TrueTomHarley

Oh sure! Here I was thinking that George had finally tracked you down and burned you at the stake! So much for the funeral talk I was preparing.
 
Oh sure! Here I was taking advantage of the situation to posit you and he were the same! (and then afterwards that I had banned you both) So much for my reliability profile.
 
Gasp! You don’t think JR was banned, do you? He could get pretty outrageous, but underneath it all  he had the heart of a pork chop. I mean, George, yes—of course—but there is hardly a point with him, because like a Whack-a-Mole, he is instantly back. But JR—his sense of honor would prevent him coming back under any guise.
He was so reckless in his posts, I guess I should be glad. But somehow I am not. To be sure, I muted his comments. But I usually ended up checking them out one by one anyway.
Oh wait . . .  You mean Juan. Yes, he almost blew a gasket responding to G’s vitriol. He did it well, too. Not that it had the slightest impact on the latter. (But now I am back to wondering what became of the pork chop. Hope he is well.)
Also hope you have been behaving during your absence and that family is well. Now that you are back, turn on the fire-waterworks: 
https://share.icloud.com/photos/036kN6vQPZ9wfl7PnyWb1BJSg
(Oops. My bad. I should not have posted video from the last theocratic gathering. We’ve been asked not to do that.)

Tyrannosaurus eggshells maybe. No eggshell that I’ve ever encountered.

What do you think happened to JWI and James? I banned them. I’m beginning to come around to your point of view. That’s how keen your powers of persuasion are.

Oh sure! Here I was thinking that George had finally tracked you down and burned you at the stake! So much for the funeral talk I was preparing.
 
Oh sure! Here I was taking advantage of the situation to posit you and he were the same! (and then afterwards that I had banned you both) So much for my reliability profile.
 
Gasp! You don’t think JR was banned, do you? He could get pretty outrageous, but underneath it all  he had the heart of a pork chop. I mean, George, yes—of course—but there is hardly a point with him, because like a Whack-a-Mole, he is instantly back. But JR—his sense of honor would prevent him coming back under any guise.
He was so reckless in his posts, I guess I should be glad. But somehow I am not. To be sure, I muted his comments. But I usually ended up checking them out one by one anyway.
Oh wait . . .  You mean Juan. Yes, he almost blew a gasket responding to G’s vitriol. He did it well, too. Not that it had the slightest impact on the latter. (But now I am back to wondering what became of the pork chop. Hope he is well.)
Also hope you have been behaving during your absence and that family is well. Now that you are back, turn on the fire-waterworks: 
https://share.icloud.com/photos/036kN6vQPZ9wfl7PnyWb1BJSg
(Oops. My bad. I should not have posted video from the last theocratic gathering. We’ve been asked not to do that.)

I would 100% embrace my theory that he is himself a disfellowshipped person exacting revenge but for the strong possibility of mental illness. 

You have just expressed the common and pedestrian viewpoint which typifies the shallowness of those who reside in the open club. However, your statement also provides opportunity for the rare person who possesses true wisdom and insight to let his brilliance and intellectual rigor shine brightly beneath all the sun. This is crucial to recognize. But where in the world is there in the world a man so extraordinaire? C’est moi, who resides—where else?—in the closed club.
The nugget of pure wisdom to be revealed today, which you would do well to write upon the surface of your brain: @Pudgy and @JW Insider are one and the same. They both have commented here forever. They both disappeared at exactly the same time. What further proof could anyone ask for?

I would 100% embrace my theory that he is himself a disfellowshipped person exacting revenge but for the strong possibility of mental illness. 

I would 100% embrace my theory that he is himself a disfellowshipped person exacting revenge but for the strong possibility of mental illness. 

I would 100% embrace my theory that he is himself a disfellowshipped person exacting revenge but for the strong possibility of mental illness. 

While you were away, some speculated that George is himself disfellowshipped and is taking his revenge by creating the most judgmental and unpleasant persona possible, and trying to present it as the way Witnesses are.

