TrueTomHarley

Hmm. It looks to me like you may need a visit from the ‘bad cop.’

It may be so, but that is not how anyone understands the word ‘lawyer.’ Even few of us would understand it that way, and it is too trivial a point to be so glaringly out of sync with common understanding of the word. We are trying to communicate, after all, not make people think we are weird. “If the trumpet call is indistinct, who will get ready for battle?” Some words are not so trivial. They are essential and so we hold to and spread them, even in the face of a world that thinks otherwise. Such as the definition of the individual Witness as a minister. We hold to it, even though the world does not think of ‘minister’ that way. To most of them, a minister is someone who ‘has a church’ and ‘gets paid.’ I almost think that we flirted with that definition briefly in the late 70’s to align more with how the word is understood by most people, but then changed it back because it is so core. Blabbermouth probably knows about that. But there is no sense in harping on a different understanding of ‘lawyer’ and I am glad that it is no longer done. (It isn’t, is it?)

If people do not have moral underpinnings, you are almost better off not educating them. They can do less harm that way. If janitors and car-wash attendants had run the financial world back in 2007, they might have found a way to beat the taxpayer out of a day’s wage. As it was, highly educated MBA’s and lawyers, without the morals to balance their education, ran it and they discovered a way to bury future generations, even nations, in inescapable debt.

Each time there is a slam on the GB for their unenthusiasm over higher education, I think that proponents of that education should be required to take ownership of the world that it has collectively created. Unlike the GB, the movers and shakers of this world are, with few exceptions, highly educated. Let them point proudly to the world that their brand of education has made. See how many have the chutzpah to do it.

Didn’t it turn out in the movie that when he finally pulled his helmet off, he was your father?

[from JTR, actually] I will admit that I am glad they have stopped referring to Paul as a lawyer, which they did a few times & that brother is on permanent potato peeling duty in the Bethel kitchen. I mean, technically he was, as a Pharisee, but that is not how anyone understands the term today.

Duh. Good JWs will not be here. They will have more regard for the preference of the organization not to get into cat fights with those who oppose. Come on, Billy, let’s retire to the secret closed JW forum where this character can’t come so we can continue to plot our good cop/bad cop strategy. If you like, I’ll even reverse roles, be the bad cop, and let you be the good cop for awhile.

hee hee hee (so are you)

John, you are such a two-year-old. You know very well that I rebuked him harshly not long ago, and that he took offense to it. Nonetheless, I know your style, and I now know that you will be taunting me over this forever. So...is Billy my friend or not? Yes, assuming that he is the brother that he claims to be, he absolutely is. He is loyal to God. He is loyal to Christ. He is loyal to the human organization that does its level best to follow their lead. He is my friend. He may sometimes display himself a marauding and unhinged pit bull, but he is my friend. In the Kingdom Hall, we would get along just fine. Maybe, since you have paired us, we will roll with the illustration of ‘Good Cop/Bad Cop.’ (Guess which one he is) The good cop really and truly does not want you to fall into the hands of the bad cop, for he knows how bad that bad cop can be. He thinks the bad cop is doing it all wrong and indeed wonders sometimes whether the bad cop can truly be a cop. However, the bad cop thinks the good cop is a namby-pamby, fraternizing with the crooks way too much, and wonders ‘where is his loyalty?’ The metaphor works well enough. I like it. Let me direct you, therefore, to the L.A. Confidential movie in with the corrupt official taunts the good cop: “Oh, give me a break! You are not going to pull the good cop/bad cop routine on me, are you? I wrote the book on that routine!” Whereupon the bad cop grabs him by the scruff of the neck, nearly drowns him in the toilet, and then dangles him by a single foot over the 20th floor window that he had kicked out. Placing the jellyfied mess that is left of the corrupt official back on the couch, as the two leave, he says, “Was that in your book?” Your witness, Billy. Go as easy on him as you are capable of.

You know, sometimes I think that Billy and I are going to get along just fine.

If I “hide away” at your comment—which I have since addressed—then I notice that you run like a scared rabbit at mine. When you say you will be satisfied only with a “true” anointed and I say you won’t, I notice you do not answer that. Why not? Because you know that what I pointed out is true—if the “true” anointed is anything like the true anointed of the first century, they will make adjustments to changing times and circumstances. They will make some mistakes. They will give evidence of human imperfection. As soon as they do, you will rail against them as LIARS, because that is your pattern. There is no reason to think that it would change. Why did you “hide away” at that remark, John?

Oh, for crying out loud! You think you have found a ‘gotcha’ do you? If ones leave Jehovah’s earthly organization and still wishes to call themselves Jehovah’s Witnesses because they say they are still witnessing for Jehovah, be my guest—they are perfectly welcome to do so. In no time at all, however, they will be witnessing for Yahweh, because the name Jehovah is associated with those they don’t like. Soon thereafter, they will be witnessing for The LORD, because people keep giving them the fisheye when they say ‘Yahweh.’ After that they will stop witnessing altogether, because it is hard, they find themselves unsupported, and they have also lost the thread of what to talk about. That is the pattern that is seldom deviated from.

