TrueTomHarley

Book ‘The Righteous Brothers’

It is still there, much expanded, and when we visited a few years ago, was where the literature was printed. So far as I know, printing moved out of Brooklyn many years previous to its sale—perhaps some specialty things were printed there, but no more than that, and Patterson has never been used for printing.
They did stop growing food there ages ago, having decided it could be purchased more economically, all factors considered. It used to be as you entered on the main road, residence buildings were on your left, and various fields of produce, along with a barn or three, were on your right. There was no printery at all.
’Davey the kid,’ who I have written about a few times, and who appears in the afterword of Tom Irregardless and Me, worked in the cheese room there. He later published a book on cheese-making. He and a few other Bethelites formed ‘The Farmhand Band’ and would entertain others of the family—perhaps even those outside. I tagged along a time or two as others who knew him went down to visit, though in time we would serve together as elders in an outside congregation.
He was one of those enormously talented brothers that everything he touched turned to gold. Walking into the 8-story Medical Arts building in Rochester—for upon leaving Bethel, he had to make a living—in order to secure the cleaning contract, the manager noted some areas of particular challenge, but then conceded that he didn’t know much about cleaning. ‘That makes two of us!’ Davey told me his (unspoken) reaction later, as he wowed the fellow with pure charm. “It’s my gift,” he told me later, “they never say no.”
He built a Kingdom Hall in Rochester, built another one, and then an Assembly Hall. Of course, it wasn’t all him—there were committees, but he was always the go-to driving force, if only because he seemed never at a loss as to what to do, while others needed time to get their heads around new things. During the Assembly Hall build, he got tired of putting out ‘cleaning fires,’ as he would call them, which would take him away to the telephone. So he took some college courses, accumulated enormous college credit via ‘life experiences’ and emerged a psychotherapist. I would joke with him that—poor fellow that he was, he always suspected that half of us were nuts, and now that he had become a psychotherapist he discovers that even the half that he thought were sane—they’re nuts, too.
He told me of the respect he had gained for the college courses with regard to psychology. He had entered upon the coursework assuming that it would be all necessary drivel, but he presently said, ‘Hey, I am not doing some of these things myself’ and benefited accordingly. 
He died a while back and so this is more-or-less an obituary that I did not intend when I started this remark—thanks for giving me the prod. His wife has died, too.  And to think that Davey made major waves in his non-believing family, for he by-passed a full university scholarship for the sake of enrolling as a pioneer. He wasn’t exactly typical.
(Srecko’s link is of ‘Mountain Farms’ the original location of Gilead—much smaller and far removed from the other three complexes.)
 

Book ‘The Righteous Brothers’

It is still there, much expanded, and when we visited a few years ago, was where the literature was printed. So far as I know, printing moved out of Brooklyn many years previous to its sale—perhaps some specialty things were printed there, but no more than that, and Patterson has never been used for printing.
They did stop growing food there ages ago, having decided it could be purchased more economically, all factors considered. It used to be as you entered on the main road, residence buildings were on your left, and various fields of produce, along with a barn or three, were on your right. There was no printery at all.
’Davey the kid,’ who I have written about a few times, and who appears in the afterword of Tom Irregardless and Me, worked in the cheese room there. He later published a book on cheese-making. He and a few other Bethelites formed ‘The Farmhand Band’ and would entertain others of the family—perhaps even those outside. I tagged along a time or two as others who knew him went down to visit, though in time we would serve together as elders in an outside congregation.
He was one of those enormously talented brothers that everything he touched turned to gold. Walking into the 8-story Medical Arts building in Rochester—for upon leaving Bethel, he had to make a living—in order to secure the cleaning contract, the manager noted some areas of particular challenge, but then conceded that he didn’t know much about cleaning. ‘That makes two of us!’ Davey told me his (unspoken) reaction later, as he wowed the fellow with pure charm. “It’s my gift,” he told me later, “they never say no.”
He built a Kingdom Hall in Rochester, built another one, and then an Assembly Hall. Of course, it wasn’t all him—there were committees, but he was always the go-to driving force, if only because he seemed never at a loss as to what to do, while others needed time to get their heads around new things. During the Assembly Hall build, he got tired of putting out ‘cleaning fires,’ as he would call them, which would take him away to the telephone. So he took some college courses, accumulated enormous college credit via ‘life experiences’ and emerged a psychotherapist. I would joke with him that—poor fellow that he was, he always suspected that half of us were nuts, and now that he had become a psychotherapist he discovers that even the half that he thought were sane—they’re nuts, too.
He told me of the respect he had gained for the college courses with regard to psychology. He had entered upon the coursework assuming that it would be all necessary drivel, but he presently said, ‘Hey, I am not doing some of these things myself’ and benefited accordingly. 
He died a while back and so this is more-or-less an obituary that I did not intend when I started this remark—thanks for giving me the prod. His wife has died, too.  And to think that Davey made major waves in his non-believing family, for he by-passed a full university scholarship for the sake of enrolling as a pioneer. He wasn’t exactly typical.
(Srecko’s link is of ‘Mountain Farms’ the original location of Gilead—much smaller and far removed from the other three complexes.)
 

