TrueTomHarley

Do you remember the Twilight Zone in which the henpecked bank employee would retreat into the vault for some peace and quiet during lunchtime? While doing so, the vault was rocked, and upon emerging, he saw that the world had ended—everything was in ruins. Far from being alarmed, he was delighted, for now he could read in peace, free from his nagging boss and wife. 
Then he broke his glasses.

Do you remember the Twilight Zone in which the henpecked bank employee would retreat into the vault for some peace and quiet during lunchtime? While doing so, the vault was rocked, and upon emerging, he saw that the world had ended—everything was in ruins. Far from being alarmed, he was delighted, for now he could read in peace, free from his nagging boss and wife. 
Then he broke his glasses.

Hey brother, don't be so hard on yourself! I've noticed that people in general have no time....really. I'm a prime example, I have books on my to read list (including yours) and have I read them, nope, not a single one...yet. I wanted to start a topic on here the other day, but other (more important) stuff got in the way. In fact the days run into each other so fast and before you know another week is gone. I swear time is running faster. I think if we ever get put in jail I will beg them to let me access all the books I have wanted to read....

Is this when Bro Brumley was photographed at a conference and opponents made a big fuss about it because Scientologists were there, too? 
“Relax, he keyed their cars in the parking lot,” I replied to one of them.

I would love to be one of them, and I have more than once contacted certain ones—Introvigne, Folk, and Chrysiddes. They all ignore me.
I don’t hammer at their door, nor do I take their non-response personally. I tend to think that they wish to maintain a scholarly detached independence. Whereas I unambiguously champion a certain New Relgion, they stand in defense of them all, and thus may wish to keep any specific apologist at arm’s length.
Or maybe they have just concluded that my books suck. That certainly was the case with Dear Mr. Putin. Damage control after such a debacle to present the new and improved Don’t Know Why We Persecute is anything but a slam-dunk. You must persuade people who perhaps have previously written you off to give you another look. That’s why someone should have told me that Dear Mr. Putin sucked;

The one whom I have hammered at his door to no avail (as much as 5 or 6 times cumulatively) is George Chrysiddes. The reason for added persistence here is that we had an email correspondence. On Twitter, I came across his saying to someone that he wished he knew a real live rank-and-file Witness. “Here I am,” I said like Isaiah, and we had some nice chit-chats. He faithfully read Tom Irregardless and Me, commenting via email as he did so, and wrote what is far-and-away the more original review of it (under his informal pen name Ivor E Tower).
It’s the last I ever heard from him. Maybe he too, read Dear Mr Putin and concluded it stunk. (Of course, its always possible that all of these guys have read Don’t Know Why and have concluded that it stinks, too—yikes!—but that is a scenario I prefer not to entertain. I gave it my best shot.)
My second book, No Fake News, stunk, too. Maybe that was a turn-off for George even before Dear Mr. Putin.  It was written too hastily, too sloppily. Even after sinking some time in a rewrite, I have removed it. Not sure right now if it will ever see the light of day again. I have several other irons in the fire ahead of it, so that for all practical purposes, that one is not in the fire. Or if the fire is literal, maybe it is.
Any day now (I’ve been saying this forever) Don’t Know Why will be in Amazon print. Just now I cannot make Word behave to do the bells and whistles version with fancy headers and whatnot. If I settle for a simplified version, I am fine, and I just may have to do that. The one who does my covers referred me to someone who wants $285 to format it just so. It’s not unreasonable at all, yet I think I’ll draw the line. I spend enough as it is and I’m self-published. I may have to settle for a certain rough-hewn look, which is certainly reinforced anyway by my many battles with proofing. To proof it professionally can cost thousands.
Alas, nobody likes me. Even Liebster blocks me. I probably can patch that up, and will someday. Most likely they came along whilst I was bickering with some villains and were scandalized. Or maybe they, too, read Dear Mr Putin and thought it stunk, so that I became to them “an indiscreet brother.”
Only the Librarian likes me (that old hen). I may be a bad pupil, but I am her pupil, and she doesn’t forget that. Oh—and I have Cesar in my back pocket, too. But then, who doesn’t?

