TrueTomHarley

Nana reminds me of Paul going nuts under provocation. Squelch her, @The Librarian (you old hen) and you must also squelch Paul: "Are they ministers of Christ? I reply like a madman I am more outstandly one!" Paul cried in exasperation, pulled rank for several verses, and then they hauled him away to check his blood pressure and give him a sedative. "You are going mad, @Nana Fofana Great learning is driving you into madness!"

Once again I will handle your desire to malign by suggesting that even if it were true, it is exactly what one would expect when Jesus says he came to seek, not those who do not need a physician, but those that do. The groups to worry aboutmare those who have low rates of mental illness among them - for there are a lot of mentally ill people around. It must be that they feel excluded - driven away by condescension, lack of love, or inhospitality. Those who can operate smoothly among this world’s calamities – who can absorb all the atrocities that have become routine and who can accommodate themselves to it without fuss - those are the people to worry about. W hen our people go off the rails, they nonetheless wouldn’t hurt a fly. If persons of the greater world go off the rails - better call the SWAT team and secure a new identity from the authorities!

I learned a lot from my grandmother, who we all called Nana, as a kid. Also, here is a treat for hungry as a hog @The Librarian

Charlie Manson's greatest (maybe only) contribution comes as a sage remark toward the end of his life: "You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody's crazy."

If we step outside the world of Bible believing people, we find this is exactly how those of critical though (higher criticism) regard Paul. They practically treat him as a person who founded a separate religion, reinterpreting the words and teachings of Jesus - linking them to OT events that Jesus himself never linked them to. It brings to mind those who rail at the marked difference in direction from Russell to Rutherford, from Rutherford to Knorr, from Knorr to the GB. They are fixated on men. If they are going to harp on this, tell them to not be so namby-pamby. Tell them to follow through. Tell them to ignore Paul and focus on only what Jesus said. It is the same with those like @Noble Berean who started this line of discussion, with the GB. It cannot be that God works through that group of men? Don't be such a wimp! Extend your logic to Jesus and Paul. Take your Bible and rip out every book after Acts.

Have the crows bring her an extra sandwich and more ink for her pen.

Two links are added, sourcing everything. The only "projection" of mine that remains is the Special Victims Unit, which I admit is subjective. is anyone in a tizzy over that? Let him or her come here and defend the show if they are.

WOW! If the cat ever gets my tongue, I know where to turn. Yes, of course one must preserve civility on one's forum. Everyone understands that. On the other hand, we are dealing with persons that I positively do not like, because they loathe what to me is most virtuous. I don't like it even more if he poses as one who would help. Matters of God are the most important matters the tongue can speak of. People come to blows over politics and even sports teams. It should be enough that I do not hot-wire my laptop so as to electrocute him via the internet. All here cut him some slack, feeling he is valiantly attempting to communicate in a language not his. I am willing to do the same. There is the chance, however, that English is his first language and that he is using his full power of communication undiluted. The day I am required to conduct rational patient discussions with such ones is the day I am out of here. The scriptures tell me one is not supposed to do that.