Increasingly he says nasty and largely irrelevant things just for the sake of saying nasty and irrelevant things. 
He may go the way of Matthew 4 5784, who eventually dropped all pretense of being here to help, earned a rebuke or two, and left of his own volition, a New Year’s resolution—though he is back now sparingly, and may even have turned over a new leaf in some regards. 

Increasingly he says nasty and largely irrelevant things just for the sake of saying nasty and irrelevant things. 
He may go the way of Matthew 4 5784, who eventually dropped all pretense of being here to help, earned a rebuke or two, and left of his own volition, a New Year’s resolution—though he is back now sparingly, and may even have turned over a new leaf in some regards. 

According to tabulations April 20, 2020, three years after the liquidation of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ communities, 332 people became victims of criminal prosecution, 166 of these undergoing imprisonment. These are honest, non-drinking workers: teachers, builders, firefighters, accountants, lawyers. Authorities ruin their career, paralyze their life.

From left to right, top to bottom: Galina Dergacheva, Sergey Loginov, Igor Trifonov, Galina Parkova, Vitaliy Popov, Elena Nikulina, Dmitriy Vinogradov, Maksim Amosov
https://www.jw-russia.org/en/

In this case the answer is not particularly important, nor interesting. The situation prompting the question is what arouses interest. Here is a list of religions ‘of the world.’ Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are ‘no part of the world’ are not on it. Who cares why? I don’t.
Even so, I did mention three possibilities: 
“Is it an oversight? Is it a snub? Is it avoidance because any story about Jehovah's Witnesses will reliably attract swarms of their virulent "apostates' alarmed at any favorable mention and insistent upon maligning their former faith and so RNS just doesn't want to deal with it?”
Which one of the three it is doesn’t interest me. It is like when the Die Hard villain finally dies himself, after two hours of mayhem, and you learn in the epilogue that he was also behind in his contributions to the United Way. Who cares?

In this case the answer is not particularly important, nor interesting. The situation prompting the question is what arouses interest. Here is a list of religions ‘of the world.’ Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are ‘no part of the world’ are not on it. Who cares why? I don’t.
Even so, I did mention three possibilities: 
“Is it an oversight? Is it a snub? Is it avoidance because any story about Jehovah's Witnesses will reliably attract swarms of their virulent "apostates' alarmed at any favorable mention and insistent upon maligning their former faith and so RNS just doesn't want to deal with it?”
Which one of the three it is doesn’t interest me. It is like when the Die Hard villain finally dies himself, after two hours of mayhem, and you learn in the epilogue that he was also behind in his contributions to the United Way. Who cares?

I don’t know where the strike throughs came from. It wasn’t me, unless it was by accident. A software glitch? Dunno. But there weren’t supposed to be any. 
That is acknowledged, too. Searching, one may find some things. But in the tree of faiths that includes most everyone, at least in the alternative or other category, Witnesses are not to be found.
As you stated to Srecko, I’m not upset about it, and Bethel may even be happy about it. As usual, 4Jah is all wet. These others he mentioned can and are maneuvered into other forms of violence, even if nationalism has become passé for some of them. And without a unity founded on love, it takes nothing for the national king to convince them that the villains are to be found in the domain of the other king. It takes nothing to stir up people today.

One of them is not JW per se, but is of someone who wrote a book on how to refute them, along with the Mormons, latching on to key scriptures cites and how to answer back.
Bring it on, I say. Any Witness worth his salt knows how to answer such things.