The group Introvigne heads, CESNUR, (Center for the Study of New Religions) is roughly the opposite of FECRIS, the latter which, if they had their way, would ban them all as “cults.” “New religion” is the scholarly term for any group originating in relatively recent times. Scholars deliberately choose “new religion” over “cult” to avoid the incendiary overtones of the latter word. Non-scholars favor “cult” because they are intolerant and wish to make it as hot as possible for the “new religions.”
One might think of Introvigne (who I know nothing of personally) as a modern-day Voltaire. Voltaire (probably you know) is from the 17th century, and is considered founder of the Enlightenment. He was a fierce critic of organized religion, particularly the Judeo-Christian variety. He was also firmly deist, that is, he never doubted the existence of God, and he came to be much distressed that his body of work was used as a stepping stone into atheism—breaking free of God altogether. His dream was that there be religious tolerance, that all religions should get along peaceably. It never occurred to him to change them internally or to mush them into one incoherent whole. He just wanted them not to wreak violence upon one another. 
Early in his life a dispute with a French aristocrat caused Voltaire to flee to England. While there he noted how there were dozens of religions, many (maybe all) claiming to be the one true path (people took religion more seriously then), yet they all co-existed without rancor. (In his native France, the Roman Catholic Church was torturing those professing other faiths on the rack.) It never would have occurred to Voltaire that a faith calling itself the one true faith was doing violence to any other one. Virtually all of them were doing it. It is a uniquely modern concept to think a religion regarding itself as the true path does violence to the others.
Voltaire’s “Letters from England” conveys his amazement and delight that here was a country, so different from back home, where people could worship as they pleased without anyone trying to ban them or beat up on them. He sets himself up as a chump interviewing a Quaker, just about as weird a religion as one could envision backed then—they ‘quaked’ when they became filled with spirit. He paints himself as though a devout Catholic thoroughly scandalized by Quaker beliefs, gives dialogue with one in which the Quaker ties him in knots, before summing up with how you just can’t talk sense with a fanatic.
It never occurred to Voltaire that the Quakers should change—he was just delighted that, given their “weirdness,” they could coexist so easily with the rest of society. In short, “intolerance” had nothing to do with doctrines or beliefs within a religion. He took for granted that internally each religion would be sufficiently different from other religions. If they were not, there would not BE separate religions—they would all blend into the same. It didn’t matter to him if Quakers were weird; if you conclude they are, don’t be one, would have been his obvious conclusion, just like it should be today with anyone concluding JWs are weird. 
Being a strict religion, serious about their beliefs, there would be severe internal strictures for any Quaker doing a 180 and leaving his faith. This was of no concern to Voltaire, who personally had no use for any of the established religions. Whatever strictures a departing Quaker would encounter would be more-or-less human nature: turn your back on previously cherished beliefs and you will of course find yourself on the outside looking in as regards those still holding true to those beliefs. It only adds “fuel to the fire” that the Christian scriptures can so easily be read that way. It’s the same with JWs today. It’s the same with most of the “new religions” that FECRIS labels as “cults,” as it seeks to homogenize religions, extracting whatever teeth they have to make them stand out from others, and mush them all into one that doesn’t stand for much or anything other than putting a God-face on humanist endeavors.
Voltaire’s firm deism, his belief in God, stems from what the Jehovah’s Witness organization has called the “Book of Creation.” It stems from the observed design of creation, and from what he called first cause, the utility that created things are put to. He rejected any “book of revelation,” that is, any sacred scriptures from any source that would attempt to explain the creator. But he also famously, after years of soul-searching, declared insoluble the “problem of evil.” There is undeniably a God, and there is undeniably evil. He could not reconcile the two, though he was the foremost thinker and deist of his time.
To say that rejecting any revelatory information on God is foolish might be going too far, but it certainly is self-defeating. He yearns with all his heart to discern the problem of evil, yet he confines his gaze to where the answer certainly will not be—in the book of creation. There is only so far that book will take you. His aversion is quite understandable, given the horrendous abuse practices by the religions of his day, but it was still self-defeating as for discerning the problem of evil or any other aspects of God’s personality.
If there is an answer to the “problem of evil,” it will be found in the new religions. Of course, my view is that it will be found specifically within the the tenets of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Indeed, the wording may differ, but “Why is there evil?” is a staple of each of their basic study guides almost since their founding. Mainstream religions have so homogenized their views, so eager not to be out of step with intellectual or scientific trends, that they have modified their own foundation to the extent that the problem of evil cannot be solved. FECRIS gets around the issue by ignoring it. There is no answer to such questions, they maintain, forget about them. Focus on making the world a better place now. Nevermind arcane spiritual concerns that will distract from how we must, in the words of the Beatles, “come together.”

