TrueTomHarley

Nana, there are some here attempting to divorce the murmurings of Moses from the murmurings of the Christian congregation headship. This verse will not let them get away with it. Thanks.

Is it a bad thing for parents to teach their children? It is spun that way in an increasingly irreligious world. And should a child take its parental training to heart, is it a bad thing to let him follow through on it?
Years ago during our homeschooling days, a local family was fined for violation of the child labor laws. They ran a small deli. It was nothing for their children to take turns at the register when they returned from school, and one was doing so the day Child Protective Services appeared. Homeschool pioneer John Holt pointed out that (not this case, but he had many others) this was the very reason children become delinquent - they are shut out of the adult world under the guise of protecting them.
Among the philosophical underpinnings of compulsory public education (nobody had a problem with voluntary) is that children ought be separated early from possible pernicious influence of the parents so as to be molded by greater society. Thus, schooling cannot wait until adolescence - it must start early. To this day, compulsory school advocates carry on about the imperative of socialization - which they maintain is only to be found in schools. If anything, their brand of it argues against them. People behave horrendously today - there are even teens who shoot up their schools. Yet they have all been 'socialized.'
It is not true that if you withhold teaching your child, he will grow up free and unencumbered and, when of age, choose for itself among life's rich cornucopia of ideas. No. All it means is that someone else will train him. 
When Witness parents are progressive - as all are exhorted to be - they will digest the family resources found abundantly in Watchtower publications and will produce emotionally secure children. Hopefully these will stand up a flood of propaganda that Christianity is passe or even undesirable. But even if they reassess later on in life, they have a secure foundation to build upon. At the very least, they will be comfortable speaking before an audience, something that terrifies many an adult.
 

Possibly God allows him to hang around so as to test us, for it does have that effect.

The story of the day – perhaps the story of many days if they can resist taking shots at Trump, is the furniture store owner who made his two stores shelters for displaced Houstonians. “Mattress Mack” McIngvale (don’t you love the guy already?), ever philanthropic, says the city has helped him through tough times and now he will give back.

The generous deed put “poor” Joel Osteen in a bad light, for he was roundly condemned the day before for not opening his mega-church to the homeless - it seats 17,000. One fellow on Twitter declared the score: Publicity Capitalism 1, Prosperity Gospel 0.

This is unfair. Why credit publicity capitalism? That is merely the tool employed. Mattress Mack credits his Catholic faith. “I was raised as a Catholic. I continued my Catholic faith throughout my life, trying to do the right thing,” he says.
A good deed is a good deed. Credit it instantly and unbegrudgingly. It doesn’t mean I’m going Catholic on anyone. It doesn’t mean I think the overall picture favors them. But a good deed is a good deed.

And before slamming Joel too much, one must ask what do Jehovah’s Witnesses do with their meeting places. I’m not worried here. Assembly Halls are invariably put to good use as distribution hubs for relief work, which starts almost immediately – its regular use is suspended for a time. Kingdom Halls are also put to good use, though regular use there is not suspended. Or is it? I don’t really know, having never been in that scenario, but I don’t think so. Witness families, however, are known for taking each other into their homes in a heartbeat.

As for Joel – look, I don’t care for the guy – does he ever wipe that smile off his face? - but neither do I want to take cheap shots. He did eventually come around. Was he shamed into it? Or would he have gotten around to it eventually, once access to his own building was made smoothe. You can’t depend on the media to relay things accurately – they are anti-religious. 

Nonetheless, Mattress Mack is the hero of the day. It’s not as though he had two cavernous buildings wide open. He must have had to have move his mattresses somewhere. Go there and buy one – take it off his hands. Or actually no. He would have just flopped his mattresses down and let people sleep on them. 

If the unrighteous riches are not of God's making but of this system's, why not use an unrighteous steward to teach a lesson with them? He uses money that is not his to reduce debts and make friends for himself.
If we are debtors to God (who isn't?) we also can use money that is not 'ours' - all of it, since it is not God's idea - to reduce our debts to him and make him a friend. How cool is that?
It's not a strict parallel, but it works in a quirky sort of way.

It takes a thief to catch a thief?
The illustration doesn't exactly line up with modern day principles of 'reason.' The components don't dovetail. But it is close enough that Jesus teaches a vital lesson with it.
To me, it indicates that Jesus is not enslaved to today's insistence upon 'reason,' which has not served its world particularly well.

I know this does not help, but as the narrator states people have criticized the campaign as dull, the logo displays: DAS TV DEULL. 
The English speaking person hones in on the last word and sees only DULL.

