TrueTomHarley

23 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Are you just noting, TTH ... or chastising ... that one person has not answered another's questions?

Arauna asked many fine questions of Witness, none of which were answered. They are not the kind of questions you ask, but they are the kind that strike to the heart of her claimed area of expertise. She is the truly annointed one, she says, so does she do anything that one would reasonably expect an annointed one to do? How can you not ask those things?

I looked into this. In fact, I expanded upon it. One question Arauna did not ask of Witness was 'does she provide any nourishing spiritual food?' as the faithful and discreet slave are said to do. It is a good thing she did not ask it, because Witness has. She has provided us the diatribe of that fellow complaining that his permanent home at Bethel did not materialize.

THIS is where you ought to demand a transcript, for a transcript allows one to quickly get the gist of something without having to plow through a videoed complaint. I could get no further than 'the Watchtower will throw you under the bus.' Please. To use his vernacular, they never said they wouldn't. They never promised lifetime residency. I live not that far from Warwick. Many responded to the invitation to help in building. All knew that it was not a permanent gig. That point was made clear from the get-go. Nobody had reason to misunderstand it. They all understand the nature of an organization that exists to serve, not to be served.

Even were he already a full-time Bethelite, lifetime residency has never been promised. 'Try it for a year,' prospective Bethelites were once encouraged, or, going back, four years. The fact that some have ended up staying a long long time does not mean that anyone crossing the threshhold door has a lifetime connection. For a long time, while brute force was the commodity, many did, but as Arauna says, technology changes everything. Bethel would be robbing the worldwide brotherhood were they not to adapt to changing times and strive to combat bloat.

Look, it is not as though I cannot empathize with the kid. The experience of panic that ensues when any phase of life ends is real. 'What will I do next?' is the fear. People handle it differently, but most know the feeling to some degree. High school ends. College ends. Military ends. Grants end. Secular employment ends - many work assignments in the States are temporary, after which the employee is back to square one. Young people have even become used to so-called permanent employment being temporary - the lifetime employment of my Dad's day went the way of the dodo bird long ago. 

Witness or her friends have used this kid and made him look like a loser. He will actually be one if he does not shake their influence. Have they helped him to readjust and manfully face the next aspect of life, or have they encouraged him to cry like a baby for the sake of their own ax they live to grind? Hopefully, he will recover and move on in life, as all of us must many times for many reasons. However, when he is respectfully employed somewhere and happily readusted to life, perhaps with wife and family, perhaps even restored to full-time service, Witness will still be running this video iimmortalizing him at his lowest - shedding bitter tears, sulking and hitting back at those he thinks have wronged him. He will forever look small, whereas he would probably rather look big someday.

And unless there is positive evidence somewhere within the video, there is always the chance that the whole thing is made up - though I am willing to take it at face value.

So let no one say Witness does not provide spiritual food. She does.

7 hours ago, J.R. Ewing said:

If people like Bill Gates had foreseen the problem with only having a 2-digit year embedded in our software, instead of a 4-digit year, the Publishing Department might have caught the fact that, on the year 2000, the 20^th century in PRINT, would have reverted back to 1900 hundred (19^th century), thus nullifying the 20^th century presentation, completely, therefore, a need to become in “our day”, just in case the Y2K would have become disastrous for print.

It works for me. I like it.

Or one could just say 'they changed that.' They have never said they don't. Everyone knows Jehovah's Witnesses have thought Armageddon is just around the corner for a long while. It is. It simply turns out that it is one heckuva corner. But there is no question that this human experiment with self-rule will not turn out well. 

Hmm. I'm listening to Lynard Skynard and @JW Insider is at the London Museum.

That probably says it all.

Forty years ago Lynard Skynard's plane went down, killing six. I didn't know it at the time. It was during my righteous period when I was not listening to music. But in the years since I have heard song after song that I have liked, starting with 'Sweet Home Alabama,' only to find it is one of theirs.

