TrueTomHarley

I'm not completely sure what this thread is even about. Offhand, it seems like an attempt by the hypercritical people to get the picayune and the righteous-overmuch people going. We all know what Jehovah's Witnesses believe. So whatever is seen is Chili either squares with it or it doesn't. If it does, then there will be some trickery involved to get people all incensed over it. It may be fraud by photoshop or trespasser sabotage. Or there may be something circumstantial or cultural that we know nothing about.. If it doesn't. then it will be corrected, now or later. It always is. Once I came after you with the charge that you had an agenda and you responded with: 'Of course, I have an agenda.' I said to myself: 'The old pork chop is right. He does has one. So do I. So does everyone.' Stay here any length of time and it becomes clear who the players are and what are their agendas. They range in shades of from off-white to downright black. Thus everything anyone offers ought to be seen in this light, and the posts of some ought to be 90% dismissed on this basis alone. The ideal is what C.T. Russell stated, that he would accept a truth even if it was from the Devil himself. But the reality is, how would you know it is the truth? Far more likely is it that he is just lying like he always does, using abundant tricks of the trade to make you think he is telling you the truth. The tools for lying are legion today, far more than in Russell's time, what with photoshopping and all. Even without photoshopping , we all know the reality of information selectively given without context or in manufactured context in hopes that people will come to false conclusions, so that @JW Insider finally has to say: 'I'll go down there myself and shake the truth out of those bad brothers (if bad brothers they be).' Obviously that is something few brothers can do, not just on account of resources, nor even on account of time, but on account of best use of time. And if we get so worked up about reports from those whose agendas are manifestly cockeyed, if not downright foul, in these days of photoshop, what on earth will we do in the days of 'deep fakes', a day that is rapidly dawning? If anyone doesn't know the term, a casual Google search will reveal that it is the manipulation of video evidence, so that any head can be attached to any body and be made to say anything the poster wants? Are you going to lose you're cookies, then, when a GB member appears in the nude to recommend that we all start showing a little sympathy for the Devil? Because you know it is coming. (My own prophesy, by the way, is that deep fakes will instantly be turned upon children, as technological advances usually are, for the sake of ratcheting up the bullying that they are already taking their own lives over. Since generating those deep fakes is only possible with an abundance of still photos to feed into generators, any source of those abundant photos is going to be sued off the planet. It will not be enough for social media sites to say that what they did was perfectly legal at the time and was agreed to by their users. Laws will be reinterpreted to say that they have violated them. You think lawsuits today have gotten out of hand?) So you have to go by someone's manifest agenda. In this regard, @BillyTheKid46's comments are among the most appropriate, even if he is prickly is his presentation. Witness the modern sanctification of the term 'whistleblower'. Whistleblowers are useful, of course, but they are more useful in blowing the cover off an evil organization. Almost all of the self-styled 'whistleblowers' here think that Jehovah's organization is evil. If you are one, like me, who doesn't think that, then you discount their comments on that basis alone. People's veracity should be judged by always keeping in mind their overall agenda. It is like a WT article that dealt with those occasional Bible accounts that are downright strange and even paint God in a bad light. 'All we see is a little snippet,' it said. 'What do you do with a close friend who has had your back and earned your trust over time and you know him through and through, but then you hear a bad report about him? Do you say: "YEAH! I knew it! He is a rat!" ? Unfortunately, it is a crazy age we live in in which loyalty is seen as the mark of a chump, and there are many people who are that way. It is like when I pointed out that the Geoffrey Jackson on Twitter was not the real Geoffrey Jackson and @Witness took a breather from bludgeoning everyone with irrelevant scriptures to say 'How do you know that it is not him?' It has his picture, doesn't it? 'He' even said'pray for our brothers in Russia. Duh. You know it is not him because she says that it is. Presently it was revealed that he didn't give a hoot in hell for 'our brothers is Russia.' - kill them all as far as he is concerned. It was all a ruse so as to capture the attention of naïve brothers and redirect it to unflattering reports elsewhere.

I confess I haven’t actually been following this thread in any depth. One would think that would prevent me from weighing in.

Okay, I’m a brother. I shouldn’t do this. I really shouldn’t. I really really really shouldn’t. I know better. I’m NOT ALLOWED!!! Ah, well. I’ll ask for forgiveness later. I’ll give 3:1 odds that JWI finds it’s all a bunch of hoopla. Nothing less than $100 bets will be considered. After all, what’s one more odd look? I’ve been in trouble ever since I pointed out that nature itself testifies to the value of higher education, since the most formidable beavers are graduates of Dam U.

It is a mild hypocrisy but nothing more. It is like when brothers decry those who love violence but then tune into the football game. It is like when Jesus turns water into wine and the director says: “Every other man puts out the fine wine first, and then when guests are intoxicated the inferior. But you have saved the best for last!” One uber-righteous brother (for we do have some) stated: “We know people were not intoxicated at that gathering because Jesus would NEVER associate with those intoxicated.” I thought: “Of course he would. The verse all but says he did.” Good ol Jubulasiasen, who can’t hold his liquor and ordinarily doesn’t have to worry about it because he drinks only in moderation has a few too many at the joyous gathering and makes an ass of himself, incurring the wrath of his wife on account of the embarrassment.