Is this when Bro Brumley was photographed at a conference and opponents made a big fuss about it because Scientologists were there, too? 
“Relax, he keyed their cars in the parking lot,” I replied to one of them.

Let us take this sneering remark seriously for a moment.
In the greater scheme of things, what really was Voltaire? A brief point of relative light, but also a bridge connecting one train wreck to another.
The train wreck of religious intolerance he battled all his life, and to a significant degree, he won that battle.
But in a very short time, even during his lifetime, atheists usurped his work to provide underpinnings of their own rising movement—another train wreck. Voltaire was an initial hero of the French Revolution, but in short order, as inferior atheistic thinkers took over, he was downgraded as too moderate. Many of his own followers (Voltaire himself was dead by then) fell victim to the guillotine themselves when they resisted the fanatical excesses of those atheists.
Meanwhile, the light that he offered was but relative, in that he refused any revelatory look at God, and thus missed out on solving the problem of evil, since that is only solved through such searching. He may even have represented “one step forward, two steps back.” The step forward is to win against intolerance. The step back is to repudiate the means though which God gives explanation of himself AND to smoothe the way for atheism. Maybe even three steps back, for in declaring the issue of evil insoluble after grappling with it the best part of his life, he plants the notion in the educated people that adore him that it actually is. 
So is he required reading for JW members? No. He is an elective. Read him if you will. It will be beneficial if you do. But by no means is he indispensable to having one’s head on straight. Make him the centerpiece of your education, and it all but guarantees you will not have your head on straight. The JW organization will never recommend that members read Voltaire. Nor will they ever disparage him, at least no more than I have done above. They would have members direct their primary focus on what does deliver with regard to life’s more important things.
 

Let us take this sneering remark seriously for a moment.
In the greater scheme of things, what really was Voltaire? A brief point of relative light, but also a bridge connecting one train wreck to another.
The train wreck of religious intolerance he battled all his life, and to a significant degree, he won that battle.
But in a very short time, even during his lifetime, atheists usurped his work to provide underpinnings of their own rising movement—another train wreck. Voltaire was an initial hero of the French Revolution, but in short order, as inferior atheistic thinkers took over, he was downgraded as too moderate. Many of his own followers (Voltaire himself was dead by then) fell victim to the guillotine themselves when they resisted the fanatical excesses of those atheists.
Meanwhile, the light that he offered was but relative, in that he refused any revelatory look at God, and thus missed out on solving the problem of evil, since that is only solved through such searching. He may even have represented “one step forward, two steps back.” The step forward is to win against intolerance. The step back is to repudiate the means though which God gives explanation of himself AND to smoothe the way for atheism. Maybe even three steps back, for in declaring the issue of evil insoluble after grappling with it the best part of his life, he plants the notion in the educated people that adore him that it actually is. 
So is he required reading for JW members? No. He is an elective. Read him if you will. It will be beneficial if you do. But by no means is he indispensable to having one’s head on straight. Make him the centerpiece of your education, and it all but guarantees you will not have your head on straight. The JW organization will never recommend that members read Voltaire. Nor will they ever disparage him, at least no more than I have done above. They would have members direct their primary focus on what does deliver with regard to life’s more important things.
 

I’ve never heard it put this way before.
I also wonder if I can trick 4Jah and CC into giving me upvotes by posting photos like this:

The uncommon good sense of the former to realize that just because you don’t like a faith, that doesn’t mean it should be illegal.
In applying this to Jehovah’s Witnesses, you have chosen the one example, almost the only one you could have chosen, which disproves the point. To make it fit, you must find a group that commits atrocities.
I may disagree with what Srecko says, but darned if I’m going to die for it. If he wants to utter inanities, its on him.

Knowledge and research in regard to what? In regard to specific doctrine, or in regard to religious freedom? Some here are trying to turn this into a discussion of JW doctrine, even trying to assign that task to the Court, if not declare it negligent for not going there. If I am right, Massimo interests himself in doctrine not to press for its validity, but only to ascertain that it is innocuous enough to be allowed to stand unmolested.

Seven people tagged but you didn’t say goodbye to Cesar.
He has feelings, too, you know.

