Furuli's new e-book: "My Beloved Religion - And The Governing Body"

[JW Insider]

6 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

You just cannot accept that this man did something ON HIS OWN. You have to link him with others.

I know very well that he did this on his own. I did not link him with others, although I see that he has linked himself with others. Why did you think otherwise?

6 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

Seems the best you can do is criticise a man that tried to help the Org move forward.

If you would like to defend him, then you should do that. I try to defend his evidence where he is right, and criticize it where it is wrong. I think his writing has now provided further, consistent evidence that reflects on him personally. Also, in the way he decided to defend himself, he went to great lengths to find evidence against the current structure of the GB, and he has apparently relied on the Gilead graduation speech by Fred Franz and the books of Raymond Franz to do this. I have never said that either of these men were were wrong in their scriptural evaluation of the role of the GB. Raymond Franz said he agreed with the scriptural reasons that Fred Franz had given for avoiding the creation of a GB. But I think R.Franz was inconsistent in his reasoning on this topic, too. But so was Fred Franz. Furuli follows an inconsistent mix that includes inconsistent reasoning from both of them.

If you don't think so, don't just claim it's wrong because of how easy it is impute bad motives to others. Base your argument on evidence from Furuli's writings or what you know about him. I already provided evidence from his own writing, and am willing to provide even more. "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

When it comes to evidence that he tried to help the Org move forward, I think he might have ended up with a few good ideas that could be useful. He can point out problems, yet his own solutions are weak (imo). Still, most of his life has also been spent trying to defend the Org in a way that would keep it from moving forward. He wrote a book on Bible translation that praised the old NWT but with points that could be used to fight against the revised NWT. In his book he brings up some of these same points to denigrate the revised NWT. He also spent a lot of time looking for ways to defend a couple of dates that the Watchtower has long made use of to tie Watchtower doctrines to a chronological tradition tied to the Second Adventists of the 1800's. In his book he is still tied to these old traditions. So I don't see him as very progressive or forward-moving. If you do think this is progressive, please give evidence.

[TrueTomHarley]

3 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I have been very consistent over the years in "putting the man down,"

I hear that he foreclosed on his mother in the dead of winter and the poor woman would have froze to death for sure, but the wolves ate her first.

3 hours ago, JW Insider said:

And I'm not a scholar

I am. That’s how I know.

[TrueTomHarley]

Maybe it is “Hell hath no fury like a scholar scorned.” 

“Wisdom gives forth its voice in the very quadrangles! Only dolts are to be found in the streets.”

It makes no sense at all the to say that the JW religion is right except for the accepted method in which God communicates to man—and then run that complaint before the ones most singularly unqualified to be judges of it. I think of the verse that says the physical man can not get to know the things of the spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and yet he writes, by and large, to the physical man who is not wont to believe in God at all, and if he does, thinks he is a Trinity that watches over our immortal soul

4 hours ago, César Chávez said:

Furuli won't be the last person to profane sound Christian ethics and Bible understanding

I don’t think this is best phrased as a matter of scholarship—as though he is loopy when it comes to ethics and understanding. Better to phrase it as simply not being one of the “sons of disobedience” that wants to hijack the plane.

Whoever believes will do even greater works than these present ones, Jesus says. In expanding a preaching campaign around the globe, keeping it specific enough to be meaningful, and also as though speaking with one voice, there will plainly be some innovation of organization involved—just as Moses was given 70 assistants so that the job would not wear him out. That’s what “taking the lead” means—you devise things to keep up with expanded activity.

He would say as regards the accepted way that God leads his worshippers, “The way of Jehovah is not adjusted right”? Why cannot they turn around and say (as they have), “Is it not your way that is not adjusted right”? Maybe this is just a power grab on his part—a call-to-arms to the renegade “elders“ he speaks of. Does he even believe that “God leads his people” or is it all like human politics with him, so that he should lay his beef out before all and sundry?