WHAT??!!!
ZZAAPPPP!!! There! That takes care of you. (you old hen)

This builds off the Witness assumption, held by few others,  that not all roads lead to heaven and that, if one would survive into the new order, one must serve God according to his standards and his truths. Therefore the ultimate goal in avoiding a family member who departs for different beliefs is to help him see he must 'straighten out and fly right' spiritually, thus re-uniting the family forever spiritually and otherwise. 
Absent this outcome, it is a lose-lose for both parties - the departing one merely moves up the hour of separation which will occur anyway at cut-off for this system. 
Some of what throws a wrench into this discipline for ultimately a good cause is that, in many cases, the departing one no longer worries about living forever - on earth or anywhere else. He or she has gone atheistic and have thought the remaining few decades a cool bargain, with no sense of being cheated from all eternity. When the world embraces atheism, all sorts of paradigms shift.

Perhaps I should take the time to read it but I won't. Probably the assumption that JWs have the truth is all one needs to know. 
For 5-10 years now, the word 'disfellowship' has not been heard in public announcements. Instead, you will hear that so-and-so is no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Surely if you have joined the Mormons, you are no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
What if someone drifted from Witnesses and five years later joined the Mormons. Would that trigger the announcement? Frankly, I don't know. The purpose of disfellowshipping is to separate an (in this case spiritually - not that I have anything against the Mormons per se) unwholesome influence from the congregation, but if the person does it himself, nobody chases him down. The reason I don't know is that it seldom happens. If people leave Jehovah's Witnesses, rarely do they go in for another denomination of churches. I'm sure it happens but I know first hand of no case. Oh wait - I do. It is a typical case of one who was disfellowshipped and over time came to think a religious connection good for the family, so drifted into a church less demanding than Witnesses, having lost appreciation for the things we consider spiritual gems.
My point is: it doesn't matter if there is an announcement or not. Joining another faith is, from our point of view, an apostasy, and no one in the Witness community would thereafter associate with the person - it's not that their arm has to be twisted by the GB - they know it from the scriptures. Far from being an extreme stand, it is the stand that any faith ought to take about their own members leaving for another religion. They don't do this usually, but scripturally they should.
Few people take religion seriously. They can't imagine making too much of a fuss over God, though they will go for the jugular when it comes to politics. Some churches would not erect such a barrier because they realize there is little that makes them unique and if you want to switch from one to another it is little more than swapping a Ford for a Chevy. When my dad, years ago when they were more serious about such things, wanted to marry my mom, the Catholic church said she would have to convert to Catholicism first. 'Forget that,' my dad said and they never saw him again. Having little unique to offer in a world not too spiritual in the first place, most churches won't maintain obstacles to retaining members. However, the Witness faith is absolutely unique - the combination of beneficial teachings are found no where else - and they take firm action to be separate from a world that has willfully strayed from Christianity.
So to answer your question: if they don't do it - avoid their apostates - it indicates that they have little to apostasize from. It indicates that they are sound asleep spiritually and they have acquiesced to the prevailing view that "all roads lead to heaven."

If you would maintain that we are not children and advocate challenging everything and everyone under the sun, especially within the theocratic realm, then you must take ownership of the world such thinking has collectively produced. Look around you. Are you proud of what your thinking leads to? Unfortunately, though you revel in independence, you will find not everyone likewise reveling agrees with you - and the situation inevitably deteriorates to the one you love to describe ad nauseum - to one where MEN struggle for GLORY AND GUTS AND HONOR, feeling the HOT BREATH OF DEATH and they stare eyeball to eyeball with one another, locked into BATTLE, and ....well, you can complete the rest.
The 'dad' in the car is not just the GB, or even primarily so. It is God and Christ, who both make clear they grant authority to men. For every verse (NONE actually come to mind) that recommends overturning authority, there are twenty that say we ought to acquiesce to it. Even villainous secular authority we are advised to submit to, for the king paves the roads and it is 'not without purpose that he bears the sword.'
The Hillary-Trump turmoil, unabated months after the election, is a godsend for American Witnesses. Not that we take part in it, but we can point out that it demonstrates how people froth and lose their minds over something having nothing to do with religion - I've even heard cautions of looming civil war - therefore perhaps they can appreciate how some might get worked up over God, who offers more than any human king does.
In fact, Russian officials (and Chinese) must shake their heads in astonishment, that their old Communist predictions are coming absolutely true, and that the West is succumbing to its own decadence and celebration of speech without restraint. They offer an alternative model and there are many persons who prefer a level of security even at the expense of some freedoms. Of course, they do not merely offer it - they OFFER!! it and they will off you if you complain about it too much. Don't think I am advocating for it. I'm just observing that the Western alternative is not exactly nirvana either.
Railing on endlessly about disfellowshipping the way you do is to maintain, as you have, that our personal happiness is the issue before all creation. It is the approach of the churches who say it is all about us - about our own personal salvation and relationship with Jesus. That's where you belong, for that is your thinking. Does God want a clean people, since a soiled one - physically, morally, or spiritually - is a reflection on him and makes him 'fake news?' FUGETABOUTIT! You would have us believe that it is primarily about not stepping on the toes - EVER - of any individual.