While you were away, some speculated that George is himself disfellowshipped and is taking his revenge by creating the most judgmental and unpleasant persona possible, and trying to present it as the way Witnesses are.

While you were away, some speculated that George is himself disfellowshipped and is taking his revenge by creating the most judgmental and unpleasant persona possible, and trying to present it as the way Witnesses are.

Okay, we have reached the point where discussion starts to fragment and can go in that direction for a time until the Librarian (the old hen) looks up from her bottle and charges over to scream at her pupils turned unruly. Let’s branch into something closely related about our ‘apostates.’
While they may not be lazy, they certainly are deceitful. They push for all it is worth the idea that all you have to do is disagree with the GB and you will be expelled! Well, what do they disagree with them ABOUT? It’s amazing how many of them go on to embrace the homosexual lifestyle or become activists in this or that aspect of the greater world, newly determined to fix whatever they think is wrong with it. 
Essentially, they don’t like the idea that Christians should be separate from the world. That is being ‘insular’, they charge, which has become the greatest of all sins. It’s not exactly a ‘gentleman’s disagreement’ that can’t even be tolerated, as they charge.
In fact, many of Jehovah’s Witnesses disagree with this or that aspect of theocracy. But they also put it in perspective. They know that in any organized arrangement there will be some things that don’t go your way. They also are modest enough to know that maybe it is they themselves who are wrong. We are, after all, being taught by Jehovah . Everyone knows from Day 1 God does not run it as a democracy.
 
 

Ray Franz made it seem that way, too, much to the annoyance of those interviewing him. This is after he had departed from Bethel and had written many bad things about them, but he thought this topic was far overhyped.
Nonetheless, I take your point, and have stated that those brothers wishing to portray it as though CSA could never ever occur within the Christian organization have inadvertently caused that organization much reputational damage, above and beyond anything to do with the crimes themselves.
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/04/lessons-to-be-learned-re-child-sexual-abuse.html
I am told by an elder of about 40, who is a relative, that these days elders strongly urge parents to report cases of abuse (only to find that many are reluctant) I accept this as the way things currently are, since this person was completely unaware of my interest in the subject or of anything I had written. 
 

This speaks to what non-biased journalists have pegged as JWs greatest problem—the religion is “insular”—and almost by definition, “insular” does not spill. 
The trick will be to shed the negative aspects of “insularity” without sacrificing its positive aspects. After all,  being “insular” and being the required “no part of this world” are practically the same. The very purpose of insulation is to separate what is desirable from what is harmful.
The verse I think of is 1 Corinthians 5:9-10:
In my letter I wrote you to quit mixing in company with fornicators,  not [meaning] entirely with the fornicators of this world or the greedy persons and extortioners or idolaters. Otherwise, you would actually have to get out of the world.”
The latter is impossible. The former is mandated. The trick will be to merge the two. 