Another thing I like about Allen is that he raises strawmen. Persons reveling in critical thought hate strawmen. They think the world is their courtroom where they can cross-examine anyone at will. Their critical thinking is always just that - it is the glory of being critical that they revel in. God help us should these persons of critical thought ever take over. The most vociferous among them famously do not gladly suffer fools - and a fool is anyone who disagrees with them. I like strawmen. They are a fine rhetorical means of putting things into perspective. In some cases, they amount to saying: "your point is too silly to merit a serious answer," which is true of many petty things opposers harp on in this forum. The ARC hearing resulted in 'Not Much?' If so, it is typical of the "sound and fury, signifying nothing" we usually get from such folks. They stumbled upon the solution. They didn't even stumble upon it - it was put to them by one of our people. But the simple solution has thus far proved impossible to for them implement because they represent a tangled mess of conflicting agendas who simply cannot put such differences aside so as to cooperate no matter how dire the situation or sacred the cause. What they can do is build a platform upon which to grandstand. For some of them, that is enough. Their actions screw up as many people as they help. Locally, police just nabbed a kindergarten teacher with kiddie porn on his computer. It is bad stuff, even for kiddie porn. They grilled him and he admitted he has fantasized over the children in his charge. They caught him via an international sting operation tracing filthy pedo content originating overseas. He has never actually done anything to any of the children he teaches. But he has pinched spare underwear from their backpacks to take home and he's drawn much pleasure from dreaming of what could be. https://nypost.com/2017/11/22/kindergarten-teacher-busted-for-child-porn-stealing-kids-undies/ Okay? He is one sick puppy. No way can you have him teaching kindergarten, even though he has never touched a child. It is reasonable to think it is only a matter of time before he does, for he is feasting on what will only build his appetite. (Except for child porn, you can't even slip THAT assumption past ones of critical thought, since they will demand proof that indulging in such porn does not harmlessly distract perverted persons from the real thing) And these people would pose as our moral superiors? The question to be addressed is: how do you remove him as teacher? For the sake of the children, you do it discreetly. You say "Mr. Feely has had to leave and he won't be coming back. He had an emergency come up. He wanted to say goodbye but had to leave immediately." Was it handled that way? You know it wasn't. "MR FEELY IS A PERVERT!! HE WAS TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN AND JUST LOOK AT THE DISGUSTING FILTH ON HIS COMPUTER!! HE EVEN SWIPED JANIE'S PANTIES!!!!!!!!!" It was top news for days on end. Thirty children are scarred for life and know now that any adult - no matter how benevolent, might easily be (probably is) trying to molest them. What child does not love his or her kindergarten teacher? Who is trusted more? Even for the guy's own sake, it might be acknowledged somewhere that he had thus far resisted acting upon what he was feeding himself with. It might be a case of 'salvaging what is left.' Instead he is universally denounced as a depraved monster - thus there is no way he will ever cover. He might not anyway, but why ensure the outcome? He can be put on the sex registry list without throwing the city into an uproar. He is done so with maximum publicity mainly for entertainment purposes and to allow certain ones to puff out their chests about their moral righteousness. The only reason authorities started tracking viewers of porn in the first place is because they thought they could thereby cut off the flow. I guess they got that wrong. It has continued to grow exponentially for years. Users will store the stuff on thumb drives and bury it in their back yards before they give up on it. The top cop in Britain recently said, though it pained him, that such users should not be prosecuted. There is no way police can possibly keep up - there are so many - and by attempting it they are torn from pursuing the most dangerous criminals. You can't have every third person employed as a cop. And the world would play moral superiority with Witnesses? The world slaps down perversion on one hand and feeds it with the other. Does anyone think the Law and Order - Special Victims Unit show is not a magnet to draw and feed molesters who fantasize over the world they would love to see? Does anyone think they walk away saying: "Wow. This is bad! I should never do it"? The show is entertainment for the average person? I cannot watch one straight through. It is entertainment mostly to vigilantes and perverts and perverts-in-training. And they would pretend they are more righteous than us? I don't think so. Meanwhile there is an underage kid placed on the registry for having sex with his girlfriend of 13. This, despite the prevalent teaching that parents should accept the fact that their kids are going to have sex and to get them vaccinated for HPV and not be so Victorian about it. Another young man is put on the list for having sex with his underage girlfriend who misrepresented herself as above age. In each case a domino effect is started and neither young man is likely to ever fully recover. http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/11/oklahoma.teen.sex.offender/index.html These stories are a dime a dozen. They are collateral damage in a war where zealots say: "we may not be able to do anything about terrorism or suicides or corruption or injustice or drug abuse or job insecurity, but by God - we CAN do something about perverts fiddling with our kids. But in fact, they can't even do that. A depraved world cranks out pedophiles as readily as it cranks out men who become radicalized and shoot up or run down anyone in sight. These people are our moral betters? There is a style among women that I can only call the pedo look. Grown women with hairstyles and polo shirts to look like little boys. Probably just a coincidence. Here is a headline story in the New York Times gushing over a ten year old male model. "His eye makeup is better than yours!" it swoons. Is this a perv site? No. It is the New York Times. The boy has over 330,000 followers on social media. What a great success story! Do you think they ask how many of them are pedophiles? Why - it doesn't occur to them to go there. Soon they will run another blockbuster story exposing the results of what they now push. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/style/his-eye-makeup-is-way-better-than-yours.html And they would play the moral high card? This world does everything it can to titillate perversion and then acts all furious when it actually breaks out. Allen doesn't let them get away with it, though most others acquiesce to some degree, and the real villains push the notion that the world's pedo problems would largely disappear were it not for that religion they can't stand.