Careful. You have up till now suggested that from Putin on down, Russians all watch 'Leave it to Beaver' - that family ties mean EVERYTHING to them, and this is why they positively lose it - and rightly so - when they hear that a Witness family has been disrupted by a disfellowshipping. Are you now painting them as cold and uncaring? Putin knows where you live, you know, as PeterR reminded me - you provided him your address 'details' when you wrote in about the ban. Even if the purpose of your letter was to say 'attaboy!' he still has your address.
Did you also cheer on the Jewish pogroms in Russia? If I recall my 'Fiddler on the Roof,' Tavye's Jewish religion made he and his family shun the third daughter for marrying a Gentile soldier. It's outrageous!! Even Jehovah's Witnesses would not do that! What choice did the Czar have but to beat up every last Jew in sight and to leave it to another tyrant later on to take care of the ones he could not get to?

No, there was not a conclusion to the matter, and don't think there will be by switching to another thread. It is a fallacy to think that when you put persons in a room and let them loose, even if they deem themselves thinking persons, they are going to arrive at a conclusion that will not be summarily rejected by the person who didn't think it in the first place. It is classic human self-rule. 
JTR's comment is just above mine. Do you think he is ever going to come around to a consensus view? I don't think so. He has said what he has just said for 10,000 posts. And was there a consensus view over 1914? Or did JWI eventually wear everyone down with posts as long as the phone book?
When I was a kid squabbling in the car back seat with my siblings and whining 'are we there yet?' my dad - everyone's dad that I know of - would eventually whirl around and yell: 'if you kids don't stop crying back there, I'll give you something to cry about!' It's undignified to think we have not outgrown that model, and we all hate to be undignified. But that does not mean we have outgrown it. 
All this incessant sniping at the GB is little more than the back-seat kids of yesteryear responding to dad's rebuke: "do YOU like dad?' 'No, I don't like dad at all -he's mean. If only dad would go jump in a lake. Then we could be like Howie Hoodlimm next door and Willie Watever down the street - their dads let them do whatever they want.
 

I know. I have seen her and it is getting embarrassing. Someone should tell her that one time is enough.

I wouldn't recommend pursuing celebrity status for this reason - for every successful Witness celebrity there are two or three Michael Jacksons - but I think faithful Witness celebrities serve the cause well, like Coco, like the Russian (now American) punk rocker. The world revels in celebrity and understands little else. The punk rocker, I am told, generated floods of rare positive publicity in the Russian press following his exile in the West.
The world loves celebrity and will even cut Witness celebrities a little slack. Many here will not, and ESPECIALLY Witness detractors will wait for the slightest misstep to hurl it into our faces, but the world in general likes them.
I even think Selena - with her you-know-whats flying about, and her public thanks to Jehovah for letting her beat opponents into mush - does us well. It only sweetens the deal to learn that she was merely raised a Witness and was never baptized - thus she never agreed to carry about the Name.

I figured she could help me break into the business, so I dropped by. She eyed me briefly, and then pulled the trap door.
And she calls herself a sister!

I've been trying to answer you for the longest time but I keep making types - um, typos.   
Between the Supremes and Led Zeppelin, you are starting to reveal the arena in which you are a prophetess.

