TrueTomHarley

We sometimes make broad application of selected verses in God's Word as if there were no exceptions or as if they are true in every case. 
A legitimate example of this might be Heb. 6:18 "...it is impossible for God to lie." An example of another verse where we might not assume to make a broad application of is Proverbs. 16:7: "When Jehovah is pleased with a man's ways, he causes even his enemies to be at peace with him." Is that always the case? We might say it was true during Solomon's reign, but what about other faithful servants of Jehovah who obviously had enemies that were not at peace with them? (David, Jeremiah, Jesus, JW's today...) Could we reason conversely that if they/we had enemies, Jehovah is not pleased with them/us? Hardly. It's just that making a broad application to some passages raises obvious questions.
Another scripture to consider is that found at Psalm 119:165: "Abundant peace belongs to those who love your law; Nothing can make them stumble ("for them there is no stumbling block")." The conclusion often drawn from that is that "true" worshippers can't be stumbled. But the reality is that quite often true worshippers are stumbled. If fact, that is not only a fulfillment of Bible prophecy, but in line with the warning Jesus gives at Matthew 18:6: "But whoever stumbles one of these little ones who have faith in me, it would be better for him to have hung around his neck a millstone that is turned by a donkey and to be sunk in the open sea." So clearly both Jesus and Paul (Romans 14:21) indicate that our "brothers" could be stumbled by the choices we make (even if those choices may be "lawful" according to our conscience.) Is there a contradiction here? It might seem that way and has in fact to some (this isn't the first time this issue has been raised.) If you you look in the CD WT library at all the references (it will take a lot of time) you will see that generally these articles focus on one OR the other without considering how one relates or contributes to our understanding of the other - but not all. Either "nothing can make true worshippers stumble," OR "be very careful about stumbling or fellow worshippers by the way we act on our conscience."  Is it fair to assume that those who stumble are not "true worshippers" or "not of our sort" going out from us? Hardly, because Jesus clearly identified such as "little ones who have faith" - and yet could be stumbled. However, as mentioned earlier, not all articles present these verses as an "either - or" situation. Here are some comments from the WT that explain this seeming contradiction:
"True, were all Christians fully mature, there would be no danger of stumbling another: (Ps. 119:165). but since not all Christians are strong in faith and mature, we must exercise care."
"The person being stumbled to a fall might be a 'little one,' but that would not minimize the seriousness for the one causing the stumbling in this case. Why not? Because it involved "one of these little ons that believe." This would designate a believer in Jesus as the messianic Son of God. The belief of such "little ones" puts them on the way to everlasting life. So, if anyone willfully, purposely, inconsiderately caused such a 'little one' on the way to eternal life to take due offence and stumble out of the the living way into destruction, it would be tantamount to committing murder. It would show a lack of love for the one stumbled." 
So we can surmise that Psalm 119:165 basically refers to those who have a level of spiritual maturity, because they "love God's law" and "rove about in it," - (but that might not be true of all true worshippers). Likely these mature ones would have experience in applying God's law -  and eating "solid food" (as mature ones would do) and so not be stumbled by what might stumble newer ones. But those newer ones acquainted only with "milk" and with weak consciences, could in fact be stumbled and we have to be careful about that. 
Finally, depending of the severity of the circumstance, even mature ones have stumbled by what they may have seen/heard/experienced. Therefore, the admonition at 1 Corinthians 10:12 is important: "So let the one who thinks he is standing beware that he does not fall."
 

You're nuts Tom! Lol

She's nuts. IBID is the radicalized version of ISIS. I don't like them.

