TrueTomHarley

Usually, it works something along the lines of this:
JTR posts this graphic on his congregation's information board. It is taken down. He posts a similar one, for he has hundreds. In time, he is disfellowshipped for violating one of the many verses discussed here and on other threads against public rabble-rousing in the congregation.
Then he TELLS everyone he was just minding his own business one fine day, when he casually let slip he didn't buy the overlapping generations' explanation, and he was summararily DFed for that reason alone.

This is absolutely incorrect. He was ignoring prevailing opinion at the time. His quote specifically states it was not the organization's view at the time. (hence, not in Watchtower print) I didn't drill down any further, seeing no need to challenge every word from trustworthy persons. But frankly, I thought is was their view at the time, with regard to Bethel service.
If you want special privileges anywhere, you may have to conform to some rules. These are not binding for Christians in general, but only for those who wish to officially represent JWs, as elders and MS's do. With Bethel service, I believe it is more a matter of conforming to family headship, Bethel often being called 'the Bethel family.' Among actual families, one family head decrees this or that rule for family members, another does not, or has different ones.
Nobody has to serve in Bethel. Nobody has to pioneer. Nobody has to serve as an elder or MS. But if you do, there may be additional requirements beyond that which apply to Christians generally. It is that way with representing anyone anywhere.
 

This is absolutely incorrect. He was ignoring prevailing opinion at the time. His quote specifically states it was not the organization's view at the time. (hence, not in Watchtower print) I didn't drill down any further, seeing no need to challenge every word from trustworthy persons. But frankly, I thought is was their view at the time, with regard to Bethel service.
If you want special privileges anywhere, you may have to conform to some rules. These are not binding for Christians in general, but only for those who wish to officially represent JWs, as elders and MS's do. With Bethel service, I believe it is more a matter of conforming to family headship, Bethel often being called 'the Bethel family.' Among actual families, one family head decrees this or that rule for family members, another does not, or has different ones.
Nobody has to serve in Bethel. Nobody has to pioneer. Nobody has to serve as an elder or MS. But if you do, there may be additional requirements beyond that which apply to Christians generally. It is that way with representing anyone anywhere.
 

This is absolutely incorrect. He was ignoring prevailing opinion at the time. His quote specifically states it was not the organization's view at the time. (hence, not in Watchtower print) I didn't drill down any further, seeing no need to challenge every word from trustworthy persons. But frankly, I thought is was their view at the time, with regard to Bethel service.
If you want special privileges anywhere, you may have to conform to some rules. These are not binding for Christians in general, but only for those who wish to officially represent JWs, as elders and MS's do. With Bethel service, I believe it is more a matter of conforming to family headship, Bethel often being called 'the Bethel family.' Among actual families, one family head decrees this or that rule for family members, another does not, or has different ones.
Nobody has to serve in Bethel. Nobody has to pioneer. Nobody has to serve as an elder or MS. But if you do, there may be additional requirements beyond that which apply to Christians generally. It is that way with representing anyone anywhere.
 

Usually, it works something along the lines of this:
JTR posts this graphic on his congregation's information board. It is taken down. He posts a similar one, for he has hundreds. In time, he is disfellowshipped for violating one of the many verses discussed here and on other threads against public rabble-rousing in the congregation.
Then he TELLS everyone he was just minding his own business one fine day, when he casually let slip he didn't buy the overlapping generations' explanation, and he was summararily DFed for that reason alone.

Sigh....tell me about it. It led to my Scarlet A.

There is obviously unity, but the best kinds of unity refer, not to absolute conformity of thought, but to the ability of Witnesses of all ages to respond in their own words with Bible answers to many doctrinal questions. Most active Witnesses are able to do this for dozens of Bible questions, using their own words, even coming up with their own illustrations. Continuous training in Bible topics will create a high level of conformity, but it's also a unity of purpose, unity in moral standards, and unity in the sense of getting along with one another with minimal issues with regard to race, nationality, etc.
Not all Witnesses are even interested in potential variations of doctrine, because it is so easy to just listen and learn. I believe that, as Christians, it's our responsibility to question all things, but doctrines need not be the highest priority to Christians. They can't be ignored, but Christians should be more conscientiously concerned with moral standards, serving the needs of others and showing love for God and neighbor and allowing those priorities to motivate all of their life and conduct. Doctrines will find their place as time permits.
Those Witnesses who do question teachings out of a strong desire for truth are not hard to find if you listen closely in person to their talks and prayers. And of course, online, it's possible to find many more hiding behind avatars and fake names.
Remember, too, that many Witnesses who have done their Christian duty to question all doctrines may currently appear to be in total conformity with the vast majority of other Witnesses because their questions and research have brought them right back into full acceptance of the unique Witness doctrines. Some, of course, will do their Christian duty and find that one or two doctrines seem impossible to accept to that individual's conscience. Because they work among fellow Witnesses where the majority view is different, they are usually careful to avoid hurting the conscience of the other person by talking openly about their belief. This might give an appearance of conformity that appears stricter than the actual conformity.