Elizabeth Chuck wrote an article about Jehovah’s Witnesses and I would have preferred she write one instead about the PTA meeting in her town. It is a normal reaction, for it was news of a huge-dollar verdict against a religious organization I hold dear. Of course I hate to see it; that’s only natural. When you find yourself on the gallows you do not angle for a selfie with the hangman.
Still, if you must hear bad news, hear it from Ms. Chuck, for her news in this case is straight reporting, not one of the hatchet jobs we often get. The topic is the most white-hot topic of all, child sexual abuse, and temptations to whip it into fever pitch are not resisted by all. She does resist it. That’s not to say I might not write it up differently. With every story, it is a matter of which facts you put where. But she doesn’t make any up or deliberately misrepresent them. Having said that, it is not to suggest that even those who do misrepresent do so on purpose, as I will outline. Well…I guess it is to suggest that, but only to suggest. It is not proof positive. When your own people merely say that they ‘abhor child abuse and strive to protect children’, but otherwise do not comment, what’s a reporter to do?
Here’s what I like about the Elizabeth Chuck story.
First of all, it is not like the Matt Volz AP article, picked up by many sources, that expressed seeming bewilderment that “the Jehovah’s Witness cases haven’t received the same national attention” [as the Roman Catholic Church]. Is not the reason a big ‘Duh’? The Montana case abuse under trial was all within a family and church leaders were accused of botching the handling of it, though blameless themselves. It’s a little different than church leaders actually committing the abuse, something which is very rare with Witnesses.
Ms. Chuck correctly (and atypically) makes clear that a “two-witness rule” used by Witnesses “is only for internal modes of discipline and does not prevent a victim from going to the police.” She correctly points out that “there are very strict internal modes of discipline within Jehovah's Witnesses.” Yes. It is not an anything-goes religion. She correctly observes that being disfellowshipped is often a painful experience and serves as a negative incentive to do what might trigger it. So far so good. It might not be as I would phrase it, but it is certainly acceptable reporting.
She stumbles briefly, though not seriously, when she says: “Jehovah's Witnesses are a misunderstood and very self-enclosed group, despite counting some celebrities among its ranks — including Venus and Serena Williams.” She is right that they are misunderstood. The only footnote I would add is about her seeming acquiescence to the common wisdom that groups are validated by having celebrities in their camp, many of whom are among the most silly people on earth, living radically different lives than anyone else. However, the miscue is minor, and, after all, I make use of poor Serena Williams, too.
Ms. Chuck does her homework. She consults experts on religion, such as “Mark Silk, a professor and the director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn [who says of Witnesses] ‘They don't vote. They don't celebrate birthdays and holidays. They don't say the pledge [of allegiance]. They are not just another Christian denomination.’” It is not her fault if she does not know that the guy (likely) has it in for us, spinning his facts negatively, and the reason is revealed in his very job title: he is a professor at Trinity College. If you do not accept the Trinity teaching, you are toast in the eyes of many of these people. Nonetheless, what the professor about voting and not pledging allegiance is true enough. He does not mention that if nobody pledged allegiance to human institutions maybe the national king could not pit them so easily against each other in times of war, but that is beyond the scope of his information request. At least he doesn’t inaccurately charge that Jehovah’s Witnesses are disrespectful to country, for there are few people as scrupulous about ‘rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s’ (taxes) than they. Reporter Chuck relates the words of another expert: “"Whatever belief they have or mode of internal discipline they have, they have a biblical justification for it.” I’ll take it. It’s true. We don’t apologize for it. I prefer it infinitely over church reporters saying we are not Christian because we do not accept the Trinity. The reason we not accept it is that its scriptural support is based almost entirely upon taking literally certain passages which, if they were seen in any other context, would be instantly dismissed as figure of speech.
She relates dutifully the sparse words of the Watchtower organization that they “abhor child abuse and strive to protect children from such acts,” attributing the sparseness to “a penchant for privacy.” She takes it at face value. She does not imply that they are lying through their teeth, like Mr. Gambacorta did in the Philadelphia Inquirer, dismissing the words as ‘boiler plate,’ and even ending his article with an anecdote of spying artwork at the JW headquarters captioned ‘Jehovah loves children,’ and using it as a pretext to wink at his readers as though to say: ‘Yes, I guess we know just how they love them’ before returning to his Witness-hating base on a Reddit thread, where he is hailed as a hero. He made me so mad that I responded by letter, and when it was ignored I put it online (and I wish it got more play than it actually does, for it is good, not the whole picture perhaps, but what is?  It represents facts not exactly shouted from the rooftops. It offers perspectives not heard anywhere else.)