Bingo.
It’s the pure nastiness of one, not to mention the pure dodo-headedness of another. These annoy far more than the posts themselves, though sometimes the two are hard to unravel.
After Paul makes his speech in the Areopagus, he says: “Okay. Been there/done that. If I don’t keep looking upon all these idols, maybe I won’t keep getting so irritated. Maybe I can get around to writing some of those epistles that have been kicking around in the back of my head.”
People have different interests. Most friends only have so much time for reading, and many have only so much interest. If they choose to read Watchtower-only material, why would I have a problem with that? They trust the source. If I recall correctly, @Thinkingmentioned a circuit overseer who acknowledged that spiritual food must be written for the masses, necessitating those with extra reading appetite to do extra study projects. I wrote about some of that here:
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/01/what-witnesses-are-allowed-to-read.html
If you go somewhere that ordinary theocratic reading does not take us—looking into the nitty-gritty of this or that complaint, for example, you have a responsibility to frame things in accord with the brotherhood, unless, like Rulf, you decide your complaints are so stellar and overriding that they justify your leaving the brotherhood, in which case you should do so. But where is he now? Doubtless the “scholars” he consoles himself that he will hang out with are few and far between—most “scholars” have concluded the further they get from God, the better—and his new best friends become some of the smarter adversaries here. Instead, I sort of like JWI, who comes up with some orthodox things, but still says “God’s people obviously need headship, as does everyone else, and the present arrangement is overall doing a good job.”
One long-ago article said, what if you come across some Bible account that seems hard to reconcile, even shocking? Do you do a 60-minutes blow-the-cover-off expose of God? Or do you reflect on how good he’s been to you, that you don’t have all the facts, and if you did, no doubt it would make a difference? Do you do a Jesus, who was overall quite merciful toward his disciples, even when they made blunders or veered into self-importance?

Nor is there anywhere else. 

Seven people tagged but you didn’t say goodbye to Cesar.
He has feelings, too, you know.

What on earth is wrong with you? This is FECRIS, the spinner of defamation against Jehovah’s Witnesses, being tried before the German Court. Do you really think they would have provided no evidence to back up their claims? You probably served as their advisor. 
Of course the Court saw whatever FECRIS deemed useful for them to see. The Court looked it over, and declared it irrelevant or insufficient to justify FECRIS’s defamation..

Is the pope Catholic? Of course they do. It is the clearing-house anticult organization of French government sponsorship, and its VP is the driver of anti-JW narrative in Russia.
The German Court looked it over and judged that Jehovah’s Witnesses were being defamed. It was not their mission to make any judgment upon the faith itself. Doubtless it reasoned that, in the event that Jehovah’s Witnesses are unorthodox, even weird, one can easily solve the problem by not being one of them, and if one already is, to quit and go elsewhere. It’s a big world.

Of course. When an NGO makes defamatory statements 53% of the time, and those statements, through the influence of their Russian VP, goes on to cause gargantuan injustices in that land, one would hope they would somehow be leaned upon to make good. Whether that will happen or not I am not so sure. We are dealing with different jurisdictions, after all. 
The credibility of FECRIS suffering a serious setback is the most tangible development so far. Whether it moves into anything of greater consequence is anyone’s guess.

I would love to be one of them, and I have more than once contacted certain ones—Introvigne, Folk, and Chrysiddes. They all ignore me.
I don’t hammer at their door, nor do I take their non-response personally. I tend to think that they wish to maintain a scholarly detached independence. Whereas I unambiguously champion a certain New Relgion, they stand in defense of them all, and thus may wish to keep any specific apologist at arm’s length.
Or maybe they have just concluded that my books suck. That certainly was the case with Dear Mr. Putin. Damage control after such a debacle to present the new and improved Don’t Know Why We Persecute is anything but a slam-dunk. You must persuade people who perhaps have previously written you off to give you another look. That’s why someone should have told me that Dear Mr. Putin sucked;

