TrueTomHarley

Many things are improving in these last days. Not everything is getting worse.
People have to clean up after their dogs, for instance. 

Like @xerodid a few weeks ago, you’ve paid up with yearly membership fee with this one.  
When did Sergeant Shultz become the model for today’s Christian?

Like @xerodid a few weeks ago, you’ve paid up with yearly membership fee with this one.  
When did Sergeant Shultz become the model for today’s Christian?

Not unlike when I staffed at a help desk for a time offering DSL support. One caller’s service had been inoperative from right out of the box. It had never worked. He wasn’t happy. Rubbing salt in the wound, just outside his city apartment window was a company billboard featuring a customer smiling broadly over his lightning-fast connection speed.

They were mountains in my back yard. I was always tripping over them, I had to weed whack around the base, the local teenagers would congregate on the dark side to smoke pot, and they were a general eyesore.
I prayed and prayed that they be moved. I don’t care where you put them, I said, I just want them gone. Next day I looked out the window and they were nowhere to be seen.

New book by a Jehovah's Witness. Can be seen on Amazon and EBAY. About the Global Flood. Gives a nice witness on last chapter.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/393452323344

https://amzn.to/2XikJqy

This was my father's favorite subject, topic and public talk back in the day. 😁
Thanks for sharing!

These are things I know nothing about. I wouldn’t even be able to list a gnostic faith if asked.
What Mediterranean rooted faith are we referring to? Christianity?
That’s what I’m talkin about. How anyone can swallow that stuff I’ll never know.

They’re not gnostic. They have no special secret source of knowledge. However, the Bible itself speaks to them in a way in does not speak to most. That’s not gnostic, but it leans a little that way.

They were mountains in my back yard. I was always tripping over them, I had to weed whack around the base, the local teenagers would congregate on the dark side to smoke pot, and they were a general eyesore.
I prayed and prayed that they be moved. I don’t care where you put them, I said, I just want them gone. Next day I looked out the window and they were nowhere to be seen.

They were mountains in my back yard. I was always tripping over them, I had to weed whack around the base, the local teenagers would congregate on the dark side to smoke pot, and they were a general eyesore.
I prayed and prayed that they be moved. I don’t care where you put them, I said, I just want them gone. Next day I looked out the window and they were nowhere to be seen.

There is a lot in regards to them that is somewhat confusing and contradicting. Even centuries ago, Bishops took issue with them, namely Irenaeus.
I brought this up before to a Trinitarian who I debated with concerning who is the Christ
 
Regarding Gnosticism it is a Christian view that isn't aligned with the core teachings, despite the fact some Gnostics believe that it does, namely Valentinus, a theologian of Gnosticism, who saw the beliefs being equal to that of Christianity.
Those who hold faith in the Gnostic view and adhere to its writings surged, resulting in them getting tangled with Christians in that time, this includes some Christian groups in the Mediterranean world, however until mid-late 2nd century, the Fathers of the early Church and or Bishops denounced them as heresy, which goes with what Irenaeus of Lyons had said about Gnosticism in his works. Others also destroyed some of their works, so unlike the Bishops, such ones took it to an extreme; cannot sleep at night knowing that written works of Gnosticism existed, they had to burn it.
Gnostics today believe they're view equates toc ore teachings, however, they are among the many misguided Christians today.
In short, after the Apostles died, things complicated up until and after the councils.
When you debate Mainstream Christians and Trinitarians for years, their response is always the same. Other times they can be deceptive and deviate from things, Bible wise.
To this day I still keep getting challenged by a UK woman who goes by the name Princess_Sherly, right now, in her words Isaiah 9:6, which confirms Jesus is GOD, you saying it doesn't mean that is you lying in the face of God. REPENT!
2 years ago there was a huge debate on God sending angels to take action, be it to speak a message, or deal with enemies of God's people. The open debate which she started at the time consisted of Unitarians, Jews, Muslims, and islanders who were against the Trinity, there was one JW who was in the debate as well, I believe his name was John Bee. She stated the angels were the Trinity. She pointed out The Trinity were the 3 men in Genesis who later destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, which is incorrect because we know the 3 men to be Angels, for God himself is not a man, the Bible even says this. In regards to the others there, she stated YHWH didn't mean Yahweh or Jehovah, it means Jesus, and she got demolished by everyone for saying that, and of course, the Muslims were clowning around because of that.
But she kept insisting. She later appeared in another debate video regarding a JW vs a Trinitarian, something of which I alluded to in my debate with @Cos regarding that Jesus is God's Son, not God himself.
That being said, this is why when debaters say someone can't debate, mainly if the exegesis is null or reasoning, those who step into the ring often make a fool of themselves, and when correct, they still abide by what is wrong, in turn, become road runners.

They were mountains in my back yard. I was always tripping over them, I had to weed whack around the base, the local teenagers would congregate on the dark side to smoke pot, and they were a general eyesore.
I prayed and prayed that they be moved. I don’t care where you put them, I said, I just want them gone. Next day I looked out the window and they were nowhere to be seen.

They were mountains in my back yard. I was always tripping over them, I had to weed whack around the base, the local teenagers would congregate on the dark side to smoke pot, and they were a general eyesore.
I prayed and prayed that they be moved. I don’t care where you put them, I said, I just want them gone. Next day I looked out the window and they were nowhere to be seen.

