TrueTomHarley

WE ARE NOT!!!!!

She did not do this.
What she essentially said is that you are too close to a tree to properly assess the forest.

One loop. These are Unitarian pretzels, not those of Fred Rogers.

Thr reason for they always indulged pretzels is that they all got a kick out of the joke, ‘What do you get when you pour boiling water down a rabbit hole?’
Hot cross bunnies.

They hear ‘Turn me on, dead man.’ It is very distinct and impossible to mistake, when they play backwards Revolution #9.
Check your ‘Beatles checker’

We will learn to be focused. For if it is another issue he wishes to speak of, HIS topic is still on the forums, as well as the other 2016 topic of which such was continued into. I believe it is the same one of which Srecko Sostar friend, the yes-man, in "the House of Chloe" tried to trick others that I am in favor of the KJV when I had spoken about Textual Criticism time and time again, in a response I made to Mr. Butler about child abuse. You'd be amazed of how some will use a typo to use against you, and this was the case with the Trinitarian who tried to twist church history.

I admit I have never seen it as the GB placing a heavy burden on people by informing young men that masturbation is not the bees’ knees.

There is someone online (not Jack) who is doing his darndest to stir up trouble over this, mostly by cherry-picking statements and presenting them without context. I wrote up a post on it on my blog and here:
It is ever the pitfall of zealots that they are so eager to prove a point that, in their haste, they will grab something that proves just the opposite, yet continue to gloat as though have found the smoking gun. Such was the case when atheists at Friendly Atheist tore their hair out over “some truly horrific advice to women in abusive relationships,” from the December 2018 Watchtower magazine. They were to stay in them no matter what!
Well, that does sound truly horrific and there were many who immediately condemned the scoundrels who would give such a vile command. Others went to the article first, where they discovered that it says nothing of the sort. 
IsnÂ’t this just atheists depriving women of the right to choose? It is ironic because they generally claim to be champions of that right. The article makes clear that a woman always has a choice, that she need not be railroaded into an action just because it is societally popular.
Some leave amidst these very trying circumstances. Some stay. Either action works from the congregation’s point of view. They have the right to choose. How is that the Watchtower ‘urging them to stay with an abusive mate no matter what,’ the accusation of the atheists? If a woman wants to try to salvage a marriage, what business is that of theirs? It may be an unwise decision, or it may be the best decision she ever made, but either way, it is her decision.
Given the staggering cost of family breakup, emotional, mental, financial, and long-lasting damage to the kids, if a woman decides to stick it out more than athiests approve, with a view towards salvage, who is to say she is crazy? Possibly reading this post are veterans of two, three, four, or more failed relationships who wish they had put more effort into a given one. If she pulls it off, she has gained something very good.
These are not short-term hookings-up that we are speaking of, latching on to some loser that you cut loose as soon as you see what he is. These are marriages of years or decades’ duration. In some cases, they never used to be abusive but they have become so due to who knows what factors? Dignify the woman as having the judgement to decide, based upon history, pressures affecting her man, and factors only she might know, as to whether he should be jettisoned or not.  If the lout has to go, he goes. Just don’t let some third party push you into it. The choice is always hers.
It is as though the grumblers cheer at the breakup of a marriage, oblivious to the damage left in its wake. It is as though they would prevent one from trying to repair theirs. Let her try if she wants to, or even put up with one far from ideal, if that be her choice. Sometimes when you are between a rock and a hard place, you donÂ’t assume or let the atheists tell you that the hard place is really a bed of roses. It isn't always that way. I mean, it is not exactly as they will be around to repair the damage, is it?
Okay, granted, they like marriage over there in the JehovahÂ’s Witness world. Until fairly recently, everybody did, and considered family the bedrock of society. Witnesses consider it a divine institution. That doesnÂ’t mean others have to, but surely it means Witness women should be allowed to. They let their view be bound by biblical injunctions. Adultery is the one acceptable ground for ending a marriage, but even then, it does not have to be; it is always possible for the innocent mate to exercise his or her right of choice and forgiveness.
Several decades ago the Witness organization took note, as did all of society, of the increasingly visible ne’er-do-wells who, while they might not be unfaithful, were nonetheless ugly to live with. It took another look at 1 Corinthians 7, a chapter that deals with marital matters, and sometimes people are surprised at how it says a husband and wife both owe each other sex (no, not ‘on demand’ – don’t even go there) and should not be depriving the other of it. Specifically, they looked at verses 12 and 13: “If any brother has an unbelieving wife and she is agreeable to staying with him, let him not leave her; and if a woman has an unbelieving husband and he is agreeable to staying with her, let her not leave her husband.” 'Maybe a marriage mate’s conduct says he is ‘not agreeable,’ regardless of what his words say,' they reasoned.
For some time, therefore the guidance for women (or men) in not-so-hot marriages is that there are three conditions that any one of which might justify separation sans tongues clucking: if there is extreme physical abuse, if there is willful non-support, and if there is absolute endangerment of spirituality. It is at once apparent that much in is the eye of the beholder, so from time to time Watchtower publications revisit the subject, so that congregation members are guided by what they signed on for in the first place, and not unduly influenced by what is all the rage elsewhere. If the bad egg must be fried, let him fry. A woman always has that right. But she neednÂ’t feel railroaded into that choice by a flood of outside pressure.
Any Witness woman knows this, because she has read and considered the entire article, not just the cherry-picked paragraph, and she has taken into account how it fits into her overall framework of knowledge. You almost begin to think what causes the steam to emit from atheist ears is another possible benefit of the woman’s forsaking her right to leave: Maybe the ‘unbelieving’ husband will become a believing one. How is that a bad thing?  If the guy makes it as a Jehovah's Witness, he will have made significant inroads against what makes him such a loser in the first place. 
Read the entire article here.

