TrueTomHarley

You’d better be older than 37. That’s all I can say.
Get off this forum and spend some time with her, John. Seriously. There are better things for you to do than piss away your time here. It probably is getting on her nerves, Someone will arise to take your place, I am sure. You needn’t worry about that.
Find some peace and enjoyment in your life. Mend fences with the faith if you can. But since that seems all but impossible, just drop back to the original advice: spend some time with her. You are more likely to find peace and enjoyment there than here.

No. @Srecko Sostaris the one who raised the subject. Take it up with him.

And it is how it always has been. And it is how it should be.
The “uneducated and ordinary” governing men of Acts 4:13 always remained uneducated and ordinary. The “For you see his calling of you, brothers, that there are not many wise in a fleshly way” of 1 Corinthians 1:26 always remained the case. The “wise and intellectual ones” that do not think Jesus’ teaching worth their time never reassesse their view.
Those identifying themselves as Christian are often embarrassed over this, and seek to present it as a distressing circumstance that they grew out of—“Yes, we may have started out lowly, but look at how we have pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps!” they say. They should not reason this way.
If the education of this world was worth the paper it was printed on, it would have been reflected in better conditions today. Surely today’s education model must take responsibility for the world is has collectively created. Very seldom are national leaders poorly educated. Typically they have gone to the finest universities.
Usually when something doesn’t work, it is discarded. In the case of “education,” however, the assumption is that more of it is needed—education is the way out, its advocates say. 
Generally speaking, those of the greater world are smarter than us. However, most of their schemes will come to nothing because they do not know how to get along; they do not know how to overcome greed; they do not know how to overcome class division or racial division. They sell what knowledge that they do have—you’d better have substantial funds on hand, or plan on going into deep debt—to benefit from their knowledge. One “educated” person in the Witness organization is worth 50 in the overall world because they do not put up pay walls, nor engage in turf wars. They discard the baggage of education that so plainly has not worked and cherry-pick the parts—subjects of pure practicality and applied science—that do work.
A main subtheme that lies just below the surface of those who look down upon Witnesses is the latter’s sense of superiority due to having “higher” education—elitism is as strong as any force, and as misplaced, as any of the other ones that divide people and keep them from reaching but a fraction of their potential.

“THAT WAS MY DRINK I WANTED SHAKEN NOT STIRRED, YOU IDIOT, NOT MY CAR!
MY BEAUTIFUL ASTON MARTIN—WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO IT?!”

Why is it, then, that tracts of the past were written with more substance? Is it because they were all smarter back then, having gone to college? 
Why don’t you ask JTR about that?
(However, DON’T try to tap him for the next generation of tracts.)
No. They are simplifying the tracts to reflect today’s reading level. No need to read anything more into it than that.

You actually cut a pretty fine figure. Whatever happened?
This pic suggests that you were with Moses, and that whereas he led all the other Israelites out through the Red Sea, you hightailed it in your fancy car.

You bring this up so frequently (and HOW old are you?) that I have become curious over something:
Please post a full-length photo of yourself.
If, as I suspect, it shows you wearing spray-on pants, that will explain a lot.

You bring this up so frequently (and HOW old are you?) that I have become curious over something:
Please post a full-length photo of yourself.
If, as I suspect, it shows you wearing spray-on pants, that will explain a lot.

This is my own personal bitching thread, after which I will get back to my normal supportive self, with only occasional caveats.
What nettles me about the tracts, and many other things, is how we go on and on and on about what a blessing from on high they all are, as though THIS Item is the magic bullet that will turn the preaching work on its head, exactly what is needed at this particular time— and doubtless it will completely energize the work and swarms will thereby be attracted to the truth.
I wish we wouldn’t do that. I wish we would just say “Here’s a new tool. We worked hard on it. Give it a try and see how it works.” I even think that our failure to do it that way is where a lot of the underlying conception that the JW organization is “smug” comes from.

You know, it IS a remarkable coincidence. I can see why you might think it. However Billy takes digs at everyone—even me, sometimes, though at the moment there is an tenuous truce between us.

There is more than one person named John. Why would you think that I am speaking of you?

Where I live, official stats reckon that 75% of under 30s have no religious thought at any time. I would concur from experience that this a likely proportion, and many 30-50 year olds are not far behind.
However, the questions that our tracts provide a spritual answer to, they have all the time. It is just that they do not look to a God to provide answers to them. I think the tracts provide a very useful function in that they offer a route rather than an argument. When presented with our alternative view on things, if a person is delivering the message, then the receiver has to capitulate. That is not always a pleasant experience, especially for younger persons who may suffer from a measure of insecurity. The tracts offer the same solutions as we do when witnessing, but without comment or valuation on an erroneous view. The experience is private and much less painful. Then when one of us arrives with the question " Have You Ever Wondered? then the householder may well have done so at some time even if they can't remember the tract that triggered the thought.
They work, as my own experience confirms. We don't have to like them, but we cannot deny their effectiveness. Let's face it, medicine doesn't have to taste good in order to do it's job. Wisdom is proved righteous by it's works, not it's appearance.

