TrueTomHarley

It is true that if you are using 2Timothy 3:1-5 in the ministry to show that people are worse than ever before and your audience doesn’t agree, there’s not much you can do about it. It is subjective. That’s why one should compare bookends—the Titanic and the Costa Concordia. Doing so instantly makes the point: https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2012/01/costa-concordia-titanic-and-the-last-days.html FWIW: I was in service recently. My companion made a return visit on a young man, 20s I would say, who said he was atheist. She read 2 Timothy 3:1-5. He did not know of the verses and emphatically agreed they were especially applicable now (somewhat to my surprise—I figured he would pull a dismissive Pudgy).

“Why do you Jehovah’s Witnesses always have to say that conditions are getting worse? What does that belief do for you?” It helps me to explain why the Doomsday Clock is set at 90 seconds to midnight and not 10:30 AM.

I dunno. The trick would be to persuade them they really are assets and not just the next UN NGO bright idea.

The commentator may also be attempting to obscure the fact that if you want the same proportional ‘catch’ among Jehovah’s Witnesses that exists among the leaders of some faiths, you must widen the net to include everybody in the faith. Imagine if NCR decided to report on the abuse reported among any Catholics.

I suspect its days are numbered. They have a tech geek on that Hall upon whom it does not dawn that not everyone scheduled wants to be advertised before the whole wide world, all but encouraging doxxing.

A lot of yachts in jeopardy if what this fellow is saying comes to pass.

None of us know if they have landed on Saturn, either.

Of course. All other ‘explanations’ are just too stupid. Everything is ‘hypocritical’ to those who don’t like you, just as your opponents are always ‘arrogant’—otherwise, they wouldn’t oppose you. As for ‘sloppiness’—well, hmm—it could be painted that way in retrospect.

No. Nothing but brilliance there.

I know the breed.

Do these ones who allege a conspiracy re Watchtower and the UN ever posit a reason for such a NGO registration beyond a snafu?

That many? That’s worth addressing. 1) Because the complainers against anything always outnumber and are more vocal than those satisfied. It is a basic law of human nature and is seen everywhere. 2) Because of the thought expressed at Psalm 130:3. “If errors were what you watch, O Jah, O Jehovah, who could stand?” Watching errors is the modus operendi of today’s culture, typified in its media. Nobody stands as their enemies magnify, enhance, and even concoct evil reports—see it play out on the internet with any public figure. Of course, in addition, to those of a different agenda, everything is an error. 3) Because of the sentiment expressed at John 15:18-19. “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because you are no part of the world … on this account the world hates you”. (John 15:18-19) Of course, just because you are hated does not mean you as a group are Christ’s followers. However, any group NOT universally hated (and the list is not that long) is automatically disqualified from consideration. ‘No part of the world’ will sink you every time in the eyes of those who embrace the world. Though I was once active in this open club, I have not been for some time, deferring to the GB’s wishes. (also because it does little good—I have never known any opponent to change) I can’t say I ‘watch’ the contents exJWs provide, for I am invariably put off by how pedantic and boring they are, but through reading I do try to keep up. This is along the lines of Anna, who had a teenaged son and didn’t want to find him one day stumbled by something he had come across and herself powerless to help him because she had no idea what he had come across. Many observations of ex-Witnesses are valid, if not the conclusions they ultimately draw from them. I have incorporated into the latest book, ‘Things that drive you crazy about the faith and how to view them.’ Make no mistake. The book is loyal to Jehovah’s Witnesses and their earthly governing arrangement, but it does deal with some of the beefs the malcontents bring up: The metadata at least, if not the entire book (digital or print), should be required reading: https://mybook.to/IntheLastoftheLastDays (The book is even dedicated to ‘the Old Hen, whoever he may be.’)

Not at all.

I would think a telling question posed to anyone who expounds at great length about this would be do they know anything else about Australia?

This pic was included in the June 7th WSJ article that broke the Instagram story: Imagine. After a sober warning of the “extreme harm” such sexual imagery causes children, coupled with an appeal to visit the Help Center so as to “get resources,” still there is an option, if one wishes, to “See results anyway.” Get caught with the stuff on your computer and you’re in serious hot water. In fact, that’s the first thing I-gram warns about, as though the ‘extreme harm to children’ is but an afterthought. No wonder the next morning it was #Pedogram

Of course it does. Would one hold Macy’s responsible for the conduct of its shoppers?

The reproach of the abuser falls on the abuser, not the congregation. It was indeed a timely attitudinal shift. It’s a chapter that was in TTvtA, and now will have to be included somewhere else. https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/02/the-reproach-of-child-sexual-abuse-falls-on-the-abu.html

Given that you feel the way you do about the subject matter, I’ll accept this as high praise. In the upcoming ‘Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction,’ my perennial return visit, Bernard Strawman, (who continues to make find progress! though only I can see it) mutters that our guys are more like ‘janitor/plumbers’ than ‘philosopher/kings.’ He takes colossal pride in his education.