I haven’t. Nor have I seen anyone here who has. More importantly, The JW organization clearly hasn’t.
https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/87136-‘using’-the-pandemic-to-‘recruit’-people-sheesh-what-is-it-with-these-nutcases/
But if any individual has, I can certainly understand. A pandemic that has not been seen in 100 years. Economic disruption not seen since the Great Depression. In the US, there have been numerous reports of food lines up to two miles long. I would forgive any brother for going there, even if the organization itself has not. So far it is just one more nail in the coffin of human mismanagement of the earth to them.

One of them is not JW per se, but is of someone who wrote a book on how to refute them, along with the Mormons, latching on to key scriptures cites and how to answer back.
Bring it on, I say. Any Witness worth his salt knows how to answer such things.

That is the moral of the post that you stated more succinctly than I. In a list of “the religions of the world,” we are not on it.
If you were to ask Bethel to describe their faith, very quickly would come up that statement that true Christians “are no part of the world.”
Make of it what you will. I don’t make anything of it. I just note it.
 

That is the moral of the post that you stated more succinctly than I. In a list of “the religions of the world,” we are not on it.
If you were to ask Bethel to describe their faith, very quickly would come up that statement that true Christians “are no part of the world.”
Make of it what you will. I don’t make anything of it. I just note it.
 

I don’t know where the strike throughs came from. It wasn’t me, unless it was by accident. A software glitch? Dunno. But there weren’t supposed to be any. 
That is acknowledged, too. Searching, one may find some things. But in the tree of faiths that includes most everyone, at least in the alternative or other category, Witnesses are not to be found.
As you stated to Srecko, I’m not upset about it, and Bethel may even be happy about it. As usual, 4Jah is all wet. These others he mentioned can and are maneuvered into other forms of violence, even if nationalism has become passé for some of them. And without a unity founded on love, it takes nothing for the national king to convince them that the villains are to be found in the domain of the other king. It takes nothing to stir up people today.

I visited religionnews.com and found that my religion does not exist. Jehovah's Witnesses are nowhere listed in their tree of faiths. Everyone else is. Jehovah's Witnesses are not. Can it be? RNS "strive to inform, illuminate and inspire public discourse on matters relating to belief and convictions," says their About page. So where are Jehovah's Witnesses?Few religions have been in the news as much as they, especially with their recent ban in Russia. Is Religion News Service a Russian site? No. Is it their aim to suck up to the Russians? I don't think so. So where are the Witnesses?
The reason that there is not a Jeopardy clue: "They visit door to door to speak about the Bible" is that the answer is too obvious and would stump no one. In some ways Witnesses are plainly the foremost of religions. "And this good news of the Kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:14), for example. Nobody is known for taking the "good news of the Kingdom' to each and every person like Jehovah's Witnesses, especially before "the end will come.' Here is a cartoon of how JWs found Osama Bin Laden:
Or what about the verse, "beating their swords into plowshares.' (Isaiah 2:4) It is an inspirational slogan for all. The ones who actually DO it are Jehovah's Witnesses. They may be the only ones to completely do it, in that, not only will they not participate in wars, but they will not perform civilian work that is clearly designed to support war efforts. 
Yet, look through the comprehensive list at the bottom of the religionnews.com website"”they do not appear.
The first place you check, of course, is Christianity. There you find four subdivisions: Catholics, Latter Day Saints, Orthodox, and Protestants. If they are in any of the four, it must be Protestants. There you find three subdivisions: Black Protestants, Evangelical, and Mainline. Well, they're not the first or the third. Since they preach the good news of the Kingdom, could they be the second? Nope. Scroll through the stories in that category. You won't find them.
Okay, got it. They are not counted as Christian because RNS assumes that one must believe in the Trinity to be Christian"”many times we've run across this. It makes no sense, but there it is. Most verses used to advance the Trinity teaching are verses that, if they were seen in any other context, would be instantly dismissed as figure of speech. There is no verse that directly states the Trinity, and the one in the King James Version that does (1 John 5:7) has been recognized by all modern scholars as a spurious insertion and thus either removed or footnoted. One almost pictures a scribe reviewing scriptures, getting madder and madder that his favorite doctrine is no where to be found, and slipping it in when no one was looking. 
Where else might Jehovah's Witnesses be if not in the Christian category? Well, maybe the Alternative Faiths category, or the Other Faiths category. Nope. Scroll through the stories on either category. They do not appear. 
Is it an oversight? Is it a snub? Is it avoidance because any story about Jehovah's Witnesses will reliably attract swarms of their virulent "apostates' alarmed at any favorable mention and insistent upon maligning their former faith and so RNS just doesn't want to deal with it? (See TrueTom vs the Apostates) Dunno. But is certainly is strange. 
Now, to be sure, if you enter Jehovah's Witnesses in the Search box, a few items appear"”not many, but a few. There is someone there at RNS that knows that if your textbook is the Bible, if you teach from it, if you have even invented an entirely new non-commercial distribution channel and translated it into overlooked languages of developing countries so that common persons there are not stuck with some 200-year old turkey of a translation that they can neither understand nor afford, you must be a religion. Still, Jehovah's Witnesses are not listed in the list that includes everyone else. 
Do not think that the JW organization will be miffed at not being included in the list. They may even draw satisfaction from it. "Good. Here is a list of the religions "of the world' and we are not on it," they may say. If there is one verse they take seriously over there at JW HQ, it is John 17:16, where Jesus prays about his followers: "They are no part of the world, just as I am no part of the world."
For that reason I will not go the RNS site and holler, "Hey!"”what is it with you clowns?!" The site is an offspring of the Missouri School of Journalism. It speaks of the "academic experts' that monitor all. I don't want to tangle with experts. Maybe they will try to pull rank on that basis. Who knows? Maybe they are right. Maybe I am not part of a religion, even if I do speak of the Bible door to door and keep the peace.

