All Eight Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses members are now individually named on two New York Child Victims Act case documents

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

I presume @admin has given up on keeping things on topic  

[AlanF]

Arauna once again punted on most everything with which I challenged her. I'm commenting on what little remained.
     

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    1 hour ago, AlanF said:

    Summaries are not science articles. Apparently you're not astute enough to know that.

I get a summary with a link to the original paper.

 

So? You already said you don't read most of the papers.

And you still can't name a single paper about science that you've read. We already know that you don't even read the pseudoscience papers that a few creationists produce because they don't produce papers about real science, and I'm certain you don't get even them in your mailbox.
And it's quite obvious that you've never read a book on evolution by a proper, recognized and competent scientist. Creationist books like Berlinksy's are NOT science books. I suggest Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters by paleontologist Donald Prothero. It contains much debunking of nonsense like Berlinsky and the DI have published. Of course, being a real science book, we know you'll avoid reading it like the plague. There are plenty of other good, solid books.
     

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    1 hour ago, AlanF said:

    comment to which I replied as above was so abysmally ignorant

I am still waiting for the answer you refused to give earlier because you are a fake....

 

Such a transparent hypocrite! You demand an answer from me that, with a little online research, you can find the answer to yourself. Yet you refuse to answer my unique challenges and questions to you.

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I asked a question about the math behind hitting the "jackpot" millions of times per second for  billion of years.  And you get stuck on the matter of  love .......  and refuse to accept the third postulation.

Wrong. You are a liar. I posed my challenge to disprove my logic that the Bible God does not exist well before you posted your Intelligent Design claptrap. I posed my challenge this past Tuesday, but you posted your silly question only yesterday. Compare:

https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/forums/topic/85859-all-eight-governing-body-of-jehovahs-witnesses-members-are-now-individually-named-on-two-new-york-child-victims-act-case-documents/page/14/#comments

https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/forums/topic/85859-all-eight-governing-body-of-jehovahs-witnesses-members-are-now-individually-named-on-two-new-york-child-victims-act-case-documents/page/35/#comments

Since you're too lazy to do your own research, I've done some for you.

While you've parroted the creationist talking point about hitting the jackpot, you obviously don't understand the math or the overall concepts behind it.

First, the many hypotheses about Abiogeneis do not claim that a living cell or even large molecule came about in one fell swoop as your creationist sources assume, but rather, that by a long series of gradually accumulating structures that built upon previously existing structures, which were sorted by the filter of natural selection, a viable structure emerged. Richard Dawkins explained all this in his 1996 book Climbing Mount Improbable, which of course you have not read.

Second, the Theory of Evolution posits no sudden jumps from simple or even no structures, to complex structures. So your creationist argument is a straw man. It has been debunked as such for decades.

Third, although creationists propose simpleminded probability arguments like yours, the fact is that no one knows enough to make accurate calculations. It would take full knowledge of how atoms and molecules work that is far beyond anything known today.

In the following link, "Can Probability Theory Be Used To Refute Evolution?", a professional mathematician explains why arguments such as you've parroted are totally wrongheaded:

https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/can_probability_theory_be_used_to_refute_evolution_part_one/

As for your "third postulation", I already showed why it is nonsense. You dishonestly cut out my explanation in your reply here.

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Another math problem with your theory

My theory? LOL!

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is that humans develop several mutations per day in their DNA which can affect them adversely.

That's a scientific finding. Do you disagree with it? On what basis?

The fact is that natural selection weeds out the bad mutations; at least, it did until the advent of modern medicine.

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Most die of cancer these days.

Wrong as usual. It's heart disease: https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death

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If humans have lived a long as you say - they would already have gone extinct with the number of accumulated mutations. ....

Yet another creationist talking point that has been debunked dozens of times.

The cat sub-family that includes lions, tigers, jaguars, leopards, etc. has existed at least five million years. Obviously they have not gone extinct. How do you explain that?

What about the hundreds of obviously human or human-like fossils that have been found and dated to various times up to 4-6 million years ago? Or do you tell yourself they don't exist?

Are you aware that virtually all people outside Africa have bits of DNA from Neanderthals and/or Denisovans? Neanderthals seem to have developed from Homo erectus by half a million years ago, modern humans from unknown roots by 300,000 years ago in Africa. Eventually the two met in Europe and hybridized. Do you not accept that DNA evidence and the dating of the fossils? On what basis?
Oh yeah, you have your creationist sources.
 

