TrueTomHarley

This also is nonsense, like most of what you say, and it also betrays a basic misunderstanding of people and how they are motivated. The ones with income and power tell the others what to do and they do it. That's how the chief priests stirred up the common people to demand Jesus' death - people who had kind of liked him. It is like the verse says in the JTR translation: "If they have hated me, they will nevertheless love you, unless there is drivel from the GB."

What in the world was wrong with that crazy person?

This is nonsense and it betrays a basic misunderstanding of people and their motivations. The truth was bitterly resisted long before any 'drivel' came along.

Seven years ago an evangelical preacher researched and published the truth about the cross. It was a sensation. ABC went on and on about the article. If Jehovah's Witnesses had said it (as they have) the article would not line the bottom of their birdcage. It matters little what is said - what matters is who says it. http://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2010/11/did-jesus-die-on-a-cross.html When I mentioned this to Brother Madonia from the old country, he exclaimed: "Onomatopoeia!"

If someone from the 1950's was resurrected and began to complain how science had taken advantage of him - depriving him of a flat screen color TV whereas it hypocritically bestowed them upon later generations, would you say he had a valid point? Time marches on. New things come to light. Positions evolve. It happens everywhere. It is not a plot to work you over.

The annual meeting entertained briefly the notion that angels, too, may have played a role in the building - I think they said in legal and safety issues, for example. That was a novel thought - angels participating! With only minor imagination, one can imagine the following heavenly scene, in the spirit of that conference to fool Ahab: Brother Wingedwarrior strode into the room and asked for his daily assignment. The other angels looked strangely relieved, but the one in charge looked sheepish. Finally, he said: "Brother, your assignment today is to monitor @James Thomas Rook Jr." (give me artistic licence here. I admit this is a stretch) "Aw, C'mon!!" Wingedwarrior cried in disgust, throwing his clipboard on the table so violently that it spilled the coffee urn, splashing angels nearby, even soaking their wings, which are not supposed to get wet. It was an accident, but since angels are perfect, several in the room looked at him suspiciously. "Why me? You guys have it in for me!" "Look, brother, you know how it is. We drew lots. It fell on you." "Well, it's a dumb system, anyway, named after some loser who didn't know enough to get out of Gay City! I'm not going to let it dictate my life!" "See here, Brother WW, we all must make sacrifices. Of course, you'd rather work with someone appreciative - we all would - but many assignments in God's service are lowly - and some are downright disgusting. As you know, James bought that huge warehouse in Mt. Moron, New York, and he has converted it into a graphics studio. We hear he plans 400 releases in the upcoming year. Someone has to watch him. Just look at the idiot stuff he has displayed. It's hard to believe he is an adult: "Think of the love you'll be showing to God. Think of the love for your brothers. Think of the love for those creatures below whom the Word likes," the head angel continued smoothly. If they lay the 'love' stuff on long enough, they can get you to do anything. At last, Brother WW grumbled: "Alright, alright, I'll do it. Where is a hard hat?" "Ha ha! Brother WW, you are too funny. We are spirit creatures and we have no need of har..." "LOOK, YOU ASSIGNED ME TO MONITOR JTR!!!! NOW, WHERE IS A HARDHAT?!!!!" For one brief moment, the head angel seemed taken aback. Presently he murmured: "We'll look about. They may be one kicking around here somewhere."

I think you interpret holding a different opinion as yourself as being 'brainwashed. At 2/2 with total 4 hours per week, all the rest of the time carrying on as normal? You're joking! Yes. If you claim you were brainwashed at only 4 hours per week, you only testify to how stupid and helpless you think you are. Why not just say you changed your mind, reassessed your goals? I have done that. Everyone has. People change their minds. There is no shame in saying that. But if you carry on that the only reason you could have reversed a decision you made is that you were brainwashed - surely that is pathetic. Look, I didn't say they were brainwashed in college. I said college splendidly meets one classic criteria of brainwashing: separate the victim from all that is familiar. Ones who later come to regret their college time seldom say they are brainwashed, despite that 24/7 criteria. How much more ridiculous to say it happened with 4 hours per week.