I visited religionnews.com and found that my religion does not exist. Jehovah's Witnesses are nowhere listed in their tree of faiths. Everyone else is. Jehovah's Witnesses are not. Can it be? RNS "strive to inform, illuminate and inspire public discourse on matters relating to belief and convictions," says their About page. So where are Jehovah's Witnesses?Few religions have been in the news as much as they, especially with their recent ban in Russia. Is Religion News Service a Russian site? No. Is it their aim to suck up to the Russians? I don't think so. So where are the Witnesses?
The reason that there is not a Jeopardy clue: "They visit door to door to speak about the Bible" is that the answer is too obvious and would stump no one. In some ways Witnesses are plainly the foremost of religions. "And this good news of the Kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:14), for example. Nobody is known for taking the "good news of the Kingdom' to each and every person like Jehovah's Witnesses, especially before "the end will come.' Here is a cartoon of how JWs found Osama Bin Laden:
Or what about the verse, "beating their swords into plowshares.' (Isaiah 2:4) It is an inspirational slogan for all. The ones who actually DO it are Jehovah's Witnesses. They may be the only ones to completely do it, in that, not only will they not participate in wars, but they will not perform civilian work that is clearly designed to support war efforts. 
Yet, look through the comprehensive list at the bottom of the religionnews.com website"”they do not appear.
The first place you check, of course, is Christianity. There you find four subdivisions: Catholics, Latter Day Saints, Orthodox, and Protestants. If they are in any of the four, it must be Protestants. There you find three subdivisions: Black Protestants, Evangelical, and Mainline. Well, they're not the first or the third. Since they preach the good news of the Kingdom, could they be the second? Nope. Scroll through the stories in that category. You won't find them.
Okay, got it. They are not counted as Christian because RNS assumes that one must believe in the Trinity to be Christian"”many times we've run across this. It makes no sense, but there it is. Most verses used to advance the Trinity teaching are verses that, if they were seen in any other context, would be instantly dismissed as figure of speech. There is no verse that directly states the Trinity, and the one in the King James Version that does (1 John 5:7) has been recognized by all modern scholars as a spurious insertion and thus either removed or footnoted. One almost pictures a scribe reviewing scriptures, getting madder and madder that his favorite doctrine is no where to be found, and slipping it in when no one was looking. 
Where else might Jehovah's Witnesses be if not in the Christian category? Well, maybe the Alternative Faiths category, or the Other Faiths category. Nope. Scroll through the stories on either category. They do not appear. 
Is it an oversight? Is it a snub? Is it avoidance because any story about Jehovah's Witnesses will reliably attract swarms of their virulent "apostates' alarmed at any favorable mention and insistent upon maligning their former faith and so RNS just doesn't want to deal with it? (See TrueTom vs the Apostates) Dunno. But is certainly is strange. 
Now, to be sure, if you enter Jehovah's Witnesses in the Search box, a few items appear"”not many, but a few. There is someone there at RNS that knows that if your textbook is the Bible, if you teach from it, if you have even invented an entirely new non-commercial distribution channel and translated it into overlooked languages of developing countries so that common persons there are not stuck with some 200-year old turkey of a translation that they can neither understand nor afford, you must be a religion. Still, Jehovah's Witnesses are not listed in the list that includes everyone else. 
Do not think that the JW organization will be miffed at not being included in the list. They may even draw satisfaction from it. "Good. Here is a list of the religions "of the world' and we are not on it," they may say. If there is one verse they take seriously over there at JW HQ, it is John 17:16, where Jesus prays about his followers: "They are no part of the world, just as I am no part of the world."
For that reason I will not go the RNS site and holler, "Hey!"”what is it with you clowns?!" The site is an offspring of the Missouri School of Journalism. It speaks of the "academic experts' that monitor all. I don't want to tangle with experts. Maybe they will try to pull rank on that basis. Who knows? Maybe they are right. Maybe I am not part of a religion, even if I do speak of the Bible door to door and keep the peace.

