TrueTomHarley

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.”

The advantage of JTR writing in his new prissy font is that it is so hard on the eyes that I can pass right over it and thus do not have to endure what he has to say.

That’s why I didn’t appear on his ‘podcast.’ I have no problem with someone controlling his own site. I do mine as well, far more tightly than he. The difference is that he constantly remarks on how few Witnesses show up to engage with him. Should some do that, however, and actually succeed in making a few points, he tosses them out. the old hen

Of course not. It is an argument almost too stupid to make. I can’t believe that people are nevertheless making it with regard to who gets to be counted as clergy. The only brand of religion that an irreligious world recognizes is a monetized one, in which the minister “has a church” and “gets paid.” Try to do it as did Jesus or Paul and you are incomprehensible to them.