Don't be soft. Diversity is not division.

Without watching the video, I would not hand a tract to a child, or would do so only with asking the child whether he thought that okay. Even then it can backfire, but if you've laid the groundwork is easy to mitigate trouble.
at one door in the evening, I met a teenager. After brief innocuous discussion, I told him my quandary: some parents don't like unknown visitors showing anything to their kids, and did he think I should or not? He said 'yes.' I should him the video on social media, a video that cannot even remotely thought to be proseletizing. I returned a week or so later, caught his brother, and did much the same.
Finally I returned and met the mother. She was miffed that I had shown things to her kids. I told her I had never wanted to speak with them in the first place - it was she I was looking for. Besides, I had specifically asked them if it was alright to speak, and they had said it was. "you know kids - they will say anything," she responded. I assured her I would not call again, she relaxed at that, and I was able even to explain why we come in the first place, referring to Matt 24:14. 'Obviously, the ones who will do this are those who believe in it - who else would be expected to?'
To another teenager, years earlier, I had said I would return later when her folks were home, and left. I was with a Spanish sister, not long in this country, who said she would have witnessed to her. It is that way in Latin America. Children take on responsibility at a very young age, and few have any problem with their kids being addressed with the Bible or anything else. They mature far more quickly than do American kids, who are sometimes still silly as can be at age 30.

Without watching the video, I would not hand a tract to a child, or would do so only with asking the child whether he thought that okay. Even then it can backfire, but if you've laid the groundwork is easy to mitigate trouble.
at one door in the evening, I met a teenager. After brief innocuous discussion, I told him my quandary: some parents don't like unknown visitors showing anything to their kids, and did he think I should or not? He said 'yes.' I should him the video on social media, a video that cannot even remotely thought to be proseletizing. I returned a week or so later, caught his brother, and did much the same.
Finally I returned and met the mother. She was miffed that I had shown things to her kids. I told her I had never wanted to speak with them in the first place - it was she I was looking for. Besides, I had specifically asked them if it was alright to speak, and they had said it was. "you know kids - they will say anything," she responded. I assured her I would not call again, she relaxed at that, and I was able even to explain why we come in the first place, referring to Matt 24:14. 'Obviously, the ones who will do this are those who believe in it - who else would be expected to?'
To another teenager, years earlier, I had said I would return later when her folks were home, and left. I was with a Spanish sister, not long in this country, who said she would have witnessed to her. It is that way in Latin America. Children take on responsibility at a very young age, and few have any problem with their kids being addressed with the Bible or anything else. They mature far more quickly than do American kids, who are sometimes still silly as can be at age 30.

Uh oh. There is an ad hominem attack that I will let slide.

He needn't worry. I nudged him over the edge.
If someone would pay for advertising tattoos, I would get several. It is an area in which I would be able to beat out the kids, since older people tend to aggregate more space over time.

He needn't worry. I nudged him over the edge.
If someone would pay for advertising tattoos, I would get several. It is an area in which I would be able to beat out the kids, since older people tend to aggregate more space over time.