However, eclipsing her skill at side-stepping all these landmines is that she puts her finger on the real problem in the very first paragraph of her article: Jehovah’s Witnesses are ‘insular.’ She doesn’t even try to spin that into a crime, as do some. Most Witnesses would not agree to the label ‘insular’, but that is primarily because they are unfamiliar with it and unsure just what attachments might come with it. They will instantly, even proudly, acknowledge two closely related phrases: they are ‘separate from the world’ and ‘no part of’ it. It is a scriptural imperative, they will say, because if you want to lend a helping hand, you must be in a place of safety yourself. Not all will agree that life today is constantly-improving. Some will say the overall picture more closely resembles the Titanic floundering. Did I not just read that generalized anxiety has replaced depression as the number one mental health malady? Can that be because there is nothing to worry about in life today? I think not. It is the ramifications of these two views, society is ever-improving vs floundering, that causes most of the ‘misunderstanding’ that opponents of Witnesses speak of. Witnesses are ‘insular,’ biblically mandated, and here is an instance where that insularity has contributed to a significant tragedy. Witness leaders find themselves in a situation parallel to certain vehicles being exempt from normal traffic laws—say, cops and fire emergency vehicles. Yet, in making use of that exemption, a terrible accident results and the public outcry is so great that they are convicted even though following the law. Or, to apply it more accurately, public anger is so great that the law is reinterpreted so it can be established that they did break it.
I am not a lawyer. I can quickly step out of my depth. Yet most persons reading this section of the Montana child abuse reporting laws would, I suspect, agree that the Witness organization followed the letter of the law as stated. They make every effort to do that. The prompt appeal of any Witness judicial committee to their Branch organization is not to see how they can evade child abuse laws, as their opponents often spin it, but how they can be sure their actions are in harmony with them.
On the very bottom of the document ‘Montana Mandatory Reporting Requirements Regarding Children’ is a section labeled "Members of the clergy or priests are not required to report when the following condition is met....a member of the clergy or a priest is not required to make a report if the communication is required to be confidential by cannon law, church doctrine, or established church practice.”
Even “established church practice?” It seems extraordinarily loose, and yet there it is. It is a part of a doctrine called ‘ecclesiastical privilege.’ It has long been encapsulated into law, as has the privileged nature of the doctor-patient relationship and the attorney-client relationship, on the recognition that these relationships cannot function without the expectation of confidentiality.
If such is the law, why is the Witness organization found culpable despite stringent efforts to follow it? Because the war today is against child sexual abuse, deemed the most critical crusade of our time, and they were expected to ‘go beyond the law’ so as to facilitate that end. Thus, the law was reinterpreted so as to allow that they did violate it.
The Witness organization finds itself in a situation similar to that of Joe Paterno, the coach who was universally praised throughout his life as an excellent role model but then was excoriated beyond redemption when he merely obeyed the law regarding an unspecific allegation he heard of child sexual abuse but did not 'go beyond it.'  He followed it. He reported the allegation to his superiors. But he did not ‘go beyond the law,’ reporting it directly to police. When the allegation turned out to be true, his career was over, and even his life, for he died two years later.
If it is so crucial to ‘go beyond the law,’ then make that the law. This is exactly what Geoffrey Jackson of the Witnesses’ Governing Body pleaded for three times before an Australian Royal Commission. Isn’t that the purpose of law – to codify what is right? Make the law clear, unambiguous, and allow for no exceptions. Jehovah’s Witnesses are universally recognized for meticulously following secular law even as they are primarily guided by biblical law. Make universal mandating the law, with no exceptions. Requiring parties to ‘go beyond the law’ only enables Monday-morning quarterbacking to assign motives, invariably bad ones, to unpopular parties failing in this regard.
An article in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle dated November 20th, 2011 observed that: “it's a mistake to think that the failure…to report the abuse is a rarity....Studies over the past two decades nationally have consistently shown that nearly two-thirds of professionals who are required to report all cases of suspected abuse fail to do so....."I think that we fail miserably in mandated reporting," said Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Kristina Karle...” Is it not hopelessly chaotic to excoriate those who did their best to follow the law when two thirds of all professionals, for a variety of reasons, do not? Does anyone charge, as has been done with Jehovah's Witnesses by their opponents, that two thirds of all professionals do not give a hoot about children? Plainly there are other factors at work. Yet when the crusade against child sexual abuse reaches fever pitch only one factor is deemed to have any significance.
(The Democrat and Chronicle article is behind a paywall. Snippets of the above quote exist here and there, but to my knowledge, the only complete package is found in a JoePa follow-up article I wrote at the time. All is not lost. Your employer will pay to get you behind that wall, and probably already has an account. Alas, my employer is me, and he likes to cut costs, seeing no need to return there, as he already have what he needs.)
 