de Vienne wrote that when she submitted the final Volume I to Bethel, via mail I suppose, they received it without comment. She speculated about this and one possibility she advanced was that they ‘were incurious about their own history.’ In the main, I think this is true. They don’t look back all that much at Bethel—they look forward. 
And it is also true of me. It is not that the past history does not interest me. It is that so many things interest me more that I may never get around to it, even though I would like to. I read the book rather quickly because I told her I would write a review of it, which I did. Maybe someday I will come back to it more thoroughly. 
One other reviewer wrote of the authors’ “almost fanatical attention to detail.” That was also my general impression and it makes me suppose the book is probably the foremost authority on what it writes. They don’t appear to have any agenda at all, other than illuminating history—unlike almost everyone else who weighs in on the subject.

Paul didn’t write it this flowery.
It’s a little too soon to tell.

de Vienne wrote that when she submitted the final Volume I to Bethel, via mail I suppose, they received it without comment. She speculated about this and one possibility she advanced was that they ‘were incurious about their own history.’ In the main, I think this is true. They don’t look back all that much at Bethel—they look forward. 
And it is also true of me. It is not that the past history does not interest me. It is that so many things interest me more that I may never get around to it, even though I would like to. I read the book rather quickly because I told her I would write a review of it, which I did. Maybe someday I will come back to it more thoroughly. 
One other reviewer wrote of the authors’ “almost fanatical attention to detail.” That was also my general impression and it makes me suppose the book is probably the foremost authority on what it writes. They don’t appear to have any agenda at all, other than illuminating history—unlike almost everyone else who weighs in on the subject.

Wasn’t that the day that JTR quit Bethel?

Wasn’t that the day that JTR quit Bethel?

In Richmond Virginia, I once knew a Pioneer Brother who "worked" at nights in a funeral home, merely as a someone to be there with the stiffs, as apparently family or someone wanted someone there.  He LITERALLY got paid to sleep.
I thought of several practical jokes to play on him, but they were all too much work.

At Bethel in Brooklyn all brothers would be periodically assigned to either a few hours of after-dinner dish duty or a whole night of guard duty, which entailed walking through totally dark floors in the factories at Squibb (25/30 Columbia Heights) or the 4 main factories at 117 Adams. You would try not to bump into anything as you searched for "key boxes" with a flashlight. Then you'd turn a key and go on to find the next key box, using a page of ambiguous instructions instead of a map. If all the key boxes were hit correctly and in a timely manner every night, the Society could save a lot on insurance. Being the kind of non-sleeper that I am, I never did dish duty, and always swapped it for guard duty.
I was shown where a brother, 20-some years earlier, emptied 6 rounds into a roll of printing paper because he didn't know that rolls of paper can expand and contract due to temperature changes and the pops they make can sound like gunfire. 25 to 30 years earlier the Bethelites could still carry a gun on guard duty. This probably stopped in the 1950's, I'm not sure. It probably stopped soon after that shootout with the paper roll.