The one whom I have hammered at his door to no avail (as much as 5 or 6 times cumulatively) is George Chrysiddes. The reason for added persistence here is that we had an email correspondence. On Twitter, I came across his saying to someone that he wished he knew a real live rank-and-file Witness. “Here I am,” I said like Isaiah, and we had some nice chit-chats. He faithfully read Tom Irregardless and Me, commenting via email as he did so, and wrote what is far-and-away the more original review of it (under his informal pen name Ivor E Tower).
It’s the last I ever heard from him. Maybe he too, read Dear Mr Putin and concluded it stunk. (Of course, its always possible that all of these guys have read Don’t Know Why and have concluded that it stinks, too—yikes!—but that is a scenario I prefer not to entertain. I gave it my best shot.)
My second book, No Fake News, stunk, too. Maybe that was a turn-off for George even before Dear Mr. Putin.  It was written too hastily, too sloppily. Even after sinking some time in a rewrite, I have removed it. Not sure right now if it will ever see the light of day again. I have several other irons in the fire ahead of it, so that for all practical purposes, that one is not in the fire. Or if the fire is literal, maybe it is.
Any day now (I’ve been saying this forever) Don’t Know Why will be in Amazon print. Just now I cannot make Word behave to do the bells and whistles version with fancy headers and whatnot. If I settle for a simplified version, I am fine, and I just may have to do that. The one who does my covers referred me to someone who wants $285 to format it just so. It’s not unreasonable at all, yet I think I’ll draw the line. I spend enough as it is and I’m self-published. I may have to settle for a certain rough-hewn look, which is certainly reinforced anyway by my many battles with proofing. To proof it professionally can cost thousands.
Alas, nobody likes me. Even Liebster blocks me. I probably can patch that up, and will someday. Most likely they came along whilst I was bickering with some villains and were scandalized. Or maybe they, too, read Dear Mr Putin and thought it stunk, so that I became to them “an indiscreet brother.”
Only the Librarian likes me (that old hen). I may be a bad pupil, but I am her pupil, and she doesn’t forget that. Oh—and I have Cesar in my back pocket, too. But then, who doesn’t?

The group Introvigne heads, CESNUR, (Center for the Study of New Religions) is roughly the opposite of FECRIS, the latter which, if they had their way, would ban them all as “cults.” “New religion” is the scholarly term for any group originating in relatively recent times. Scholars deliberately choose “new religion” over “cult” to avoid the incendiary overtones of the latter word. Non-scholars favor “cult” because they are intolerant and wish to make it as hot as possible for the “new religions.”
One might think of Introvigne (who I know nothing of personally) as a modern-day Voltaire. Voltaire (probably you know) is from the 17th century, and is considered founder of the Enlightenment. He was a fierce critic of organized religion, particularly the Judeo-Christian variety. He was also firmly deist, that is, he never doubted the existence of God, and he came to be much distressed that his body of work was used as a stepping stone into atheism—breaking free of God altogether. His dream was that there be religious tolerance, that all religions should get along peaceably. It never occurred to him to change them internally or to mush them into one incoherent whole. He just wanted them not to wreak violence upon one another. 
Early in his life a dispute with a French aristocrat caused Voltaire to flee to England. While there he noted how there were dozens of religions, many (maybe all) claiming to be the one true path (people took religion more seriously then), yet they all co-existed without rancor. (In his native France, the Roman Catholic Church was torturing those professing other faiths on the rack.) It never would have occurred to Voltaire that a faith calling itself the one true faith was doing violence to any other one. Virtually all of them were doing it. It is a uniquely modern concept to think a religion regarding itself as the true path does violence to the others.
Voltaire’s “Letters from England” conveys his amazement and delight that here was a country, so different from back home, where people could worship as they pleased without anyone trying to ban them or beat up on them. He sets himself up as a chump interviewing a Quaker, just about as weird a religion as one could envision backed then—they ‘quaked’ when they became filled with spirit. He paints himself as though a devout Catholic thoroughly scandalized by Quaker beliefs, gives dialogue with one in which the Quaker ties him in knots, before summing up with how you just can’t talk sense with a fanatic.
It never occurred to Voltaire that the Quakers should change—he was just delighted that, given their “weirdness,” they could coexist so easily with the rest of society. In short, “intolerance” had nothing to do with doctrines or beliefs within a religion. He took for granted that internally each religion would be sufficiently different from other religions. If they were not, there would not BE separate religions—they would all blend into the same. It didn’t matter to him if Quakers were weird; if you conclude they are, don’t be one, would have been his obvious conclusion, just like it should be today with anyone concluding JWs are weird. 
Being a strict religion, serious about their beliefs, there would be severe internal strictures for any Quaker doing a 180 and leaving his faith. This was of no concern to Voltaire, who personally had no use for any of the established religions. Whatever strictures a departing Quaker would encounter would be more-or-less human nature: turn your back on previously cherished beliefs and you will of course find yourself on the outside looking in as regards those still holding true to those beliefs. It only adds “fuel to the fire” that the Christian scriptures can so easily be read that way. It’s the same with JWs today. It’s the same with most of the “new religions” that FECRIS labels as “cults,” as it seeks to homogenize religions, extracting whatever teeth they have to make them stand out from others, and mush them all into one that doesn’t stand for much or anything other than putting a God-face on humanist endeavors.
Voltaire’s firm deism, his belief in God, stems from what the Jehovah’s Witness organization has called the “Book of Creation.” It stems from the observed design of creation, and from what he called first cause, the utility that created things are put to. He rejected any “book of revelation,” that is, any sacred scriptures from any source that would attempt to explain the creator. But he also famously, after years of soul-searching, declared insoluble the “problem of evil.” There is undeniably a God, and there is undeniably evil. He could not reconcile the two, though he was the foremost thinker and deist of his time.
To say that rejecting any revelatory information on God is foolish might be going too far, but it certainly is self-defeating. He yearns with all his heart to discern the problem of evil, yet he confines his gaze to where the answer certainly will not be—in the book of creation. There is only so far that book will take you. His aversion is quite understandable, given the horrendous abuse practices by the religions of his day, but it was still self-defeating as for discerning the problem of evil or any other aspects of God’s personality.
If there is an answer to the “problem of evil,” it will be found in the new religions. Of course, my view is that it will be found specifically within the the tenets of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Indeed, the wording may differ, but “Why is there evil?” is a staple of each of their basic study guides almost since their founding. Mainstream religions have so homogenized their views, so eager not to be out of step with intellectual or scientific trends, that they have modified their own foundation to the extent that the problem of evil cannot be solved. FECRIS gets around the issue by ignoring it. There is no answer to such questions, they maintain, forget about them. Focus on making the world a better place now. Nevermind arcane spiritual concerns that will distract from how we must, in the words of the Beatles, “come together.”

