TrueTomHarley

3 hours ago, Peter Carroll said:

never reply to idots is what you should have learned, it doesnt improve your own iq to  more than 0.1  of a base point

Yes but every little bit helps.

5 hours ago, Arauna said:

We let the ones with fertile hearts come to us!  We talk to them only if they are interested in something they see on the cart. 

If there is one thing we have learned about Mathew 4 5784, it is that he bitches no matter what. Before the days of cart witnessing, he was saying, ‘Geez—you keep visiting people who aren’t interested. Why don’t you set up carts so that anyone who is can approach you, leaving the rest In peace?’

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

I asked my by-now-thoroughly-exasperated wife.

In a mellow mode, I strolled into a tattoo parlor. Seeing the fellow at work, on the spur of the moment I asked if when one of his trade tattoos an intimate part of the body, whether he gets a charge out of it, or is it just art. 

‘It’s art!’ came the firm rebuke.

3 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

She pulled me into her yard and made me take some of her pairs.

Um—she made my take some of her pears. Sorry.

10 minutes ago, Anna said:

I just realised this may sound like I was inferring that JWI is stupid. Of course I don't mean that.

Oh, C’mon! Show a little backbone, why don’t you?

7 minutes ago, Anna said:

Oh dear...now this sounds like I am saying Americans can't help being stupid. I think I've been watching too much Blacklist and I'm beginning to sound like Aram Mojtabai.

Next thing you know you’ll be agreeing with that anti-cult whack job Korelov who calls the United States “the spiritual garbage dump of humanity” and who paints Jehovah’s Witnesses foremost in advancing that cause. I distinctly remember in the 70s working with the tract “Jehovah’s Witnesses—Christians or Communists”—designed to counter just the opposite impression, that Witnesses were agents of Russian communism.

https://bitterwinter.org/russia-sensational-revelations-jehovahs-witnesses-prepare-an-anti-putin-coup/

10 hours ago, Anna said:

they go to grandma's orchard and pick their free apples for free, or pick the apples that grow on trees lining country roads...

The gruff German grandma down the road loaded me up with enough pairs from her tree to last weeks. I was just walking by with headphones on, the way I do, and greeted her as she was crossing the street. Turned out she had just returned from giving a load to people there, also. 

My greeting was enough. She pulled me into her yard and made me take some of her pairs. However many I took, it was not enough, and I left with a bag as heavy as I could carry. So I brought them to the congregation get-together where several young children who had never eaten pairs before dove into them, found them delicious, and probably had the runs for a week.

My wife has called on this women before in the course of her ministry. ‘I don’t think she’s interested,’ she says. ‘She’s gruff, but underneath pretty decent.’ So I told her my wife’s verdict, which I agree with. I’ve been back since for more pears and even some apples.

(I should have told her that city-slicker @JW Insiderwould pay her $40 a bag for whatever came off her trees, even $80 if she serenades him with an accordion band.)

5 hours ago, JW Insider said:

They charge $40 for a half-bushel.

“And I heard a voice as if in the midst of the four living creatures say: “A quart of wheat for a de·narʹi·us, and three quarts of barley for a de·narʹi·us; and how do you like them apples?”

On 10/12/2022 at 9:35 PM, BroRando said:

What are they going to do?  Call us liars for claiming Jesus is the Son of God?

I think they’d call us liars for mistranslating, inserting a phrase that’s not there simply because we like it. 

You can say ‘a god’ or an adjective like ‘divine’ by handling the indefinite article as we do. You can say ‘God’ by botching the significance of the indefinite article. But by no stretch of the imagination can you say ‘Son of God.’ It’s not there.

You have to translate the Greek or Hebrew as accurately as you can, and then let that translation instruct you. You can’t do it the other way around—let your beliefs dictate your translating (as though you are instructing God). ‘Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament’ by Jason Beduhn, examines John 1:1 in several translations and concludes only the New World Translation gets it right, translating in accord with the actual Greek. It’s most of the other translations that read their beliefs into the translating and thereby mess it up, he says. We never want to be like that. It’s dishonest. It’s taking liberties with the Word of God.

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2009/06/scholars-bias-and-the-new-world-translation.html

9 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Most of the money supporting ALL DC-centered candidates still comes from Pharma, Wall Street, and "Oil".

Don’t forget Big Defense

9 hours ago, JW Insider said:

The undercurrent of the whole thing goes back to when Nixon took the US off the "Gold Standard." Gold wasn't stable enough while Russia and South Africa had an unpredictable influence on the percentage of the actual gold supply.

Are you sure it was for this reason? Or was it that once ‘money’ is backed by debt rather than gold, there is no limit to how much of the stuff can be printed, with any day of reckoning put far far off into the future (though perhaps not so far now).

22 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Haven't seen much evidence for the validity of the second part of that question: [to enforce a globalist view of breaking free from oil as a power source]

Any scenario these days of the US govt working for the interests of non-renewable energy company seems a little hard to swallow. Aren’t they public enemies #1 for pumping up climate change?

Making trouble with Russia is always a thing, I agree. I recall Trump posing the question, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia?” Whereupon outside forces intervened to virtually ensure they would not.

22 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Several countries in Europe would not be ready to stand by the US-sponsored sanctions against Russia (because they don't want their citizens to be faced with cold this winter).