At some point, even if one does not believe on account of what is said, one should believe on account of what is done—the “works of my father” says Jesus at John 10:37-38) It would have been nice had he focused on what has been mentioned here before: an entirely new publishing and distribution channel invented so that “Big Business’ does not control the flow of God’s word, so a translation daring to defy popular but untrue “formula translation” does not tank in the marketplace, and so that the poverty-stricken fellow in a developing country is not stuck with some archaic translation that he can neither afford nor understand.

It would be nice had he focused on the unheard of measures to fulfill 2 Corinthians 8:14 on a worldwide scale—that surpluses here might offset poverty there. Instead, he seems parochial over such things, clinging to notions of what is “his.” 

Does he think the GB has “dumbed down” the Bible with the 2013 edition? They themselves have said as much—not everyone is a scholar, and in Asia, they think Sheol is a geographical place. The older more literal versions still remain—there they are readily summoned up on the app. If we do our Bible reading daily as we are relentlessly encouraged to do, those studious by nature will go there for comparison or even prime instruction. Reading of all type has been dumbed down in the course of my lifetime. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Anna]

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

for the accepted method in which God communicates to man—

I am not sure, but do you mean that God communicates with us through the GB? If you do, then I do not agree. I do not think the GB are like Moses, or any prophet who Jehovah used in the past to communicate with his people the Israelites. Jesus did away with all that, he is the only high priest, and we have the holy spirit to help us. This goes for both the annointed and the great crowd. Not much difference in my opinion. Now do I agree there has to be organizational leadership, yes. I also think there has to be someone who makes sure the Bible is followed and upheld. So the GB calling themselves "guardians of the doctrine" as per Br. Jackson is ok too. Also the "spiritual feeding" is understandable as well, as long as it's not made up food and is always based on the Bible. But as for communication, well doesn't Jehovah communicate with us through his written word?  I know whenever this is discussed "Bible publications" are brought up, which is also ok, but those publications are not rocket science. You could write them. Would it then mean that God was communicating through you? Not unless you wrote something which was an interpretation of a scripture. And we know  what happens with that, some were wrongly interpreted. That's hardly Jehovah passing on information. 

Sorry if this sounds like a rant. I finally convinced my hubby that the GB are like the rest of us, except somebody has to take the lead....and the great thing is actually, GB agree with me 😁

[JW Insider]

5 hours ago, Anna said:

This goes for both the annointed and the great crowd. Not much difference in my opinion. Now do I agree there has to be organizational leadership, yes. I also think there has to be someone who makes sure the Bible is followed and upheld.

Don't know who has had the midweek meeting yet. But the CBS this week is chapter 120 of Jesus - The Way, The Truth, The Life. The comments showed that so many were taking to heart that all of Jesus' disciples are the branches, and all should bear fruit, and this fruit is especially shown by following the commandments, and the greatest of these commandments is "love one another." Everyone was perfectly in sync with how this can and should apply to themselves.

To me, this is part of the great progress we have made in applying the lessons from Jesus' teachings to everyone. And then, at the last paragraph, a very knowledgeable older brother, makes a long comment that showed how an older WT said that bearing much fruit can apply to the effort in the ministry, not the success rate of making disciples. That was OK, I guess, but then he added that another older WT from 2002 says 'but of course the branches represent only the 144,000.'

It made me wonder whether some of that enthusiasm the whole congregation seemed to share in those previous answers might have been dampened just a bit by this idea that it doesn't really apply to most of us after all.

5 hours ago, Anna said:

Also the "spiritual feeding" is understandable as well, as long as it's not made up food and is always based on the Bible. But as for communication, well doesn't Jehovah communicate with us through his written word?

Earlier in the meeting, of course, there was the Covid19 announcement that implied the GB were in no hurry to open things back up. (There is a separate rumor that the current plan includes extending Zoom*style meetings all the way into 2022 in many countries, and seeing whether this might even be a preferable way to go forward in some countries.) During that part, the idea was repeated a couple of times that the GB ["slave"] had given instructions to be obeyed even though they didn't make sense from a human perspective at the time. The chairman commented after the video that instructions about Covid were the equivalent of spiritual food because it's about being cautious and saving lives, and that the video had included a couple of lessons from Proverbs and a lesson about following the secular "superior authorities" too, based on Romans 13. I don't see anything wrong the instructions, but it made me think about the fine line between spiritual food and just good advice, and how closely this "spiritual" admonishment was the exact same thing as the "secular" advice we are simultaneously getting from governmental agencies.