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    1 hour ago, AlanF said:

    As for his motives, who knows?

I told you..... he answers people like you because he can - he is qualified to do so.  

 

You're so incompetent! The question about Berlinsky's motives was with regard to the hypocrisy of his claim to be a secular, non-religious Jew as opposed to his hypocritically joining the conservative Christian Discovery Institute which requires a statement of faith in God and Jesus Christ.

Yet another instance of dishonest sidestepping.

[TrueTomHarley]

3 hours ago, AlanF said:

I said I would not reply to Arauna further, but I'm a sinner, and Arauna's response is so ludicrous that I'm going to sin.

She is disagreeing with you, that’s all, and not being mean about it.

Grown-ups are usually able to handle that without “sinning.”

[AlanF]

17 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

She is disagreeing with you, that’s all, and not being mean about it.

Grown-ups are usually able to handle that without “sinning.”

As usual, so far off topic it's not even wrong.

[Vic Vomidog]

4 hours ago, AlanF said:

Berlinsky says he's a secular Jew. Most secular Jews are agnostics or atheists, and certainly not religious. Yet he's thrown in his lot with the ultra-conservative Christian Discovery Institute, showing that he's a hypocrite 

This is an excellent point, brilliantly stated as usual. He clearly has no business doing what he is doing. He is without a doubt an agnostic or atheist, since most secular Jews are. He is not supposed to side with anyone who is religious! It is not allowed. That proves he is a hypocrite.

He is so stupid that he probably thinks Berlin is a city in Germany.

[Anna]

5 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

I presume @admin has given up on keeping things on topic

It's not up to admin. It's the @The Librarian who is in charge of this club. And no, it's not me or JWI or TTH or JTR or anyone else in this club.

[AlanF]

3 hours ago, Vic Vomidog said:

This is an excellent point, brilliantly stated as usual. He clearly has no business doing what he is doing. He is without a doubt an agnostic or atheist, since most secular Jews are. He is not supposed to side with anyone who is religious! It is not allowed. That proves he is a hypocrite.

He is so stupid that he probably thinks Berlin is a city in Germany.

TTH continues the Dunning-Kruger routine.

[Arauna]

7 hours ago, AlanF said:

and I'm certain you don't get even them in your mailbox

Definitely, I do not get pro-creation papers in my mailbox......I read the newest information to see the flaws in it - for myself.

For example:  when they found more than 10 proteins in dinosaur bones-  it pointed to a younger earth.  The next paper was a rebuttal.  They postulated that the iron in the blood must have preserved the proteins in the bones. They proved in the paper that iron CAN preserve proteins - which is the only information I agree with.

The problem I had with that  postulation was is this: large amounts of blood are not available in the bones and  while one may find a centrifuge in a lab to concentrate the iron for a test ......  I have never seen a dinosaur bone with a built-in centrifuge to clump the iron in the blood together to preserve the bones.  No-one spotted the absurdity that one cannot compare what happens in a lab to what happens in nature. 

I can give you another example with Mr Dawkins.  He made a big do about analysing and cutting out the nerve of a giraffe on TV  and demonstrating how unneccesary it was for the nerve to curve around the heart - he said it was bad "design"..... a left over from evolution.

As an African I immediately spotted his lack of understanding of animals and lack of thinking things through.  Giraffes have exceptionally long necks and need the heart to get feedback of the pressure to get the blood to the head..... the design is perfect...... there are other reasons as well......in our bodies "everything"  is connected ...... which is one of the several complexities which  point to design.

For example: one needs the brain to interpret what the eyes see.  The eyes in its complex design cannot see without the brain, which interprets the information.  Which one came first? They eye or the brain.... when they both need each other to functio, it means there was pre-existing  "information" that the other organ would exist. This indicates a presence of "coordinated information" or "pre-knowledge"......... a form of intelligence.

Male and female organs that developed separately yet are perfectly biologically coordinated.... each providing only HALF of the genetic material needed to produce a new life etc..... I can go on and on....

Obviously - one of us is a fanatic about " religion" ...... and I know it is not me.   SCIENCE is not as infallible as you thought.... scientists are often egotists...... they do not always go in the direction the truth leads them but in the direction where they can publish papers.  So your Mommy Science has fed you a lot of claptrap and it does not even have good motives. 

..... 