What does this one mean at Ezekiel 39:15?
"When those who pass through the land see a human bone, they will set up a marker beside it. Then those assigned to do the burying will bury it in the valley of Hamon-Gog...And they will cleanse the land."
Bethel has never commented on this verse, so I am not allowed to speak of it until they tell me what to think. (I just threw that in for @Albert Michelson and crew)
But if I could comment on it, I might offer that it tells how every last vestige of human thinking is cleared out after Armageddon, some of which are so skillfully interwoven by governments, business, contemporary thinkers and the like, that their effects are unnoticed, yet they affect us nonetheless. After Armageddon - gone!
For example, even without ill intent, we are hearing endlessly of the displaced in Houston where (at last count) 37 have died, and are completely ignorant - or it is mentioned only in passing - that over 1000 have died in India - same cause. Repeat this to Americans again and again, as with any other news story, and it plants the subtle notion - not easily dislodged - that American lives are the ones that matter. It is probably the same in all nations. 
Now it is an ongoing struggle. Paul says we are 'overturning reasonings against every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.' Every dividing thought, every undermining thought, every debased thought - thoughts that cannot be completely screened out even if we live and breathe jw.org - in the new system - gone in the new system!
Unless there will just be a lot of bones to pick up, and the mens' wives drive them, as mine does me to my howls of protest, to keep everything neat and tidy. 

I may have expressed something inelegantly but, in general, if it goes back from before I was born, I lose interest. If it also it requires eyestrain  - I am not an eagle-eyed kid anymore - it disappears almost entirely.
You have to be an historian for something that long ago, and that's not my thing - not for the sake of some piddly item that may have been no more than a bad hair day. If the man says he can't translate, what do I care? The fact is, it is translated by someone, they all remain anonymous there, who knows what was farmed out and to who? Of maybe God wrote it himself. (sigh...I'm being facetious here) The fact is, the translation exists and it get high marks. Not by Trinitarians, for it messes with some verses that cannot be rendered literally because it louses up their teaching. And there are some academics who look askance at the Name in the New Testament - inclusion of which is explained in an appendix. But other than that, it's well thought of.
If you have to go back 70 years to dig up dirt, there can't be much dirt to dig up. Statements play differently at different time periods - just watch a movie from that time, or reflect that John differs so much from the other three gospels because times had changed and the foremost needs of the congregation had changed with them. So I don't necessarily want to unravel mindsets back then that accommodated statements that today's mindsets do not, especially if I think an opponent simply wants, and cannot get his head around anything but, a sound byte.
Anyone can go back and have at it debating events back and forth and I'm not suggesting they can't or that it is a waste of time if they do. I'm just saying it it should hardly be considered mandatory after many decades, and a perfectly valid possible response is: 'who cares?' Even were a report from that long ago completely true, in our times complete scoundrels overhaul their image in far fewer years. So it doesn't interest me much to go there. Others will differ. More power to them if they do. But it's not mandatory.
Similarly, I have little taste for things having to do with chronology, because even if opponents were to be absolutely correct, it amounts to little more than misreading a bus schedule. In athletics, runners jump the gun all the time, and they simply restart the race; nobody makes a big deal over it. It's the runner sitting on his rear end at the starting blocks that you wonder about. Grumblers here ought to specify whether they still even believe we are in the last days. Some do. But some have gone atheist, and dismiss ISIS as just one of those things - why, there have always been bad people.
i like the truth also because it makes you nicer over time, when applied. I follow many sources on Twitter, which is the best way to get news, because you can choose your feeds. I choose all kinds of villains, along with the agreeable, so as to keep tabs on them. Few persons are as openly condescending and contemptuous than certain prominent atheists. Sometimes I worry that their cherished evolution is true and that they are the end result. If so, it's good-bye to the human race, for they do not suffer fools gladly. And a fool is anyone who disagrees with them.

(Gulp!) I have done this on the rare occasions that they behave and say something worthwhile.
Remember, even you-know-you says a good word every now and then. Besides, there is a certain air of comedy about this entire forum. Going for the jugular of your nemesis no matter what he says only lends it a ridiculous flavor.

(Gulp!) I have done this on the rare occasions that they behave and say something worthwhile.
Remember, even you-know-you says a good word every now and then. Besides, there is a certain air of comedy about this entire forum. Going for the jugular of your nemesis no matter what he says only lends it a ridiculous flavor.

I try not to be condescending. I don't think I am. 
Everything is subjective, though. Apparently, you think it.