My righteous period lasted nearly 20 years. It didn't end until my kids reached the age where they wanted to attend concerts like their friends and I wasn't too happy about it. But I realized you cannot stop lava and so I gave in, with the stipulation that I would go along too. The first concert was Weezer. Everyone held their hand out in line to get stamped, so I held mine out too. "You don't need a stamp," the attendant said - I little disrespectfully, I thought. (it was to verify drinking age) So I shot back: "Aren't there any grownups here?" Oh, yeah, the boy was thrilled to have me along. But I rather liked Weezer, or at least I did not dislike them.

1 hour ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Are you just noting, TTH ... or chastising ... that one person has not answered another's questions?

Surely when questions are asked they ought to be answered. I always do yours.

8 hours ago, Arauna said:

Additionally, you have not answered my questions.

No, she has not.

8 hours ago, Arauna said:

Do you preach every day  in public? And do you belong to a congregation where you can attend meetings?

8 hours ago, Arauna said:

do you preach about the Kingdom? That is a future government? with subjects on earth?  And a government of 144,000 in heaven?   Jesus was really dead for 3 days because he did not have an immortal soul ?  Jesus is not God and we pray through him to God. 

Where did you learn all that? was it by yourself ?

These, too, are fine questions that were not answered. 

17 hours ago, Arauna said:

Mr Rook: Your hope can be dashed to get the transcripts. You are setting yourself up for disappointment and then you will have a new rod to beat the GB with.  As I said before - they do not have time for petty requests from every Tom

I have never asked. However, Mr. Rook, though your respectful request for a transcript may fall upon deaf ears even if you send both Putin and the GB a check for $20.....I am better than both of them put together.

I solemnly swear that if you send me a check for five dollars and ninety nine cents I will send you a complete transcript of 'Tom Irregardless and Me.'

22 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Since there is one large hole in this story (why isn't the perpetrator in jail?) and one blatant untruth, (JWs are prohibited from telling authorities) everything else must be viewed in this light. Thus, the judge's reported exasperation over the Witnesses' defense may be exaggerated, misrepresented, or even concocted

Pure guesswork follows, I admit, but it is educated guesswork. It could be wrong. But it could well be right, seeing that the reporter has shown herself either partial or inept.

Any decent lawyer will raise objections at any trial. Some are sustained. Some are over-ruled. When overruled, the judge will say why, which invariably can be taken as a slap at that lawyer. A biased reporter, if she was one, could report that as the judge's 'exasperation' or sharp rebuke - implying that the lawyer really pushed her buttons, whereas in fact such retorts are routine. 

A vengeful reporter, if she was one, would surely report things this way. We should not assume that she isn't. In the field of politics today, many reporters are vengeful, for either one side or the other.

6 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

BOTH SIDES in OUR court cases are supposed to be seeking JUSTICE

Neither is. That is not even the nature of a tort case. One side is equating money with justice. The other side expelled a scoundrel (you have described expulsion as a fate worse than hellfire) once his deeds were known and presumably saw him jailed for a long long time, though that doesn't seem to have happened - but if it did not happen, it is clearly the legal system's screw-up, not ours. 

Unless there is some reason he should not be jailed, a reason not reported, and a reason that would alter everything.

4 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:

13 hours ago, Witness said:

Disfellowshipping is a spiritual “stoning”

excellent compare !   

What in the world is a 'spiritual stoning?' 

Who is to say it is bad?

17 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

With a suitcase full of money, I highly suspect you could get a COMPLETE BETHEL TOUR ... any morning you showed up.... REALLY.

Yes, I have no doubt that you really highly suspect that.

6 minutes ago, Gone Fishing said:

But we cannot change the fact that the writings of dead men will only ever be open to interpretation, as those men are not alive to verify our understanding of their words.

This reminds me of a passage in 'Up the Down Staircase' in which a student was given a failing grade for wrongly interpreting a poem. He protested. The grade stood. It stood even when the student brought the poet himself to school and the poet said 'yes'- that's exactly what he meant. 

The only satisfaction he received was to see school policy changed. From that point on, only dead poets were used in connection with assignments. 

I will go further.