Though some carry on about it more than you think they should, nobody can ever say that in a lifetime of service to God, you won’t experience some injustice. It is not business-as-usual routine, but when it does happen, it can be serious. All the more so because you expect trouble from the general world, but not from the brotherhood. When it comes, it throws you for a loop. It is like the verse quoted in the Watchtower study this week, Psalm 55: 12-14:
“For it is not an enemy who taunts me; Otherwise I could put up with it. It is not a foe who has risen up against me; otherwise I could conceal myself from him. But it is you, a man like me, my own companion, whom I know well. We used to enjoy a warm friendship together; into the house of God we used to walk along with the multitude.”
The study article was illustrated with one real-life injustice, and one from the scriptures. A Brother Diehl from 1949 is mentioned. He caught all kinds of heat when he decided to marry. Brothers were all serious back then about single persons in the circuit or Bethel work remaining single, a situation that was not resolved, legend has it, until Brother Knorr himself married. Now THAT’S human! Let nobody say that these guys aren’t. Diehl could certainly be understood if he bellyached about it, but it wouldn’t do him any good. All he could do was get others stirred up. So he waited it out. He was right, but he didn’t make a big deal over it. Eventually, everyone came around. He took it on the chin for a while.
The example from scripture is more serious. Joseph was sold out by his brothers and ended up in slavery. A silver lining eventually materialized and he became a big cheese in Potipher’s house, then he was slammed again and sent to prison for 13 years. Believe me, I would whine plenty about it, but if Joseph did, there is no record of it. What the record shows is that overall he allowed it to mold him:
But now do not be upset and do not reproach one another because you sold me here; because God has sent me ahead of you for the preservation of life … So, then, it was not you who sent me here, but it was the true God, in order to appoint me as chief adviser to Pharoah and lord for all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. (Genesis 45:5-8)
He didn’t know he would be appointed chief adviser to Pharoah until he was, and had he moaned forever about his kidnapping and later imprisonment, he wouldn’t have been. Everyone could have understood him bitching, but it wouldn’t have done him any good. People screw things up. Usually, their motive is not bad, but sometimes it is, as in Joseph’s case. Often, you don’t have the power to fix things. You do have the power, however, to make them worse.
(‘The Judge of the Earth Always Does What is Right;’ the Watchtower, April 2017 – study edition)

Now that wasn't so difficult actually was it?
I'll overlook the offensive bluster. I know you are capable of an entirely rational response (as in the first quote) when you are in a better frame of mind.
You should try and get a handle on what stresses you out so much 'though. It can't be healthy! Are you holding a grudge or something??
Anyway, take it easy mate!  
 
PS. Could you like my comment please. I've just noticed my reputation figure stands at 666 and I don't like liking my own posts!!

You could easily be right. I sometimes think it is possible that 'eating straw' will go the way of the heart, once thought literal, later conceded as figurative. I will hunt you up in the new system to shake your hand if it turns out you are right. (and I will ride my giraffe to find you)
For that is the ultimate answer to many a question: 'Be there, and you will find out.'

I just saw a fox wolfing down a Big Mac yesterday. Or was that a wolf foxing down one?

Though some carry on about it more than you think they should, nobody can ever say that in a lifetime of service to God, you won’t experience some injustice. It is not business-as-usual routine, but when it does happen, it can be serious. All the more so because you expect trouble from the general world, but not from the brotherhood. When it comes, it throws you for a loop. It is like the verse quoted in the Watchtower study this week, Psalm 55: 12-14:
“For it is not an enemy who taunts me; Otherwise I could put up with it. It is not a foe who has risen up against me; otherwise I could conceal myself from him. But it is you, a man like me, my own companion, whom I know well. We used to enjoy a warm friendship together; into the house of God we used to walk along with the multitude.”
The study article was illustrated with one real-life injustice, and one from the scriptures. A Brother Diehl from 1949 is mentioned. He caught all kinds of heat when he decided to marry. Brothers were all serious back then about single persons in the circuit or Bethel work remaining single, a situation that was not resolved, legend has it, until Brother Knorr himself married. Now THAT’S human! Let nobody say that these guys aren’t. Diehl could certainly be understood if he bellyached about it, but it wouldn’t do him any good. All he could do was get others stirred up. So he waited it out. He was right, but he didn’t make a big deal over it. Eventually, everyone came around. He took it on the chin for a while.
The example from scripture is more serious. Joseph was sold out by his brothers and ended up in slavery. A silver lining eventually materialized and he became a big cheese in Potipher’s house, then he was slammed again and sent to prison for 13 years. Believe me, I would whine plenty about it, but if Joseph did, there is no record of it. What the record shows is that overall he allowed it to mold him:
But now do not be upset and do not reproach one another because you sold me here; because God has sent me ahead of you for the preservation of life … So, then, it was not you who sent me here, but it was the true God, in order to appoint me as chief adviser to Pharoah and lord for all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. (Genesis 45:5-8)
He didn’t know he would be appointed chief adviser to Pharoah until he was, and had he moaned forever about his kidnapping and later imprisonment, he wouldn’t have been. Everyone could have understood him bitching, but it wouldn’t have done him any good. People screw things up. Usually, their motive is not bad, but sometimes it is, as in Joseph’s case. Often, you don’t have the power to fix things. You do have the power, however, to make them worse.
(‘The Judge of the Earth Always Does What is Right;’ the Watchtower, April 2017 – study edition)

The next day, ISIS, too, went out to clean up a park. City leaders showed up to give them an award. As they got close, a bomb went off and killed them all, and ISIS staff ran snickering to the bushes.
This happened because ISIS is an extremist organization.