In a kind of "worst case" scenario, I wondered if a brother in Chile might have read a directive from the WTS that said they needed to put up the national flag of Chile on the KH property because of Romans 13, and then thanked the GB for the "spiritual food."

[TrueTomHarley]

6 hours ago, Anna said:

I am not sure, but do you mean that God communicates with us through the GB? If you do, then I do not agree

I just got tired of saying “the divine/human interface” and was searching for a substitute. What I hit upon was sloppy. You are right. I should have stayed with what I had, but I didn’t want to wear the phrase out—a phrase that I never intended to mean anything more than providing leadership.

6 hours ago, Anna said:

Now do I agree there has to be organizational leadership, yes. I also think there has to be someone who makes sure the Bible is followed and upheld. So the GB calling themselves "guardians of the doctrine" as per Br. Jackson is ok too. 

Sure. That’s what I think, too.

6 hours ago, Anna said:

I do not think the GB are like Moses, or any prophet who Jehovah used in the past

I don’t like to split hairs on these matters. I am pragmatic. Moses said that Jesus will “raise up a prophet like me.” He obviously didn’t if we insist on a parallel in each and every respect. Jesus was perfect, Moses was not. Jesus was put to death. Moses was not. So with the GB being like Moses, it is the same—in some respects they are, and in some respects there are not.

6 hours ago, Anna said:

But as for communication, well doesn't Jehovah communicate with us through his written word? 

Of course. It is organizational leadership I speak of. Even in Moses time, are we to imagine that Israelites could have no relationship with God when Moses was not around? Could they not pray? Did Joseph act as he did because he learned from prior writings, but his counterpart living under Moses would have had to clear it with the prophet first? Of course not. 

It is perfectly fair game for the GB to refer to the murmuring Israelites under Moses so as to encourage obedience today among God’s people. No, they are not like Moses in every respect, but they are enough like him for the comparison to work. God does lead his people, and there has always been something visible for them to hang their hats on—though at no time does this “something visible” preclude one’s own relationship with God or one’s own study of the scriptures.

Of course they are just men. Paul and Barnabas were just men, too, though the crowds concluded differently and it was hard to restrain them. Even when the man behind the curtain says “Here I am,” the crowd wants to put him behind the curtain again and believes he is other than what he has just said he is. That’s all the GB is doing today, saying “Yes, I am a man. Yes, I am behind the curtain manipulating the machinery of organizational lead which is awesome, but I am still a man,” and some of the crowd will still say, “I think he is more than just a man, I think God gives him special spirit, I think....”—that’s just the way people are.

We can overthink this and in doing so become obtuse. In some way Jehovah leads his people today. Since the restoration of pure worship 150 years ago, leadership has been in connection with those supplying the printed spiritual food. There is no reason to think that should change, any more than you change horses midstream in the Jordan. This, too, is not rocket science. It is simply common sense. The men who brought the truth to us in the first place are the ones to defer to. If there is the occasional incidence of roller derby there at Bethel it does not mean that the answer comes from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or however Rolf gets the word out these days. When people say of the GB, “They’re no Moses,” is is mostly because they want to rebel.

6 hours ago, Anna said:

but those publications are not rocket science. You could write them. Would it then mean that God was communicating through you? 

 I write supportively, as a apologist. Rolf writes as an investigative reporter—blowing the cover off what he thinks is THE top story. At most I will say, “There is a downside to this or that practice.” It’s not my place to “propose reforms” as Rolf does via Amazon. As you know, you are my heroine, for doing the most commonsense thing in the world: familiarizing yourself with apostate reasonings so that should your loved one come across them one day and be stumbled, you are able to do more than say: “DON’T READ THAT STUFF!!!” an answer that you know as well as I will almost always work to your loved one’s disadvantage—once the toothpaste is out of the tube it does not go back in again, and your loved one’s newly discovered information source will certainly say: “You see? What did I tell you? They want to keep blinders on you!”