Of course not. The condemnation of those referred to at Romans 1:20 is not because of their ignorance or rejection of the Bible.
This is just a non-argument. Lots of the Bible was written specifically for groups, even individuals. That is not a basis for concluding that no one else is allowed to read from or will not benefit from it. This is ABC stuff. 2Tim.3:16.

No. This remark just reflects your personal orneriness and incessant faultfinding.
It is the humanity that they spring from that is the problem. They work mightily to apply the scripture in their own lives even as they recommend it to others. It is hard for them to make headway in the face of ones like you. Fortunately, you are in the minority (even if the majority here).
John carries on that if something is not perfect, then it is filthy. He doesn’t like the GB. Nor do you. He apparently wants a person or persons whose credentials and calling are as uncontested as they were with Moses. He neglects the fact that his (and your) counterparts back then did nothing but whine about Moses, also.
 
 

So do you. 
If we accept that the Bible is God’s prime method of communication to humans (which I do), sooner or later we are struck by the fact that very little of it is lecture. In contrast, if you went to college, almost all of it is lecture. What to make of this?
Much of the New Testament, not only is not lecture, but is ostensibly not even written for us. It largely consists of letters written to other parties, from which we glean things about God, his thinking, and his dealings. What to make of this, too?
When I mentioned this before and how it had influenced me, Srecko tried to bait me, asking whether I considered myself inspired like the apostle Paul (who wrote the majority of the letters). The answer is no. However, I am inspired by his example. If it is good enough for him (and for God, apparently, because it is included in the Bible canon) why should it not be good enough for me? It inspired in my blog an entirely new category: Skirmishes.
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/05/skirmish-970621-vastly-simplified-tracts-.html
They are not all from this board. Some are from boards that are private. When they are, I do not reveal anything specific of the writer, but only my reaction to it. John will pop a vein over this, but in all cases they merely come from people who do not want to have their 15 minutes of fame before the whole wide world. In no cases are they “the smoking gun” that he strives so mightily to locate. The true smoking popguns are to be found here.
He should consider a Hercule Poirot observation from one of the Christie novels—that in the course of a murder investigation, everyone gets cagey and evasive. The initial conclusion is that they all are somehow complicit, if not guilty of the crime investigated, but really it is because they do not want to explain other things that they were doing that have nothing to do with the crime but they had no intention of going public with—things that they imagined (usually correctly) were none of anyone’s business.
 
 

I don’t like the present series of tracts, but that does not mean that they are no good. I am very far from being typical. Nobody on this forum that claims to be a Witness is typical. I’m just carrying on some because I would love to see the ministry more fruitful that what it seems to me to be.
I and many others here write more in a day that most people write in a month. So I can hardly expect the tracts to cater to me. The last CO cited figures from somewhere that the average youngster today spends 7 minutes with print (as opposed to 10 hours or so on some form of screen time) Going simple is obviously the way to go. The fact that I do not like it does not mean that it is not just the ticket for reaching the majority. Education is usually a last-place priority in today’s world. 1/6 of the world’s population cannot read. Most people barely know that these persons exist, and count them as nothing. Watchtower produces simplified versions of material already written simple so as to reach them. 
I defend the use of (vastly) simplified writing, even as I do not personally like it. “They can learn to read a few grade levels beneath them, if they are not too full of themselves,” is a line I put somewhere. I’ve learned to work around what is unpalatable to me, telling the high-brow people to consider this or that bit of writing as an outline, nothing more. Or telling them to not worry about whether this or that in the Bible is literal, but instead to take it as a metaphor and see if they can discern the underlying meaning of it. Mathematicians do something similar all the time: assume that this or that condition is true just to see where that assumption leads them. If it proves fruitful, then they come back and reconsider any initial objection to it.
Just after 911, when people were unusually subdued, I grabbed that tract ‘Who Really Rules the World’ and had several good discussions with it. I’ve always liked Luke 4 for its clear explanation of Jesus declining Satan’s offer of gov’t control but acquiescing that it lay in his power to make the offer. Yes. There is a place for tracts.
Everyone here beefs about everything under the sun, so I have joined in on what is our main mission—the ministry.  I probably shouldn’t. It really is true that ‘bad association spoils useful habits.’ I’ll put it all on this thread and then do my best to zip it. The Bible is not a template for democracy, with every Tom Dick and Harry telling HQ how it ought to be.
 