 

At last, I think you have put your finger on the problem. That Anna is nothing but a big chicken. ?

At last, I think you have put your finger on the problem. That Anna is nothing but a big chicken. ?

That thought crossed my mind as I saw the picture, but then I held back from saying anything so that no one would get the idea that SuziQ's pretzel stick favorites were actually just "bite-size torture stakes." (Somehow "hot cross buns" seems like a much easier name for a marketing team to promote.)
By the way, some people might think that when Space Merchant mentioned that he was a unitarian, that this was the same as claiming to be a non-Witness Unitarian. Witnesses are Unitarian believers.
U·ni·tar·i·an ˌyo͞onəˈterēən/ noun THEOLOGY   1. a person, especially a Christian, who asserts the unity of God and rejects the doctrine of the Trinity.

One loop. These are Unitarian pretzels, not those of Fred Rogers.

One loop. These are Unitarian pretzels, not those of Fred Rogers.

You mean that your wife will not discuss these things with you? Whatever is wrong with that woman?
I hope you dial this stuff down a few notches at home. You cannot be easy to live with. If you go at it at home as you go at it here and your wife decided one day that she just couldn’t take it anymore, I’m sure you would assign the GB full blame for that, too.


I liked at the meeting Thursday, Proverbs 21:2, one of the support scriptures cited on the gem point of how Jehovah draws people: 
All of a man’s ways seem right to him, But Jehovah examines the hearts.
Everybody is right. Nobody states a fact that is wrong. Everybody states facts that are right. These are all matters of the head.
But how they are combined and how they are prioritized are matters of the heart, which Jehovah examines.


I liked at the meeting Thursday, Proverbs 21:2, one of the support scriptures cited on the gem point of how Jehovah draws people: 
All of a man’s ways seem right to him, But Jehovah examines the hearts.
Everybody is right. Nobody states a fact that is wrong. Everybody states facts that are right. These are all matters of the head.
But how they are combined and how they are prioritized are matters of the heart, which Jehovah examines.


