TrueTomHarley

I managed to torpedo even that. After the paragraphs carrying on and on about Tom’s misguided suspicions, I raised my hand and said: ‘In hindsight I was embarrassed over the whole thing, and I’m glad that I didn’t blow the brother in.’

Actually he probably was. Not exclusively, but that was probably in the mix. Jesus said they would be “lyingly saying every sort of wicked thing” about his followers. History records they were accused of cannibalism. While not pedophilia?
 
 

HeÂ’s got a point there.
The trick is not to primarily speak to him, but to speak to whatever audience may be in the background.

Some people are good at Whack-A-Mole

Some people are just waaaay to good at Whack-A-Mole

Some people are not good at Whack-A-Mole

I'll go along with this.
And as for the rather self indulgent "bantering" in this thread, isn't it time to call it a day and to wake up to what is really happening at this time and place in the history of civilisation?
Just look who's coming to dinner!!!!

It is too early for @admin. He gets up late and then has to putz around for some time before checking the mail. I’ll answer for him. As Monk says, he’ll thank me later.
Somewhat reluctantly, he finds himself hosting a religious JW forum, though he is not that way himself. No JWs on it are typical JWs because if they were typical they would be more acquiesent to their organization’s preference they not take part in such forums. One important reason their organization prefers that they abstain is the undignified mess that results when they do not.
For a variety of reasons, some Witnesses go there anyway, and, to be sure, there are parts of the forum largely innocuous. I avoid these parts and go right to the hot areas. It has helped me hone my writing, and about half of my ebook, Dear Mr. Putin - Jehovah’s Witnesses Write Russia, can be found in about 500 fragments scattered throughout. Mr. Admin is thereby my friend. I owe him.
As atypical JWs and their adversaries flail away, making points and counterpoints, some ridiculous, he has ‘lost it’ only twice to rebuke participants, once to say: “Jeez, you guys are a piece of work!” What could I tell him. That we’re not? 
It is so rare for him to chime in that when he does, it is like hearing a voice from On High. The only appreciable difference is that a voice from On High is unlikely to say, “Jeez, you guys are a piece of work.”

This is a very good point. Recently I read a report of women who had been kidnapped by ISIS. They had been exhibited in cages, driven about in the back of trucks, raped any number of times at will by multiple men , burned with cigarette butts when they resisted. THESE are the people John’s lying new friends try to equate Witnesses with? C’mon! Even @admin will cease to think this an unseamly squabble between co-religionists and recognize it for what it is: Decent people that may not be his cup of tea, though decent nonetheless, under attack from the despicable.
John does have one genuine circumstance that, in some measure, excuses his unhinged hatred. He has written, here or on another thread, of a truly horrific childhood involving sexual abuse. It had nothing to do with Jehovah’s Witnesses, a faith he discovered much later. But it appears to have seared him permanently. To that extent, I can sympathize with him.

Honestly, John, I don't know why you act as though I am your adversary. Have I not stated that they wet themselves at the thought an elder may glower at them?
I will go further to confess what I have never confessed before. Our BOE used to rent a prison bus to round up the publishers and make them go to the convention. They made me drive. I didn't want to, but they made me. Also, when they told me I had to drive, they made me applaud their words until I thought my hands would fall off. 
They publishers didn't want to go. None of them did. They used to hide in the bushes when they saw me pulling up in the prison bus. But the elders had ordered me to stuff them in nice clothes by force when necessary. Oh, how my conscience torments me not. I hate them I hate them I hate them
That's nothing! I have seen children actually confined in oversized parrot cages until they finished studying their lessons, at which time, if they were lucky, they might be fed a cracker.

I did NOT say you are loony. (Or did I?) What I said was that you so closely resemble loony that I cannot tell the difference. See? I am willing to put the onus on myself.
Imagine. Here I propose what has never been proposed before, at least by me, making a magnificent concession, and the big baby just keeps saying hateful things about the Christian organization. 
 

Judith, I think John is just plain loony in his single-minded obsession over one and only one thing. But I want also want to be fair to him. He was assigned the title of this thread. He did not choose it himself, and he has griped about it. It often happens that a thread starts to go in multiple directions, and then an administrator will break it up into separate threads, choosing what he thinks is the most appropriate title, oblivious to how the title subject himself may not like it. 
 It has happened to others. After slamming some ‘apostates’ I found myself heading a thread entitled ‘TrueTom vs the Apostates’. I protested. I don’t go out of my way to pick fights with these guys. I weigh in only like Elihu, when I spot three of them beating up on my friend Job.
My protest fell upon deaf ears. I was stuck with the role. So I warmed to the task and went after them with such ferocity that the same @admin that put me on the thread pulled me off it, slapped me with an A for abuse, and removed the entire thread, something I don’t think has happened before or since!
Should he criticize me for ‘attacking apostates’, I say, as did the Joker to Bstman: ‘I made you? YOU MADE ME!!!’ My, what a freak I have become.

In hindsight I spoke too sharply to @admin. I apologize to him.
He is our host after all. I appreciate it that he puts up with us.

In hindsight I spoke too sharply to @admin. I apologize to him.
He is our host after all. I appreciate it that he puts up with us.

In hindsight I spoke too sharply to @admin. I apologize to him.
He is our host after all. I appreciate it that he puts up with us.

Because it is a significant sub-theme of the New Testament. There is no NT writer that does not deal with it. Two entire chapters are devoted to it. Jude was about to write a bland letter that would have entered the dustbin of canon history, but
“I found it necessary to write you to urge you to put up a hard fight for the faith that was once for all time delivered to the holy ones.  My reason is that certain men have slipped in among you who were long ago appointed to this judgment by the Scriptures; they are ungodly men who turn the undeserved kindness of our God into an excuse for brazen conduct and who prove false to...” and so forth.
One having regard for the Bible can easily make the case that the genuine successor of first-century Christianity will also have voracious apostates, as they did. If they existed then in droves, why not today? Either that or the opposition melted away because Christ succeeded in transforming the world. But that hasn’t really happened, has it?
 