My only Bethel contact, and one I've let grow cold, as I've not kept in touch, once told me that the closer one gets to the 'inside,' the more challenge it can be perceiving God's direction. Friends will marvel at how God has supplied just the right understanding at just the right time, and he will say "yeah, it's only because so-and-so is too stubborn to...."
THIS is how God 'works in mysterious ways,' to borrow a phrase the churches use when their doctrines have painted them into corners they cannot get out of. Jehovah does use an organization - it is evident if only by its accomplishments and unity - he uses imperfect men who have differences and opinions, and somehow hammers out leadership from them. To suggest otherwise is to suggest our critics are right - that JWs are brain-controlled zombies. No, they are regular people, with differences even at 'the top' and yet somehow God makes it all work.
If there is one thing I would gingerly suggest we do wrong, it is the frequently repeated admonition to stay away from any 'apostate reasoning' because it is like poison. I see why they do it - because the scriptures state they should - and yet it leads to almost a superstition among some of us that mere ideas are poisonous. In fact, the ideas are not poisonous; what is poisonous is many of the people who are pushing them.
So when you get off-the-grid thinking from someone who is decidedly not poisonous, it is not necessarily a bad thing. Whether it's great to put such stuff out there publicly is for others to say, but since countless persons have served in capacities in which they gain a glimpse into the inner workings, and there is an internet upon which they can write, it is unavoidable that some will. Frankly, the best way to handle such writing if someone deems it objectionable is to ignore it and let it drown in the boundless sea of online verbiage. You (and I) by our frequent comments are ensuring that does not happen, somewhat to the chagrin of JWI himself, I suspect, who says he deliberately chose a obscure forum to unload without being in-your-face about it. He assists in his own mission by posting comments so long that 98.9% will pass over them. I do. That is, I skim - not because I am uninterested, but because I have too much on my plate. No one can do everything and I leave such matters to those who have more affinity for it than I. They will refine and shift and ultimately something will come down through theocratic channels and I will say: "yep, it must work, because of the '900 languages.'"
Is it possible to become full-of-oneself or proud from too much expounding? Of course. "Knowledge puffs up," Paul says. But that is a caution, not a direction to avoid thought on that account. Theocratic publications are also a product of thinking. There are other factors that serve to keep one humble, such as full participation in the ministry, the drubbing one takes from life experiences, and the recognition that we ought not get too big for our britches ever because we can all go Alzheimer's, cancer, or run over by a truck, at a moment's notice.
I like this. I have added the italics. It is the reason that John differs from Matthew, Mark and Luke - the former was written decades later and the needs of the Christian community had changed. So it is with theocratic writings.
 
Sometimes you can spirit away the old hen and see if anyone will pony up to get her back. I have found she is not in such demand as she apparently thinks she is. Incidentally, humor, IMO, flavored with just the right mix of ridicule, is a great way to confront the poisonous persons I speak of, (though one must be careful with humor, especially ridicule, because it does not translate well) if you are unlucky enough to run across them. Expressing outrage and accusations - please forgive me for this because I know where you do it, it is because you are jealous for pure worship, as we should be - only makes them gleeful at getting such a rise out of us and encourages them to do more.
Again, to quote you: "My only concern here is to allow visitors to this website NOT read here what they would normally be accustomed to reading in apostate sites."
Hopefully, they don't. I don't. (Having said that, the best way to get someone to do something is to tell them they shouldn't) The one time I deliberately did as an experiment, I was met with such nastiness that I backed out after a few days. They weren't nasty at first. They were effusive in their greetings until they perceived that I was not about to jump ship.

Not bad. Thanks for caring enough about your brothers and sisters to share what has helped you. I might add something re: Psalm 119:165 later. I'm sure those who need it most will find this especially helpful. 

