TrueTomHarley

Or they know what's important and what's not.

This became a pet peeve of mine. I was conducting a study with Santa Claus and he was making fine progress until he caught wind of this. He was doing so well. All he really had to work on was a strange obsession with extreme sports, annually jaunting round the world at breakneck speed and in frigid temperatures. Oh...and animal cruelty, forcing animals from their established habitat by making them fly through that slop.

They do believe half. They also believe the other half.

The old pork chop speaks true here. At long last, he has a point. It is the pearl of high price that we speak of, accurate Bible knowledge that allows one to make sense out of a crazy careening world, to know why a God of love would permit evil, to know what happens to the dead & even the reason that people die. Judging from what is on display online, when people leave, caught up in some contemporary controversy, they lose all interest in these matters. They become freedom fighters for some current cause, and never make mention again of answers to the deeper questions about life. Whether the Kingdom Hall will build a howitzer rack for JTR to park his weapons is seriously questionable, in my view. But he does raise a point about where spiritual thirst can be meaningfully satisfied.

It is an unremarkable fact of Bethel life that a woman may exercise authority over a man in purely secular matters. Headship is a principle for consideration of spiritual matters and also family organization. It plays no role in work concerns. They are not activists there at Bethel. They don't get in anyone's face over such things. But it does happen all the time.

“Robots produced by Silicon Valley startup Knightscope are being used to shoo away homeless people in San Francisco.” I wonder how they go about this. Can’t one jam a stick in their spokes?

This thread has become a catch-all. so it is as good a place as any to let @JW Insider know that his old acquaintance John Taylor Gatto recently died. I followed him on Twitter, and he occasionally registered relevant posts of mine with a like. Within a week, his site was rechristened @gattoproject. He had some dreams of overturning the prevailing education model. Maybe the last post he liked was when someone made a reference to him as twice named NYS Teacher of the Year, and I tweeted: "Isn't he the one who later turned on his rewarders by stating that 'yes, he had been a great teacher, but it was only by bucking their system at every turn?" He made his mark at a time that our family was homeschooling, and thereby became a known name to us.

I have the honor of having been banned at the Cedars site. And I was unfailingly nice to him, too. It was an experiment. For the sake of whomever might be reading, I submitted about ten responses to different accusations before getting the heave-ho. Â

It could be a ruse. Determined miscreants have been known to turn up the volume and aim the speakers outside, while keeping earplugs inserted themselves.

There is also cleaning up of a certain work station, too. Ya wanna post that picture again, Jimbo?

Listen, I am telling you that these robots are not good, no way, no how. they may sound good, but I programmed mine to be just like me, so that he could do all the work and I could just lounge around. Instead, the bucket of bolts turned the tables on me, and I'm slogging around while it lives the life of Reilly.

It is time to update 'end of the world' scenarios. Perhaps the world will go out, not with a bang, but with a fizzle, and people forget to procreate. Science may yet save the day, however, if those robots can just be programmed to pop out littler ones.

“You can’t claim that people are ‘terrorists’ or ‘extremists’ and then simply knock on their doors to arrest them, though in all cases there is nothing at all to suggest that resistance would have been shown. Instead, there are armed searches, most often by masked men in full military gear, with the suspect hurled to the ground and handcuffed, often in the presence of their distressed and terrified children.... “It is clear that ‘secret witnesses’ are also to be used against Jehovah’s Witnesses. In the ongoing trial of Denis Christiansen, the first believer to be arrested and jailed, there has been one such ‘witness’ so far. The person, whose voice was heavily distorted, spoke of having attended Jehovah’s Witness meetings and generally repeated the prosecution’s line.” http://khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1540343334 I remember reading about this. The equipment didn’t function and his voice was distorted to such an extent that nobody could understand him & they had to call a recess.

Unfortunately, lawyers cooled off much of that. When trespassers began suffering injuries on private property & owners were sued for it, many responded by making their property off-limits.

