TrueTomHarley

I learned that Scott Adams is peeved when you bend his work to further your inane and incessant complaints about the Witness organization—complaints that he knows nothing about and would not side with you if he did.
It is inherently more noble to build something than it is to take the wrecking ball to it. Everything about him suggests that he sides with those who build, not those who demolish.
Few Witnesses have any problem with their GB. Most greatly appreciate their work. The line that invariably brings the greatest applause at the Regional Convention is “Would you like to send your greetings to the brothers at Bethel?” Conventioneers look around themselves and everywhere see evidence of that group’s hard work. What! You think that Scott Adams will buy that they clap because they “have to?” No. He knows the machinations of loons when he sees them.

This is like when I “borrowed” Scott Adams’ car to travel to the Odd Duck convention in my fair city so as to make the point that you would be an excellent candidate for this year’s Duck. As I was hauled away in the police cruiser, I hollered. “What about the important points I have raised?”
Your dopey points have been made and addressed countless times on this forum, by me and others, and you didn’t have to hijack Scott’s work so as to run them still  through one more time.
This is the fellow who thinks that you are backward for still believing in God. Not only does he dislike the 85% that you dislike—he dislikes the other 15% as well. An odd ally for you.
 

There IS such a thing as paying attention.

I learned that Scott Adams is peeved when you bend his work to further your inane and incessant complaints about the Witness organization—complaints that he knows nothing about and would not side with you if he did.
It is inherently more noble to build something than it is to take the wrecking ball to it. Everything about him suggests that he sides with those who build, not those who demolish.
Few Witnesses have any problem with their GB. Most greatly appreciate their work. The line that invariably brings the greatest applause at the Regional Convention is “Would you like to send your greetings to the brothers at Bethel?” Conventioneers look around themselves and everywhere see evidence of that group’s hard work. What! You think that Scott Adams will buy that they clap because they “have to?” No. He knows the machinations of loons when he sees them.

In most cases, the reason to attack the head is to kill the body.
It is the game that Russia plays. The country has banned, not Jehovah’s Witnesses, but the organization that they use. Everybody knows that the intent is not to kill the “head,” but the “body” that is directed by it.
The policy is so disingenuous that ordinary people, like the cops, legitimately cannot understand the difference. They simply pursue a mission to take out Jehovah’s Witnesses. 
One wonders whether Scott Adams would approve of his work being ripped off to attack a people he probably has no beef with and may even admire. I suspect he would not approve, though he may be too preoccupied to pursue the matter.
He defends Trump, someone who he sees as representing ordinary people, and someone who he thinks is for that reason under continual, often ludicrous attacks, on every conceivable pretext. The attacks, he thinks, come from those who despise the common people, a group of “educated” elite who are “wise in their own eyes” but not in reality, and the ones that these “elites” have managed to indoctrinate.
No, I think he would not approve of people stealing his work to promote their own bizarre agenda. He is not one to go in for manufactured “us against them” scenarios, such as the ones malcontents use against JWs. He sees right through them and is likely to equate them with the non-stop attacks on the president that he thinks is standing up for the common people. That president gives ample evidence of being human. Scott does not attack him on that account. He defends him despite some flaws. If he were ever to devote his attention here, (a big if) I think he would draw parallels that would go the way of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and not their incessant attackers.
This is not to say that JTR is one of those who want to “kill the [Jehovah’s Witness] body.” He is more like the one who saws off the branch on which he sits, confident that only good can come of it.

That's OK ... I find it kinda cute.