I may have expressed something inelegantly but, in general, if it goes back from before I was born, I lose interest. If it also it requires eyestrain  - I am not an eagle-eyed kid anymore - it disappears almost entirely.
You have to be an historian for something that long ago, and that's not my thing - not for the sake of some piddly item that may have been no more than a bad hair day. If the man says he can't translate, what do I care? The fact is, it is translated by someone, they all remain anonymous there, who knows what was farmed out and to who? Of maybe God wrote it himself. (sigh...I'm being facetious here) The fact is, the translation exists and it get high marks. Not by Trinitarians, for it messes with some verses that cannot be rendered literally because it louses up their teaching. And there are some academics who look askance at the Name in the New Testament - inclusion of which is explained in an appendix. But other than that, it's well thought of.
If you have to go back 70 years to dig up dirt, there can't be much dirt to dig up. Statements play differently at different time periods - just watch a movie from that time, or reflect that John differs so much from the other three gospels because times had changed and the foremost needs of the congregation had changed with them. So I don't necessarily want to unravel mindsets back then that accommodated statements that today's mindsets do not, especially if I think an opponent simply wants, and cannot get his head around anything but, a sound byte.
Anyone can go back and have at it debating events back and forth and I'm not suggesting they can't or that it is a waste of time if they do. I'm just saying it it should hardly be considered mandatory after many decades, and a perfectly valid possible response is: 'who cares?' Even were a report from that long ago completely true, in our times complete scoundrels overhaul their image in far fewer years. So it doesn't interest me much to go there. Others will differ. More power to them if they do. But it's not mandatory.
Similarly, I have little taste for things having to do with chronology, because even if opponents were to be absolutely correct, it amounts to little more than misreading a bus schedule. In athletics, runners jump the gun all the time, and they simply restart the race; nobody makes a big deal over it. It's the runner sitting on his rear end at the starting blocks that you wonder about. Grumblers here ought to specify whether they still even believe we are in the last days. Some do. But some have gone atheist, and dismiss ISIS as just one of those things - why, there have always been bad people.
i like the truth also because it makes you nicer over time, when applied. I follow many sources on Twitter, which is the best way to get news, because you can choose your feeds. I choose all kinds of villains, along with the agreeable, so as to keep tabs on them. Few persons are as openly condescending and contemptuous than certain prominent atheists. Sometimes I worry that their cherished evolution is true and that they are the end result. If so, it's good-bye to the human race, for they do not suffer fools gladly. And a fool is anyone who disagrees with them.

I may have expressed something inelegantly but, in general, if it goes back from before I was born, I lose interest. If it also it requires eyestrain  - I am not an eagle-eyed kid anymore - it disappears almost entirely.
You have to be an historian for something that long ago, and that's not my thing - not for the sake of some piddly item that may have been no more than a bad hair day. If the man says he can't translate, what do I care? The fact is, it is translated by someone, they all remain anonymous there, who knows what was farmed out and to who? Of maybe God wrote it himself. (sigh...I'm being facetious here) The fact is, the translation exists and it get high marks. Not by Trinitarians, for it messes with some verses that cannot be rendered literally because it louses up their teaching. And there are some academics who look askance at the Name in the New Testament - inclusion of which is explained in an appendix. But other than that, it's well thought of.
If you have to go back 70 years to dig up dirt, there can't be much dirt to dig up. Statements play differently at different time periods - just watch a movie from that time, or reflect that John differs so much from the other three gospels because times had changed and the foremost needs of the congregation had changed with them. So I don't necessarily want to unravel mindsets back then that accommodated statements that today's mindsets do not, especially if I think an opponent simply wants, and cannot get his head around anything but, a sound byte.
Anyone can go back and have at it debating events back and forth and I'm not suggesting they can't or that it is a waste of time if they do. I'm just saying it it should hardly be considered mandatory after many decades, and a perfectly valid possible response is: 'who cares?' Even were a report from that long ago completely true, in our times complete scoundrels overhaul their image in far fewer years. So it doesn't interest me much to go there. Others will differ. More power to them if they do. But it's not mandatory.
Similarly, I have little taste for things having to do with chronology, because even if opponents were to be absolutely correct, it amounts to little more than misreading a bus schedule. In athletics, runners jump the gun all the time, and they simply restart the race; nobody makes a big deal over it. It's the runner sitting on his rear end at the starting blocks that you wonder about. Grumblers here ought to specify whether they still even believe we are in the last days. Some do. But some have gone atheist, and dismiss ISIS as just one of those things - why, there have always been bad people.
i like the truth also because it makes you nicer over time, when applied. I follow many sources on Twitter, which is the best way to get news, because you can choose your feeds. I choose all kinds of villains, along with the agreeable, so as to keep tabs on them. Few persons are as openly condescending and contemptuous than certain prominent atheists. Sometimes I worry that their cherished evolution is true and that they are the end result. If so, it's good-bye to the human race, for they do not suffer fools gladly. And a fool is anyone who disagrees with them.

Or you could just say 'it was 70 years ago. Who cares? Even if it was 100% faithfully reported, they've had plenty of time to shape up.' Everyone knows the world 70 years ago bears little resemblance to today.
If someone insists on acting as a 10-year old, there's no need to go there with him.