We have elevated the ‘apostate’ practically to the status of bogeyman. “Run!!!!” we say, at the first possibility that he may rear his head, and all but throw a brick through the TV should he appear there—and it runs so contrary to the spirt of boldness that Christians are supposed to cultivate, and a willingness to always be ready with a defense of the faith, that people are nearly stumbled over THAT. 

It is a little like when Satan challenges Jehovah in the garden of Eden, and people say, “Why didn’t God just beat the snot out of him?” Because it is a moral issue that has been raised, not one of who has greater power. So when we verbally beat the snot out of ‘apostates’ and insist ones not go there on any account since they do nothing but lie—well, are not there some parallels? 

Now, the counsel not to hang out with ‘apostates’ is good, as is the counsel not to ‘engage’ with them. There is no mystery as to why people go ‘apostate’—like Demas they loved the present system, they “went out because they were not of our sort,“ they refused counsel to focus on the rafter in their own eye rather than the straw in another, they beat up on their fellow slaves when it seemed the master was delaying—there is no mystery at all to these things, and my spirituality has only grown in seeing, not just why people accept the truth, but also why, after accepting it, they reject it. Just why does “the sow that was bathed return to the mire?” The answer is no less edifying to me now than it would have been in the first century when it was written. 

There is no mystery in why people go apostate. There IS mystery in how virulent they become, and how persistent. It takes your breath away. With some, it is as though they have found a new purpose in life! even though, in every case, they have nothing better to offer! They can only bellyache about what they don’t like. It is especially so of ones who go apostate to become atheist, which seems to be true of most of those on Reddit, or at least the most visible ones. They have reassessed life and now feel that the remaining few decades until death, with nothing beyond, is a great bargain! It’s like the fellow who saws off the branch he is sitting on and grins as he goes crashing down to earth. It is like the fellow who loses his millions in the stock market, says “they were only paper gains, anyway,” and celebrates the few thousands he still has left. 

So obviously you don’t want to hang out here—what a corrosive atmosphere to let these malcontents hammer you day and night, and if you answer them, they just rephrase their beef and run it through again. Engage with these characters? It’s a little like masturbation (something I have never done, of course, but I am told about it). Sure, there is a rush that comes with answering a fathead, but the long-term effect is subtly undermining and corrosive to personality development. 

So it is a matter of degree. Of course you limit exposure and if some will eliminate it entirely, more power to them. But our track record of being unmarred by apostasy is so poor that at times, I wish we would re-examine that counsel to avoid at all costs even a whiff of it. When Amber Scorah sails through her life, ends up a missionary in China, and her faith and entire life is upended by one chance encounter there, something seems out of whack. Why did she cave so easily? Why wasn’t she better prepared for the contrasting view? When the Russian brother asks about his old friend and learns that one has left the faith because he read literature critical of the organization—literature that we are strongly advised not to read, it exaggerates the power of this crap. It is nothing more than the “sons of disobedience” at work, but it creates an almost superstitious horror among brothers that one chance encounter with an ‘apostate’ can upend a lifetime of dedication to God. I think it even works against zeal in the ministry—we work tirelessly over months or even years to make a disciple, with the underlying “knowledge” that it can all come to an abrupt end if that person so much as talks to an ‘apostate’—how can it not sap our willingness to go through the process in the first place?

Our cure is worse than the disease, and often leads to worse cases of the disease. If Amber is “not of our sort,”  let her learn that before she marries and goes off to China. Then hopefully she will take up a life in indifference to her former faith, and it will just be indifference—not hostility. 

I will at most detail a downside. I will not do a Rolf and call for an overhaul. What a tremendously immodest course that is! The GB is taking the lead, and they can amass scriptures to support what they advise regarding interaction with those who willfully leave the truth behind. Who am I to say those scriptures are invalid? Who am I to say I know better? For every iron I have in the fire, they have 100. I can only reflect on what appears before my own two eyes. They can reflect upon what appears before thousands of eyes. Highlight a downside and move on. Bring your gift to the altar. Maybe someone will say, “You know, that talkative yo-yo has a point.” But if they don,t, they don’t. They don’t have to tell me why they don’t. The expression “There are too many chiefs and not enough Indians” is one of the most under-appreciated bits of wisdom in the world.