End of Part 1. Part 2 to follow soon.

It is true that I didn’t feel the love. But I may have egged him on. I have been known to do that. Thinking and Aruana did not, however. His attacks on them were provoked only by their standing up to him.

You have just expressed the common and pedestrian viewpoint which typifies the shallowness of those who reside in the open club. However, your statement also provides opportunity for the rare person who possesses true wisdom and insight to let his brilliance and intellectual rigor shine brightly beneath all the sun. This is crucial to recognize. But where in the world is there in the world a man so extraordinaire? C’est moi, who resides—where else?—in the closed club.
The nugget of pure wisdom to be revealed today, which you would do well to write upon the surface of your brain: @Pudgy and @JW Insider are one and the same. They both have commented here forever. They both disappeared at exactly the same time. What further proof could anyone ask for?

Nah, I just saw him grabbing coffee and doughnuts at the Gas n Go, making his way to the Tommy James and the Shondells concert.

But satisfaction brought it back, haven’t you heard? Is a pressing matter because the more I know about you, the more I can determine your credibility, your sincerity, your authenticity. So why do you hide behind a moniker?. Why hide if Jehovah values transparency, honesty and speaking the truth and makes us accountable for it? 
Self-awareness and Experience.  Feedback from Others. It triggers an emotional response. People can change and develop empathy and reflect on their behavior. Understanding the mechanics of condescension. Because they can still interpret tone, body language, and context to identify condescension. 

I loved the solid and generous response to this interaction🙏
😂😂 “The trick is not to sanitize the present—it is to desanitize the past”

"By sheer accident one fine blogging day I came across Brian, a Witness youngster who’d decided that the home team was wrong and that the atheists were right. The atheists! So he figured he’d better tell the Watchtower off. He had his letter of disassociation posted right there on the internet, building up courage to submit it to the elders. The letter contained six “blatant Watchtower errors.” He was worried about the consequences but brave enough to face them. Atheists were in the background egging him on:
"‘You could be with us! Forget the fountain of youth; we have the fountain of death! Fifty good years, and then you’re gone! No God to suck up to! No elders telling you what to do! You can be free!!!!!!!!!!’
"But it wasn’t the atheists who would face the consequences of Brian telling the brothers to take a hike. “What is that to us? - you must see to it!” the chief priests told Judas before he hanged himself. Formal disassociation would mean that few, if any, Witnesses would speak to him afterwards. Would the atheists be there for support? Or would they let him twist in the wind? Brian was not sure exactly how matters would unfold.
"So I told him. And I suggested how to better submit his letter. Shorten it. Delete five points. If any one of them is enough to justify jumping ship, why include them all? That’s just the atheists stoking the fire. Offer just one point, and then you have the option of discussing more at any subsequent meeting; you haven’t locked yourself in that way. ‘Look, it’s not a good decision, but if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it right.’ Furthermore, I challenged two of the points. Not vigorously, not condescendingly - indeed, the specific facts were not incorrect, they were just skewed in a peculiar atheist light. ‘Here’s another light in which you might see them,’ I wrote.
"Next thing you know, Brian has hit the books, uncovered the atheist ruse, torn up his letter, and deleted his blog, leaving the atheists shaking with rage! Trust me, I had no idea such a thing was going to happen. I was even a little sorry about it; I’d looked forward to commenting a few times on his site. They’re slippery, those atheists are, ignoring 2nd Peter 2 and the ‘Enemies’ campaign, masquerading as saviors of the human race. I don’t like them, and they don’t like me. One of them said online that I reminded him “of the ‘too clever’ Witnesses that were in love with themselves.” How did he know?"