7 hours ago, AlanF said:

long series of gradually accumulating structures that built upon previously existing structures

According to science there was an ice age inbetween..  and the  "goldilocks" conditions " over such a long period of time is a fallacy.   

 

[Arauna]

8 hours ago, AlanF said:

fact is that natural selection weeds out the bad mutations; at least, it did until the advent of modern medicine.

In one cell one needs a minimum of 150 proteins to function. A protein has a specific sequence of DNA material that can only fit in a specific way and is folded in a specific way. ..... very complex. 

Nano-bio-engineers work together in groups and take months to produce only one chemical needed for such a protein........ with perfect conditions in the lab, many sets of brainy ideas.  This if for only one chemical that is needed to build ONE complex protein.  

Then every cell has a complex energy factory - the mitochondria -  which by the way has its own separate DNA, which can only be inherited from a woman....... (Eve).   Apart from this we have the transport system in the cell........... and most of all the important MEMBRANE.    If the membrane was not there (in the chemical soup you believe in..... )  the cell material would not have been able to stay together...... the material would have dissipated and NEVER EVER formed a cell. ..... and then the cell still needs LIFE..... The mechanisms to maintain the cell is much more complex than evolutionists can imagine.   Evolution deliberately simplifies the cell, its mechanics and structure.

So - who of us has been duped?   The one who has put his faith in "human intelligence" or the one who has realized there is a higher intelligence. 

Mathematically it is impossible to get even one cell developed in 500 billion years - we need time beyond what scientists are saying is the age of the universe.

 

[TrueTomHarley]

11 hours ago, Anna said:

It's not up to admin. It's the @The Librarian who is in charge of this club.

That old hen

[AlanF]

Well well. Arauna, you're finally beginning to engage on an adult level. You still have a long way to go.

Of course, as usual you've ignored at least 90% of my arguments and comments.

Arauna said:

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    7 hours ago, AlanF said:

    and I'm certain you don't get even them in your mailbox

Definitely, I do not get pro-creation papers in my mailbox......

 

Yet you read creationist books like Berlinsky's, and no books on evolution by proper scientists. That's easy to tell because you can't name one you've read.

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I read the newest information to see the flaws in it - for myself.

I ask again: What are the names of the 'scientific' magazines you've read? Lack of an answer will tell me either that you don't read such, or you're embarrassed to name them.

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For example:  when they found more than 10 proteins in dinosaur bones-  it pointed to a younger earth.

Nonsense. Whatever you read, any claims about a younger earth came from young-earth creationists. No scientific magazine "pointed to a younger earth" as a result of that discovery. Only young-earth creationist publications do that.

You disagree? Then name the magazine that "pointed to a younger earth".

You seem to think that the earth is much younger than science has shown. Hopefully you're aware that the Watchtower Society agrees that the earth is 4.6 billion years old, and that life is some 3.5+ billion years old, and that macroscopic life has been around for some 600 million years. While the Society doesn't explicitly admit the antiquity of life, the arguments given on page 23 of the 2010 brochure The Origin of Life assume it. Do you disagree with science and the Watchtower Society on the antiquity of life?

You're talking about the 2000 discovery of a 68 million year old Tyrannosaurus and the subsequent analysis of some bone fragments by paleontologist Mary Schweitzer. Note that Schweitzer is a devout Christian, but not a young-earth creationist, and she accepts evolution. She soundly rejects the YEC claim of a 6,000 year old earth and accepts that her T-Rex bone is 68 million years old.

Schweitzer presented papers in 2005 and 2007 stating that she and her team found bits of protein, blood cells and blood vessels in a very degraded state inside some of the T-Rex bones. Some of the links below say that no other scientists have been able to duplicate Schweitzer's work, which at a minimum casts doubt on whether she found anything of significance. Remember that duplication of results by other scientists is a firm requirement for any claims to be accepted. Remember the "cold fusion" fiasco? And of course, it almost goes without saying that extraordinary claims like Schweitzer's require extraordinary levels of confirmation. Critics point out that if Schweitzer's work cannot be duplicated, it's likely that there was contamination of some sort. Some links below say that Schweitzer's work has been at least partly duplicated by other scientists. The jury is still out.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur-shocker-115306469/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Higby_Schweitzer

http://christadelphianevolution.blogspot.com/2015/04/how-young-earth-creationists-distorted.html

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/i-don-t-care-what-they-say-about-me-paleontologist-stares-down-critics-her-hunt

https://www.livescience.com/41537-t-rex-soft-tissue.html

As far as I'm concerned, if soft tissue really has been found, great! Yet another set of facts useful to figure out how life has developed. But this in no way indicates "a younger earth".