Possibly they have moved on, but the overall state of the world does not make clear that having ‘moved on’ is for the best. Gadgets have improved, granted, but an overall sense of well-being? Whether ‘keeping up’ in the sense you mean is a good thing is highly debatable.
Furthermore, if you think this is so horrible, show me the civility in the greater political world. Be sure not to miss the ‘gentleman’s disagreement’ involving the Supreme Court today. Show me the love-in between GOP and DEMS, or medical vs alternative, or atheist vs religious person, or scientist vs metaphysics. And make sure to tell me how the Russians and Chinese are allegedly hacking into Western computers so that say a friendly ‘hello.’
it could be argued that you are missing the most significant development of all time, as you lambaste those debating issues of eternity in favor of those squabbling over matters that will only be personally relevant for the few decades until they die.
End of rant.
Having said that, I can easily see how this could drive a guy nuts. Just for the record, I think some participants here are barely sane. I won’t say that I have never used the word ‘apostate’’ but I try to be sparing with it, in favor of such words as ‘opposer’ or ‘detractor’ And I often deliberately try to defuse super-intense threads with what I hope passes for humor.
 I stay primarily because I benefit by testing out lines that I know will be thrown back in my face & refine my own writing thereby, like a scientist studying data. I’ve been able to write a book absolutely unique in several ways in this manner. A writer not only needs a muse. He also needs a villain & there are villains galore here.
It is pretty rough on those who don’t speak the lingo, though. I do appreciate that. I hope that you take it in the right spirit when I jokingly put you entering the annual Conference of Internet Magnificents, casually mentioning your traffic so as to impress the big boys, only to be told ‘Big Deal. They’re all religious nuts. Come back when you have people who are in touch with reality.’
 
 

Because it is a significant sub-theme of the New Testament. There is no NT writer that does not deal with it. Two entire chapters are devoted to it. Jude was about to write a bland letter that would have entered the dustbin of canon history, but
“I found it necessary to write you to urge you to put up a hard fight for the faith that was once for all time delivered to the holy ones.  My reason is that certain men have slipped in among you who were long ago appointed to this judgment by the Scriptures; they are ungodly men who turn the undeserved kindness of our God into an excuse for brazen conduct and who prove false to...” and so forth.
One having regard for the Bible can easily make the case that the genuine successor of first-century Christianity will also have voracious apostates, as they did. If they existed then in droves, why not today? Either that or the opposition melted away because Christ succeeded in transforming the world. But that hasn’t really happened, has it?
 
Possibly they have moved on, but the overall state of the world does not make clear that having ‘moved on’ is for the best. Gadgets have improved, granted, but an overall sense of well-being? Whether ‘keeping up’ in the sense you mean is a good thing is highly debatable.
Furthermore, if you think this is so horrible, show me the civility in the greater political world. Be sure not to miss the ‘gentleman’s disagreement’ involving the Supreme Court today. Show me the love-in between GOP and DEMS, or medical vs alternative, or atheist vs religious person, or scientist vs metaphysics. And make sure to tell me how the Russians and Chinese are allegedly hacking into Western computers so that say a friendly ‘hello.’
it could be argued that you are missing the most significant development of all time, as you lambaste those debating issues of eternity in favor of those squabbling over matters that will only be personally relevant for the few decades until they die.
End of rant.
Having said that, I can easily see how this could drive a guy nuts. Just for the record, I think some participants here are barely sane. I won’t say that I have never used the word ‘apostate’’ but I try to be sparing with it, in favor of such words as ‘opposer’ or ‘detractor’ And I often deliberately try to defuse super-intense threads with what I hope passes for humor.
 I stay primarily because I benefit by testing out lines that I know will be thrown back in my face & refine my own writing thereby, like a scientist studying data. I’ve been able to write a book absolutely unique in several ways in this manner. A writer not only needs a muse. He also needs a villain & there are villains galore here.
It is pretty rough on those who don’t speak the lingo, though. I do appreciate that. I hope that you take it in the right spirit when I jokingly put you entering the annual Conference of Internet Magnificents, casually mentioning your traffic so as to impress the big boys, only to be told ‘Big Deal. They’re all religious nuts. Come back when you have people who are in touch with reality.’
 
 

Your turn will come, buster.

Your turn will come, buster.

And how many pages and pages did it take for you to finally admit that I was exactly right about Sarah and the Terminator?
If you didn’t obfuscate so much, you’d have an answer to every one of your petulant questions by now.
Do you think that you are the only one? If someone so much as farts at Bethel, Jack starts a thread on it, and I have to answer that, too, don’t I?
And don’t forget my latest project: upvoting @Annaand then downvoting her for the same comment on another forum. And then I have to deal with John demanding why I am doing it? Is he crazy? It is like the eggheads at (disgraced) Bill Cosby’s old high school running around saying ‘Why is there air?’ Only the gym teacher knew the answer. ‘There’s air to blow up volleyballs and footballs and basketballs!

She will. ThatÂ’s all that really matters.

She will. ThatÂ’s all that really matters.

That's some LAX security!

I’m on it. It may take a while, though.

Do you mean the court whose demand was overturned by a higher court as overreach, so that, in reality it was more like the thief becoming annoyed with his target for wasting time forking over the goods?
Wasn’t this answered before? Yet you barrel on as though it never was. No wonder some here think you are unbalanced and I have to restrain them.

Listen to @Gone Away, Shwiiiiiiii. He has a handle on reality 

WE ARE NOT!!!!!