SHHHH!!! @The Librarian is monitoring. (the old hen)

Yeah, Srecko, did you hear that? Â

I'm crying plenty - anytime I reflect upon your obsession over the minutia of a religion you left long ago.

For crying out loud, Srecko - there is such a thing as common sense. Did you forget what that stuff is? It is a faith where everlasting life on a paradise earth is recognized as God's purpose for mankind. Yet the overall world that Christians operate within is that 'everyone is going to heaven when they die ' The overall world - inside or outside the congregation - produces abundant emotional stress. It is therefore not a shocker to suggest that "mental and emotional imbalanced or past religious beliefs" may be a factor for some - particularly so should someone give evidence of imbalance in their everyday lives - which you would know nothing about since you ran for the hills ages ago. What business is it of yours? Get on with your life - for I assume that you have one - and stop harping on the tiniest thing here. You don't need a scripture to justify it every time you blow your nose.

50% of the Bible is related to this theme, probably more. The prophets positively beat us over the head with it. Unless one applies spiritual values in one's life, his or her worship is meaningless and disapproved. Yet here online is found extensive discussion of issues that constitutes less than one percent of the Bible. Would that it more closely correlated with the Bible's allocation of themes. I think it tells something of many participants that it does not. Okay, I get it - angels are desirous of peering into future things and are frustrated that they cannot. But even so... Particularly is it so of opponents who are demanding Witnesses 'study the Bible' more, when Witnesses collectively are the most well-read biblically in the world. Do such opponents actually apply the faith in their life? Are they known as persons of love, empathy, and Christian activity? Or are they primarily known as persons who argue that they have a better way? This is an anonymous forum and one does not really know anyone. Maybe they all are the epitome of Christ-like qualities - they certainly all seem to treat that as a no-brainer. But I am dubious nonetheless.

It is someone else's point. Let them rise to the occasion if there is one.

Where is @James Thomas Rook Jr. when you need him with the Far Side cartoon showing Satan furious with the painter for painting 999 on an interior room. "Well, I'll be," the fellow says, scratching his head. "I guess I was holding the blueprint upside down."

Yeah, @Nana Fofana, excellent point Srecko makes here! Why can't you quote any scriptures about what is happening 2000 years after they were written, hmm? For that matter, where is the scripture saying you can call yourself Nana on the internet? Srecko is very wise. Don't think you can slip anything past him.

What adds to the chill is that the Russian Orthodox translation also says Jehovah in about 9 places, per Anton Chivchalov.

Yes Yes. It had better be. But these three questions miss the one obvious fact that makes them all irrelevant. How would they know? Because the individual annointed ones say so? The day that this happens I am going to reveal here that I am also annointed and I have been lurking here for months. I now have a pronouncement. It is that my fellow annointed @Witness is all wet and no one should listen to her, and that @James Thomas Rook Jr. is next in line as replacement in case someone bites the dust. He has many many many complaints. It is time to put them all on the front burner. If anyone doesn't believe it, I will threaten to summon Jesus' white horse, who is not exactly Mr. Ed. I'm annointed. I said something. Jump!!