I think a significant tell came early on—when Rolf commented how he had submitted his work to Bethel, but they “refused” to take him up on it. How does he know they “refused?” And even if they did, what makes him think that they cannot? They offered no comment on Shultz and de Vienne’s book, either, and the latter issued no beefs about being “refused”—they speculated (I think correctly, in the main) that they were “incurious as to their own history.” They didn’t comment on my books, either, even after I asked them too. Did I carry on about how they “refused” to address my work? I would never dream of such a thing. I’m perfectly willing to accept JWI’s verdict, when he said (more or less): “It’s because they think you are a loose cannon and they don’t want to provide the spark that sets you off.”

 

[Thinking]

21 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I believe that when a person reads Furuli carefully they will see evidence for such traits of narcissism. And as long as I am saying this, I think that what came through in the subtext of his books also appealed to persons having similar traits. The persons who had been Furuli's most vocal defenders in the past, like a person named "scholar JW" is an example who has shown the same extreme indifference to the "counsel of evidence." Any correction provided by evidence was always thrown back as if the reputation of the sources of correction needed to be trashed and dishonored for daring to correct them. Examples of this type of reaction to counsel and evidence abound in discussion forums, too. And any and all of us can fall into that trap of pride: (But keep an eye on yourself, for fear you too may be tempted.)

Furuli, for example, didn't like the fact that all the hundreds of Neo-Babylonian scholars, 100 percent of them, told him that he was wrong to believe that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE. So he focused on one piece of evidence that clearly shows the 607 date is wrong. And what does he resort to? He trashed the scholars, he trashed the museum curators. He accused them of fraud, even accused unspecified persons of sanding down evidence of the original cuneiform and replacing it with markings that makes it fit their own scheme. (He doesn't bother to point out that this is only one of thousands of pieces of evidence that supports a 587/6 BCE date and that there is still absolutely zero evidence going against that accepted date, Biblical or secular.)

Now moving forward to the present, there is evidence that Furuli was being told he was wrong about "higher education" and that he was wrong to want to stick with "Fred Franz" interpretations when the rest of the GB had already moved on from that. He would have seen the example of "A. Smith" that Brother Splane spoke about at the 2014 Annual Meeting as "counsel" against his own view that hadn't changed. He clearly compared himself to Fred Franz, and wanted to continue that role. If he was a narcissist, then he would have seen the need to trash and dishonor these counselors. And he did! He needed to project back onto them, some of the same traits that he should be able to see in himself, but can't.

Especially in the case where he knows he is about to be "proven" wrong to the worldwide congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, he would be forced to trash those who had decided he was wrong. Narcissists simply cannot accept counsel or evidence that says they are wrong.

I could be wrong, but that's how I currently see it.

Yes you are right...you are wrong  

[JW Insider]

21 minutes ago, Thinking said:

Yes you are right...you are wrong

I can believe that. But i don't know how you mean it, yet.

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

I would never dream of such a thing. I’m perfectly willing to accept JWI’s verdict, when he said (more or less): “It’s because they think you are a loose cannon and they don’t want to provide the spark that sets you off.”

I say a bunch of disconnected things in a manner that is truly convoluted and forgettable, and then you come up with a really succinct way of condensing it into imagery that is also memorable. You must be a writer. And then, generously, you seem to give me credit for the memorable version. Thanks.

[Thinking]

6 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

I can believe that. But i don't know how you mean, yet.

A lot of what he said was true...I have yet to study his book...and I will....I have read it...but quickly in some parts. But i will make a study of it....which actually requires pulling some things apart  and it is worthwhile doing that because that’s how one learns.....and I may disagree with some of the scriptural things he said....and as I said I agree with him on some things already...more than likely I will simply not understand one way or another... on some subjects...but does that make me narcissistic???.