The group Introvigne heads, CESNUR, (Center for the Study of New Religions) is roughly the opposite of FECRIS, the latter which, if they had their way, would ban them all as “cults.” “New religion” is the scholarly term for any group originating in relatively recent times. Scholars deliberately choose “new religion” over “cult” to avoid the incendiary overtones of the latter word. Non-scholars favor “cult” because they are intolerant and wish to make it as hot as possible for the “new religions.”
One might think of Introvigne (who I know nothing of personally) as a modern-day Voltaire. Voltaire (probably you know) is from the 17th century, and is considered founder of the Enlightenment. He was a fierce critic of organized religion, particularly the Judeo-Christian variety. He was also firmly deist, that is, he never doubted the existence of God, and he came to be much distressed that his body of work was used as a stepping stone into atheism—breaking free of God altogether. His dream was that there be religious tolerance, that all religions should get along peaceably. It never occurred to him to change them internally or to mush them into one incoherent whole. He just wanted them not to wreak violence upon one another. 
Early in his life a dispute with a French aristocrat caused Voltaire to flee to England. While there he noted how there were dozens of religions, many (maybe all) claiming to be the one true path (people took religion more seriously then), yet they all co-existed without rancor. (In his native France, the Roman Catholic Church was torturing those professing other faiths on the rack.) It never would have occurred to Voltaire that a faith calling itself the one true faith was doing violence to any other one. Virtually all of them were doing it. It is a uniquely modern concept to think a religion regarding itself as the true path does violence to the others.
Voltaire’s “Letters from England” conveys his amazement and delight that here was a country, so different from back home, where people could worship as they pleased without anyone trying to ban them or beat up on them. He sets himself up as a chump interviewing a Quaker, just about as weird a religion as one could envision backed then—they ‘quaked’ when they became filled with spirit. He paints himself as though a devout Catholic thoroughly scandalized by Quaker beliefs, gives dialogue with one in which the Quaker ties him in knots, before summing up with how you just can’t talk sense with a fanatic.
It never occurred to Voltaire that the Quakers should change—he was just delighted that, given their “weirdness,” they could coexist so easily with the rest of society. In short, “intolerance” had nothing to do with doctrines or beliefs within a religion. He took for granted that internally each religion would be sufficiently different from other religions. If they were not, there would not BE separate religions—they would all blend into the same. It didn’t matter to him if Quakers were weird; if you conclude they are, don’t be one, would have been his obvious conclusion, just like it should be today with anyone concluding JWs are weird. 
Being a strict religion, serious about their beliefs, there would be severe internal strictures for any Quaker doing a 180 and leaving his faith. This was of no concern to Voltaire, who personally had no use for any of the established religions. Whatever strictures a departing Quaker would encounter would be more-or-less human nature: turn your back on previously cherished beliefs and you will of course find yourself on the outside looking in as regards those still holding true to those beliefs. It only adds “fuel to the fire” that the Christian scriptures can so easily be read that way. It’s the same with JWs today. It’s the same with most of the “new religions” that FECRIS labels as “cults,” as it seeks to homogenize religions, extracting whatever teeth they have to make them stand out from others, and mush them all into one that doesn’t stand for much or anything other than putting a God-face on humanist endeavors.
Voltaire’s firm deism, his belief in God, stems from what the Jehovah’s Witness organization has called the “Book of Creation.” It stems from the observed design of creation, and from what he called first cause, the utility that created things are put to. He rejected any “book of revelation,” that is, any sacred scriptures from any source that would attempt to explain the creator. But he also famously, after years of soul-searching, declared insoluble the “problem of evil.” There is undeniably a God, and there is undeniably evil. He could not reconcile the two, though he was the foremost thinker and deist of his time.
To say that rejecting any revelatory information on God is foolish might be going too far, but it certainly is self-defeating. He yearns with all his heart to discern the problem of evil, yet he confines his gaze to where the answer certainly will not be—in the book of creation. There is only so far that book will take you. His aversion is quite understandable, given the horrendous abuse practices by the religions of his day, but it was still self-defeating as for discerning the problem of evil or any other aspects of God’s personality.
If there is an answer to the “problem of evil,” it will be found in the new religions. Of course, my view is that it will be found specifically within the the tenets of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Indeed, the wording may differ, but “Why is there evil?” is a staple of each of their basic study guides almost since their founding. Mainstream religions have so homogenized their views, so eager not to be out of step with intellectual or scientific trends, that they have modified their own foundation to the extent that the problem of evil cannot be solved. FECRIS gets around the issue by ignoring it. There is no answer to such questions, they maintain, forget about them. Focus on making the world a better place now. Nevermind arcane spiritual concerns that will distract from how we must, in the words of the Beatles, “come together.”