For the most part, they are. It is the theme of yet another book, which is the final proofing stage. (I’ve removed TTvtA for revision.) Not sure we agree on which issue that is. For the most part it is an asset, though it does come with downsides:

Who can respond to lunacy like this, being tagged 3 times in as many hours by a perfect stranger over a point of complete common sense? How can a guy who wants to keep his senses not resort to blocking in such instances?

All I have done is decline to speak with someone who is determined to trash much of what I hold dear, someone I do not know personally, and someone whom I never have had significant interaction with. I think you have to stretch it to pronounce that course a ‘lack of love.’ Frankly, I could just as easily turn it around. I have addressed most of the points you bring up in far greater detail than in all the other commentators put together. This is in the several chapters I have called to your attention of ‘Don’t Know Why’ that deal with brainwashing, discipline, and Governing Body. All of it is original writing. None of it is boilerplate off the Watchtower. In the event you do not finish them all, it can only be through lack of love on your part. I even have a ‘Contact Me’ section at the end of the book, and no, the WNMF is not one of the places listed. In my social media activities, I will frequently accept a ‘friend’ or new ‘follower,’ only to find they instantly want to set up an individual private conversation. What is it will people so presumptuous as to demand this? We are finite beings who already have full draws on our time. All of us must pick and choose the interaction they deem the most effective. I did not say this. I said, based on previous history, that this is probably what happened. I gave no opinion as to whether it was ‘merited’ or not.

Part II of the book, entitled Apologia, is an exploration of all factors that may contribute to the opposition to the JW faith in Russia. Included are chapters entitled ‘Brainwashing,’ ‘Discipline,’ and ‘Governing Body.’ You may find what you are looking for there. I hope you do. The meaning of ‘cult’ has changed over the years. Many groups that were once on one side of the word are now on the other. If JWs are a cult, it is because the Bible is a cult manual. If it is, they are. If it is not, they aren’t. As long as they find themselves on the same side as is the Bible, they are content. Let others squabble over the verbiage. You actually don’t know that. When someone resolutely trashes what I hold dear, I tend to leave them to their own trashing, whether they be DFed or not. Nonetheless, I’ve not said an unkind word about you, whereas some of those you label as ‘more loving’ have become so abusive toward you as to (presumably) be driven off the platform by its administator. Sometimes people disagree. I can live with that. Do not confuse recognition of that fact with being ‘unloving.’

No, this is entirely wrong. Tharcisse would be much displeased with you. His writing says exactly the opposite of what you allege. How you can pull a “good people are in all religions” lesson out of his book is beyond me. The non-Witness you may be thinking of is Tharcisse’’s own wife. She was not a Witness at the time of their trials but later became one. In her part of the saga—the same events are related by different participants—she says: “The stifling conditions, lack of sleep, scanty food, and darkness had a numbing effect on our minds. But one thing I knew: I, my husband, and all five of my children were alive because our Jehovah’s Witness friends had repeatedly risked their lives to save us. Their faith was like a rock. They lived for peace. No one could force them to use weapons against their neighbors, even those of a different ethnicity. They would sooner die than harm others. They were Hutu, just like the machete-wielding murderers who spilled rivers of blood. It pained me to think of it, but I knew in my heart that the vast majority of Hutu killers claimed to be Christian. Most of them belonged to my Catholic church.” Did non-JWs help him? Yes. After the genocide, some academic non JWs encouraged and enabled him to publish his experience. And leading up to as well as during the genocide, one was never in danger from one’s own Tutsi tribe, only from the opposing Hutu tribe. And there was a very small Hutu religious component who held themselves back from the mass-murder. But holding oneself back is not the same as putting oneself forward to rescue a family in distress. The book’s foreword, written by a non-Witness professor of philosophy, acknowledges that the Seminega family survived “mainly because of help they received from their fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses who were Hutu.” It wasn’t ‘nice people in all religions putting their neck on the line’ for he and his family.

Good choices. Here is my book review of No Greater Love: https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2020/07/no-greater-lovehow-my-family-survived-the-genocide-in-rwanda-a-book-by-tharcisse-seminega.html

During the trials to ban the Witness organization, to ban the NWT, and to confiscate St Petersburg Bethel, Anton Chivchalov summarized the events by tweets at intervals of every few minutes. He said I could make whatever use of them I wished, and they appear almost in their entirety in https://mybook.to/Dontknowwhywepersecute A labor of love, the ebook version is still free or nearly so.