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The next paper was a rebuttal.  They postulated that the iron in the blood must have preserved the proteins in the bones. They proved in the paper that iron CAN preserve proteins - which is the only information I agree with.

Ah, so you're sufficiently qualified in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, geology and paleontology to make such an evaluation. I think not.

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The problem I had with that  postulation was is this: large amounts of blood are not available in the bones and  while one may find a centrifuge in a lab to concentrate the iron for a test ......  I have never seen a dinosaur bone with a built-in centrifuge

I doubt you've ever seen a dinosaur bone at all.

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to clump the iron in the blood together to preserve the bones.

Centrifuges are not required to make blood clump. Ever hear of clotting? Ever hear of post-death pooling? There are many clumping mechanisms.

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No-one spotted the absurdity that one cannot compare what happens in a lab to what happens in nature.

No one said that anything like that happened. Your imagination is running wild.

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I can give you another example with Mr Dawkins.  He made a big do about analysing and cutting out the nerve of a giraffe on TV  and demonstrating how unneccesary it was for the nerve to curve around the heart - he said it was bad "design"..... a left over from evolution.

You seem to think that Dawkins originated this idea. He did not. It has been a talking point of critics of creationism for a long time. Here's Dawkins' video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO1a1Ek-HD0&feature=youtu.be

Of course, you've completely buggered what Dawkins said, most likely having merely parroted what creationist critics have said and then misunderstood even that.

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As an African I immediately spotted his lack of understanding of animals and lack of thinking things through.

As an American I immediately spotted the fact that you don't even know what nerve Dawkins was talking about. All you've managed to say is "the nerve" without specifying which nerve. In the video Dawkins was clear: he was talking about the recurrent laryngeal nerve. Your creationist sources have mixed that up with the vagus nerve. Here are links that clarify what each does:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagus_nerve

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470179/

The mammalian vagus nerves, with right and left halves, descend from the brain, down through the neck, and into the chest cavity. Shortly after leaving the base of the skull, the left and right superior laryngeal nerves branch off and go directly to the larynx. As the vagus nerves descend further, various small nerves branch off. Near the heart the left and right recurrent laryngeal nerves branch off. The left branch loops around the aorta and back up to the larynx. The right branch loops around the right subclavian artery and back up to the larynx. Both branches give rise to small nerves at various points.

Note clearly that the superior (upper) laryngeal nerves branch off from the vagus nerves just below the base of the skull, close to the larynx, providing a very short path from brain to larynx. But the lower laryngeal nerves take a tortuous path all the way down to the heart, and back up again. This is especially so in the giraffe, where the extra length amounts to some 4.6 meters.

The fact that the upper laryngeal nerves go directly to the larynx proves that there is no engineering reason why the lower laryngeal nerves could not take the same direct path. And that any small nerves that branch off along the way could not better branch off from the vagus nerves without taking the tortuous loop around the heart vessels.

Dawkins' team's dissection of the giraffe neck graphically shows that the nerve length of 4.6 meters as opposed to the 5 centimeters it could have been proves that either the Supreme Engineer is a lousy or lazy Engineer, or that Evolution is the Engineer. In other words, Intelligent Design is not evident in the 'design' of the path of the giraffe's laryngeal nerves.

Given all this, we note your buggered creationist description:

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Giraffes have exceptionally long necks and need the heart to get feedback of the pressure to get the blood to the head..... the design is perfect...... there are other reasons as well......in our bodies "everything"  is connected ...... which is one of the several complexities which  point to design.

The laryngeal nerves have nothing to do with the heart. The heart can be served by the vagus nerves without having the recurrent laryngeal nerves come near it. The pressure feedback is not supplied by the laryngeal nerves but by the vagus nerves. Your argument is simply wrong.

The circuitous route of the laryngeal nerves is far better explained by gradual evolution of the nerve path from early fish-like ancestors. As shown by embryological studies, the vagus nerve in fish is equivalent to that of mammals. In fishy ancestors the nerve went from the brain past the heart and immediately to the gills. As creatures evolved, and the gills gradually transformed into other organs, the tiny steps of evolution required miniscule changes in embryological development. With tiny steps all along the way, there was nothing to influence development to require a complete rewiring of the vagus/laryngeal system. Evolution has no foresight but makes do with what is immediately available.

