TrueTomHarley

5 hours ago, Pudgy said:

… reminds me of many years ago I was riding back on Interstate 95 from  a Witness party in Towson, Maryland with three other Brothers, all listening to Beach Boy surfing songs on the tape player, singing along and slapping the dashboard and seats, and a Brother in the back seat screamed out “HOW LONG ARE ARE YOU GOING TO PERSECUTE ME, LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT!

Was that you?

 

 

Probably Chuck Berry, distraught that they had ripped off one of his songs.

On 2/27/2024 at 12:24 PM, BTK59 said:

Does this mean he argued with himself or just individuals who possess superior skills and qualifications compared to himself?

Regularly I am summoned by the powers that be that run this site.

’Not more praise and honors!’ I say in disgust. ‘This gets so old.’

Even worse is the one about the genie that emerged from the lamp and granted a wish.

The finder wished for a bridge to Hawaii, since he had always wanted to visit but got seasick and was afraid to fly. Whereupon, the genie calculated the difficulties of building such a bridge, the quantity of concrete required, driving piles into shifting seismic plates, etc, and said he couldn’t do it. Please make another wish.

The fellow then wished he could understand women, something he had long wanted to do but had never been able.

’You want that bridge two lanes or four?’ the genie said.

31 minutes ago, BTK59 said:

People simply need to judge for themselves

I’d say I gave these guys from Metallica pretty good advice. The deal is even better today. They no longer have to shave off those beards, but still, if they get their act together, might be assigned to write, not one, but two, original songs in view of their background.

I don’t know what became of Cesar, anyway. He was a very difficult guy to please, downvoting most anything.

11 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

First warning!!! LOL

Then there was the one of the grizzled farmer collecting his mail-order wife. Riding home, the horse evaded a mouse and jostled the carriage. ‘That’s one!’ the fellow said.

It later pulled through a puddle and splashed the riders. ‘That’s two!’ he said.

Then it strode beneath a low branch which slapped the riders. ‘That’s three!’ he said, stopped the carriage and shot the horse.

’What did you do that for?’ his new wife cried.

‘That’s one!’ he said.

20 minutes ago, Many Miles said:

Tom you have treated me with vitriolic contempt with every braindead word you write! How is that not mean-spirited to those two working brain cells you're rubbing together? Did you lose one of them? LOL

Oh dear. Show me where. I’ll fix it.

2 hours ago, BTK59 said:

Now, the audience can clearly witness and comprehend

When AlanF, in full evolutionist mode, savaging anyone who ‘refused to learn,’ made a similar statement, I said, “It’s just you and me, you blowhard! plus maybe a half-dozen more. What! Do you think you are Clarence Darrow, arguing Inherit the Wind?’

2 hours ago, BTK59 said:

Now, the audience can clearly witness and comprehend exactly why individuals must steer clear of this website.

Quite a mission you’ve chosen for yourself. Are you having success?

’Come here, come here, gather round—so I can tell you why you shouldn’t be here!’

2 hours ago, Many Miles said:

Every social platform (including real life in-person platforms) has their share of drama, not to mention foibles we learn of individuals (including our own) along the way. Just rubbing elbows in any forum where I can learn and share is the more important thing to me.

Yeah. Everyone has their own reason for being here. I use the site as a writing workshop and some of what I create here later appears elsewhere in better form. Meanwhile, I rub shoulders, learn, and share, just like you. Notwithstanding some occasional trash-talking, hopefully I am never mean-spirited in doing so.

13 minutes ago, Many Miles said:

Oops. I thought Thinking was being humorous about AlanF and Billy the Kid, and I responded in kind

Oh, there is so much you have to learn. Trouble is, I’m not sure it’s worth knowing.

18 minutes ago, BTK59 said:

Let's see if I grasp the hypocrisy. So you're saying that you refused to learn from someone who was providing accurate information in a form consistent to the ridicule and insults given to that individual by all the participants in your little exclusive club, and instead you people in the closed club chose to listen and keep in this forum a loud and disrespectful person who was sharing false information. Is this statement accurate?