Oh? Jesus said any who would see life must eat his flesh and drink his blood. How would your 'critical thought' analyze that one? He lost a great many disciples that day. Probably it was ones who, like you, put their trust in critical thought. 'Critical thought' is the trademark of a generation that constructs a system that is swirling directly down the toilet, and yet proponents thereof project an air of superiority right until their heads go under. Jesus could not have said anything more stupid if his concern was to cater to critical thought. It should be clear that he doesn't give a hoot about it. He violates its tenets all the time. He spins illustrations that he rarely explains. When he does explain them, it is not in a manner that would satisfy any advocate of critical thought. He raises strawmen as readily as he breathes. He launches ad homenum attacks willy-nilly. He speaks to the heart, in almost total disregard for the head. For every verse about the head, there are ten about the heart. People insisting on critical thought are the most obnoxious people in the world because each one assumes that he alone has a lock on the stuff. Critical thought is the main element of this world's wisdom that God laughs at. Though I don't mean to equate the two, the current uproar over a Trump tweet illustrates the divide perfectly. I don't care how much I dislike @James Thomas Rook Jr. ; if he saved my kid from 10 years in a Chinese prison I would be on my hands and knees thanking him. A tweet that calls out ingratitude gets people stirred up because it speaks to the heart - everyone knows where gratitude is and when it is appropriate. But those who go in for critical analysis think the president petty for not letting it go. Doesn't he have more important things to do? When Trump tweets that North Korea has launched all its missills, people of heart will run to take cover. People of critical thought will run to their computers to point out that the idiot can't even spell the word right. THAT is my opinion of your 'critical thought.' As nearly as I can tell, it is Jesus' opinion. And God's. Things that have been done on the GB's watch and on their behest - do the blessings outweigh the costs? There are costs - sometimes they are significant. Do the spiritual benefits the GB alone has enabled outweigh the costs? Or do the costs, invariably matters of personal rights curtailed somehow, outweigh the benefits? It is a matter of the heart. The head has little to do with it.

I believe you just did. It is the Question from Readers you brought up yourself and misread a point perfectly obvious to everyone else. Some mistakenly think they have the calling because they are nuts - what's so hard about that? Nobody is saying who is who. Lest anyone think I ridicule people, let me say that I am not opposed to nuts. Many are nuts here. I am nuts. One man's nuts is another man's eccentric. I don't care to sort it out and don't know if I could if I wanted to. What I do know is that our nuts are harmless. With the world's nuts, you'd better buy a bullet-proof vest. @James Thomas Rook Jr. will know, if he can extract his face from out of a turkey, that I am very much opposed to those misreading points.

And Paul also said all these gifts would pass away. So it all becomes irrelevant to identifying divine backing today. Then why keep doing it with the GB? He doesn't NEED anything. That is not to say it does not come in handy. Replace Bethel with a pile of rocks, and look to those to 'cry out.' My point is that your footing is much less firm here. If anything, the JW.org disproves this. I see their faces all the time, whereas I never used to. Yes! As long as God's temple doesn't do anything, all is fine. Far better to meet in each other's basements. (caution: unnecessary sarcasm here, the language of you-know-who) Yes. It will. Why not allow it to make hay while the sun shines? You think there's not? Didn't Jesus say something about 'cramped and narrow?' I think they simply don't want to be negligent. I don't think they know themselves how things will shake out beyond the hints from the scriptures. But whatever the caution be issued in the future, I don't think they want to see a brotherhood dominated by the sons-in-law of Lot, who imagine they are joking. IMO, it is because of this that: You have much exaggerated this, but everyone knows where you are coming from. Nobody would say your words are groundless, only exaggerated. This is among the most recurring themes of this entire forum. This statement strikes me as not unlike Peter's in the windstorm - panicking at the unknown and fear-inspiring. Congregation authority was pretty much unchecked in the first century, much to the dismay of Diotrophes and the superfine apostles. As so as the latter succeeded in checking it, it all fell apart. We do tend to go by rote. How 'concerning' this is is anyone's guess. They don't call them sheep for nothing. No.

Says who? Paul himself, mostly, plus a handful that could testify he had experienced some sort of religious experience, though they were not able to catch any of the words. Skeptics on this forum would not have been impressed. What if those first century Christians had refused to listen to him or read his letters, saying Why could they not have reasoned similarly? Let Jesus speak himself, if he has something to say! Why could they not have refused to listen to Paul the Middleman? When the verse says "Listen to him" it is not speaking of Paul. Perhaps there were some who did argue that way. I don't see why there wouldn't have been. Where are they now? The good news enjoyed tremendous growth under Paul? Big deal. It has done the same under the direction of the GB, yet that makes no difference to critics here. Practically speaking, what do you propose we should do if we allow no one to represent Christ, but insist on communication from Jesus himself?

Sigh....I've come to regret that. In hindsight, I did completely misread @James Thomas Rook Jr.' remarks (though not necessarily his sentiment) and thus based my tirade on something he didn't say. I owe him an apology, fair and square, without any snide asides for once.

I need a drink. Maybe I can snatch one from @The Librarian while she's not looking.