TrueTomHarley

6 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

This thread has 4.1k views.

That many? That’s worth addressing.

6 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Please note that the Closed JW Club is half the size of the Open one. Let's ask ourselves why this is so?

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.

6 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

And how many members from the Closed Club are ready to violate the GB 1st Amendment, which is; don't talk to ex-JWs and don't engage in dialogue with them and don't watch the contents they gave?

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.’)

2 hours ago, Matthew9969 said:

Difference between the cult of jw and the rest of christianity is with christians God forgives immediately, where as in the jw elders decide when God forgives.

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?

On 6/8/2023 at 12:44 PM, Space Merchant said:

Or possible the bombshell that is Facebook/Instagram (which was mentioned to Butler as a forwarning) that has recently taken place, and or some diabolical stuff regarding CSA that is associated with other media, even the schools; hence why I believe people such as Mel Gibson, will eventually be a media focus in the coming days or weeks.

Among other things, there is the Non-Institutional stuff that is taking place, which, compared to schools and churches, can often times be as complex to deal with like the social media stuff.

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

13 hours ago, Fausto Hoover said:

From the commenter you cited: ‘Of those "902 did not involve a Jehovah's Witness Official. First, the position of the perpetrator within the organization doesn't prove anything.’

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

52 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

and there was also a kind of "public service announcement" that addressed a necessary attitudinal shift among Witnesses: There was to be no more thinking that covering up CSA crimes somehow protected the reputation of the organization. From now on the emphasis was on the fact that all the shame should be centered on the perpetrator. Also, there has been a heightened awareness and sensitivity to the legal issues and more legal personnel have been aiding the organization in this regard.

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

8 hours ago, AudreyAnnaNana said:

I enjoy your writing style…..Your writing style is fun,

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.

1 hour ago, Srecko Sostar said:

At WTJWorg, all theological issues are tied into one single issue, problem

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:

3 hours ago, AudreyAnnaNana said:

Okay, my brother @TrueTomHarley...🙄🤪😆

 

<<makes list of excuses why to not show love...>>

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?

50 minutes ago, AudreyAnnaNana said:

Today's Watchtower is all about how loving "Jehovah's Witnesses" are, superior in love to those labeled non-"Jehovah's Witnesses". The Daily Text was all about how important it is to go to meetings because people there care about you and want to be your friends, unlike those labeled non-"Jehovah's Witnesses." 

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. 

1 hour ago, AudreyAnnaNana said:

If you saw "abusive behavior", @TrueTomHarley, enough to note it and to think it merited the administrator removing the abusive person, why did you not think to comfort the "victim"?

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.

3 hours ago, AudreyAnnaNana said:

I am in the first chapter of your book, I didn't get a chance to read too much this past evening but I see you used the c- word, "cult". I used to defend the organization when others said "it's a cult" but I can't anymore. It is a cult. I wish you would prove me wrong

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.

3 hours ago, AudreyAnnaNana said:

If I had never told you I have the "disfellowshipped" label, your treatment of me would have been completely different

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.’

19 hours ago, AudreyAnnaNana said:

wasn't it a non-Witness that hid them most of the time? And wasn't it non-Witnesses that helped them a lot of the time?

I learned that lesson, and I can see that Tharcisse did too. Each person is an individual, and to assume that the label "Jehovah's Witnesses" is merely an exterior one that can be applied by men and relied upon is fallacious. In Tharcisse's book, the non-Witness who helped them gave witness of Jehovah's holy spirit.

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.

41 minutes ago, AudreyAnnaNana said:

we also read selected works by Jehovah's Witnesses out loud together, some of the books we've done that with are Facing the Lion by Simone Arnold Liebster, No Greater Love by Tharcisse Seminega

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

34 minutes ago, AudreyAnnaNana said:

and it had a large percentage of court transcripts available,

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.

21 minutes ago, boyle said:

Enjoy life to the fullest with Jehovah's Spirit guiding you. Peace!

The times they are a changing.

39 minutes ago, boyle said:

Would that be "the tears of a clown" or "sisters act two" lol! 😂

I'll give you guys a chance to regroup and attack me personally while you people go on attacking the watchtower and misrepresenting scripture. I'm always glad to show the public all the falsehoods behind the opposition driven, agenda coming from the disfellowshiped and apostates. If they can do the crime, I can take the time to prove them wrong. 😏

Oops, I forgot about the active witnesses, haha! 😂

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.

19 minutes ago, boyle said:

For sure James. You have lied to yourself your whole life. You're uneducated in scripture,

No. But he does have fleas.

26 minutes ago, boyle said:

TTH. How many people got banned because of you, and those hypocrites in the closed club?

By my count, 1. 

Not even that one

9 hours ago, boyle said:

I used to consider TTH a good friend until he decided he was going to attack me and rebuke me when he wouldn't do that to apostates.

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.

1 hour ago, boyle said:

. I didn't imply what you and your ignorant friend are trying to accuse me of here.

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.

44 minutes ago, boyle said:

Spin it any way you want TTH. You just proved yourself a liar by insisting I have hundreds of accounts that belong in the trash. So does yours. lol! 😅

 

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

6 minutes ago, boyle said:

TTH has added yet another achievement to their impressive track record. lol

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.

1 hour ago, Mankeptforunnaturalporpoises said:

Boil is slightly obsessed with the closed club. It gets a mention at least once a day. 

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?

On 4/25/2023 at 9:14 AM, admin said:

You bring up a good point. Ask anyone in a major us city if they feel safe and clean on public transportation?

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