On 7/31/2017 at 11:07 AM, TrueTomHarley said:
There comes a time when one must suck it up and move on - either stay or leave, but move on.
@b4ucuhear: Is that what I should have told my sister? My younger sister was sexually molested by an elder. She stayed despite that without making waves, until she started to see other things she found deeply disturbing and then she did "move on" as you say. Actually, she shouldn't have "moved on" because later on, most of the elders (the bad ones) were either removed or disfellowshipped - half of them were apostate (but that's not all they were up to). Of course nobody wanted to believe anything (even with concrete evidence) since they were regulars on the circuit assembly platform and on even on the district convention. It took about 10 years to sort itself out (should have been much quicker considering the evidence), but it did, (although it took other elders to step in and do what actually had to be done.) Still, 1 Timothy 5:24 will prove to be true if you wait, in one way or another. 
…….
TTH:  "This ‘superfine apostle’ in the 2 Corinthians 11:5 mold was a big honcho in the HVAC world and would freeze everyone out of the Kingdom Hall because he liked it cool - even locking the thermostat so nobody not under his control could touch it. One elderly sister declared she would no longer attend meetings – where was the love?
"It developed that this man planned to poison his wife so as to move in with another woman, and all the while maintain his position in the congregation. Joe Merlin sniffed him out in a heartbeat. ‘How can you guys be so naïve?’ he cried before one Body of Elders who could not believe what was right before them. But when the dust at last settled, one of them approached him: ‘You’re right, Joe - we are naïve.’ Sometimes Jehovah’s people are naïve. They are the ‘sons of the light’ whom the ‘sons of this system of things’ do end runs around."
From the chapter 'Dirty Rotten Lowlifes' in 'No Fake News But Plenty of Hogwash.'
……
@b4ucuhear I respect you for that. Knowing bad things can happen yet having the strength of faith and character to stay - as you seem - spiritually strong in the truth. Might I ask you to share with us what enables you to maintain your faith and dedication despite faith testing situations (whether you were personally in that congregation or not?)
……..
Why Remain a Witness when Bad Things Happen?
Here are things that have helped me. I’ll add some others, maybe.
First, the psalm that says if you love God’s law, there is no stumbling block. (Ps 119:165) Humans will let you down from time to time. God never does.
Second, Peter’s statement to Jesus when the latter said something outrageous. “Lord, where else shall we go?” (John 6:68) Exactly. Who else enjoys the basic spiritual truths and does the scripturally appointed work of Jehovah’s Witnesses? (Why would Jesus say what he did, knowing it could so easily be misconstrued? Can it be that he does so to separate the keepers from the bad fish?)
Third, recognition that the key is, not to try to sanitize the present, but to unsanitize the past. Meaning the congregation, Paul says that in any house there are vessels for uses both honorable and dishonorable, and one must keep away from the latter. (2 Timothy 2:20) Plenty of riff-raff back then, he is saying. The Hebrew scriptures even point to times and situations when God's people acted worse than the nations, so if they are instances today here or there, it should hardly be a shocker, even if it goes on for a few years. In OT times, it went on for decades.
Fourth, I like it that God mocks the wisdom of this world - wisdom which has given us the disaster we all must live in. From where is that wisdom dispensed but in the world’s system of higher education? Only Jehovah’s Witnesses eschew it, and despite that (or because of it) they have constructed a seamless system the envy of human governments that can’t reliably provide the most basic of services. We are the one religion of size that have not strayed from its ‘working class’ roots so as to suck up to the ‘better’ people. Acts 4:13 says the elites were astonished how the leaders of Christianity were ordinary and unlearned by their standards. That remains so today. Current GB members start out, not from a lofty perch above others, like in any other organization today, but from humble full-time service below that of most persons they later lead.
Fifth, a recognition that the crowd is always wrong. While some fear the prevalence of apostates will harm the true faith, I think, to the discerning one, it strengthens it. Hostility over Jehovah’s Witnesses is way out of proportion to any sins they have committed, and are often entirely bogus. Ann mentioned Muslims. They have tendency to produce murderous extremists and they have a sharia law that, taken seriously, does far more than shun transgressors, and savages Western notions of woman’s rights. Write an article about Muslims and you will receive many hostile comments. Write one about Jehovah's Witnesses and you will drown in hostile comments, though their numbers are far fewer and their transgressions far less serious. Don’t follow the crowd for evil ends, Exodus 23:2 says, or, as everyone’s mother said: if everyone was jumping off a cliff, would you jump too? If the crowd says the religion stinks, it must be good.
That’s for starters. 