This is why all creatures so far examined, from fish on down, have essentially the same vagus nerve structure. Is your Supreme Engineer so limited that he cannot created something with better design?

On the other hand, a competent Engineer creating the giraffe 'kind' from scratch, or modifying it from some sort of ancestor, would have no such limitations. He could apply good engineering principles and create the nerve system with optimal path lengths from scratch.

See this link for another look. Plenty more such can be found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO1a1Ek-HD0&feature=youtu.be

At this point I know very well that you will either mostly ignore all of the above, or come up with some transparently ridiculous rationalization that any competent engineer would laugh at.

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For example: one needs the brain to interpret what the eyes see.  The eyes in its complex design cannot see without the brain, which interprets the information.  Which one came first? They eye or the brain.... when they both need each other to functio, it means there was pre-existing  "information" that the other organ would exist. This indicates a presence of "coordinated information" or "pre-knowledge"......... a form of intelligence.

Completely wrong. The brain and eye developed together. Again you're parroting a standard creationist talking point.

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    9 hours ago, AlanF said:

    long series of gradually accumulating structures that built upon previously existing structures

According to science there was an ice age inbetween..

 

In between what?

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and the  "goldilocks" conditions " over such a long period of time is a fallacy.    

Yet again you have no idea what you're talking about. In the earth's history there have been many "ice ages". The most recent is actually a series of cooling and warming periods lumped into the term "The Ice Age" and which began about 2.5 million years ago. The most recent in the latest period began cooling about 100,000 years ago and warmed beginning roughly 20,000 years ago. We are living in the most recent interglacial period.

Which "ice age" are you talking about?

[TrueTomHarley]

On 11/23/2019 at 8:31 AM, TrueTomHarley said:

After changing the wording, then say, as did G Jackson, “the Bible says that there will be such and such, and we are doing our best to fulfill that pattern.” Surely THAT should not be illegal.

Doubtless it is the same with the announcement that replaces the one about disfellowshipping. 

It used to be announced from time to time that “so and so has been disfellowshipped.” For several years now—what is it? maybe 10? it is “so and so is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

It gets the job done, and it avoids the problem of being attacked over the fact that “disfellowship” is not a word that appears in the Bible—and so villains try to spin it as an evil corporation of man-made rules “controlling” the minions. 

The revised announcement has all of the “upside” and none of the downside of the former one. “Upside” is in quotes, of course, because it is a downer when the announcement is made. It is a moment of silence, all fidgeting, daydreaming, and chattering halts. It is a very sad time, even if everyone concedes the necessity of it, and the road to recovery is not so plain at all. There may not BE a recovery. DF is a last-ditch measure of discipline, when all else has failed, to jolt the transgressor, but more importantly, to safeguard the congregation from the influence.

To be sure, it can be perceived as mean-spirited, and it certainly is here by many persons who in most cases are opposed to JWs regardless, but given the way humans are built, the case can be made that values of the congregation cannot be preserved “without spot from the world” any other way. That is the lesson drawn from the book Secular Faith, by Mark Smith—a book the WT has quoted for a separate but related reason:

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/01/in-defense-of-shunning.html

Of course opposers will rail at it because the well-being of the congregation is of no concern to them.

If someone is doing the deeds and saying the sayings of Jehovah’s Witnesses, then that person is one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. If someone refuses to do that, how can it be said that he or she is still one of Jehovah’s Witnesses? The “improvement” of the new announcement over the old is that congregation members recall from the Bible just how a person who has served Jehovah and then willfully rejects that life is to be viewed. They think of “treat him as a tax collector and man of the nations,” that Jews had “no dealings” with. They think of “not even eating with such a man,” “never saying a greeting.” They will recall the counsel to “reject empty speeches that violate what is holy, for they will lead to more and more ungodliness, and their word will spread like gangrene,” (2 Timothy 2:16-17) and it comes to mind just how one deals with gangrene.

Thus, it is indisputably the Bible that directs congregation members. It is the Bible that tells them what to do, and for now, it is not illegal to follow the Bible. Opposers want to spin it that they are fighting a “corporation;” they are temporarily thwarted with this announcement. They are forced to reveal that it is not the corporation they are opposing, but God, insofar as the Bible represents his thinking, which to Jehovah’s Witnesses it does.