I'll add a few other points to 'Why Remain a Witness when Bad things happen?' - all gleaned from this week's meeting. These verses all came up for comment.
'For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field under cultivation, God's building' - 1 Corinthians 3:9
it's nice to be in a field and to feel yourself cultivated for the better. Outside of the Christian congregation, you are on your own. There is little to help you become a better person and much to impede you. Some aspects train the mind but almost never the heart, and training of the mind is a mixed blessing unaccompanied by a trained heart: "Sam Harris gave yet another TED talk in which he asked: “Can We Build AI Without Losing Control Over It?” The answer is no; you’ll screw it up like you screw up everything, like you drove Albert Einstein to say 'if I had known, I would have become a locksmith.'"
In God's organization, all you have to do is go with the flow and you will be automatically improved. If you step on the gas, all the better. Of course, you must avoid the piss pots of 2 Timothy 2:20.
I like, too, how the priests of Ezekiel 44:23 will instruct the people about 'the difference between what is clean and what is unclean.' People don't know. We live in a time where what is good is said to be bad and vice versa. The young have been sold down the river by the old, who have swooned over every means of the trickery of men and every wind of a faddish teaching. Their 'students' reap what they have unwittingly sown and suffer for it, yet, stuck with only the moral compass of this system of things, never know why. The Governing Body sees to it that the Bible's teachings are undiluted and its beneficial doctrine preserved at the meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Of course, the meeting did not go without a hitch. The Largatherins made a fuss, insisting on their own teachings as they always do. Harvey and Irma Largatherin are - let us not mince words here - blowhards, pure and simple.

No. Billy belonged to our in-house whack-a-mole generator of souls. AI couldn’t crank out personas as quickly as he. They usually met the same end and for the same reason.
I can’t imagine AlanF presenting as anyone other than AlanF
He presented here exactly this way.
Last night at the mid-week meeting, criticism arose over Stephen’s reply to the Sanhedrin, that he didn’t actually answer their question. More than once I pulled a ‘Stephen’ on Alan’s gotcha questions and he invariably responded the same as that august body did to the evangelizer.
Then there was that time I signed on as ‘Dr Adhominum’ and tried to gradually draw him into a discussion of evolutionary psychology and the very recent hypothesis that boisterous flatulence evolved because it would quickly clear the area of predators, same as it does today with the general populace. To his credit, he saw through the ruse within 2 or 3 posts. Though, in typical AlanF fashion that he cannot be wrong in anything, even the most insignificant of details, he later insisted that he saw through it instantly.
These guys who bluster about their superior knowledge and just assume it puts them in the driver’s seat of anything usually get my goat. I don’t know how God can resist the temptation of stopping the sun in its tracks for a while just to throw off their calculations.

In a recent response to JR, I wrote:
”Key to me is Jesus words at Matthew 11:25
At that time Jesus said in response: “I publicly praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to young children. 
“What other topic is like that, in which young children get the sense of it but the wise and intellectual ones do not? I think it means that a person ought park his/her intellectualism at the door, because it doesn’t help. Per Jesus’ words, it may even hinder.
“In any academic topic I can think of, the wise and intellectual always have a leg up over the young children. Here, they lose out. Translation: Worship of God is not an academic subject and the biggest mistake one can make is to treat it as though it is. . . . 
“So, at least three factors exist that trump intellectualism: obedience, humility, and love. For the most part, those who frame discussion of faith as an intellectual endeavor make no mention whatsoever of these qualities.”
Alan may have had some of those latter qualities. But, if so, he displayed none of them here. But you only see of people what they choose to reveal, plus perhaps a bit of speculative  reading between the lines. I’ll allow he was ‘passionate’ and a more complex person than he revealed here.

I dunno. I think this is more like my son-in-law not going to another house until he has cleaned out my fridge.