On 7/31/2017 at 11:07 AM, TrueTomHarley said:
There comes a time when one must suck it up and move on - either stay or leave, but move on.
@b4ucuhear: Is that what I should have told my sister? My younger sister was sexually molested by an elder. She stayed despite that without making waves, until she started to see other things she found deeply disturbing and then she did "move on" as you say. Actually, she shouldn't have "moved on" because later on, most of the elders (the bad ones) were either removed or disfellowshipped - half of them were apostate (but that's not all they were up to). Of course nobody wanted to believe anything (even with concrete evidence) since they were regulars on the circuit assembly platform and on even on the district convention. It took about 10 years to sort itself out (should have been much quicker considering the evidence), but it did, (although it took other elders to step in and do what actually had to be done.) Still, 1 Timothy 5:24 will prove to be true if you wait, in one way or another. 
…….
TTH:  "This ‘superfine apostle’ in the 2 Corinthians 11:5 mold was a big honcho in the HVAC world and would freeze everyone out of the Kingdom Hall because he liked it cool - even locking the thermostat so nobody not under his control could touch it. One elderly sister declared she would no longer attend meetings – where was the love?
"It developed that this man planned to poison his wife so as to move in with another woman, and all the while maintain his position in the congregation. Joe Merlin sniffed him out in a heartbeat. ‘How can you guys be so naïve?’ he cried before one Body of Elders who could not believe what was right before them. But when the dust at last settled, one of them approached him: ‘You’re right, Joe - we are naïve.’ Sometimes Jehovah’s people are naïve. They are the ‘sons of the light’ whom the ‘sons of this system of things’ do end runs around."
From the chapter 'Dirty Rotten Lowlifes' in 'No Fake News But Plenty of Hogwash.'
……
@b4ucuhear I respect you for that. Knowing bad things can happen yet having the strength of faith and character to stay - as you seem - spiritually strong in the truth. Might I ask you to share with us what enables you to maintain your faith and dedication despite faith testing situations (whether you were personally in that congregation or not?)
……..
Why Remain a Witness when Bad Things Happen?
Here are things that have helped me. I’ll add some others, maybe.
First, the psalm that says if you love God’s law, there is no stumbling block. (Ps 119:165) Humans will let you down from time to time. God never does.
Second, Peter’s statement to Jesus when the latter said something outrageous. “Lord, where else shall we go?” (John 6:68) Exactly. Who else enjoys the basic spiritual truths and does the scripturally appointed work of Jehovah’s Witnesses? (Why would Jesus say what he did, knowing it could so easily be misconstrued? Can it be that he does so to separate the keepers from the bad fish?)
Third, recognition that the key is, not to try to sanitize the present, but to unsanitize the past. Meaning the congregation, Paul says that in any house there are vessels for uses both honorable and dishonorable, and one must keep away from the latter. (2 Timothy 2:20) Plenty of riff-raff back then, he is saying. The Hebrew scriptures even point to times and situations when God's people acted worse than the nations, so if they are instances today here or there, it should hardly be a shocker, even if it goes on for a few years. In OT times, it went on for decades.
Fourth, I like it that God mocks the wisdom of this world - wisdom which has given us the disaster we all must live in. From where is that wisdom dispensed but in the world’s system of higher education? Only Jehovah’s Witnesses eschew it, and despite that (or because of it) they have constructed a seamless system the envy of human governments that can’t reliably provide the most basic of services. We are the one religion of size that have not strayed from its ‘working class’ roots so as to suck up to the ‘better’ people. Acts 4:13 says the elites were astonished how the leaders of Christianity were ordinary and unlearned by their standards. That remains so today. Current GB members start out, not from a lofty perch above others, like in any other organization today, but from humble full-time service below that of most persons they later lead.
Fifth, a recognition that the crowd is always wrong. While some fear the prevalence of apostates will harm the true faith, I think, to the discerning one, it strengthens it. Hostility over Jehovah’s Witnesses is way out of proportion to any sins they have committed, and are often entirely bogus. Ann mentioned Muslims. They have tendency to produce murderous extremists and they have a sharia law that, taken seriously, does far more than shun transgressors, and savages Western notions of woman’s rights. Write an article about Muslims and you will receive many hostile comments. Write one about Jehovah's Witnesses and you will drown in hostile comments, though their numbers are far fewer and their transgressions far less serious. Don’t follow the crowd for evil ends, Exodus 23:2 says, or, as everyone’s mother said: if everyone was jumping off a cliff, would you jump too? If the crowd says the religion stinks, it must be good.
That’s for starters. 