I cannot see why General Mills does not have all the food products that they have manufactured since 1879. What is the problem? What is with those liars, anyway?
Too often when the scoundrels come up with something that they think will make Witnesses squirm, we accept their premise.  In most cases, we should question it. Look at it very closely. It is often wrong.
In this case it is that “spiritual food” should not change. Why should it not? It represents the light that grows brighter and brighter until full daylight, as in Proverbs 4:18. When you are “keeping on the watch” in light that is not so good, you see a lot of things that turn out to be wrong.
This is not true if you are sitting on your rear end, not “keeping on the watch.” It is not true if one expects spiritual things to be delivered like Santa Claus delivers presents. But if one gets the sense of verses such as 1 Peter 1:10 about diligent inquiries, careful searches, keep on investigating, or Matthew 24–“let the reader use discernment”—then it is true. If one is doing what Jesus says, “Keep on the watch” in light that is insufficient, then it happens.
It’s when people tire of it all that they start to log all the misses and near-misses. It is no more complicated than “Demas has forsaken me because he loved the present system of things” spun as though he is embarking on a lofty search for eye-opening truth. There is no reason that spiritual food should not change.
“Spiritual food” resembles physical food in that it exists to be consumed. It powers you for the moment. It has a shelf life. Who here has items of physical food on the shelf from 50 years ago? It serves its purpose and it is gone.
If General Mills stops selling Wheaties, it is not a conspiracy. It is not a ban on Wheaties. It is simply providing food more relevant to the present age. So it is with spiritual food. If HQ instructed ones to destroy all copies of the Aid book, for example, that would be a ban. But they don’t. They simply let things go out of print that are no longer relevant. 
Because infantile people who have tired of “keeping on the watch” because they have come to “love the present system of things” and who want to spin their previous “wasted” years as the fault of those who “misled” them, scour past publications to see anything that has changed and feed it into a wrong premise that it should not.
They don’t do it with any other field of knowledge. They don’t do it with matters of science, which also reaches wrong conclusions and finds itself backing out of cul-de-sacs, or which hangs on to wrong conclusions for the longest time due to pure human stubbornness or greed. As much as half of what is currently published in medical journals is wrong, say the editors of some of them—let alone what was published in the past. They don’t go back (or even stay in the present) to criticize that.
https://ethicalnag.org/2009/11/09/nejm-editor/
 
 
 

What Witness of Jehovah could not think of their brothers in Russia when reviewing Philippians, this week’s Bible reading? 
The imprisoned Paul writes: “Now I want you to know, brothers, that my situation has actually turned out for the advancement of the good news,  so that my prison bonds for the sake of Christ have become public knowledge among all the Praetorian Guard and all the rest.  Now most of the brothers in the Lord have gained confidence because of my prison bonds, and they are showing all the more courage to speak the word of God fearlessly.” (Philippians 1:12-14)
It is the case with Witnesses in Russia, isn’t it? They are holding up pretty well, by all reports—it can be seen in the public support they give to ones punished by the state for their worship of God. As in the first century, “most of the brothers in the Lord have gained confidence,” trial-some though their circumstances are. We are proud of them, and even wonder whether we would do so well ourselves. ‘Don’t think that you can do it on your own strength,’ comes the answer, ‘and you will do fine.’