Since there is one large hole in this story (why isn't the perpetrator in jail?) and one blatant untruth, (JWs are prohibited from telling authorities) everything else must be viewed in this light. Thus, the judge's reported exasperation over the Witnesses' defense may be exaggerated, misrepresented, or even concocted. Maybe it is like the media reporting that Trump and Tillerson do nothing but argue and that Tillerson is about to resign - and so Tillerson calls a news conference to say they get along just fine and he has never once thought of quitting. And they say: ‘well, did you call him a moron as we said?’ and he answers ‘where I come from we don’t have time for such petty nonsense

I mean, the San Diego case might be as reported, but the story is flawed enough and the reporter negligent enough, perhaps hostile, that it makes you wonder. 

It's not great to see JWs mentioned in courts in this connection - there is no positive way this can be spun. However, no tort lawyer wants to go to court - he or she wants a much-easier out-of-court settlement. The fact that this case is, nonetheless, in court indicates that one side or the other (or both) has dug in and is intransigent.

People are used to seeing lawyers employ every type of legal maneuvering. If it is for a cause they like, they praise them for it. If it is for a cause they do not like, they condemn them for it. There are no legal loopholes in court because if it is legal, it is not a loophold. It is a chaotic and inconsistent system, not of our doing, and one must operate according to whatever flies legally. I'd rather not see such things play out in the courts, but if they do, most people realize that lawyers will do what lawyers have to do given the adversarial system they operate in. 

7 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Think of me as the mean, nasty, Drill Sergeant that makes your life miserable

I can get my head around that without much effort.

15 minutes ago, Arauna said:

I am not over-reacting.... or vitriolic.

You seem to feel that I had you in mind in my last comment. I didn't. The idea of coming to the aid of immature ones who are playing in the street, not realizing the dangerous drivers deliberately trying to swerve into them, appeals to me. That's what you are doing.

14 minutes ago, Arauna said:

I am not here to determine if people have a mental illness

I am. Well - I guess I'm not - not really. But there a few serial gripers who seem unhinged, and I do not think it wrong to observe that.

34 minutes ago, Arauna said:

We would not be following Christ if we had a violent attitude when Jesus said we must love our enemies - especially those who do not love Christ.  I work every day amongst people who could kill me and if circumstances change they most probable will! A pioneer sister recently had her throat cut while on field service.  We carefully work amongst our enemies who have personalities like wolves.

Someone here made the charge that mental illness is higher among JWs than elsewhere, with the cryptic challenge: 'look it up.' When asked to produce proof by someone who did look it up and found only similar unsupported allegations, he immediately caved. 

I've heard the allegation before. I get around it by pointing out that, even if it were true, it is no more than what you 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 about, to my mind, are those who have low rates of mental illness among them, for there are a lot of those people around. It must be that they feel excluded - driven away by condescension or lack of love or hospitality. 

I would not say our people suffer especially from mental illness, and even if I did, I would attach no stigma to it - a stigma is the very reason certain ones try to make the charge stick. From what I have seen on this forum, certain opposers - not all of them or even most of them - are the ones who are pure loonytoons, not the Witnesses who comment. 

Plus, if our people go off the rails, they nonetheless wouldn't hurt a fly. But if persons of the greater world go off the rails - better call the SWAT team and get a new identity from the FBI!

19 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Now that more people have cell phones or home phones with unlimited long distance calling for the same price ... why not put on a Sherlock Holmes  double-brimmed detective hat, sit down at the dining room table, and make an investigation!

I am waiting for you to do this. I truly am.

You are more savvy searching every nook and cranny of everything than I. You certainly seem to have the time. You even have the motivation to portray things as black as you can.

I would like to know the truth about this.

21 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I got a little off topic and forgot that my original point was going to be about the once-common claim that we are the only religion that gives TRUE charity.

Shouldn't you be sniffing under a pyramid about now? Your week at the museum is not yet up.

Just because you don't like someone doesn't mean you have to dis him at every opportunity. There was a time when we could barely speak of churches without trashing them, but it is less so today. No longer are we attempting to break their stranglehold on public thought. That was done long ago. It is true that we hardly praise them for their charitable works but neither do we down them, unless there is obvious hypocrisy about.