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I have kidnapped @The Librarian If you ever want to see her again, (and I know I am taking a risk in saying this) you are going to have to dig down into your pockets and pony up. I figure if each reader pays $1000, that should be enough to secure her release.
There will be no special rates for those in full time service. I'm playing hardball.
Updates periodically.

To tell you the truth, he or she or it is so flabby it is hard to tell.

Can we see the first 30% of her for free? It'd be like 'proof of life.'

Okay, @The Librarian, I have worked through today's backlog.
FROM NOW ON I WILL CONFORM - MORE OR LESS - TO YOUR NEW IMPROVED SYSTEM. You can even blow this comment to smithereens if you want.
DO YOU HEAR THAT, BIG BOY? @James Thomas Rook Jr.LET'S TAKE IT OUT ON THE STREET! YOU AND ME, BIG FELLA! NO MORE PUBLIC FIGHTING! Let the poor librarian repair her busted furniture, tape up spines on the damaged books, put the 33 rpm records away that you have hurled at me as frisbees, and start afresh!

Give me some specific examples of EXACTLY how it was done back then.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I have kidnapped @The Librarian If you ever want to see her again, (and I know I am taking a risk in saying this) you are going to have to dig down into your pockets and pony up. I figure if each reader pays $1000, that should be enough to secure her release.
There will be no special rates for those in full time service. I'm playing hardball.
Updates periodically.

Thank you for this.
A person can only act upon what they know and have been trained to identify. If only the detailed instruction given at the 'Don't Give Up' Regional Convention had been given many years ago, for the obvious first line of defense in this regard is for parents to recognize potential dangers. But nobody did back then, not I, not you, not anyone who had not been specifically educated - and that was almost nobody. Feeling guilt is inherent with any parent contemplating difficulties their children have faced - who but the most insensitive has not been there? - but hopefully it fades knowing one did all one could have done with what knowledge one had at the time, allowing for human imperfection. Ideally, the children themselves come to know this in time.
 
If there is one thing modern times have taught us, it is how amazingly fluid sexuality is. I don't think anything is permanent unless one determinedly reinforces it. In the entertainment media are plenty of people like Ani DiFranco. She identified as lesbian early on and gained countless fans on that account. She betrayed and outraged them all by 'growing out of it' and getting married, now calling herself 'bi-sexual.' So we could all be, most likely, depending upon many factors, chief among them the environment we are immersed in.

Woe to those who pride themselves upon modern techniques of REASON and CRITICAL ANALYSIS. Jesus showed disdain for all of them!!!!!.
He declined to be questioned by those who he thought simply wanted to justify themselves. Or who had ill intent. Or who were deliberately obtuse. Did he ever allow himself to be subjected to cross-examination such ones?
He evaded questions. He raised instead counter-questions. He told parables and illustrations, which he rarely explained. He employed ad hominem attacks. He raised strawmen galore. (because God wants men or all sorts to be saved, including straw men)
I can think of only one time he answered directly: when he was asked point blank, under oath, whether he was the Son of God or not. (I assume you are not going to go that way)
I am doing my best to imitate Jesus, that's all. Of course, Jesus can read hearts and people can't. But when someone assaults the internet with 7000 BELLICOSE COMMENTS you can come pretty close!!!!!!!!!!!!

