in which the drama unfolds.
. . . . With her colorful personality, Zenobia won the admiration of many.
[A-lass and a-lack* and ...A-hem? I would have pleated that we not skirt this personality as the system pants on to the end, and finally unfolds to its clothes.]
*See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alack_and_alas where the etymology has nothing to do with a lack of a lass (female sweetheart).
Someone messaged me once a couple years ago to tell me that these puns don't translate into their native language. Thus, these links and footnotes to show that they also don't really translate well into English or into Humor, either.

The GB makes mistakes. “Stay Loyal With Queen Zenobia and Obi Wan Kenobia!” some traveling overseers were parroting—they got it right from HQ!. She came crashing to the ground yesterday with no one to mourn her—with no one to say “Too bad, too bad, you great hen!” What a flip-flop to treat the old girl with such disrespect! How can God not be displeased?
 

It was warning about you. But you can yet get your act together—see prior post.

You mean the wife whom you said deserves sainthood for putting up with you? Give her a flower from me, also, will you?
Maybe @Araunadid not—she’s sort of lazy—but I did. Eight and a half million of them, I asked every one of them, it took all afternoon—just so I would have an answer for you.
You blasted idiot! Don’t sin! Put yourself somewhere that you will be aided not to sin. Put yourself somewhere that you can get your head around just how the ransom of God’s son works. Put yourself somewhere that you can appreciate how Paul can say ‘what I wish to do, I do not do,‘ and yet still say that he has run the race to the finish.
Spurning God’s free gift, are you? Stop doing that! Life was horrible? I won’t challenge that. Yet, what does the Word say of God’s promise? “The former things will not be called to mind.” Where’s the faith?! Even the most horrible nightmare people do not retain in their conscous mind. God cannot do even more than that? If nothing else, your long-suffering wife deserves to see you healed up.
You are a piece of work, 4Jah. You know you are. That does not mean that I am not, as with most others here, and everywhere else. It’s the human reality—a condition of the fallen flesh. Drop this ridiculous obsession against the GB and make peace with the earthly organization. Whatever it takes. It sure doesn’t appear that Witness’s FB page is helping you any, nor her upcoming project to quote the entire book of Jeremiah for the purpose of demonstrating that her rivals suck.

The GB makes mistakes. “Stay Loyal With Queen Zenobia and Obi Wan Kenobia!” some traveling overseers were parroting—they got it right from HQ!. She came crashing to the ground yesterday with no one to mourn her—with no one to say “Too bad, too bad, you great hen!” What a flip-flop to treat the old girl with such disrespect! How can God not be displeased?
 

It was warning about you. But you can yet get your act together—see prior post.

You mean the wife whom you said deserves sainthood for putting up with you? Give her a flower from me, also, will you?
Maybe @Araunadid not—she’s sort of lazy—but I did. Eight and a half million of them, I asked every one of them, it took all afternoon—just so I would have an answer for you.
You blasted idiot! Don’t sin! Put yourself somewhere that you will be aided not to sin. Put yourself somewhere that you can get your head around just how the ransom of God’s son works. Put yourself somewhere that you can appreciate how Paul can say ‘what I wish to do, I do not do,‘ and yet still say that he has run the race to the finish.
Spurning God’s free gift, are you? Stop doing that! Life was horrible? I won’t challenge that. Yet, what does the Word say of God’s promise? “The former things will not be called to mind.” Where’s the faith?! Even the most horrible nightmare people do not retain in their conscous mind. God cannot do even more than that? If nothing else, your long-suffering wife deserves to see you healed up.
You are a piece of work, 4Jah. You know you are. That does not mean that I am not, as with most others here, and everywhere else. It’s the human reality—a condition of the fallen flesh. Drop this ridiculous obsession against the GB and make peace with the earthly organization. Whatever it takes. It sure doesn’t appear that Witness’s FB page is helping you any, nor her upcoming project to quote the entire book of Jeremiah for the purpose of demonstrating that her rivals suck.

You mean the wife whom you said deserves sainthood for putting up with you? Give her a flower from me, also, will you?
Maybe @Araunadid not—she’s sort of lazy—but I did. Eight and a half million of them, I asked every one of them, it took all afternoon—just so I would have an answer for you.
You blasted idiot! Don’t sin! Put yourself somewhere that you will be aided not to sin. Put yourself somewhere that you can get your head around just how the ransom of God’s son works. Put yourself somewhere that you can appreciate how Paul can say ‘what I wish to do, I do not do,‘ and yet still say that he has run the race to the finish.
Spurning God’s free gift, are you? Stop doing that! Life was horrible? I won’t challenge that. Yet, what does the Word say of God’s promise? “The former things will not be called to mind.” Where’s the faith?! Even the most horrible nightmare people do not retain in their conscous mind. God cannot do even more than that? If nothing else, your long-suffering wife deserves to see you healed up.
You are a piece of work, 4Jah. You know you are. That does not mean that I am not, as with most others here, and everywhere else. It’s the human reality—a condition of the fallen flesh. Drop this ridiculous obsession against the GB and make peace with the earthly organization. Whatever it takes. It sure doesn’t appear that Witness’s FB page is helping you any, nor her upcoming project to quote the entire book of Jeremiah for the purpose of demonstrating that her rivals suck.

Is he ever! He is the gift that keeps on giving.

Well, that I can readily agree with!

Is he ever! He is the gift that keeps on giving.

Yikes! There’s a photo of me with arms around Srecko, 4Jah, and Witness!

Victor Blackwell, a Witness attorney who defended many brothers before the various town courts of the American south during WWII days of conscription, told of his experience with one. The judge ordered him to shut up!—he, the defending attorney—or he would throw him into jail himself! “I looked around and I saw lawyers, prominent businessmen, and educated persons—I knew I wasn’t going to jail, so I said, ‘Your Honor, if we have reached the sorry state when justice has so disintegrated that an attorney is barred from defending his own client, then at that time the most appropriate place for me to be is behind bars with him.” (not an exact quote) Blackwell related at a special assembly in Niagara Falls how the judge’s face reddened and his veins stood out on his neck. A week later, he died of a stroke. “You killed our judge,” townspeople told him at his next trip to that area. “I”m sorry,” he replied, but it seemed that his degree of true remorse was suspect.
“I killed another judge,” he told the entertained audience, of whom I was one, and he went on to relate events in another town. Interestingly, he treated the judge’s of high courts with the greatest deference, especially those of the Supreme Court, whom he practically revered—as well as those justices of military courts—they were professionals who knew the law thoroughly, but the judges of some town courts were little more than popularly elected swaggering bullies popularly who often didn’t know much of anything other than what they wanted.
Now...let’s see if we can get 4Jah going. C’mon, let’s see what happens:
Now, let us change the setting to that of Jesus on his final night on earth:
“About the ninth hour, Jesus called out with a loud voice, saying: “Eʹli, Eʹli, laʹma sa·bach·thaʹni?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46)
Okay—I admit it—it’s a little bit of a cheap shot. But nobody deserves it more than that piece of work 4Jah, who sits at the feet of Anna and JWI as though at Gamaliel’s, thankIng them profusely whenever they drop some nugget he thinks beneficial to his cause, and heehawing like a donkey throughout everything else they say.

Well, that I can readily agree with!

Wait till you see what’s coming your way soon. 
If he was committing perjury, he would be disbarred. Wait till you see if that happens before you crow. He just said something you did not like, which is not the same as “committing perjury.”