The anti-cultist mastermind, Alexander Dvorkin, did not foresee it happening this way. Just after the ban went into effect in April 2017, he was “absolutely convinced that after a few years, the number of members of the organization will decrease dramatically, two or three times, because, when one cuts off its financial foundation, its ability to freely, without hindrance, recruit other people, to rent large halls and so on, then, in fact, people will lose interest and will very quickly disperse.” Now, two years is not “just a few years,” but it is not so far apart. He did not say “generations.” He expected his results rather quickly, and it is not turning out that way at all.
One is reminded of Satan’s taunt: “Is it for nothing that Job has feared God?  Have you not put up a protective hedge around him and his house and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his livestock has spread out in the land. But, for a change, stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your very face.” (Job 1:9-11) It isn’t working out that way. Our brothers in Russia are doing us proud.
Human rights advocates widely predicted that this would happen—it is not a circumstance solely of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but of people in general who are concerned with spiritual things. Similar fortitude is shown in other faiths as well. It is Dvorkin who, fleshly man that he is, totally misjudges the power of spiritual things to motivate. “But a physical man does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot get to know them, because they are examined spiritually,” says the apostle again at 1 Corinthians 1:14.
He drinks too much of his own Kool-Aid, and thus, when things fail to turn out as he anticipated, it is due to his own self-deluded assumptions. Dvorkin is playing the role outlaws of religion have played from before he was born, using state apparatus to squash enemies, and doing so under a guise of People’s Protector. His premise is wrong: that individual Witnesses are being “manipulated” by an evil corporate outside class. Instead, the ‘outside’ class IS them, merely in the organized form that members know is necessary to best implement the faith that they have chosen. They are not like the munchkins of his imagination, delighted that the wicked witch is destroyed. They recognize his attack as the attack on Christianity that it is.
We see this all the time—enemies impose their own standards on spiritual things, and then draw wrong conclusions when things do not turn out as they have anticipated. It is seen when they make the self-determination that religious things cannot change, as secular and scientific things do, and that should Witnesses see that some teachings have “flip-flopped,” they will be outraged at having been “misled.” How can people be so nuts? They change all the time—it is called “tacking” and the “ever brightening light”—completely above board and nobody has ever said otherwise. 
Still, the changes that are made are analogous to details, roughly akin to looking at the map anew and rereading it. It happens all the time with science. Somehow, physical people have decreed that it cannot happen with spiritual things. Of course it can. It is their own presumption of everything religious being autocratic, ironclad, and unyielding, that stymies them. It may not be so fluid—‘the each his own!—as the world they have chosen, but it is far from inflexible.  Moveover, the essential building blocks of the faith—defusing the ‘immortality’ of the soul, establishing the non-Trinitarian nature of God, the reason as to why he allows suffering and evil, along with the Name that he says he wants sanctified—these things have been firmly in place for over a century.
The Russian brothers are doing very well, thank you very much—“in no way being frightened by [their] opponents. This very thing is a proof of destruction for them, but of salvation for you; and this is from God.” (Philippians 1:28)
“Surely the people are but green grass. The green grass dries up, The blossom withers, But the word of our God endures forever.” (Isaiah 40:8) So. Dvorkin thinks he will kill off the green grass, like a dog peeing on it? Time will tell. So far his dream is not coming true.