If the tone has turned comedic, it is because this is at root a farce with a decidedly tragic outcome.
@Jay Witness's friends try to recruit Tom Cruise on their mission to take out the Watchtower. Tom Cruise turns them down, not because the mission is impossible, but because it is ridiculous. He knows they are mostly hacks trying to settle old scores and work off grudges - who should have moved on in life ages ago. So they recruit a young woman, who they knew or should have known, had some instability to her personality, and they manage to secure her cooperation. 'Don't worry. If you or any of your friends are caught or killed,' they tell her, 'if that happens, we will issue a SPECIAL REPORT!' Did they try to set up their poster at her funeral?
So she rifles through the confidential files and is caught. Jay appears flabbergasted that headquarters is not cool with this. They 'interrogate her' for two days - it's all he can do to refrain from saying they waterboarded her. The 'interrogation' was so grueling that she reported for a second day. On the second day, it was discovered that her pilfering was not for some innocuous cause or due to some misunderstanding, but to spirit whatever she found to Jay's friends who have dedicated their lives to working against kingdom interests. Bethel showed her the door. 
"It was reported that when she arrived home, her Jehovah's Witness family and friends treated her terribly," Jay's SPECIAL REPORT tells us, as though they should have been cool with it or even commended her. "Treated her terribly' is a bit vague, isn't it? Look, they probably were not happy with her, but the point is, Jay can't even be bothered to check on that, so eager is he to besmirch his enemies. "It is reported" they "treated her terribly" is enough.
If Jay's friends must assign blame for the young woman's death - beyond the young woman herself - surely it is they themselves they should point to. Recruiting someone once a fine servant of Jehovah, perhaps someone dismayed upon finding all was not Santa and the elves - that they were real people there at Bethel, instead - and using her for their own ends. I'm tired of their hate. And now it has cost the life of a young woman.
Many of these ones have turned to atheism, so they are beyond all question "fighters against God." Some higher up here once told me I should use honey talking to these people, not vinegar. I am not able to do it. "Can't we all get along?" he apparently felt. No. We can't.

As food for thought, Suzie, if you feel guilty, we should not assume that they do not - brothers holding positions of authority. This is true even though they are not accused of anything personally, unlike the clergy of some religions, but of merely 'bungling' the reporting, not conforming to the world's rapid about-face on this issue - years ago, authorities would send a molester right back into the home, assuming rehabilitation was possible and was preferable to breaking up a family.
The GB is between a rock and a hard place. Where elders investigate, especially in cases of abuse 20 or more years ago, they may find, for whatever reason, that the family head does not want to go public. Perhaps all involved were family or extended family, and the head does not feel that calling in the cops is the way to go. Where it was not legally required, it was not for the elders to steamroller him and go over his head. That's why (2017) our brother pleaded with authorities to make it a requirement everywhere. That way, no one is tarred and feathered for not going 'beyond the law.'
Even if the family head has been conditioned not to report - an allegation provable only by anecdote - the type of evidence that is discarded everywhere else - a constant refrain of apostates, that does not alter the fact that family wishes cannot be disregarded by a theocratic organization, unless there is a specific law to the contrary.
Leadership by apology is in vogue today. How much of it our people should do is arguable - I don't go there. It's not my place.  Suffice it to say, however, that among determined enemies, a apology only stimulates demands for more apologies, and the more apologies never lead to forgiveness, but only demands for resignation. Thus, it plays into the enemy's greater goal of halting the proclamation of the kingdom message. This is not to say that everyone concerned over child sexual abuse has that goal. But many do, and they have used the situation to advance their own ends.