Crystal. (Why couldn’t you have said, like Jack Nicholson, ‘Is that clear?!’)

1 hour ago, Many Miles said:

1 hour ago, Thinking said:

was he billy the kid once? 

You know, there is a photo of him online suggesting that's a possibility! I'll have to see if I can find it. Found it.

No. Billy belonged to our in-house whack-a-mole generator of souls. AI couldn’t crank out personas as quickly as he. They usually met the same end and for the same reason.

I can’t imagine AlanF presenting as anyone other than AlanF

2 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I know a couple of people who are brilliant intellectually, but who are "on the [autism] spectrum" and have that exact trouble in real life, and they are always getting in trouble with others

He presented here exactly this way.

2 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I also noticed that he was adamant that someone should try to respond to his point rather than constantly dodging and weaving and diverting. 

Last night at the mid-week meeting, criticism arose over Stephen’s reply to the Sanhedrin, that he didn’t actually answer their question. More than once I pulled a ‘Stephen’ on Alan’s gotcha questions and he invariably responded the same as that august body did to the evangelizer.

Then there was that time I signed on as ‘Dr Adhominum’ and tried to gradually draw him into a discussion of evolutionary psychology and the very recent hypothesis that boisterous flatulence evolved because it would quickly clear the area of predators, same as it does today with the general populace. To his credit, he saw through the ruse within 2 or 3 posts. Though, in typical AlanF fashion that he cannot be wrong in anything, even the most insignificant of details, he later insisted that he saw through it instantly.

These guys who bluster about their superior knowledge and just assume it puts them in the driver’s seat of anything usually get my goat. I don’t know how God can resist the temptation of stopping the sun in its tracks for a while just to throw off their calculations.

In a recent response to JR, I wrote:

”Key to me is Jesus words at Matthew 11:25

At that time Jesus said in response: “I publicly praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to young children. 

“What other topic is like that, in which young children get the sense of it but the wise and intellectual ones do not? I think it means that a person ought park his/her intellectualism at the door, because it doesn’t help. Per Jesus’ words, it may even hinder.

“In any academic topic I can think of, the wise and intellectual always have a leg up over the young children. Here, they lose out. Translation: Worship of God is not an academic subject and the biggest mistake one can make is to treat it as though it is. . . . 

“So, at least three factors exist that trump intellectualism: obedience, humility, and love. For the most part, those who frame discussion of faith as an intellectual endeavor make no mention whatsoever of these qualities.”

Alan may have had some of those latter qualities. But, if so, he displayed none of them here. But you only see of people what they choose to reveal, plus perhaps a bit of speculative  reading between the lines. I’ll allow he was ‘passionate’ and a more complex person than he revealed here.

8 hours ago, BTK59 said:

However, it is puzzling that those who incited the situation are still present, while others are not. This is the excuse often found in instances of injustice.

These days, tortured souls are a dime a dozen. Even I am that way. And, not to complain, but I don’t think I’m getting anywhere near the love here that I need.

7 hours ago, Many Miles said:

he would become increasingly aggressive in his presentation of information and responses if the individual refused to learn.

Okay, now I see the reason for Aruana’s, Thinking’s and my trouble with Alan. We ‘refused to learn.’ That would make anyone furious.

1 hour ago, BTK59 said:

LOL! It's quite impressive how even with the removal of many forum members, individuals like AlanF and Srecko continue to thrive. Where was the compassion for others?

It is true that I didn’t feel the love. But I may have egged him on. I have been known to do that. Thinking and Aruana did not, however. His attacks on them were provoked only by their standing up to him.

6 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

 

Another ‘tortured soul,’ methinks, for whom I must have compassion.

The best way to heal and not to further inflict torture upon oneself is to forgive.