photo: persecution 2, by dr zoidberg 

What Witness of Jehovah could not think of their brothers in Russia when reviewing Philippians, this week’s Bible reading? 
The imprisoned Paul writes: “Now I want you to know, brothers, that my situation has actually turned out for the advancement of the good news,  so that my prison bonds for the sake of Christ have become public knowledge among all the Praetorian Guard and all the rest.  Now most of the brothers in the Lord have gained confidence because of my prison bonds, and they are showing all the more courage to speak the word of God fearlessly.” (Philippians 1:12-14)
It is the case with Witnesses in Russia, isn’t it? They are holding up pretty well, by all reports—it can be seen in the public support they give to ones punished by the state for their worship of God. As in the first century, “most of the brothers in the Lord have gained confidence,” trial-some though their circumstances are. We are proud of them, and even wonder whether we would do so well ourselves. ‘Don’t think that you can do it on your own strength,’ comes the answer, ‘and you will do fine.’
The anti-cultist mastermind, Alexander Dvorkin, did not foresee it happening this way. Just after the ban went into effect in April 2017, he was “absolutely convinced that after a few years, the number of members of the organization will decrease dramatically, two or three times, because, when one cuts off its financial foundation, its ability to freely, without hindrance, recruit other people, to rent large halls and so on, then, in fact, people will lose interest and will very quickly disperse.” Now, two years is not “just a few years,” but it is not so far apart. He did not say “generations.” He expected his results rather quickly, and it is not turning out that way at all.
One is reminded of Satan’s taunt: “Is it for nothing that Job has feared God?  Have you not put up a protective hedge around him and his house and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his livestock has spread out in the land. But, for a change, stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your very face.” (Job 1:9-11) It isn’t working out that way. Our brothers in Russia are doing us proud.
Human rights advocates widely predicted that this would happen—it is not a circumstance solely of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but of people in general who are concerned with spiritual things. Similar fortitude is shown in other faiths as well. It is Dvorkin who, fleshly man that he is, totally misjudges the power of spiritual things to motivate. “But a physical man does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot get to know them, because they are examined spiritually,” says the apostle again at 1 Corinthians 1:14.
He drinks too much of his own Kool-Aid, and thus, when things fail to turn out as he anticipated, it is due to his own self-deluded assumptions. Dvorkin is playing the role outlaws of religion have played from before he was born, using state apparatus to squash enemies, and doing so under a guise of People’s Protector. His premise is wrong: that individual Witnesses are being “manipulated” by an evil corporate outside class. Instead, the ‘outside’ class IS them, merely in the organized form that members know is necessary to best implement the faith that they have chosen. They are not like the munchkins of his imagination, delighted that the wicked witch is destroyed. They recognize his attack as the attack on Christianity that it is.
We see this all the time—enemies impose their own standards on spiritual things, and then draw wrong conclusions when things do not turn out as they have anticipated. It is seen when they make the self-determination that religious things cannot change, as secular and scientific things do, and that should Witnesses see that some teachings have “flip-flopped,” they will be outraged at having been “misled.” How can people be so nuts? They change all the time—it is called “tacking” and the “ever brightening light”—completely above board and nobody has ever said otherwise. 
Still, the changes that are made are analogous to details, roughly akin to looking at the map anew and rereading it. It happens all the time with science. Somehow, physical people have decreed that it cannot happen with spiritual things. Of course it can. It is their own presumption of everything religious being autocratic, ironclad, and unyielding, that stymies them. It may not be so fluid—‘the each his own!—as the world they have chosen, but it is far from inflexible.  Moveover, the essential building blocks of the faith—defusing the ‘immortality’ of the soul, establishing the non-Trinitarian nature of God, the reason as to why he allows suffering and evil, along with the Name that he says he wants sanctified—these things have been firmly in place for over a century.
The Russian brothers are doing very well, thank you very much—“in no way being frightened by [their] opponents. This very thing is a proof of destruction for them, but of salvation for you; and this is from God.” (Philippians 1:28)
“Surely the people are but green grass. The green grass dries up, The blossom withers, But the word of our God endures forever.” (Isaiah 40:8) So. Dvorkin thinks he will kill off the green grass, like a dog peeing on it? Time will tell. So far his dream is not coming true.

photo: persecution 2, by dr zoidberg 

It is good that you inserted the last two words. I hope you know what you are getting into. You can always back out, and so not be obliged to sing my sad song:
”And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy, and God, I know I’m one.”

You are going to fit in just fine.  

It is simply not that way.
Everything else is permitted to have a history, and in no case is that history one of straight line problem-to-solution. In every case they include wandering, exploring, waffling, flip-flopping, backing-up, dealing with human foible and imperfection. 
Only in the case of spiritual things do some demand a final perfected product delivered as though by Santa, without history.
And this demand usually stems from but a few common factors. Jesus says “exert yourselves vigorously” and people tire of doing that. Paul says grab hold of the “real life” and people say, “yeah, that means this one.” Jesus says “When the Son of Man returns, will he really find the faith on earth?” and Srecko answers in purple, “Not if I can help it, he won’t.”
There is nothing wrong with the present leadership among Jehovah’s Witnesses. Or rather there is—it is comprised of people. But that has always been the case, and if you complain to God that you will only stick around where there is perfection, He will say, “Well, you are no great shakes yourself. You’ll have to take what is offered. It will do you good to learn to yield, cooperate, and get along with each other.”
If you really think that the “real life” is what 1 Timothy 6 says it is, and that you-know-who is the ruler of this world, like Jesus says he is, then you realize that the two “worlds” being polar opposites in so many ways is going to cause you some present problems in this system of things. If you are inclined to stick with one, you will have problems from the other.

