TrueTomHarley

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.

A veritable love-in between Boyle and JWI. I never thought I’d live to see it.

The times they are a changing.

Boyle, it’s when you start carrying on like you are now, with habitual sharp seemingly unrestrained anger and accusation toward all that would get you DFed were the pattern manifested in any KH. that you are most in danger of being banned yet again. I would spare you that. You were behaving for a while when the librarian (that old hen) was leaning into you. All I have to do is attach an @ before her name and you are probably toast again. But I won’t do it. I am not out to get you.

No. But he does have fleas.

Not even that one

Not so thin-skinned, if you please. I'd rather go back to peace. You can suffer a rebuke now and then without thinking the rebuker an enemy. Nor is it necessary to compare to see who else is rebuked. I believe there are scriptures on both of these points.

As far as I know I’m not trying to accuse you of anything. I’ve said you’re given to outbursts of anger and have assumed an odd ‘commission,’ as though an ‘anointing’ to battles apostates. Other than that, no accusations at all.

I did not say that you had hundreds nor that they belonged there..

I think she may be speaking of the parrot in the old Soviet joke about the man who implored the police to understand that the political views of his parrot were not his.

JWI: “Good afternoon. This meeting of the closed club will now come to order. All else: Hear hear JWI First order of business is to consider a stack of applications for new members TTH: Do they all seem to represent diverse personalities? JWI: No, they all seem the same person with the same idiosyncrasies under a dozen different names. Thinking: I propose we put them in the trash. All in favor? (Unanimous) Very well Motion carried. Time for refreshments. Pass the Bible chips, please?

Night after night for—what has it been?—a month? we see them rioting in Paris. The reason? Gov’t raising the retirement age. It makes no sense. They’re old people. They get tired and go home. Younger people who know their goose is cooked unless retirement age is raised are unlikely to join in riots that go on for weeks.More likely it is something like 15-minute cities. Discussed here, probably overstated, but since nobody trusts the powers that be, overstating is easily done: https://www.theepochtimes.com/15-minute-cities-are-complete-impoverishment-and-enslavement-of-all-the-people_5231593.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2023-05-01&src_cmp=mb-2023-05-01&utm_medium=email&est=kJkK5ju1XFnBSnHrrh%2BvgQDYv0l3CKh2I16MEdEvou%2B2vRRVAzGmgwooCmNbV6Y%3D

I first heard the term 15-minute cities only a few days ago and had to do as search as to what it meant. Getting around from any point A to any point B in 15 minutes was all I found. Offhand, that does not sound like such a bad goal, except you know the draconian means that will be forced upon people to implement such goals. These days a car is as much a means of protection from mugging as it is a means of transportation.

I don’t know who this Kevin person is

Were some of Jesus’ exposés obviously not good and righteous?

The way it has been explained, and the way I have witnessed it, is that slimeballs lift their copyrighted material, insert it into a maligning context, and beat them over the head with it. To the point where they say, ‘Enough! Nobody can use our copyrighted stuff!’ It is pretty standard practice and many companies enforce copyright to a far greater degree. A friend of mine does miniatures, small-time scenes of Americana. At a festival where many participants displayed such scenarios, Coca Cola came down on them all very threateningly for any sign that in any way specifically mentioned their trademarked products—say, a tiny truck saying Drink CocaCola. All removed any such Coke references so as not to be target of a lawsuit.

Aren’t we intent on respecting copyright these days?

Maria followed me on Twitter one fine day and she was drop-dead gorgeous. No, I did not follow her back for that reason. Trust me on this: drop dead gorgeous women throw themselves at me all the time; it is a great nuisance because all I want to do is think about God. In fact, I didn’t follow her back at all, not even for the reassuring profile photo she displayed, consisting solely of “Jehovah” in gold-embossed letters. However, I did scroll her timeline and found a suitable place to leave a comment. She soon replied that she had just texted me. Sorry, I told her, I don’t do DM. I stay on the public side of Twitter. “Why?” she wanted to know. “Because if I do so I am immersed in dozens of private chats and I can’t keep up,” said I. She responded that, in that case, I could contact her on WhatsApp. I didn’t reply to that one. Next thing you know she has disappeared and all her notifications with her! I searched out her username: “Account suspended for violation of Twitter rules.” Hmm. I searched for the name on Facebook. It links to a certain bit-coin trader, also drop-dead gorgeous. No, Maria, my dear, I have all the bit-coin I need, thank you very much—even though you are drop-dead gorgeous, even though your profile does say ‘Jehovah’ so I know you are one of us, probably belonging to the congregation right next door. I’ve no doubt she has a separate profile that says Jesus, another that says Buddha, Dagon, Moroni, Baal, and a dozen others. It is called ‘Affinity Fraud,’ winning someone’s confidence through feigned common roots. It factors into the making of E.T—The Sequel, a movie you may not have seen. In the original, cute, adorable, toddler E.T. charms all who are pure enough to let him into their hearts. But in E.T.—the Sequel, he returns as a surly teenager. He curses, spits, brawls, swears, and in the end destroys the earth with his white-hot power beam, starting with Wall Street. Steven Spielberg, the movie’s creator, had just lost an ever-loving fortune to the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. Both were Jews. Virtually all of Madoff’s victims were Jews. It was affinity fraud. Not that Maria’s scheme is a fraud, necessarily, but her means of contact certainly was. She’s probably not even drop-dead gorgeous. She’s probably an old hen. And even if she is not, so what? Is not Mrs. Harley also drop-dead gorgeous?

“Never before has the attempt been made to make clear the interaction between heaven and earth and to make visible the influences of the spirit persons [God, Jesus Christ, Satan] on humanity, society and individuals.” No one’s even tried?

Yeah, I have some of that stuff too. Give @Mic Dropa thumbs up if he starts a discussion on what a guy may to for it. With our new found kick on safety, the Kingdom Hall brothers insist I wear ear protection running the lawn mower. “Little late for that now,” this old guy tells them. But he dons them anyway, as he should have long ago, and at any rate, they’ll throw themselves in front of me as though an act of peaceful resistance until I do.

Come come, Moise. You miss the whole point of the talk. Of course what you say is true, but Lett wasn’t speaking at all of those things. He was just inartfully referring to how we are born as offspring of Adam, natural inheritors of sin, and thus automatically start off on the wrong foot from God’s point of view. Some of them are working on it.

I think the diplomatic way to put this is that ‘it can readily be seen that the organization does not use paid actors.’ Boy, oh boy, did the crazies ever go bonkers on that one! Still, for a people who carry on about choosing just the right word as the palate tastes caviare, it was sort of a clumsy statement, necessitating a reply: https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2022/07/little-enemies-of-god.html