Thank you for this.
A person can only act upon what they know and have been trained to identify. If only the detailed instruction given at the 'Don't Give Up' Regional Convention had been given many years ago, for the obvious first line of defense in this regard is for parents to recognize potential dangers. But nobody did back then, not I, not you, not anyone who had not been specifically educated - and that was almost nobody. Feeling guilt is inherent with any parent contemplating difficulties their children have faced - who but the most insensitive has not been there? - but hopefully it fades knowing one did all one could have done with what knowledge one had at the time, allowing for human imperfection. Ideally, the children themselves come to know this in time.
 
If there is one thing modern times have taught us, it is how amazingly fluid sexuality is. I don't think anything is permanent unless one determinedly reinforces it. In the entertainment media are plenty of people like Ani DiFranco. She identified as lesbian early on and gained countless fans on that account. She betrayed and outraged them all by 'growing out of it' and getting married, now calling herself 'bi-sexual.' So we could all be, most likely, depending upon many factors, chief among them the environment we are immersed in.

Yes. It is a good reproof. I have endeavored to mitigate that remark elsewhere, saying we never know for sure who that verse fits. But it a point worth repeating.

"This ‘superfine apostle’ in the 2 Corinthians 11:5 mold was a big honcho in the HVAC world and would freeze everyone out of the Kingdom Hall because he liked it cool - even locking the thermostat so nobody not under his control could touch it. One elderly sister declared she would no longer attend meetings – where was the love?
"It developed that this man planned to poison his wife so as to move in with another woman, and all the while maintain his position in the congregation. Joe Merlin sniffed him out in a heartbeat. ‘How can you guys be so naïve?’ he cried before one Body of Elders who could not believe what was right before them. But when the dust at last settled, one of them approached him: ‘You’re right, Joe - we are naïve.’ Sometimes Jehovah’s people are naïve. They are the ‘sons of the light’ whom the ‘sons of this system of things’ do end runs around."
From the chapter 'Dirty Rotten Lowlifes' in 'No Fake News But Plenty of Hogwash.'

While I endeavor to verbally smash certain ones in the teeth with a baseball bat, I have, with some difficulty and with occasional regressions, learned to fight ideas and not people. The people are merely actors playing a role written out for them long ago. Sometimes in Hollywood, actors who have long played the villain sign on to play a role as a good guy. Hebrews 6:4 puts the damper on that somewhat in a spiritual sense, but you never know for sure who is described therein.
Yes, you are jealous for Jehovah and will tolerate no rivalry, as scripture says you should be. Believe me, I understand. To be sure, I was helped in my 'progress' by @adminslapping an A on me (abuse) and removing an entire thread before you came along.  It is still a challenge to separate the sinner from the sin when the former so obviously relishes the latter role. But I am trying. Even with @BigMouth I am making significant progress.
Though I am completely (well, partly) reformed, @admin has yet to imitate our Lord and Saviour, and extend forgiveness and obliterate my past record of evil. But the night is yet young. The fat lady as not yet sung. (No offense to @The Librarian) If I can restore my pristine reputation with The World Media forum, I will able to die with a smile on my face.

While I might be willing to discuss some things with those who want to remodel, that does not mean I am willing to discuss them with those who want to demolish. 
Especially when they have neither replacement nor concern over that lack.

Yes. It is a good reproof. I have endeavored to mitigate that remark elsewhere, saying we never know for sure who that verse fits. But it a point worth repeating.

I like the blog test. Write something praiseworthy of Muslims and you get a smattering of protests. Write something praiseworthy about Jehovah's Witnesses and you get so many howls that your ISP carrier threatens to increase your rates.
The Canadian website Bruce mentions has had to post a disclaimer: "We are not Jehovah's Witnesses. We are just trying to  report on them. Leave us in peace. We don't want to hear why you  think they are a cult!" They have not had to do that with Muslims although 1000 times more numerous.

Make them say "Shiboleth" to be sure.