It is a better announcement than the previous one, not just for thwarting opposers, but also for us. It clarifies even for us that the Bible directs our conduct. The only “sin” that the “corporation” has committed is educating members as to what the Bible says on all aspects of life.

It allows more internal freedom to examine just what those verses above and others like it actually mean in all areas of life, such as the ones people carry on here about—ones involving minors, ones involving words as well as deeds, and what kind of words. All of this re-examination is going on now, I am convinced, even if every minor little tweak is not heralded with the announcement that malcontents insist upon, mostly so they can get right to work at undermining it.

With young people, the obvious tweak—and I think it happens now—will be to cut them some slack when they err, as young people almost by definition are apt to do. It is not to shut them out of the adult world of acting upon something once they come to know it is right. The late John Holt, a pioneer of homeschooling, used to maintain that juvenile delinquents are made that way—when they try to enter the world of adults and are shut out.

A sign that today indicates most Witnesses are well aware that the Bible directs their conduct, and not an organization, is the frequent complaints of those who have gone POMO—physically out as well as mentally out—that they are kept at a distance by family members even though no announcement was ever made—not of “disfellowshipping” nor “no longer one of JWs.” They rail and rail about this—the ‘brainwashing goes really deep,” they say. They cannot link their “shunning” to an announcement, and thus they are forced to conclude (though they refuse to) that members are allowing themselves to be directed by the Bible and not some human organization. Close family members have discerned that someone has turned away from Jehovah, and they don’t need an announcement to apply scriptural direction to the situation.

On 11/23/2019 at 8:31 AM, TrueTomHarley said:

AlanF relates: “I asked him point blank: “In one sentence, is it or is it not true that elders are *directly* appointed by holy spirit?” He hesitated, hung his head, and answered, “No.”

The man who studied the Bible with me and “brought me into the truth” had problems with this and went apostate himself—he may be sitting at Alan’s right hand now. Several were baptized through his efforts, and he later went back to try to undo some of the “damage” that he had done. To my knowledge, however, he had no success in this.

Douglas was an incredibly zealous man. His enthusiasm was boundless. He was a welder for the public utility, and I was assigned to be his assistant for a summer job in between semesters.

“Now according to the church, there’s far more wicked people than good, isn’t that true? For every good person, there has to be —how many?—say...100 wicked people? Right? Isn’t that what they teach?” he would gush, and then hit his punch line: “When was the last time you went to a funeral and the priest packed someone off to hell?!!!” I can hear him now, 40 years later.

After several weeks of such, he invited me to his house, where he conducted a classroom—about a dozen chairs were laid out, most of them filled—and he conducted a Bible study out of the Truth book. Soon after, or maybe it was before, he invited me to a Sunday meeting for a really good public talk, I thought. Same was true the next Sunday, and the next one after that. But on the fourth, he whispered to me, “This one is kind of a dog, but they are not usually like that.”

We had the incredible circumstance of an engineer who was so unbelievably inept that he would twiddle his thumbs for weeks on end, and those downstream from him, such as “his” welder and that one’s assistant, had nothing to do until he got his act together, which he never did. There must have been more to it than that—maybe he was someone’s relative—because even then that is not something that would normally happen. Speaking of one klutz, who had been fired, from an entirely different time, my Dad said, “You almost think that they could find a place for a donkey like him.” He said this because he came from a time and place in which large companies would do that. If they hired a man that turned out to be a clunker, they would say, “Ah, rats! Oh well—our bad. After all, he still has a family to support,” and they would give him a broom and find a spot for him where he could do minimal damage.

So it was that Don would witness to me 8 hours per day for several weeks, and neither he nor I were goofing off—there was literally nothing for us to do but await instructions that never came. Holy spirit had arranged for this engineer to be an idiot. (I just threw that line in for Alan, but having said that, the holy spirit is like the wind that you cannot see, and if anyone says holy spirit did this or that for me, even finding a mate, I never counter them—how would I know?) The first move was not his, but mine. This engineer didn’t get along too well with Douglas (nor with anyone else, as I recall) and he rebuked him at one point with, “You think you know so much just because you are one of those ‘Bible students!’” This intrigued me. I didn’t know that there was such a thing. 