It is simply not that way.
Everything else is permitted to have a history, and in no case is that history one of straight line problem-to-solution. In every case they include wandering, exploring, waffling, flip-flopping, backing-up, dealing with human foible and imperfection. 
Only in the case of spiritual things do some demand a final perfected product delivered as though by Santa, without history.
And this demand usually stems from but a few common factors. Jesus says “exert yourselves vigorously” and people tire of doing that. Paul says grab hold of the “real life” and people say, “yeah, that means this one.” Jesus says “When the Son of Man returns, will he really find the faith on earth?” and Srecko answers in purple, “Not if I can help it, he won’t.”
There is nothing wrong with the present leadership among Jehovah’s Witnesses. Or rather there is—it is comprised of people. But that has always been the case, and if you complain to God that you will only stick around where there is perfection, He will say, “Well, you are no great shakes yourself. You’ll have to take what is offered. It will do you good to learn to yield, cooperate, and get along with each other.”
If you really think that the “real life” is what 1 Timothy 6 says it is, and that you-know-who is the ruler of this world, like Jesus says he is, then you realize that the two “worlds” being polar opposites in so many ways is going to cause you some present problems in this system of things. If you are inclined to stick with one, you will have problems from the other.

Sometimes they do. Sometimes they wear belt buckles announcing that “God is With Us.” Sometimes they say, “God and Country!” and “My country—right or wrong!” Sometimes they see a cross in the sky and lead soldiers to their death on that basis.
That’s because the ones most revered in popular press today do not believe in God. Duh.
 
The only one who can “ruin your life” is you. Give it a rest, will you?
Many are the ones who have let me down in my life. The most notable one is me. You pick up the pieces, thank God for the “discipline,” and move on. It makes you a better person if you are not constantly bellyaching at how others have “ruined your life.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses are a cult if and only if the Bible is a cult manual. The modern organization practices the discipline as best they can that is laid out in that book.

I scan these posts quickly to make sure that I am not on the current list of villains. If I am not, then I’m good.

Really? Everything possible must be tried in order to make a cult out of the U.S.Marines in as short a time as possible. It includes the idea that they can claim authority from Almighty God, Jehovah. And notice the "Ezekiel" video playing, too.
 

I have a little more respect for the ones who are not participating.

Huh. I posted a reply in another thread to someone who also writes in purple, and it fits better here than it does there:
 

Books that have gone out of print are not “banned.”

Well....I’m not getting ready for battle then.
You’re not exactly the boogie woogie bugle boy from company B, you know.

Put this in a readable font and I will look at it

This is a reference to a Caleb and Sophia video which would be seen as praiseworthy were it for any other cause.
If Sophia had had an epiphany and donated her ice cream money to the ‘world hunger fund,’ or the ‘world peace fund,’ or the ‘save the planet fund’ or the ‘animal rescue fund’ or almost any charitable fund, the video would be lauded. It represents training a child that not everything is about her, and that used to be seen as a good thing.
It is only because the malcontents here despise the Witness organization dedicated to the relief of ‘spiritual hunger’ that this video is so attacked. Were it for anything else, it would be lauded.

And to think that the old boy laments that his ‘loyal Watchtower’ kids do not visit him, when he devotes his entire life to ridiculing and undermining that which they most hold dear. One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

This is a reference to a Caleb and Sophia video which would be seen as praiseworthy were it for any other cause.
If Sophia had had an epiphany and donated her ice cream money to the ‘world hunger fund,’ or the ‘world peace fund,’ or the ‘save the planet fund’ or the ‘animal rescue fund’ or almost any charitable fund, the video would be lauded. It represents training a child that not everything is about her, and that used to be seen as a good thing.
It is only because the malcontents here despise the Witness organization dedicated to the relief of ‘spiritual hunger’ that this video is so attacked. Were it for anything else, it would be lauded.

That mutt has a lot more artistic and business savvy than I was aware of.

This is a reference to a Caleb and Sophia video which would be seen as praiseworthy were it for any other cause.
If Sophia had had an epiphany and donated her ice cream money to the ‘world hunger fund,’ or the ‘world peace fund,’ or the ‘save the planet fund’ or the ‘animal rescue fund’ or almost any charitable fund, the video would be lauded. It represents training a child that not everything is about her, and that used to be seen as a good thing.
It is only because the malcontents here despise the Witness organization dedicated to the relief of ‘spiritual hunger’ that this video is so attacked. Were it for anything else, it would be lauded.