“If errors were what you watch, O Jah, Then who, O Jehovah, could stand?” (Psalms 130:3)

Errors are all people watch today, inside or outside of religion. Nobody stands in the face of such treatment.

What is that saying about resentment—that it is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die?

6 hours ago, Many Miles said:

The sole reason I cited that same authority you did was to point out JWs haven't built a social panacea. If that were the case then those raised in the religion would tend to be more compelled to remain compared to other religions

Yeah, just like the prodigal son’s dad ran a broken home. If he hadn’t, junior would have never departed. 

6 hours ago, Many Miles said:

I dare say for certainty that I've known AlanF for probably decades before you encountered him here. Anyone acting as you described is screaming torture they've experienced.

I dunno. You mean that every obnoxious troll on the internet is underneath it all a gentle misunderstood soul? Haven’t you spoken disparagingly of George88 or some of his personas? Alan behaved worse than he. 

I’ll concede that all I know of the man is the persona he chose to display here. I think what really set me off is not that he came after me, but that he also laid into Arauna and Thinking for doing no more than defending the faith.

2 hours ago, Many Miles said:

Where's your love for a tortured man?

Believe me, if he was ‘tortured,’ he gave no sense of it here. But, enough said, At death one’s sins have been paid for. It is not as though he had a monopoly on ‘sin.’

2 hours ago, Many Miles said:

According to the same source you cite (PEW), as adults, nearly 70% of person's raised in the religion no longer identify with it. That's not very unified or cohesive.

Well, you do have to stay in the place of safety, and there are plenty of scoundrels trying to lure you out of it. To me, this comment is completely antithetical to the theme of the Bible—that God has judged the world and the key is to flee from and be no part of it. 

While one ought not be unnecessarily difficult or confrontational (and I do think we step into that from time to time), I also don’t think the Bible’s message is that Christians should (or could) fix the world. You have to come out of it and not wander back in.

2 hours ago, Many Miles said:

Sounds like you knew him in his later years. By then he had settled down a bit.

There are some magnificent threads buried within. Probably, just typing ‘AlanF’ into the search box will bring up a few.

2 hours ago, Many Miles said:

But, honestly, he was one of the rarefied souls who could argue with a stupid person and beat them with their own experience. He'd use it mercilessly as a club.

The trouble is, if you held to faith, you were one of those ‘stupid people’ to him. I detest these people who think they can muscle through on brainpower alone. “By their fruits you will know them,” holds no sway with them. Not saying anything of him personally, but you would think people would assess critical thinking by the world it has collectively produced. It has been the chief export of universities for some time now, and few world leaders are not university-equipped. 

Witnesses, on the other hand, though not without the minor mishaps stemming from being ‘earthen vessels,’ have achieved a peacefulness, unity, cohesiveness, that the world can only dream of. Pew Research says their membership (in the U.S.) is almost exactly 1/3 white, 1/3 black, and 1/3 Hispanic, with about 5% Asian thrown in. Translation: They have solved racism, the issue that is ripping this world apart, despite its educational advantage.

Brotherly love is a concept that works, but it does not stand well up to ‘reason,’ especially reason with evolution at its root. It is not a concept that lends itself well to ‘proof.’ The truths that are declared ‘self-evident,’ that ‘all men are created equal,’ are not at all self-evident to those evolution-based. What is self-evident to them is the 2001 Space Odyssey humanoid discovering he can beat the snot out of his competitor with a leg bone, whereupon he throws it into the air and out comes this spacecraft to Jupiter. 

34 minutes ago, Many Miles said:

He held everyone attempting to teach to the same standard. He held himself to that standard too. In his mind if you taught but failed to stand up and defend what you taught

The trouble with those who worship critical thinking is that they often presume they have a lock on the stuff. He did not suffer fools gladly, and a fool was anyone who disagreed with him.

To be sure, I used to egg him on a little. But I would later regret it. The self-congratulatory donkey could chew up an entire day.