“What do you mean ‘Bible student?’” I asked him later. “What’s that all about?” I had been brought up in a liberal Presbyterian church (it comes in several varieties) where few knew much about the Bible—at least not those that I knew of—and didn’t bemoan the loss. That was not why they attended. It was more of a social thing. I did not usually want to go. I hated being herded off with my siblings by mom, with dad’s full approval because it meant peach and quiet for him with the Sunday paper—I envied him, as he said, “religion is good for kids.” He never set foot in that church himself, and indeed was not very hospitable toward the minister. “Just remember who is the source of that contribution!” he told the poor fellow when he had come to call. My mom was a housewife—which was pretty much the norm back then, and did not otherwise work.

Seeng as I could not get out of it, I angled toward attending the church service itself, and not the Sunday School that I hated. I recall that there was some resistance to this from my mom, but in time I prevailed. I would there try to understand the Bible which was not explained—at most there was a ten-minute or so “sermon” to punctuate the service. I really did try to understand it, mostly because I liked the idea of understanding anything, but I could not understand it. I always assumed that it was my fault—I was not devoted enough, or studious enough, or persistent enough. I never dreamed that it was their fault.

I made the first move with this welder, not he with me. I think for this reason I will only go so far in “chasing” people in the ministry. “Well, the angels have to do something!” I have been known to say. Some Witnesses are so persistent with chasing down “interest” that they train householders not to show any, imo.

So.....fast forward now to after my baptism, and I run into Douglas at a circuit assembly. He is glad to see me, of course, and I him—we had met only one or two times after circumstances had taken us separate ways. This time he was different, however. This time he was not so enthused. This time he asked me—baptized less than a year—whether I thought ministerial servants and elders were really appointed by holy spirit. “Well, sure...I mean, I guess so,” I responded. It struck me as an odd question, and the next thing I know, he had gone apostate, he and his wife (though his wife later returned). In hindsight, I think that he felt he deserved to be a ministerial servant and was disgruntled at being passed over. In this case, all this bellyaching over being appointed by holy spirit stemmed from that fact that he wanted an office he not given. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it is so in every case.

I have seen this several times with different people. One brother—plainly immature, though he went through the motions, would actually storm out of the Kingdom Hall if new servants were announced and he was not one of them. (He never was, and subsequent events demonstrated what a wise omission that was.)

A variation of this happened within the last few months. An unbaptized woman whose family has been loosely associated but inactive as long as anyone can remember, came to the hall yesterday—she rarely does. I resolved to speak with her, and as she headed out during the song, I followed her and caught up with her in the parking lot. I asked her about her son, who had been recently baptized, had been very enthused for a time, volunteering for many things, and then had disappeared, taking a job that required about an hour commute both ways. I didn’t play spiritual concerns, but personal ones. “Doesn’t matter to me just now when he returns, or even if he does. How is he doing?” I framed it.

She told me that she had been stressed out dealing with all the rubbish, as though making amends for leaving in such a rush, and I made it clear that I didn’t care about that, but about her. Thinking I had an “in,” I repackaged a comment I made during the Watchtower study at a paragraph stating how many persons feel unfulfilled and stressed out by their careers. I had said: “Being of that age, many I know are retiring. Sometimes they are Witnesses, sometimes they are non-Witnesses, sometimes they are people I meet in the ministry. Almost always they include the observation that they just can’t take the baloney anymore—and they don’t always say ‘baloney.’”

I repeated this line to the woman in the parking lot, using the real word, and she replied that she hadn’t been speaking of the BS of the world—“you expect that,” she said, but “the BS here” is what she was talking about. I laughed. “Oh, the bullshit here,” I repeated. I really don’t think there is any—at least not enough as might be expected anywhere that people are involved, but I didn’t want to overreact. I tried to draw her out, promising that I would not put everything she said on the internet.

She was miffed that her son had not been made a ministerial servant! That was the extent of it—at least in this case. He had done everything asked of him, he had volunteered for this and that, and they had not made him a servant! “Does he think that he was used?” I ventured, and I got the impression that this is far more her complaint than his—that is not to say that he doesn’t share it. At any rate, I said that I would love to see him again, that I have tried—for I was one of those ones who he volunteered to help when I was slogging through some unexpected troubles. 

Probably there is more to the story. The son was very zealous, and likable in every way, but he was new enough that I can’t quite imagine him expecting an appointment, much less becoming embittered with it not coming his way. I’ll speak with him in time—he really was a good sort, and probably still is. He had some that were trying to discourage him when he was putting himself out there—maybe they in time prevailed. Probably it is Alan. “Had enough of that overbearing know-it-all, yet?” I will ask him. “I know @Araunawishes to God that she had never learned of his existance”