He works with them very well indeed, just like he worked with the ‘earthen vessels’ of the first century. One cannot shoot oneself in the foot more decisively than by insisting, ‘If it is not perfect, then it is filthy.’ What! Because you and your friends are trying to take them down means that God is not working with them? There is not one writer in the Christian Greek Scriptures who does not devote attention to ‘the burning that is taking place among you’. (1 Peter 4:12) https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/01/who-are-the-apostates.html

Does he do that? I have wondered what his hangup was.

I think it is more along the lines of what a certain brother observed. The younger ones got to be ragging on each other, and he would lean back and marvel, “It’s amazing what Jehovah accomplishes considering what he has to work with.”

"A week later I was working on Pretencia Pond Way with Tom and Pearl Pearlsnswine, and also Bill Ding. I was already off to a bad start. It’s always dicey working in the same car group with Tom Pearlsnswine. I knew he’d do something outrageous. He always does. More than once I’ve vowed never to work with him again, but I always repent....As we cruised by the massive homes of Pretencia Pond Way, where the only Bible to be found in many is Consumer Reports, I watched uneasily in the mirror as Tom’s brow darkened. He began to mutter under his breath and presently erupted: “I don’t know how it happened! The pigs have escaped from the barn and they’re in the farmer’s house!” He is such an idiot!" - Tom Irregardless and Me If I ever rewrite this, I will include the detail that Pearlsnswines live in the trailer park. Actually, I think I have included that somewhere.

“How does it feeeel, to be on you own, with no direction hoooome, like a rolling stooone.”

No. You still don’t have it right. If one is witnessing for Jehovah, then that person is one of Jehovah’s Witnesses because he or she is doing what the name says. Why should that be so hard to understand? Baptism indicates a resolve to be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It doesn’t indicate whether one is doing so or not. That is made clear by giving evidence of having a ministry—in this case, by turning in the time that you object to.

Of course. If you are not witnessing for Jehovah, then you are not one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, are you? That doesn’t mean you are disinvited to meetings, though, does it? The point is that if they based membership based on who attends meetings, reported membership would be larger than the way it is measured now. Every religious group has to have some criteria for counting members. For the Catholic Church, all you have to do is exist.

Come, come. Stop weaseling. This is not an answer. The question was: ‘‘How will you know when judgement is just a short way off yet?’ Planning to die real soon, are you? If it is composed of anyone like the anointed ones of first-century Bible record, it will make some adjustments to changing times and circumstances. As soon as that happens, you will call them all liars. It is your pattern. There is no reason to think that would change. You really don’t know how things work, do you?

Since you don’t know that it is, why do you bring it up? Next thing you know, you will have everyone at the convention counting their time once a visitor walks into the auditorium.

Do you think it is wrong, then, for the brothers to do cart witnessing in this place with plenty of foot traffic? What of when the friends call on people who are home but decline to answer the door? Do you think is wrong for the Witnesses to move on? Or should they be more proactive and knock on the door for an hour, if need be, until the householder answers? Come, come. You are simply an enemy of Jehovah’s Witnesses and feel obliged to criticize everything they do. There is nothing wrong with the cart work.

It is possible that my “dream” could come true. The present tactic of enemies of Jehovah’s Witnesses is to portray the faith as composed of two classes—with the evil “corporate” class manipulating the ones “below.” Just as in a war, strategists might call for killing off the enemy generals, and thus “liberating” the enemy troups who are being evilly manipulated. Of course it is nonsense, just as it is nonsense in a literal war. It doesn’t occur to the presumptuous strategists that the “enemy” soldiers might actually believe in their cause. Or perhaps they know it full well, but they have just hit on a pious-sounding way—posing as the people’s liberator—-to bust up what they don’t like. At any rate, one way to defuse this idiocy is to avoid any perception of the “corporate class” telling the underlings what to do. I believe this is happening now in Europe, where privacy laws enacted against data-collecting are being applied to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Don’t collect data, then, the Branch says, and they provide no direction as to how to do it. Opponents celebrate the blow with which they have struck the Witnesses’ preaching work. If it was the work of men—the corporation “telling” members what to do—they would be right. But if the directive to preach the good news and make disciples of ones who respond favorably is from God (via the Bible), then members can be trusted to devise their own methods for carrying out the work that they believe is the Christian privilege and duty. Maybe the same thing will happen someday with “counting time.” Alexander Dvorkin, the anti-cult ringleader in Russia, said that as far as he knew, Witnesses were required to report their activity to HQ each month—insinuating that it was for the purpose of updating a file kept on each member, instead of simply reporting the aggregate number that it actually is. One way to counter such misrepresentation—whether it be deliberate of just through ignorance—might be to simply not tally the stats centrally. Forget all about counting time. I wouldn’t be sad to see it go, if it did. There are goofy things about counting time. A major one from my point of view is that one can achieve far more productive results during evening witnesses than one can during the weekday, but nowhere near the number of hours. I think it serves to discourage witnessing during these more productive times.

I do it is fair to make the “worldly education system” take responsibility for the world that is has collectively created. Very few who have prominent roles in the governing of this system of things are not highly educated. They should embrace what they have produced.

“For as they were in those days before the Flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they took no note—they even ignored the literature carts!—until the Flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.”