6 hours ago, Many Miles said:

AlanF would talk about Neo-Babylonian chronology until my eyes glazed and my ears were bleeding, and he'd still only be at the start of what he wanted to share. I'd have to open a bottle of fine wine and break off a piece of well-molded and stinky cheese to get him on another topic so I could rest.

Never in my life had I encountered a more unpleasant person than AlanF. He was fine if you acquiesced to him . . . but if you disagreed to any significant degree, he would launch incredible streams of non-stop insults. My greatest fear was that his cherished evolution teachings might be correct and that he was the end result. Without specifically naming him, (which would be mean) ‘In the Last of the Last Days’ tells of a voracious opponent whose headstone no doubt calls the cemetery caretaker a moron for supposing the surrounding flowers are creations of God. 

I didn’t like him very much.

38 minutes ago, Many Miles said:

Wait. What? BTK59 is a troll? I've been engaging with a troll for a few days? Guess I don't get out enough.

“Iceberg! Dead ahead, captain! A six-pointer!”

“Not a problem, mate. Full speed ahead. I’m sure there’s nothing more below.”

2 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

300 lb G.K Chesterton

Also (you must not tell JR about this), an excerpt about Chesterton’s style that much resonates with me: 

“He deployed a set of rhetorical devices that enabled him to create common ground with his readers. He used these devices to present himself as a friend, and to claim that he presented religious questions to his readers in the manner of an unbiased explorer, in spite of his own faith commitments. As part of this strategy, he restricted the range of theology he used in his apologetics so as to remain as far as possible within boundaries his non-religious readers could easily relate to.”

And (no connection with the above), the reason for Father Brown’s success in solving crime? The padre explains that “a man who does next to nothing but hear men’s real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil.” 

5 hours ago, JW Insider said:

This is completely wrong, Billy. Before I realized how you might have made the mistake, I thought you were attempting satire, @BTK59, but that would be quite a stretch from the @BillyTheKid-55  and previous B.T.K.s we've all come to know and love on this forum. 

Whoa.

I would never say we are dealing with typ/antitype here, but clearly we are dealing with a ‘this reminds me of that.’

And since we’re speaking of eating here, and I’m not following closely enough to make a contribution, but wish to make a contribution nonetheless, if only to placate the Librarian (that old hen), here is an observation of 300 lb G.K Chesterton interacting with rail-thin George Bernard Shaw:

GKC: “To look at you, anyone would think a famine had struck England.”

GBS: “To look at you, anyone would think you had caused it.”

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

But will respond in a couple hours or naptime whichever comes first.

Whose? Can you type in your sleep?

2 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

But man, well, nobody hates you. Why such resistance and bitterness? lol

Okay, no more Mr. Un-nice guy for me. 

No more Acts 13:10.

“O man full of every sort of fraud and every sort of villainy, you son of the Devil, you enemy of everything righteous, will you not quit distorting the right ways of Jehovah?”  

No more. Done*

(*for a limited time only)

6 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Can you state what types (in what form) of humanitarian aid officially exist in your religion? And where can it be read in your literature, please?

Man, you are petty and self-blind, aren’t you?

The above is an excellent example of ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime.’ Who can’t see the superiority in that?

Why on earth can’t you emulate the Jehovah’s Witness’ relief effort among whoever you associate with? Then, you would be so occupied, you would have neither time nor cause to be envious of the deeds of others.

People without Bible principles tend to be slow to roll up their sleeves. They also not to get along, so cooperation is amongst them is difficult. All they have to do is adopt the Bible principles that Witnesses have, and they’d be okay. Your assignment is to discern what impels Jehovah’s Witnesses to do what almost nobody else does, make a full mea culpa, and then take your leave as gracefully as you can.

3 minutes ago, xero said:

It's "Chronology".

Oh, very well. Didn’t I tell you I didn’t care?

’I didn’t kill my wife’ said Richard Kimble. But scholarly Sam Gerard immediately countered that argument with, ‘I don’t care.’