I liked at the meeting Thursday, Proverbs 21:2, one of the support scriptures cited on the gem point of how Jehovah draws people: 
All of a man’s ways seem right to him, But Jehovah examines the hearts.
Everybody is right. Nobody states a fact that is wrong. Everybody states facts that are right. These are all matters of the head.
But how they are combined and how they are prioritized are matters of the heart, which Jehovah examines.

If you keep on knocking through regular prayer and continued reading of the Bible and yet are still not moving forward, apparently that is not enough.
Put aside for a moment the question of whether or not the GB is doing a good job; the point is that there needs be some organized human component of the divine/human interface to move God's work forward in a practical way. Otherwise, individual Christians end up merely flailing away ineffectively, and in time, are absorbed into the popular culture.

If you keep on knocking through regular prayer and continued reading of the Bible and yet are still not moving forward, apparently that is not enough.
Put aside for a moment the question of whether or not the GB is doing a good job; the point is that there needs be some organized human component of the divine/human interface to move God's work forward in a practical way. Otherwise, individual Christians end up merely flailing away ineffectively, and in time, are absorbed into the popular culture.

He should wipe that grin off his face if he only has $100 million. Why such a pauper, compared to Gates or Buffett?

I have commented before that strict avoidance of all earthy language (which if I recall correctly, reliably triggers your outrage, so that I have sometimes employed it just to get you going) is more a Victorian relic than a biblical one. When Elijah taunts that maybe Baal has excrement, I somehow can't picture him using that clinical word.
That said, there is one of the 'Church fathers,' I forget who, who rails against masturbation, painting it as a huge sin. 
Of course, that is not to say that we must follow the church fathers. It is to say, though, that condemnation of masturbation is not a product of the Victorian age.

I admit to a prejudice against anything having the suffix 'gate' attached to it. It strikes me as too stupid of a word device, a sure sign of running with the herd.
I haven't seen the videos, not being part of the intended audience.
One way that the internet can lie, even while telling the truth, is through endless repetition of something meant to be heard once, giving the impression that they talk of nothing else over there.
JTR (amazingly) is right. The Bible nowhere mentions masturbation. That said, it pretty clearly is an unclean habit, covered under the topic of gaining self-control, and when one becomes enslaved to it, it can warp one's personality.
I'd say the organization's coverage of it is just about right: occasional discussion in articles geared mostly for young people, with the caveat that it is not the end of the world should one suffer a relapse. The video JTR titillates over was never on the website. Ten years of conventions contain but one mention of it that I can recall.
Adultery and fornication, on the other hand, is mentioned all the time. The degree of repetition is meaningful, yet that measure is completely lost of the internet, the perfect forum where persons can assert themselves wise while proving themselves foolish, turning down all matters of context as 'strawmen.'

I admit to a prejudice against anything having the suffix 'gate' attached to it. It strikes me as too stupid of a word device, a sure sign of running with the herd.
I haven't seen the videos, not being part of the intended audience.
One way that the internet can lie, even while telling the truth, is through endless repetition of something meant to be heard once, giving the impression that they talk of nothing else over there.
JTR (amazingly) is right. The Bible nowhere mentions masturbation. That said, it pretty clearly is an unclean habit, covered under the topic of gaining self-control, and when one becomes enslaved to it, it can warp one's personality.
I'd say the organization's coverage of it is just about right: occasional discussion in articles geared mostly for young people, with the caveat that it is not the end of the world should one suffer a relapse. The video JTR titillates over was never on the website. Ten years of conventions contain but one mention of it that I can recall.
Adultery and fornication, on the other hand, is mentioned all the time. The degree of repetition is meaningful, yet that measure is completely lost of the internet, the perfect forum where persons can assert themselves wise while proving themselves foolish, turning down all matters of context as 'strawmen.'

This winter when I see reporters shivering in the frigid cold despite being dressed like polar bears I will look for two guys in the background strolling by in their shirtsleeves.

You actually do not believe exactly the opposite. You believe exactly the same. (which worries me)
The junk science Ford rails at is the sort of science that is not funded by big business and government. It is the sort of science whose backers do all they can to discredit, even sending sending in an advocate of ‘The Force’