Tacking on a 30 minute commute both ways, twice a week, is not nothing. I don't want to blow it off as though it were. There are no examples of great inconvenience in our circuit, but that is not to say it is not so elsewhere. Nor will I pretend that even loyal ones may not grouse a bit, even as they understand the overall benefit. Of course, disloyal ones will bellow till the cows come home, but even loyal ones may not turn on a dime. One of the reasons Jehovah's organization works and others do not - and least not on such a scale - is that Witnesses have come to love the entire brotherhood, regardless of where in the world they may live, and do not obsess about their own immediate interests. They don't all figure they have to all go over to Benin and see for themselves and each ponder over the balance statement and have special sessions to discuss it and take a vote on it because no one other than themselves can be trusted - they just don't. They've decided the ones having oversight are trustworthy - they've given no cause to think otherwise, as they adhere to the same healthful scriptural teachings - so they grin and bear it if some policy does not work to their immediate benefit.

You are indeed an unusual person.

You're right. They would have evaporated as a religon rather than go to the government and fill out some forms.

The rules are doubtless different in each country and I am not everywhere. I speak of the U.S.

Of course. This is a no-brainer. You ought not carry on as though it were evil. Nor should you carry on about it being a 'corporation.' It is only a corporation because the laws of this world will not let you operate otherwise. Even the old individual halls were usually 'corporations' - as are church bodies - because that is the only way legally permitted for a group to own property. Even the 'apostles and old men' of the first century would have organized themselves as a corporation if that were a necessity to legally operate. This is a big 'Duh' and for you and yours carry on as though you've discovered the secrets of the dark side is a bit much.

Well, proceeds from selling an underused building have built half the Kingdom Halls in Benin.* Surely that is worth something. They get fed. And they will appreciate it, having long done without. Are they not also the flock? *Not literally. Don't go off on this.

No. It has been established Witnesses don't do it. What more 'information' can be said? They either do it or they don't do it. Visit a Hall to see that they don't do it. However, I do have information on better economic use of Kingdom Halls, which you also brought up. Historically, Witnesses living in different areas struck out from the main Kingdom Hall to build one of their own, in their own communities. Over time, some of these Halls became overcrowded and some dwindled into under-use. What a responsible use of resources - @James Thomas Rook Jr. will agree with me on this, for he is not a selfish person who thinks only of himself - to consolidate where need be, even to shut 'underperforming' buildings - so that the good of the worldwide congregation of God is realized, even if it means a longer twice-a-week commute for some who lovingly acquiesce to this financially responsible direction. After all, shut down one dog of a Kingdom Hall in a US area that has not filled it, and you can build 20 in poorer nations that greatly need them. How loving is that?

Imagine - calling the other guy Rocketman at the U.N. and getting the whole world to join in the refrain. How can you not give a thumbs-up when a guy does that? And then some kid comes along and photoshops an Elton John concert playing that very song, replacing John's head with Kim's, and inserts the huge video screen backdrop of North Korean rockets wheeling about, the shrill newscaster shrieking, the troops goosestepping - how do you expect any guy with a sense of humor to hold it together? It is as Paul said - the world is a theater. The only thing that might check your hilarity briefly is the unpleasant thought that a misstep, for starters, will result in half the planet up in smoke. But that is small potatoes. Is it reckless? Tillerson certainly seems the more stable of the two, doesn't he? Unless they are both playing good cop/bad cop. And, to be fair, while everyone hopes for diplomacy, the diplomacy that has led straight up to the present situation and will presumably lead up to one where North Korean missiles are parked on your toes, should at least be mentioned as having worked out not that splendidly. Isn't there a Neville someone-or-other who favored negotiations back during another evil time? Or do I misunderstand even that? The trouble with history is that whenever you think you have something figured out, along comes someone from a different perspective to upend all your notions. Meanwhile, it was Putin - mean, nasty, Chief Officer of Evil, His Wickedness, 'murderer and a thug' Putin - all that remains in the West is to photoshop him with Devil's horns, grinning ear-to-ear at his laptop as he hacks US elections - who supplied a key bit of understanding when he visited China. Sanctions will never work on North Korea, he said - Kim will see every single one of his people starved to death before he will give up on his nukes. Why? Because he knows about Libya and Iraq. Though Saddam swore up and down he had no weapons of mass destruction - which turned out to be exactly correct - that did not stop his enemies from taking him out and killing a family member or two in the process. Look, he is not my friend - Putin. I mean, he hasn't exactly been nice to my people, Jehovah's Witnesses, lately, has he? But give credit where credit is due. He nailed it. Tellingly, when CNBC or someone covered that Chinese meeting - if Putin so much as tied his shoe there, they reported it - they covered every detail EXCEPT his statement about Saddam, thus allowing perception to stand in the US that Kim is completely unhinged - a perception he does nothing to clear up by his own pontifications - listening to him is not exactly like listening to John Tesh, is it? Jehovah's Witnesses are neutral in the world's affairs for noble reasons - it is not God's idea for the world to be carved up into scores of squabbling factions ever playing 'King-of-the-Mountain" and he will soon act to bring about his own kingdom replacement. However, another reason to be neutral - albeit a less noble one - is that it is almost impossible to get the truth on anything - you are forever acting in the dark - for every outlet spins 'truth' their own way according to their own agenda. Even Western media condemnation about calling Kim Rocketman must be weighed against their approval of calling Putin a murderer and a thug, a Senator's description that they picked up on and used freely. Is it wise to taunt him like that? Whenever in my house-to-house ministry I spot a murderer and a thug, I cross over to the other side of the street.

