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How the New European Data Law Will Affect Jehovah’s Witnesses - My Take


TrueTomHarley

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16 hours ago, Outta Here said:

Don't underestimate the power of a tract to spark a fire in an honest heart that cannot be put out .

I don’t like the present series of tracts, but that does not mean that they are no good. I am very far from being typical. Nobody on this forum that claims to be a Witness is typical. I’m just carrying on some because I would love to see the ministry more fruitful that what it seems to me to be.

I and many others here write more in a day that most people write in a month. So I can hardly expect the tracts to cater to me. The last CO cited figures from somewhere that the average youngster today spends 7 minutes with print (as opposed to 10 hours or so on some form of screen time) Going simple is obviously the way to go. The fact that I do not like it does not mean that it is not just the ticket for reaching the majority. Education is usually a last-place priority in today’s world. 1/6 of the world’s population cannot read. Most people barely know that these persons exist, and count them as nothing. Watchtower produces simplified versions of material already written simple so as to reach them. 

I defend the use of (vastly) simplified writing, even as I do not personally like it. “They can learn to read a few grade levels beneath them, if they are not too full of themselves,” is a line I put somewhere. I’ve learned to work around what is unpalatable to me, telling the high-brow people to consider this or that bit of writing as an outline, nothing more. Or telling them to not worry about whether this or that in the Bible is literal, but instead to take it as a metaphor and see if they can discern the underlying meaning of it. Mathematicians do something similar all the time: assume that this or that condition is true just to see where that assumption leads them. If it proves fruitful, then they come back and reconsider any initial objection to it.

Just after 911, when people were unusually subdued, I grabbed that tract ‘Who Really Rules the World’ and had several good discussions with it. I’ve always liked Luke 4 for its clear explanation of Jesus declining Satan’s offer of gov’t control but acquiescing that it lay in his power to make the offer. Yes. There is a place for tracts.

Everyone here beefs about everything under the sun, so I have joined in on what is our main mission—the ministry.  I probably shouldn’t. It really is true that ‘bad association spoils useful habits.’ I’ll put it all on this thread and then do my best to zip it. The Bible is not a template for democracy, with every Tom Dick and Harry telling HQ how it ought to be.

 

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51 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Watchtower produces simplified versions of material already written simple so as to reach them. 

You wrote interesting things in comment.  

Apologize for my going this way :) but that is what exJW doing as mandatory task :)))

Simplified editions of text in WTJWORG publications is normal result and normal need, not just for poorly educated secular people, but because  WTJWORG advises only few years of standard, basic education for JW members as something that is ALL they need in this World without Future. If this trend of Organization  come to be More Successful in future period of time, they would only have to organizing some simple seminars about how to using smartphones and tablets for meetings and field service with simple cartoons and simplified text for study.    

I see that you not supporting this trend in Organization, but that is how it is :)))

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1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

I don’t like the present series of tracts, but that does not mean that they are no good. I am very far from being typical. 

This is my own personal bitching thread, after which I will get back to my normal supportive self, with only occasional caveats.

What nettles me about the tracts, and many other things, is how we go on and on and on about what a blessing from on high they all are, as though THIS Item is the magic bullet that will turn the preaching work on its head, exactly what is needed at this particular time— and doubtless it will completely energize the work and swarms will thereby be attracted to the truth.

I wish we wouldn’t do that. I wish we would just say “Here’s a new tool. We worked hard on it. Give it a try and see how it works.” I even think that our failure to do it that way is where a lot of the underlying conception that the JW organization is “smug” comes from.

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44 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

This is my own personal bitching thread, after which I will get back to my normal supportive self, with only occasional caveats.

What nettles me about the tracts, and many other things, is how we go on and on and on about what a blessing from on high they all are, as though THIS Item is the magic bullet that will turn the preaching work on its head, exactly what is needed at this particular time— and doubtless it will completely energize the work and swarms will thereby be attracted to the truth.

I wish we wouldn’t do that. I wish we would just say “Here’s a new tool. We worked hard on it. Give it a try and see how it works.” I even think that our failure to do it that way is where a lot of the underlying conception that the JW organization is “smug” comes from.

Well you are all still 'in the wilderness' on manna, but you get bored with it and ask for something different. Hence those you serve give you different things to play with. A bit like parents trying to please their children i suppose :) .

Shame none of it is really the 'truth' that the Org pretends it is.  So not only new tools but new message too.

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1 hour ago, Srecko Sostar said:

You wrote interesting things in comment. 

So do you. 

If we accept that the Bible is God’s prime method of communication to humans (which I do), sooner or later we are struck by the fact that very little of it is lecture. In contrast, if you went to college, almost all of it is lecture. What to make of this?

Much of the New Testament, not only is not lecture, but is ostensibly not even written for us. It largely consists of letters written to other parties, from which we glean things about God, his thinking, and his dealings. What to make of this, too?

When I mentioned this before and how it had influenced me, Srecko tried to bait me, asking whether I considered myself inspired like the apostle Paul (who wrote the majority of the letters). The answer is no. However, I am inspired by his example. If it is good enough for him (and for God, apparently, because it is included in the Bible canon) why should it not be good enough for me? It inspired in my blog an entirely new category: Skirmishes.