I don’t have any problems with 607...and yes I’ve read Olaf and many others who believe as you do....personally I don’t understand your belief...but that is your right to have that belief....and I respect that,

 

 

[JW Insider]

22 hours ago, Thinking said:

and as I said I agree with him on some things already...more than likely I will simply not understand one way or another... on some subjects...but does that make me narcissistic???.

I see what you are saying, but this is like comparing pumpkins and slippers (Thanks to Arauna for the expression, possibly inspired from Cinderella). You are doing quite the opposite of what it appears that Furuli has been doing. I agree that the narcissism label is fraught with problems. But it is not evidenced in people who admit that they will likely agree with someone on things and disagree on other things and simply not understand one way or another on other things. This is already good evidence that you are NOT a narcissist.

I don't think Furuli is a narcissist simply for writing a book that trashes the current accepted view of the GB. As you probably know, I agree with much of what he says about that same subject. Just as I agree with what Fred Franz said about the subject from a scriptural perspective. And I have long presented my view that the "faithful slave" is a lesson for all of us, not a lesson about a clergy of appointed slaves to serve spiritual food for the good for nothing slave laity.

The idea of narcissism comes from the scholastic dishonesty he has engaged in. And, believe it or not, from my own perspective, I'm giving him a generous rationale for his scholastic dishonesty. If it is based on the inability to see where he has ever been wrong, then this is an explanation for why he cannot deal with evidence that shows he is wrong. A person can engage in scholastic dishonesty without being purposely dishonest in the sense of being devious. A narcissist will create such an extreme bias to protect their own ideology that it produces a mental block against rational handling of counter-arguments and counter-evidence. Extreme bias can make one engage in dishonesty without making them a purposeful liar.

On the topic of 607, this really has nothing to do with whether the date is right, or whether Furuli or anyone else has the doctrine right or wrong. It's simply about his many cases of obvious scholastic dishonesty. Even if he was absolutely right about 607 he still handled the evidence dishonestly.

I agree that it's quite possible I'm wrong. But if it has no overriding mental basis, I'd be inclined to see his past actions as absolute, purposeful, devious dishonesty just to keep his reputation intact. I have to admit that I think he has at times, engaged in this type of dishonesty, too. One time, on a very academic Biblical language forum he said something that was proven to be absolutely false, and he couldn't deny it. He couldn't admit he was wrong, so he claimed that what he wrote had started out as a purposeful presentation of the wrong side, that he had sent without the correction. To me, that was either a mental inability to admit being wrong, or it was purposeful "devious" dishonesty. 

And, as you say, he may be right on many of the points made in this latest book, but many of them continue in this consistent pattern of having promoted a certain ideology, from somewhere around the 1970s, for example, but with the inability to admit that anything that changed after that point had ever have been wrong in the first place.

I'd like to think that this latest book is a complete turning over of a new e-leaf, and I could dismiss the past foibles. Yet, he still wants the creative days to add up to 49,000 years.

[TrueTomHarley]

3 hours ago, Thinking said:

but does that make me narcissistic???.

Whether his is narcissistic or not is for others to say, but there is clearly something squirrelly about him. Why he would throw away the brotherhood to absolutely no purpose is beyond me. To throw it away because he thinks the religion JWs practice is all wet is one thing. But he presses the point that his religion is the true one. So why publish an indictment of the GB as you reaffirm everything else. He knows it will cost him (something I myself did’t know, nor some others here). He has counted the costs and is willing for the brotherhood to be severed from him, for something he knows will do no good! He submits his work to Bethel, but when they “refuse” to engage him, he publishes it to make Reddit’s day. The Witness organization will say, “One more bit of opposition? Throw it on the stack,” and he knows they will say that. 