I've said it. "What do you say?" "I've said it." "Do you have any more?" 'Howoooooooooooooooooooo!!!!! ... Hey Bulldog, the Beatles

I'm not sure exactly what you posted or if it means that I owe you an apology, but if it does, then I do. It was the other fellow I was speaking to mostly - I just brought you in for the purpose of background serenade.

I was being charitable and allowing the silly stuff you brought up to be included as 'evidence.'

Somewhere there is someone saying "how long must I put up with you?' Sigh....I mean, C'mon! Are there no limits? In their overall picture, the videos represent one tenth of one percent of their output, if that. And they are shown infrequently. The people who have undertaken to do the task his word assigns to them, of Matt 24:14. Witnesses can look around everywhere and see that the money they donate is being put to good use. A suggestion is not a requirement. And even that is an aggregate amount per congregation - not per person. We have covered this. Why do you carry on as though we haven't? A suggestion is not a requirement. Look, if you hate the message, you will hate the messenger. That is a valid position - to hate the message. Just be upfront about it, would you please?

I'm sure there is. Whenever I am stuck, I also reach for some highbrow perch from where I can sneer at ones who have not yielded. I wonder too, at how they cope with their 'cognitive dissonance,' - as in: "Surely your cognitive dissonance must be crippling you if you can withstand the brute force of my brilliant reasoning!" No, @Shiwiii, your point, which you have repackaged endlessly for re-submission each time you see it shot down, is not valid. It is juvenile. Nobody is less intrusive than Jehovah's Witnesses when it comes to money matters.

Actually, this is sillier and more irresponsible than most of what you have said. Whatever 'killing' there is to be is not by human hands and Witnesses seek to align themselves with the safer side - that's all - and to represent that side with words only. Since the days of Jesus no Witness has resorted to physical weapons and your newfound friend @James Thomas Rook Jr. has even rebuked us for that, (in a thread that was before you came around) saying a real man should always be armed. The best answer is given by my daughter, someone who was primarily trained by .....well...you know.....but her answer reflects that of most Witnesses when pressed. When a person pressed her on just who would be saved and who not, she replied: "Well, I'm not Jesus, and I don't know." You get as close as you can to the place of safety. How far away can you be? A certain distance, or not one inch? That is what most Witnesses do not pretend to know.

The reason I cannot watch network news anymore is that they are obsessed over whether Secretary of State Tillerson called Trump a moron or not. It is a huge story. Yesterday, Tillerson called a news conference. They carried on and on about how unusual it was for a Secretary of State to do such a thing. He called it mostly to scold them, yet they were too stupid to realize it. Despite media reports that the two do nothing but squabble and that he has had it up to here with the President's dumb ways, Tillerson said he has never even once thought about quitting, that he and the President get along just fine, that he regards him as smart and demanding of results, that he envisions foreign policy possibilities that no one else does. (yeah but, yeah but...did you call him a moron or not?) 'Look, I don't come from this town [Washington], but where I come from we don't have time for such petty nonsense,' he answered. YEAH! Incredibly, they are not chastened by this rebuke. ...'well...he didn't actually say that he didn't call him a moron, did he?' He probably did, is my best guess. It is the realization that they think this is meaningful that takes your breath away. I cannot watch anymore, it has steadily decreased over the past few months. When you work closely with someone, he will do or say things that will nettle you sometimes, and you say in passing 'what did that moron do now?' for Trump does speak impulsively at times - sometimes I think it is by design to see these characters fall all over themselves 'fact-checking' things that everyone else realizes doesn't amount to a hill of beans. They truly think those things are significant in news-land? I have to go someplace where there are grown-ups. For crying out loud, he used to run Exxon! He put that aside for what is the role of a lifetime for him, an area in which he thinks he can best bring his talents to bear - and he probably never imagined there would be such a role other than Exxon. How could anyone possibly be so juvenile as to imagine that he spends his days in cat-fights with the President? I've never seen anyone with less political ambition in my life. You can't even watch the networks for disaster coverage anymore, something at which they were arguably good. All they can talk about is who did comforting and relief better: this President or the one before. This piece is more political than I like to get, but it is not really political at all. It is a commentary on the media. What a bunch of children they have become.

