TrueTomHarley

yes, but they are all warm and fuzzy friendly bacteria, who only want peace and to be loved and to be accepted for who they are. Only when in the toilet do they come over to the dark side and plot evil....I think (for free science lessons, contact: 'Ask True Tom')

One does such things when a plain answer fails to stem a tantrum. It is a significant shebang they are throwing, at considerable expense. Everyone else would pass the collection plates and would not stop passing them until they had their fill. The Witnesses have faith to staff the place with contribution boxes which every single person can walk by if they so wish.

CC of JW: Dear brothers: Please tape over all contribution boxes so that no one can donate. If anyone tries to remove the tape, reprove them. If they try again, if it a judicial matter. If anyone wants the Bethel address so that they can donate that way, tell them that it is none of their business. if they want to know about donating by electronic means, tell them they have inquired into matters too high for them. It's the only way we can shut @Shiwiii up.

I'm going to get me one of those things someday that all you have to do it tap the cashier on the forehead with it and the transaction is done.

Thars money in them thar pockets!

I'm not sure what terrible thing I said. John said of those who went out in the first century, 'they were not of our sort.' So of someone who 'went out' in the modern day, he would say that they were?

*

It's all perception and spin. The woman who catches the garter at a wedding is never insulted.

In this case, I think a gun would not be of much use. The scheme is legal. Read and see that, though every sort of authority was called to intervene, none did - because the villains were operating within the law. You might have pointed your gun and found satisfaction in shooting one of them (there were four in the case of the North family) or just scaring them away, but that would have only strengthened the court perception that you were in need of a guardian, and probably permanent prison besides. It's not even government, really. It is private enterprise doing the foul deed, bending government law to its will. You could even make the case that it is not too much government, but too little, that is the problem. The laws upon which guardianship is based go back 800 years. One it ten American seniors abused in this way. Legally. It's breathtaking.

This may be one of the most evil schemes I have ever read, and it is all the more evil in that it is perfectly legal. It is more evil still in that perpetrators may think themselves benefactors. Rachel Aviv deserves a Pulitzer. No punishment is too severe for the perpetrators, who may be legion. People who insist upon gun rights will say this is exactly why they advocate for them. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights

This is ridiculous. Yes, of course you can find some who have espoused the same, but given where we are in the stream of time, it's a bit late to be still meeting in a Quonset hut under the direction of a pork chop preacher. It's a bit late not to have made serious headway in preaching the Matt 24:14 good news, and nobody else is doing that. You don't have to go to the archives and search the journals of religion. You just have to look around you.

I was a sleeping JW for the last 8 hours or so, but now I have awaken. I don't believe in answering questions like this because there is no way for you to check. I could tell you I am a circuit overseer. I could tell you I am disfellowshipped. How would you know? To the extent you are interested, judge for yourself by what I have written. Seriously. That is your best guide. You may say that you are not that interested to do it. That's okay, too.

The article will be different than you imagine. It will start - and maybe finish - its own thread.

I think you will take it more to heart after I post an certain article - not my own - tomorrow.

When I say 'right reasons' I am not speaking biblically. I am simply speaking of reasons that are not hypocritical. Things you have flagged are not the right reasons, imo. The GB has done flip-flops on doctrinal things? They've never said otherwise. What is 'the light gets brighter' or 'tacking' if not an admission that positions are being revised? But they are all on superfluous things. They are all trimmings on the tree, and not the tree itself. The essential doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses that distinguish us from anyone else have been bedrock for over 100 years - teachings that the Trinity is false, for example, and that the soul does not live on after death. These are the the important points that one should focus on. No one else figured it out. You didn't. I didn't. The GB did. We should cut them slack for that reason. If they have all become villains, as some people here seem to think, then God will make them all drop in their tracks. He's God. He can do things like that. 2 Timothy 4:10 tells us that Demas left Christianity because he 'loved the present system of things' One may not agree with his decision, but it is not hypocritical. That's what I meant by the 'right reasons.' John wrote (1 John 2:19) that many had left because 'they were not of our sort.' Again, one may think their actions unwise, but they are not hypocritical.

It is fine to leave Jehovah's Witnesses if one wants to. Why not? But one should leave for the right reasons, not exaggerated or made-up nonsense.

Nobody ever said that that would not happen. And if they ever did, they changed it.

Pretty flimsy 'evidence' upon which to rest one's central doctrine, imo. The internet is inherently the land of the liars and you are silly to take it too seriously. You cannot possibly know who's who. This is not to say that he is. Perhaps I am. Or you. Some on the internet are geniuses. Some on the internet are absolute morons, but because they can make letters of the alphabet appear onscreen, they are perceived as smart. I don't put him in either category. I haven't figured him out. He weighs in, more or less, on the side I think is correct. That's enough for me. I don't screen every word. Why anyone would debate at length with someone ambiguous is beyond me.

Actually, I meant 'spinning' that might not translate, for in the U.S. it has only been applied to political matters in the last decade or so - perhaps that new definition has not caught on with other lands. Spin (from thesaurus.com) Synonyms for spin noun circular motion spiralstar twiststar circuitstar gyrationstar revolutionstar rollstar rotationstar turnstar whirlstar None of these words apply. 'Spin' the way I have used it is slanting or interpreting data one way or another according to one's bias.

It is also American. I'm not sure it translates well.

He is the founder of Guelph Ontario, where my wife and I visited not long ago.

How many bytes do you think I have here?

Have you removed yours yet?

As far as I can see, that is how theocracy works. When they need an expert at Bethel, they reach into the ranks and get one. It is the same as 1922 when they had a pile of printing equipment that nobody knew how to use. They found a lifelong printing professional in the ranks and he taught them all they needed to know. It is probably how the Bible translation was accomplished, or at least aided. The reason it all works is that Jehovah's people do not hoard their knowledge - they regard it as their gift to bring to the altar.

Of course. Nobody produces a translation and says "our translation sucks." I'm amazed people expect that should happen. Translators anywhere defend their translation and laud it's virtues. To a large degree, that's why I started blogging. 'Why should scoundrels own the internet?' I asked. I don't even fear going a bit over-the-top at times - though I hope not routinely. Heaven knows, they do. Of course, they always will own the internet, just as you-know-who owns the fence. But here and there perhaps one can poke a hole through the wall. It need not be monolithic.