Okay. Good answer. I thought that you might get sanctimonious about it, but you didn’t. Following sport can be a religion in itself. It’s amazing the degree to which people get into it. It is even like when the Witness organization tries to sell everyone that kicking around the soccer ball at a picnic is the equivalent of being on the school sports team, and the kids roll their eyes because they don’t think it’s that way at all. In this regard, they should look to you.

This must be extremely stressful to you, since the link you supplied points to 13 specific areas of inquiry, all but the first thought to be possible hotbeds of CSA, and the religion you despise is not among them.

Do you know what tennis is?

She can play tennis, though.

hehehehe :)))))))))

She says that she was raised a Witness but did not make it her own. She says that now she wants to. She says that when she does she is going to track you down, old boy, and wallop the stuffing out of you at the sport of your choice, so long as it is tennis.

Practically speaking, what would you like to see happen? Practically speaking, what would you like to see happen?

Okay. Got it. Inside information. That’s how YOU know. Now, how does anyone else know?

You did not answer the second part of my question: How does anyone really know that these “brothers” of yours are really anointed, since all they must do is self-identify? Even (gulp) @James Thomas Rook Jr. could do that. (Not that he would) Because they believed then that Christ died on a cross. They no longer do. Is it that flabbergasting?

Look, I have been there. And any number of people I know were involved in the construction. If there was anything so pronounced as your picture suggests, it would have been all the buzz. Assuming for a moment that it is real, maybe it is something that must be viewed at a certain angle. Why in the world would they deliberately work it into the construction, anyhow? In a reality of your devising, how would these anointed "brothers" of yours be treated? How does anyone know that they actually are anointed, since the only requirement of claiming that status is to claim it?

Not to mention a wonderful Librarian.

If it is, it is. If you got in there somehow to put up the crossbars, the brothers will saw them off in good time. Come now. You are not going to tell me that you do not hate the governing body. Sometimes it seems your sole purpose of existence.

Is that an unaltered photo? I will believe it when I see it.

It looks like you will have to just imagine it. In your zeal to discredit those you hate, you did not notice that the posted photo DOES NOT show them signing Bibles for the friends, but for “public officials.” Whatever was the cause or setting, you appear to misrepresent WT photos as much as you do Scripture itself. Come, come. Grown adults should not make themselves children. Even if they HAD signed Bibles for the friends, it would not be something that I would lose my cookies over. They clearly are celebrities in the sense of being known and beloved figures. Nor, though it is none of my business, am I particularly incensed that Trump signs Bibles for the church people. Who cares? If one loves him, it is not an appreciable detriment. If one hates him, it is not an appreciable intensification. What we do know is that JW Broadcasting has turned GB members into media stars and they are not especially happy about that. Thus the Bethel tour requests not to ooh and aah if you see one of them in the hallway, and the published counsel that they do not want to be accosted for selfies. Prior to this, they were not publicly recognizable figures to me, though I’m sure they were to some, nor did I necessarily know how many of them they were at any given time. I recently heard, I forget where, of Brother Herd being ambushed for a selfie, glowering a bit to the one who had assured him that such would not take place, but in the end acquiescing. Smiling Brother Lett appears to be the one most likely to throw that counsel to the wind and pose with any Brother Tom, Dick, or Harry that comes along, but even he must have limits. https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/forums/topic/63261-let-us-appreciate-brother-lett/

Wait until ‘Rooked’ catches on in Rio Linda. You’ll wear out your arm giving autographs.

Reducto Ad Absurdum my foot, you dolt! Trump is a non-religious politician who says “Two Corinthians.” The GB are brothers taking the lead who say “2 Corinthians.” It’s pretty much the equivalent of a church minister signing a parishioner’s Bible upon request. It’s not the kind of thing that I would ever care to do. But the urge to obtain VIP/celebrity signatures appears to be hard-wired into the genome.

Next thing you know, you will be asking some politician to sign your Bible. Or telling another one that he represents the political manifestation of God’s kingdom on earth. It is simply what happens when ones go loner. They drift here. They drift there. They may stay solo or may end up in one of several polar opposite camps. You also did not respond to this portion of my comment, which stands out because you responded to virtually every other part:

Next thing you know, you will be asking some politician to sign your Bible. Or telling another one that he represents the political manifestation of God’s kingdom on earth.

One effect of a disenfranchised anointed-in-the-wilderness model is that unity of Christians diminishes and ultimately dissolves. Christianity becomes little more than a personal code, molded differently in each individual by the greater forces of national, social, wealth, racial, educational divisions. Inevitably, Christians are at each other’s throats, each happy to do “what is right in his own eyes,” modified by a smileyGod face. Sometimes I think it is chosen for just that reason. It is the disunited world that Christians came out of. Why on earth would anyone want to go back into it? The point is, Witness, I haven’t seen any evidence that you actually DO anything, beyond crashing posts and reading half the Bible to those within.

! Oh. Unless he means the hehehehe:))))))) But I have not thought that attributed to a language or grammar barrier.

And Abʹsa·lom would say to him: “See, your matters are good and straight; but there is no one from the king giving you a hearing.” And Abʹsa·lom would go on to say: “O that I were appointed judge in the land, that to me every man might come that happens to have a legal case or judgment! Then I should certainly do justice to him.”