4Jah, odd even in a menagerie of oddballs, says: “I bet your sweating that Rolf wrote his book. I bet you’re sweating that my friends are scheming up other mischief.” Of course I am. But I also keep it in perspective. Could he really have been a Witness at one time, for he seems to have forgotten everything. Wasn’t that his ancestor that was saying to ancient worshippers of Jehovah: I bet you’re sweating that your buddies are “tortured because they would not accept release by some ransom, in order that they might attain a better resurrection.“  I bet you’re sweating that other have “their trial by mockings and scourgings.” I bet you’re sweating that for others it will be “by chains and prisons.” I bet you’re sweating that some will be “stoned, they were tried, they were sawn in two, they were slaughtered by the sword, they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, while they were in need, in tribulation, mistreated.” I bet you’re sweating that my world has consigned them to “wander about in deserts and mountains and caves and dens of the earth.” Wasn’t that his cousin, 4Jahovich, who taunted Dennis Christensen, “I bet you’re sweating that we’re going to throw you in the hoosegow” or two the Russian branch: “I’ll bet you’re sweating that we’re going to declare you illegal extremists.” He has forgotten everything he ever knew about Christianity. It’s as though he thinks Jesus and the twelve are in the “Roman Empire Hall of Fame.”

The trick to doing what I am doing online is to know that I will lose. The villains will have their day in the sun before the Great Day arrives. So am I sweating? I wouldn’t put it that way. Does it cause me concern? Yes. To say I am sweating would be putting it too strongly. I think of the line besieged mothers sometimes use on their offspring: “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.” So it is with Jehovah’s visible arrangement. They brought me into this spiritual world. Of course, they cannot take my faith from me. I have assimilated that and it remains unless I damage it myself. But if it seems that their direction should “take me out,“ I think of that second part of the saying. I know how Christians fared in the first century. They didn’t win the respect and honor of their fellow humans. They were reviled by the general populace, parallel to how JWs are reviled by the general populace today. I will say it is not because of overall GB doings; it is par for the course.

As for Rolf trading away the brotherhood—If I suffer misfortune and vanish from the internet, (as recently happened to a long-time player here) none of my online acquaintances will ever know why. Was I hit by a bus? Did I suddenly go gravely ill? Did I have a bad conscience over confronting the villains? Did I empty my pockets and still not have enough for my ISP bill? Nobody will ever know. But because I stick with the brotherhood, people will know my distress within a few hours, a day or so at most, and they will be people disposed to do everything they can to remedy my problem. All that Rolf throws away to no purpose other than making a statement. Narcissistic? Maybe not, but the symptoms resemble it closely enough that JWI can be forgiven for not knowing the difference.

3 hours ago, Thinking said:

I have yet to study his book...and I will....I have read it...but quickly in some parts. But i will make a study of it....which actually requires pulling some things apart

I run the risk of seeming anti-scholar here, and I am not. I like books. I have read more than most. When the BBC ran a list of the 100 greatest books of all time, I found that I had read over 50 of them—“read” them via Books-on-Tape while working as a janitor. But too many things are phrased as though matters of scholarship, matters of the head, as though “Wisdom puffs up, but not in my case.” Forgive me, but I would not choose ‘Thinking’ as a moniker, even though I do a lot of it—and “Scholar JW” as a handle leaves me cold. There probably was nobody less scholarly than the twelve who accompanied Jesus, perhaps excepting only Judas, who was not from the hills, but from “metropolitan” Jerusalem. There were plenty of scholars at the time, but Jesus bypassed them all—he was looking for those who would do God’s will, as opposed to just studying it—to shake it down in its components with a heady goal of instructing others. “What is desired in a steward is to be found faithful,” Jesus states, not “analytical.” Of course, the head trains the heart—we all know that. But much more does the heart train the head, so that to overemphasize the head seems to be missing the point. There are brothers who wish to be known for their critical thinking, and even by their eagerness to be “led by the science.” It makes no sense to me. The first thing that contemporary scientists will do is to tell you where you can go with your quaint little notion of Adam and Eve. Science is THE tool of those humanists that would defy God. It is enough to keep up with it—we don’t have to venerate is as they do—as the be-all and end-all. Scholarship is a great thing—pour me a double-shot of it—but it ranks somewhat low in Christian qualities necessary for approval before God. To hear some carry on here (not you), it is the ONLY thing that matters.