The Old Testament tells some very strange tales and one of them is told at 2 Samuel. David, the Israelite king, on the ropes because he is facing an armed insurrection from his own son, enters a town where loyalty is not assured. He and his men are received hospitably, but there is one man decidedly not hospitable. The account reads: “...a man…came out shouting curses as he approached. He was throwing stones at David and at all the servants of King David, as well as at all the people and the mighty men on his right and on his left. Shimei said as he cursed: “Get out, get out, you bloodguilty man! You worthless man!” “…Then Abishai the son of Zeruiahm said to the king: “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over, please, and take off his head.” But the king said: “…Let him curse me, for Jehovah has said to him, ‘Curse David!’ …Here my own son, who came from my own body, is seeking my life… Leave him alone so that he may curse me, for Jehovah told him to! …With that David and his men kept going down the road while Shimei was walking alongside the mountain abreast of him, shouting curses and throwing stones and a lot of dust.” (16:5-19) Imagine! David is not too hung up on himself, is he? The fellow curses him, throws stones at him, shouting he is bloodguilty and worthless. And David as much as says: ‘Well, maybe he has a point. I mean, if God is letting it happen, who am I to smash in his head?’ The passage is included in the midweek meeting study material for October 15, 2018. That program also incorporated a passage at Matthew chapter 11, in which Jesus said of his detractors that they criticize you no matter what you do, so the best recourse is to go full speed ahead and let 'wisdom be proved righteous by its works.’ Meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses are essentially Bible studies that one can prepare for, organized around themes suggested by current needs and the pre-determined schedule of Bible reading that members have observed for 100 years—work your way through Revelation, and start in again at Genesis. Nothing gets in the program without the okay, if not the direct insertion, of Witness governing members, who serve on various supervisory committees. The Matthew verse demonstrates how they respond to public criticism. They like Psalm 38:13 as well, another verse of David, about how he determined to muzzle his mouth as his adversaries kept “muttering all day long” about him. Luke 9:62 is also a favorite. That one records Jesus saying: “No man that has put his hand to a plow and looks at the things behind is well fitted for the Kingdom of God.” They press ever forward. They content themselves with a Newsroom tab on their public website that does not get into specific complaints, much as one would not expect to find a citing from the building inspector on the restaurant menu. It is a program that October week on how Jesus set the pattern for those who would follow him, not specifically concerned with how to answer criticism, but also not avoiding the topic, particularly in the final half-hour segment. And Shimei’s tirade is right in there, with David conscious of the abuse he is receiving, and acquiescing to receiving it, as though it were discipline of sorts, as though he says “Well, maybe I had it coming,” even as he expresses hope that perhaps “Jehovah will see…and will actually restore me to goodness instead of his malediction this day.” (vs 12) Do not think that the Witness Governing Body, as they are teaching others by means of the scriptures, do not also teach themselves. ‘If David was subjected to it, I guess we will be too,’ they seem to say. One should not think that they will not reflect on just how they got into this predicament in the first place, as David surely must have, with stones bouncing off his helmet. They will remedy it to the extent they can, but it will not be at the expense of betraying their prime directive of leading through Bible principles, and they have been loath to pull rank on family heads, reporting abuse which is sometimes entirely within a family, usually a step-family as was the case in Montana, and assume their responsibility or prerogative. Likely they will say of these courtroom battles as they did of Russia banning the entire organization within its borders, that it is an area of “concern,” but not “worry.” They don’t get overly attached to things, even things of their own devising. They put it all on the line routinely as they do their best to advance kingdom interests, not cowering before their enemies. They plow where they plow as they apply their view of the Bible, unconcerned, sometimes unaware of the quicksand that may get them into, confident that, should that happen, God will somehow get them out of it. They do not deliberately court opposition, but they do expect it. The king makes a law and Daniel is thrown into the lion’s den. Another king makes another law and his friends are thrown into the furnace. Still another king makes another law and the entire nation of Jews faces extermination until Esther the queen opens his eyes to the sinister scheme he has been maneuvered into. It happens to their spiritual descendants to this day and the Witness organization expects no less. They are ‘insular,’ separate from the world, and the latter finds no end of reasons to oppose them for it. They have really stepped in it this time, or at least it has been made to appear that way. It is not like last year, when Russia banned them, declared the Bible they favor illegal, and confiscated their property, doing so for completely separate reasons that never even mentioned child sexual abuse. It is not like Jehovah’s Witnesses of decades past, trying issue before first amendment issue before the U.S. Supreme Court, nobody engaging more frequently other than the government itself, so that Justice Harlan Fiske Stone wrote: “The Jehovah’s Witnesses ought to have an endowment in view of the aid which they give in solving the legal problems of civil liberties.” No. This time it is the unsavory subject of child sexual abuse, and the question that cannot be answered: If they did not go ‘beyond the law,’ why didn’t they? Is it to be included