Someone said somewhere: 'what you are doing, get done more quickly,' so you almost wish that if someone is going to leave the faith, they would have done it long ago. That way they do not carry on about being misled or even brainwashed. Why do they not leave quicker? Does one become a Witness through brainwashing? If so, there are far better examples. College is foremost among them. The student is separated almost 24/7 on campus from all that is familiar to him or her. In contrast, on the pathway to become a Witness, you will go to two meetings a week and have a personal Bible study which lasts an hour or two per weekly session. And you'll get to know people and cultivate new relationships in exactly the same way you would cultivate new relationships anywhere else. A special event or two and that's it. 95% of the time you are in the same well-trod territory you have always been in. Moreover, nothing about the way God uses a human agency to direct his people is ever hidden. It is manifest from day one. So it seems disingenuous to grouse about being misled. Instead, one simply reassesses matters over time. They decide the cost is too high and the reason for paying it too nebulous or far off. They depart because they were 'not of our sort' and because they decide that they like this system of things after all, or at least do not dislike it enough to keep such distance. An exception would be those raised in the faith. They never did see both sides. Or, rather, to the extent most of them saw both sides, it was both sides presented through the eyes of the theocratic organization, which hardly represents the other side as that side would represent itself. How to solve this? I don't know. It may already be solved to the extent it can be. The reason Obi-wan does not want Luke to go over into the dark side is that he really thinks it is the dark side. He is not trying to control Luke. He is not trying to deprive him of anything. He is looking out for him. He truly believes the dark side is bad, and he doesn't say 'why don't you go over there and roam around for a while so you can make an informed choice.' So it is with the GB. Charges that they try to control people are so juvenile, so adolescent, that they are hard to countenance. How could anybody be so stupid? No. They truly believe the theocratic side is good and the other side is - well - the dark side. Though that viewpoint is objectionable to some, it is exactly how the Bible presents matters. I don't know how you get around it, or if you even want to, though it does result in the problems mentioned above. Furthermore, if the GB ever 'misrepresents' the non-Witness world, it is not because they are sinister. It is because they don't know it themselves. They take their own counsel, which is the Bible's counsel, and they don't go there. They are lowly people who have poured themselves out and who now find themselves in places that are 'high for them.' They don't puff themselves up over it. They trust in God and actually, like the kings of old supposedly did, read their Bibles daily. They keep away from what is 'falsely called knowledge' and from 'empty philosophies that violate what is holy and toss people about as though the waves of the sea.' They have run their own lives with the lesson of Haggai ever foremost - 'clean will be contaminated by unclean,' not the reverse - and so they don't go there. Because they don't go there, they know it only through the lens of Scripture. If the Bible says, in effect, that the 'world will chew you up and spit you out,' they assume that it does. if they find someone who says exactly those words, they eat it right up and broadcast it. And who is to say the words are untrue? Some get chewed up and spit out so decisively and quickly that no one would ever deny it, but with others? Who is to say the scriptures are wrong on that point? It may just take a longer time to get chewed up and spit out. Certainly the one out of ten senior citizens from the other post might have come to think that, seeing everything they had worked for drained away.

If I understand this correctly, then the new truth you have arrived at is that the world is salvageable and we should all work to fix it, rather than carry on about there being a true religion and an end of this system of things.

We have already covered the scriptural evidence of a triune God and it is laughably small. The reason I shy from these type of discussions is that always participants have been convinced by revelation of some sort. How does one counter that? Truth revealed through revelation is fine until you find someone else who has also received truth by revelation and it differs from yours.