What a stupid statement!
“Interpretation of Bible text” is not what is on trial here. What—we are all required to interpret Bible text in a certain way? 
Jehovah’s Witnesses are a ‘one true faith” religion. There are many ‘one true faith’ religions. As such, they are known to criticize other religions, as all ‘one true faith’ religions criticize other religions. It is a valid read of the Scriptures that any perusal will suggest just might be true—that there is one true faith.
But if they would “not allow any faiths” they would call for violence against them. They would try to get politicians to pass laws against them. Instead, the “weapons” of Jehovah’s Witnesses are words only. Tell them ‘no’ and they go away.
Joel Engardio has stated how Witnesses provide a fine example, perhaps our last hope, of how groups with strongly polarized views can yet co-exist peacefully.
There is a difference between criticizing and disallowing. The back of a cigarette package contains a very strong warning agains smoking. Does that mean people are not allowed to smoke?
 

What a stupid statement!
“Interpretation of Bible text” is not what is on trial here. What—we are all required to interpret Bible text in a certain way? 
Jehovah’s Witnesses are a ‘one true faith” religion. There are many ‘one true faith’ religions. As such, they are known to criticize other religions, as all ‘one true faith’ religions criticize other religions. It is a valid read of the Scriptures that any perusal will suggest just might be true—that there is one true faith.
But if they would “not allow any faiths” they would call for violence against them. They would try to get politicians to pass laws against them. Instead, the “weapons” of Jehovah’s Witnesses are words only. Tell them ‘no’ and they go away.
Joel Engardio has stated how Witnesses provide a fine example, perhaps our last hope, of how groups with strongly polarized views can yet co-exist peacefully.
There is a difference between criticizing and disallowing. The back of a cigarette package contains a very strong warning agains smoking. Does that mean people are not allowed to smoke?
 

What on earth is wrong with you? This is FECRIS, the spinner of defamation against Jehovah’s Witnesses, being tried before the German Court. Do you really think they would have provided no evidence to back up their claims? You probably served as their advisor. 
Of course the Court saw whatever FECRIS deemed useful for them to see. The Court looked it over, and declared it irrelevant or insufficient to justify FECRIS’s defamation..