as among the “wicked things that they will lyingly say against you?” that Jesus speaks of? (Matthew 5:11) Nobody can ever say that the charge is not wicked, on the same level as first-century charges that Christians were cannibals who burned down Rome. Just possibly it takes their breath away, as it is a legitimate bad that they never saw coming. With Shimei’s stones knocking on their helmet, just possibly the drop to their knees like Hezekiah besieged by an enraged enemy. Just possibly they look to outsiders like deer caught in the headlights while they are doing so. Just possibly they are like Adrian Monk, a good and upright man who nonetheless finds himself both outside of his normal element and in a pickle because he cannot choose which chair in which to sit until Natalie gently pushes him down on whatever one he hovers over at the moment. Drive this sucker to the Supreme Court, if need be. If they decide to hear it, it will be case number 50-something that Witnesses have tried before that body, more than any other group besides the government itself. Let it be resolved once and for all when the time is right. Many person are being sued over child sexual abuse these days, and it is generally the same scenario. Though groups as the Boy Scouts manifestly benefit children in ways not readily duplicated, their deep pockets permit a pummeling such as cannot be visited on unorganized society, though it be every bit as accommodating to child sexual abuse, only minus the benefits. It will be so with groups that instill religious values into youth, as well. Don’t be put off by the sordid backdrop. The world wallows in sordidness these days and is accustomed to everyone being accused of everything. The Week Magazine reports (09/03/2018) that referrals of child abuse online images have increased seven-fold over five years. On average, one child in every primary school classroom has received nude or semi-nude pictures from an adult. They respond not always well: “A girl from my primary [was] sending half-naked pictures because it’s what everyone does,” said one. Don’t let this be painted as a Witness pandemic or even a pandemic of any religion. What! It is only where there are deep pockets that child sexual abuse occurs? It is only taxpayer-funded schools, scouting organizations, or faith groups that suffer child sexual abuse? The origins don’t line up. Christianity, where it remains true to its roots, is an offshoot of Judaism, where pedophilia was exceedingly uncommon in Bible times A verse from the Sibylline oracles, a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the [prophetesses] Sibyls, claims that only the Jews were free from this impurity. They were “mindful of holy wedlock, and they do not engage in impious intercourse with male children, as do Phoenicians, Egyptians and Romans, spacious Greece and many nations of other, Persians and Galatians and all Asia, transgressing the holy law of immortal God, which they transgressed.” And where does the mainstream educated world find its underpinnings? Is it not the world of ancient Greece, the cradle of democracy? It is also the cradle of pedophilia, a societally accepted practice no where condemned. The only condemnation to be found is from Christians who withdrew and became insular as regards that world, and it is found in 1 Corinthians 6:9: “Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.” (NABRE) A footnote to the New American Bible – Revised Edition on ‘boy prostitutes’ and ‘sodomites’ reads: “The Greek word translated as boy prostitutes may refer to catamites, i.e., boys or young men who were kept for purposes of prostitution, a practice not uncommon in the Greco-Roman world. In Greek mythology this was the function of Ganymede, the “cupbearer of the gods,” whose Latin name was Catamitus. The term translated sodomites refers to adult males who indulged in homosexual practices with such boys.” They even had a god for it! Montana law being what it appears to be, it is hard to imagine this could not be appealed successfully. The Montana court’s greatest mistake may have been the excessive punitive damages, clearing indicating they felt the Witness organization was trying to violate law. If it can be shown that they made every conscientious effort to follow law, everything might reverse. Whether they are insular or not should not factor in. Separateness from the overall world is not yet a crime. It may factor into public opinion, but not yet that of law. What would be the repercussions in the event of a higher court reversal? Not necessarily positive for Jehovah’s Witnesses, who always sought, perhaps to a fault, not to ‘sully God’s name.’ It’s a little late to worry about that now. Or maybe it is not. A higher court reversal of the Montana verdict may cause the average person who learns of it to say: “It’s unbelievable! The Court says it’s okay for Jehovah’s Witnesses to abuse children!” But if there was a sincere expression of regret in the interim, for children truly have been harmed, they might say, “Oh. I understand. They did bollox things but now I see how it happened.” People, by and large, are fair, even when they don’t especially care for Witnesses. They don’t buy for a minute that Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter Day Saints, Boy Scouts, and taxpayer-backed institutions are the only settings in which child sexual abuse occurs. They understand that these parties have deep pockets, and there is no sense in going after anyone who does not. Yes. A higher court victory giving opportunity to ‘come clean’ as to how the whole mess began may well clean up that Name Witnesses are so concerned about. Let it be framed as it is. An attack on separate religion, in which child abuse matters are employed as a righteous smokescreen. It is not merely Jehovah’s Witnesses under the gun. It is religion in general and the more determined it is to resist mainstream thinking the more of a target it becomes. Prejudice against the Jehovah’s Witness faith runs deeper than most, and it is a very real child abuse tragedy that enables it to be disguised as justifiable outrage. But the attack on religious freedom ought be the subject of focus.