Whenever I am at a door and the subject comes up, I like to acknowledge charitable works people may be doing, whether through their church or not. There are hungry people. How can it not be a good thing to feed them? Moreover, we don't do it - no one can do everything. .So it is a good thing that someone else does.

At another time - it needn't be right then - one can say that the 'problem' arises when churches do such works instead of the ones they are primarily assigned. If they do it in addition to, it is excellent and praiseworthy. But almost always, it is instead of. It is the illustration given that you hire someone to re-roof your house and he paints it instead. True, it did need painting, but that is beside the point. 

But you don't have to state that from the get-go. Better to build bridges by acknowledging good works. Whenever I run across a clergyman, I ask him to describe his day. I don't just assume he does nothing. I invite him to describe what he does do. When he takes me up on it, we have some good conversations - the beginnings of who knows what? - and he is always able to describe a very active life.

Many clergymen of long ago had much free time and used it to advance other pursuits - sometimes  in science. Gregor Mendel comes to mind. They have less free time today. They keep their nose in the job, as is true with almost every line of work today. The days of the Renaissance Man passed long ago.

On 10/12/2017 at 11:55 PM, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Campos admitted to molesting seven children from 1982 to 1999. Despite his admission, church elders agreed to let Campos rejoin the congregation after a four-year expulsion.

The fact that this fellow is not behind bars is very strange to me, in light of what he is supposed to have done. There may be an answer for it, but surely it is something that should be explained, and the reporter behind the story mentions none. 

It has been covered already that there is a blatant untruth in her story - her statement that Witnesses are prohibited from reporting to authorities. If she had said many Witnesses were disinclined to run to authorities, that would be one thing. But she said they are prohibited from doing so, when right on the Witness website is a statement that they are not. Even if she didn't believe it, a decent reporter would at least note it. Instead, she has been fed a line by someone and she repeats it uncritically, without research.

So what about the fact this fellow is not in jail? It seems he should be if his crimes are as unambiguous, repeated, and grievous as announced. Why is he not? Are there some mitigating circumstances that no one has seen fit to cover? Maybe not, but it seems a relevant point.

When you read a person's statement and you disagree, he will say you must consider the context. You must read more.

When you do that and still disagree, he will say you have to read yet more to get a more complete picture.

When you do that and still disagree, the answer is to read yet more.

When you do that, to the point of reading everything the idiot has ever written, and you still disagree, he will call you a fool. It is just the way he is. 

Who was it that said one must season their words with salt? Make words winsome, and not wincing.? If I read a short article and it is well-written, I am motivated to read more. If what little I have read persuades or intrigues me, I look for the next installment.

If, on the other hand, what I read is insults and taunts and photoshopped silliness, my attention wanes. It may be that I have thereby missed out on the revelations of a true genius, but it is a price I am willing to pay. If you want to persuade, you must go about it differently. You cannot salt your comments with words that do nothing but turn off. Who do you think is going to suffer through that in order to determine - when all appearances are to the contrary - whether you truly have both oars in the water?

This is particularly so if you keep demanding that I submit myself to cross-examination, as though in court.

1 hour ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

The fact that you NEVER answer my specific questions

It is all but one question, rephrased and repeated endlessly. How many times must one answer it?

3 minutes ago, Matthew9969 said:

and worst of all boast that they are the only religion that provides charity.

I don't think that is the case.

1 hour ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

You may have noticed  from the above, TTH, that I ALWAYS try to answer your specific questions, and you NEVER answer mine.

You do not. You keep telling me I'm in serious needs of meds. And maybe I am. But I never was before I started hanging out here.

It's not enough that you have driven yourself loony?

1 hour ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Ahem .... the following six lines quoted are separated by "air spaces"

I can think of a pair of ears between which there are air spaces.

1 hour ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

You AND YOU ALONE are the one that made that connection

It's because nobody reads this stuff. And what of this next beaut?

43 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

That is probably the SMARTEST thing I have seen here in a long time .... soon enough ... perhaps too soon, we will all know.

'Just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait!'

11 hours ago, Witness said:

Here's one made easy for you:  Matt 7:5

Who would have thought scriptures could be weaponized?