At the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm, in the Tennessee Valley, the Congregation had an Elder there whose garden was at the base of the mountain, and unless the sun was directly overhead, not much light would get to the vegetables.
He was a fine, theocratic Brother, and took as literal the Scripture at Mark 11:23 about the mountain being relocated, and prayed constantly that God would remove this mountain that shaded his garden most of the day.
After having casually prayed for the mountain to be moved many times, late one night he really "poured it on", with prayer and supplication, almost praying himself into a coma, beseeching God that in the morning, that cursed mountain would no longer be keeping his garden from growing.
Finally, he got to sleep, and when he woke up, the first thing he did was look out the bedroom window to see if that awful mountain was still there.
The mountain was still there.
He turned away in disgust at that mountain, and muttered to himself, "It figures!".
The moral of the story is this: There is a difference between faith in God doing something for you, and faith that something can be done.
.... perhaps at an earlier time in history people could work with quantum probabilities, where absolute faith equaled telekinesis.
(Re-read the Scripture in Mark again to see what it is NOT saying...)
.... after all ... to this very day we still do not know how the Great Pyramids of Egypt were constructed.

“As chairman of the resurrection Welcome Wagon, it is my honor to welcome you back from the dead. We have it set up so the guy who is resurrected, after a brief orientation, gets to chair the committee to greet the next group. I’m King David. You may have read of me when……um…….(gulp)……oh, hello Uriah. It’s good to see you.”

They’re not gnostic. They have no special secret source of knowledge. However, the Bible itself speaks to them in a way in does not speak to most. That’s not gnostic, but it leans a little that way.

Of course. “You can’t always get what you want,” as someone recently drummed to. Nobody gets everything his way. There are things about the earthly organization that are not as I would prefer. 
But the choice is not now, nor has ever been, between the people who are tacking this way and that and the people who are sailing straight and true without deviation. The choice is between the people who are tacking this way and that and the people who have sailed off the edge of the earth. The key tenets: no immortal soul, no trinity, use God’s name, kingdom a real government, everlasting life on earth, why God permits evil, exactly how the ransom works, what happens to the dead, preserved nowhere except in the realm where the GB presides—that has to make an impression with anyone in whom love of truth resides. 
I’m struck with how when people leave Jehovah’s organized worship, they never ever mention these tenets again. The very factors that drew them into the faith are now dismissed as though of no importance. It certainly is true of detractors here who would draw people away. The blemishes of humans taking the lead are drawn out, exaggerated, or even make up, as though they did not all have their counterparts among the first century apostles and presbyrs. Press the detractors for where they would have you go instead and they clam up. They have nothing to offer.
In the case of those who still believe in God, it is back to the land of churches, where in time, the bland junk food will reassert itself: All roads lead to heaven, God works in mysterious ;ways, Death of a child is because God needs another flower in heaven. How is that not like the dog returning to his own vomit?
in the case of those who have gone the atheist route, it is like a market crash where millions are transformed into hundreds. “Ah, well, they were only paper gains anyway,” says the spiritual dullard giving up on everlasting life to go celebrate the hundreds he still has left. 
It is no good harping on the blemishes of others, real, imagined, or enhanced. The enemy in the West wants exactly what the enemy in the East wants—to separate Witnesses from their organization, with the confidence that they can be more easily assimilated that way. The only difference between them is the difference between the good cop who would coo at you and the bad cop who would beat you. They want the same. Should you acknowledge the blemishes of fellow believers  it nonetheless does not change the overall picture. It fits right in with how things were in the first century, where they also had blemishes. It’s how imperfect people are.
Pray to God that he fix your personal woes and beefs and he will respond that he has underlings who can handle the job. It is enough that he will listen to you and provide nourishment night and day. Complain to him that the underlings are imperfect and he will observe that you are no great shakes yourself—you will just have to learn to make do.
 

Aren’t I hearing the song from her:
”Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention.
My foes, theirs I accrue, for which I want your full attention.” ?

“So the slaves of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not just cover your home with fine paint? How, then, does there come to be anti-JW graffiti all over it? He said to them, ‘An enemy, those pestilential apostates, did this. The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go out and scrub it off?  He said, ‘No, for fear that while scrubbing it off, you may ruin the paint job. Let them both remain for a time—I’ll put up with the eyesore for now—until that time when the Grand Redecorator comes along to bundle those guys up in groups of fifty and send them all to the WeepnNash hoosegow.
 

“As chairman of the resurrection Welcome Wagon, it is my honor to welcome you back from the dead. We have it set up so the guy who is resurrected, after a brief orientation, gets to chair the committee to greet the next group. I’m King David. You may have read of me when……um…….(gulp)……oh, hello Uriah. It’s good to see you.”

“spraying anti-JW graffiti on whatever surface they can find.”
Paid up your membership fee for an entire year with that one, you did.

Aren’t I hearing the song from her:
”Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention.
My foes, theirs I accrue, for which I want your full attention.” ?

And responded to like a person who doesn't take counsel.
"A man repeatedly reproved but making his neck hard will suddenly be broken, and that without healing." - Proverbs 29:1

Aren’t I hearing the song from her:
”Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention.
My foes, theirs I accrue, for which I want your full attention.” ?