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/05/skirmish-970621-vastly-simplified-tracts-.html

They are not all from this board. Some are from boards that are private. When they are, I do not reveal anything specific of the writer, but only my reaction to it. John will pop a vein over this, but in all cases they merely come from people who do not want to have their 15 minutes of fame before the whole wide world. In no cases are they “the smoking gun” that he strives so mightily to locate. The true smoking popguns are to be found here.

He should consider a Hercule Poirot observation from one of the Christie novels—that in the course of a murder investigation, everyone gets cagey and evasive. The initial conclusion is that they all are somehow complicit, if not guilty of the crime investigated, but really it is because they do not want to explain other things that they were doing that have nothing to do with the crime but they had no intention of going public with—things that they imagined (usually correctly) were none of anyone’s business.

 

 

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1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

I wish we wouldn’t do that. I wish we would just say “Here’s a new tool. We worked hard on it. Give it a try and see how it works.” I even think that our failure to do it that way is where a lot of the underlying conception that the JW organization is “smug” comes from.

I am afraid "smug" is  being very generous.

The general conception of Jehovah's Witnesses, to again be "generous", is that we are programmed simpletons, and a Saturday morning nuisance, that has to be tolerated, with understanding, sympathy, and compassion ( except in the Russian Federation ...).

Your observations are the norm, except for the GB's opinions, which are naive as well as smug.

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1 minute ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

One thing that lends credence to the idea that Jehovah's Witnesses really are God's people is how well we do IN SPITE of the Governing Body ... not because of it.

No. This remark just reflects your personal orneriness and incessant faultfinding.

It is the humanity that they spring from that is the problem. They work mightily to apply the scripture in their own lives even as they recommend it to others. It is hard for them to make headway in the face of ones like you. Fortunately, you are in the minority (even if the majority here).

John carries on that if something is not perfect, then it is filthy. He doesn’t like the GB. Nor do you. He apparently wants a person or persons whose credentials and calling are as uncontested as they were with Moses. He neglects the fact that his (and your) counterparts back then did nothing but whine about Moses, also.

 

 

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NO ONE is immune to WDS, and that includes me (and you), so your points may be more accurate than mine.

I often wonder about those people who followed Moses, ... a whole generation ... (as everyone on planet Earth defines it except the Governing Body) ... if some families or individuals had decided to break off and head North instead of East, where a whole generation of Israelites did in fact die .... in the desert wilderness, to be buried in the shifting sand.

... or if someone had made a map as they were going along, and noticed they had been lost for 40 years.

 

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3 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

The last CO cited figures from somewhere that the average youngster today spends 7 minutes with print (as opposed to 10 hours or so on some form of screen time)

Where I live, official stats reckon that 75% of under 30s have no religious thought at any time. I would concur from experience that this a likely proportion, and many 30-50 year olds are not far behind.

However, the questions that our tracts provide a spritual answer to, they have all the time. It is just that they do not look to a God to provide answers to them. I think the tracts provide a very useful function in that they offer a route rather than an argument. When presented with our alternative view on things, if a person is delivering the message, then the receiver has to capitulate. That is not always a pleasant experience, especially for younger persons who may suffer from a measure of insecurity. The tracts offer the same solutions as we do when witnessing, but without comment or valuation on an erroneous view. The experience is private and much less painful. Then when one of us arrives with the question " Have You Ever Wondered? then the householder may well have done so at some time even if they can't remember the tract that triggered the thought.

They work, as my own experience confirms. We don't have to like them, but we cannot deny their effectiveness. Let's face it, medicine doesn't have to taste good in order to do it's job. Wisdom is proved righteous by it's works, not it's appearance.

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TTH seems to be the one that wants to make me famous. He mentions me in a lot of his comments.

Examples :  ' John will pop a vein over this '   and  ' John carries on that if something is not perfect, then it is filthy '. 

Well TTH, John uses his own name so as to show that John in genuine with his thoughts and words. 

Quote TTH He apparently wants a person or persons whose credentials and calling are as uncontested as they were with Moses. 

23  “This is what Jehovah of armies says, ‘In those days ten men out of all the languages of the nations will take hold, yes, they will take firm hold of the robe of a Jew, saying: “We want to go with you, for we have heard that God is with you people.”’”

So TTH, how can a person 'take hold of the robe of a (spiritual) JEW' and how will a person know that ' God is with those people' ?  Guesswork is it ? 

Catholics think they have the truth, Muslims think they have the truth, so how is a person supposed to know ? 

If it's by works then the GB and Board of Directors and Watchtower Soc and CCJW and all their legal departments have fallen down badly and brought God's name into disrepute. And they have silenced the Anointed, the ones that are the true spiritual Jew. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

If we accept that the Bible is God’s prime method of communication to humans

If we accept ...... OK ..... and if we do not accept or we are unable to read, to get Bible, etc  ..... then what? ... does god have problem how to make communication with such person ??? Obviously Not, because you stated that Bible is Prime Method. If it is Prime than it is Not Only Method. :)))

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Much of the New Testament, not only is not lecture, but is ostensibly not even written for us

This is also interesting and almost contradict  idea in WTJWORG. As first, they teaching people how Bible is God's Letter for All People. In second step, in WTJWORG exists explanation that Bible (or some parts as you explained) is written for, primarily for, or only for special Class aka 144000 aka FDS aka GB (because last interpretation is, that FDS is GB and GB is FDS) By that only GB need to read Bible because God was send to them his word, not to some second class people. :))))

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