You would think so. But the world is so screwy today. And the notion of national leaders betraying the interests of the populace is widespread.

22 hours ago, JW Insider said:

don't know if you were distinguishing oil from natural gas

Yeah, I guess there was some mix-up as to that. My bad.

15 hours ago, JW Insider said:

suspect that @Mic Drop, the original poster of this topic, didn't expect it to turn into a discussion about interpretation of Bible prophecy

Well…he’s a big boy. He should know better. There are some topics you can’t let within 100 yards of a Bible person—all of them, really. Nonetheless, I’ll refrain from (maybe) commenting along that vein pending another thread.

13 hours ago, JW Insider said:

It's been suggested that NATO Article 5 should come into play, meaning that all NATO nations should now attack the United States on suspicion that it was the U.S. that just attacked a viable fuel supply for NATO countries like Germany.

The real question, should the United States emerge as the culprit, will be the question of why. Is it to win business for American energy companies? Or is it to enforce a globalist view of breaking free from oil as a power source, in which case there would be many a sympathizer, if not co-conspirator, among their like minded ‘brethren’ in Europe who have satisfied themselves as to their own personal well-being.

9 hours ago, Pudgy said:

 

I appreciate the ‘research.’ Someone is doing dirty unto others far more than others are doing dirty unto him.

Why anyone would waste their time issuing a downvote I’ll never know.

On 8/28/2022 at 1:50 AM, Arauna said:

I often write very late at night due to  our time difference

The neat thing about the internet is it doesn’t matter. Write what you write and go to bed. I’ll make sure the ruffians don’t erase it while you sleep. Then when you wake and see ten dumb comments appended to your remark, blast away.

4 hours ago, Peter Carroll said:

unfortunatly for aruna ,her postion lacks substance as she has failed to quote one scripture to support the debate

as in the case of bre rando there are mulitple scriptures to read

just based on that alone bro rando has a much more convincing position

I dunno. In that case we’d all be disciples of you-know-who, who quotes scriptures by the truckload but they never apply.

On 5/23/2022 at 9:52 AM, Anna said:

What gets me is when we keep going on about obeying instructions

A little research project I recently did:

I was about to comment on how Solomon requests of God an ‘obedient heart’ and that is the last thing you might expect a king to request. Before doing so I checked to see what other translations had done with that expression. To my surprise, ‘obedient’ was almost unique. The vast majority said ‘understanding.’ 

At first blush, this doesn’t bode well for the New World Translation, Only one other out of 64 translations say it as they do, but upon research, I came away thinking ‘obedient’ is likely the best rendering of all:

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2022/08/an-obedient-heart-or-an-understanding-heartwhich-is-it.html

22 minutes ago, Pudgy said:

Clarinet?

Claret. I hear that she seriously boozes it up with the Librarian (that old hen) every evening.

23 hours ago, xero said:

Spoken like an apostate chatbot. You're on permanent ignore as you have never said anything of value, nor will you ever.

Witness said the C-word?

I mean, I can do it because I don’t pretend to be shining brightly as the sun,  but her!

58 minutes ago, Pudgy said:

Could be worse ….……

….. could be slide trombones ….

Those instruments have been described as ‘phallic.’ When I heard that, I promptly threw mine in the trash.

1 hour ago, Pudgy said:

And yet, Peter Carroll, Here You Are, reading what they write …. 

Not only engaged. All but married. (To be sure, not happily married) What prompted the change? The position of the earthly organization is not new.

7 hours ago, Pudgy said:

…. Or like when Joe Biden gets oil on the windshield of his tractor trailer rig when he has to drive to another state for an abortion!

Why would he need one?

5 hours ago, Arauna said:

People latched onto the words of Jesus and condemned him

Jesus sometimes spoke in hyperbole and so does Lett. You could almost say that the man himself is an hyperbole.

5 hours ago, BroRando said:

If people knew that Brother Lett's Parents were deaf, they could see why he speaks the way he does. 

A brother in our congregation who works with the deaf, who himself has deaf ones in his family, casts doubt on this. Rather, he says it is from long habit of battling Bell’s palsy, which paralyzes the face and which you overcome by deliberate working of face muscles. In response to my questioning, he said he had it “on good authority,” so I rate it probably 90% as being true.

9 hours ago, Pudgy said:

How is this different from beer? 
I mean… you buy a case of beer, it’s yours, but when you drink it, it becomes a rental!

It’s the same as when you want to buy a house only to find all houses have been taken off the market. They are only available for rent, big business having figured out they can make far more money over the long haul than had they just sold it to you. 

On 7/15/2022 at 5:34 PM, Mic Drop said:

BMW is selling heated car seats on a subscription basis.

Everyone wants subscription these days. Recurring income, and they don’t have to do a thing for it. Lawsuits over tractor-makers for not allowing farmers to fix their own tractors,

On 7/11/2022 at 10:03 AM, TrueTomHarley said:

I’ve spiffed it up, renamed you [Arauna], and have put some of it on my own blog, as the first of a multi-part series. The succeeding parts I’ll put here first, however.

I know my word is my bond, just like James Bond says before hurls a villain into a piranha pit*, but I didn’t. I put it on my own blog first as ‘Part 2.’ It’s mostly just a rehash of points made first here anyway.

Update Pete Carroll’s pic one comment above to show piranhas at the bottom of the abyss and Bond doing the hurling, and you’re golden.