I programmed mine to go door to door and attend all meetings so I could stay home and snuggle with my wife.

When I was a boy, this was always the case. But now whenever a grandmaster moves there is always some jerk who hollers ‘IN THE HOLE!!”

Fear not. In my upcoming movie I have devoted myself to realism: With seconds to spare because the evil ones are hot on his heels and will discover his whereabouts presently, our hero locates the Master Computer. He breaks through layers of security as though passing through a subway turnstile. He locates the file that will save the planet and send the bad guys to prison for 1000 years. He hits the download key. He twiddles his thumbs as he waits and wait and waits. His nemesis both finds him and shoots him through the head, as the machine chokes on adware, malware, battling virus software, operating system updates, and random reboots to digest it all. The world goes up in flames as the villains grin ear to ear. How do you think I manage to sneak up on @James Thomas Rook Jr. and kick him in the rear so often?

I don’t know what you mean by this. What people? Removed from where?

I actually did this at the local library when I was researching a post about Russell's one-time partner, Nelson Barbour. Recall that he was from Rochester. I discovered to my amazement that I had once lived 100 yards from him! (and also 100 years) There were articles about him in the old Rochester Democrat and Chronicle newspapers. There was also much more prominence given to a Presbyterian preacher of that name: Clarence Barbour, as well as a woman I took at first to be Nelson's wife, an Elizabeth, who was listed as "suspended, erased, and excommunicated" from that church. How could it not be his wife? I reasoned, but de Vienne, who has co-authored the book 'A Separate Identity" about early doings of Zion's Watchtower, tells me that it was not; they were two separate families. 'She's nuts,' my gut tells me, but I don't dare cross her. It is ten times more dangerous that crossing @JW Insider and 100 times more dangerous than crossing @The Librarian https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2009/02/nelson-barbour-and-the-rochester-connection.html

I read your posts very carefully and never miss a syllable, so as to give instant razor sharp analysis. But with anything else it is possible for me to recall something inaccurately. I don’t think so in this case, but I have misremembered things before. At any rate, I just searched a government Look database and came up emptyhanded. Possibly it is just the titles, and Jehovah’s Witnesses were not in the headline. New World produced nothing. So I gave up. I wonder if Joel Engardio would have tabs on it as background material for his film Knocking? Besides Covington, it covered the huge conventions of the 50s along with the makeshift kitchens assembled and then disassembled that would feed tens of thousands. If I recall correctly, it began with arrangements about to be ruined by rain, but then the sun came out with but a short time to spare, and the brothers in charge responded as if to say ‘But, of course.’ Needless to say, the writer was sympathetic to the cause.

For as many times as the Librarian has rapped me on the knuckles, the old hen, for whispering or chewing gum or lighting a firecracker under her chair, you would think that when I actually show interest in using her library for its intended purpose she would joyously put down her bottle and hasten to find it for me. When is she finally going to get rid of that card catalog and go digital like everyone else? Then she could find it in two seconds.

You know, you are right. My apologies.

The presumption of innocence until guilt is proven by two or three witnesses finds its roots in religion. Ones who reverse it to ‘guilty until proven innocent’ are typically of the left and the left is typically atheistic, or at least irreligious. Sometimes I wonder whether their disdain for traditional measures of proof is a manifestation of their rejection of religion.

Due to this gracious response, you have restrained me from highlighting John's words "I am not you mate" and letting them stand without comment. Thank you sincerely for this and for your overall help in getting me to reign in some of my hyperboles and occasional dignified barbs. I have pointed out before that it is beneath me to resort to despicable trolling. I confine myself to engaging in dignified perusal of internet resources in search of fatheads to set straight.