This is my own personal bitching thread, after which I will get back to my normal supportive self, with only occasional caveats.
What nettles me about the tracts, and many other things, is how we go on and on and on about what a blessing from on high they all are, as though THIS Item is the magic bullet that will turn the preaching work on its head, exactly what is needed at this particular time— and doubtless it will completely energize the work and swarms will thereby be attracted to the truth.
I wish we wouldn’t do that. I wish we would just say “Here’s a new tool. We worked hard on it. Give it a try and see how it works.” I even think that our failure to do it that way is where a lot of the underlying conception that the JW organization is “smug” comes from.

That sounds like a Saturday Evening Post article. 9/14/40. I bought it on eBay, and will read it again to refresh my memory about what it said re Covington.

I don’t like the present series of tracts, but that does not mean that they are no good. I am very far from being typical. Nobody on this forum that claims to be a Witness is typical. I’m just carrying on some because I would love to see the ministry more fruitful that what it seems to me to be.
I and many others here write more in a day that most people write in a month. So I can hardly expect the tracts to cater to me. The last CO cited figures from somewhere that the average youngster today spends 7 minutes with print (as opposed to 10 hours or so on some form of screen time) Going simple is obviously the way to go. The fact that I do not like it does not mean that it is not just the ticket for reaching the majority. Education is usually a last-place priority in today’s world. 1/6 of the world’s population cannot read. Most people barely know that these persons exist, and count them as nothing. Watchtower produces simplified versions of material already written simple so as to reach them. 
I defend the use of (vastly) simplified writing, even as I do not personally like it. “They can learn to read a few grade levels beneath them, if they are not too full of themselves,” is a line I put somewhere. I’ve learned to work around what is unpalatable to me, telling the high-brow people to consider this or that bit of writing as an outline, nothing more. Or telling them to not worry about whether this or that in the Bible is literal, but instead to take it as a metaphor and see if they can discern the underlying meaning of it. Mathematicians do something similar all the time: assume that this or that condition is true just to see where that assumption leads them. If it proves fruitful, then they come back and reconsider any initial objection to it.
Just after 911, when people were unusually subdued, I grabbed that tract ‘Who Really Rules the World’ and had several good discussions with it. I’ve always liked Luke 4 for its clear explanation of Jesus declining Satan’s offer of gov’t control but acquiescing that it lay in his power to make the offer. Yes. There is a place for tracts.
Everyone here beefs about everything under the sun, so I have joined in on what is our main mission—the ministry.  I probably shouldn’t. It really is true that ‘bad association spoils useful habits.’ I’ll put it all on this thread and then do my best to zip it. The Bible is not a template for democracy, with every Tom Dick and Harry telling HQ how it ought to be.
 

Even Jesus used an expression for dogs, softening it to “little dogs”—puppies. That’s probably what I had in mind.

Even Jesus used an expression for dogs, softening it to “little dogs”—puppies. That’s probably what I had in mind.

Yes. When I signed on many years ago. They didn’t sneak up out of nowhere. Their role was known to me and everyone else from Day 1.
That is why you are not a Witness. Everything is exactly as it should be. Given how you feel, you have done exactly as you should. 
Yes. Every Witness takes about a year to do that, studying and trying things on for size. Throughout, they are in their familiar home environment and routine. Perhaps 5% of their time is spent in unfamiliar surroundings. 
College is far more “manipulative” than anything with a Witness connection. Students are typically separated 24/7 from their former stabilizing routine, environment, and family—a classic tool of those who would brainwash. Plus, if you study with Jehovah’s Witnesses, you know full well that you are going off the grid—the very opposite of what brainwashers do. Going to college, on the other hand, is no more controversial than seeking good healthcare.
You keep playing this as though it were your trump card, the coup de grace—as though it was something meant to be hidden. They are very open about it. They have called it “tacking.” As you say, they have called it “new light.” Don’t you think that means there used to be “old light?”
Not usually. Maybe never. I said that your last bit of reasoning was infantile. I said that because it was. I didn’t say you were. 
Not totally, no. No one here, to my knowledge, is calling for anyone’s execution. It is what they stand for that is the target. Everyone knows that. 
Not everything that you say is silly. I have acknowledged that some points you have raised are valid.  Not always to your face, because you are such a pit bull. But I have put them in other writings.

I gave an upvote here, and everyone knows that I am stingy with them. I don’t think I have ever given a downvote.
My upvote is conditional. I am assuming that little bit of Latin does not translate into “TrueTom is a fink.”

Having dispensed with the second part of this, let me go to the first.
I did not say that you were mentally ill. I have said that any mental health professional would say that the type of thinking that you were displaying at the moment (most typically “all or nothing” thinking) is unhealthy. That is not the same thing.
You also have to realize that I do not regard mentally ill as a pejorative label, and more than I would regard diabetic as one.

I gave an upvote here, and everyone knows that I am stingy with them. I don’t think I have ever given a downvote.
My upvote is conditional. I am assuming that little bit of Latin does not translate into “TrueTom is a fink.”