Back when national policies elevated the pursuit of cheap oil sometimes over the interests of ordinary people, a certain human rights person pushed back. "We can always get more oil," he said."but human lives are irreplaceable." This prompted a pragmatist to observe that, really, it was just the opposite. Oil was in finite supply. People were not. 
It is that way with the pedophile endemic. It pushes emotional buttons to the extent that even rational people lose it. Even JTR, rationalism personified in his own eyes, likens child sexual abuse to first degree murder. He has picked one of the few comparisons he could pick that is not valid. Why doesn't he liken first degree murder to terrorism, for example, which is valid? Or to today's nuclear foreplay between nations? Or to the economic system that enriches a thimbleful and drives the vast majority into poverty? Everyone tells us that grinding poverty triggers much violence.
I resist accepting pedophilia as the vilest of all evils. It has no end of worthy competitors, for this system of things is not exactly a romp in the park. However, it IS easy to get one's head around. I suspect that accounts for much of it's status as #1 Evil. "We may not be able to do anything about terrorism, or nuclear foreplay, or economic theivery," people say, "but by God, we can stop people molesting our kids!" But, in fact, they can't even do that. I wish them well in trying. I truly do. It's a noble cause. But so far it has proven to be like shining a light on roaches. They don't cease being roaches by doing that. They just go somewhere else. 
So, while the sexual abuse of children is indeed a great evil, it is just one of many, and I slam back with vigor those who use it in an attempt to malign a religion they cannot stand. The facts do not support their zeal in using the issue to further their interests. 
Sometimes in my heart of hearts, I think that the emotional devastation wrought by abuse is surely overstated. Not that it is nothing. Far from it! But people can and do recover, as they can and do from atrocities they encounter in other aspects of life. As observed before, ancient Greece is the bedrock of Western civilization. The sexual abuse of children was an enscounced staple of that society. How did they ever survive to become 'our' mentors of democracy?
People my age will remember how suddenly the outcry over child sexual abuse burst upon the scene, triggered mostly by scandals in the church - unheard of one day, public enemy #1 the next. And then, as zealots always do, they reach back in time to judge yesterday's people by today's standards. 
In recent years, the American founding fathers that lodge in JTR's house have been vilified for owning slaves. Yet, when time travel is invented, the morals police of today will give them a friendly wave as they race back in history to bring the real slimeballs, the pedophile pervert pillars of ancient Greek society, back in leg-irons.

I will not, for I can already spot a dissimilarity. Pedophile victims survive. First Degree Murder victims do not.
Moreover, pedophile victims frequently recover. This is especially true when we are dealing with the non-violent, non-rape pedophilia which hysterical persons lump all together as one with the more infrequent predator sort.
Ancient Greece, as you well know, with all of your 'founding father' comments, is regarded as the cradle of Western civilization,  the first glimmerings of democracy. The sexual abuse of children was a staple of life among those perverts. Had it been First Degree Murder, instead, there would be no Greece and hence no Western civilization deriving from it.

Micah logs onto a site that bills itself ostensibly as a meeting spot for JWs. He hurls incendiary charges about everything under the sun. When he finds some find him unwelcome, he carries on above love! - the love he has positively oozed from his pores.
He even charged that the WTS tries to dictate what ones do in the bedroom. What in the world is he talking about? He provides no backing for his charge.
Yes, it is only his time that matters. It is only his time that is too valuable to squander. Let us see if, having declared his mission over, he can resist appearing for an encore.

In CLAM material last night, bans in Nicaragua and Zaire were discussed in back-to-back paragraphs. In one case, it was challenged and overturned promptly. In another, the Branch chose to ride it out for 7 years before mounting a challenge. The reason? It is not explained. That would entail analyzing reports received from the respective traveling overseers regularly reporting to them, and the feel of hundreds of mature ones sniffing out the current lay of the land, sniffing which way the wind is blowing. The Branch has sources. They are not merely shooting in the dark. Like any driver anywhere, they are in position to see more than do the passengers.  Imagine if participants here were to haggle over those countries. Surely, they would follow the same pattern they would follow here. Making up the facts they do not know, which is almost all of them, they would launch inflammatory accusations as readily as Serena Williams launches tennis balls. “At that point the Branch Committee had to make a weighty decision,” the Kingdom Rules book says. Nasty participants like @Micah Ongwho would pee their pants if called upon to make a weighty decision do not hesitate to condemn those who do. They have no clue how to build anything. They live only to destroy.
Even @James Thomas Rook Jr., of whom one vainly hopes better things will emerge, pours gasoline on the fire, though he is qualified to put it out. ‘It can only be racism,’ he charges, telling us of white, brown, and black people. JTR, who goes livid when the Western media, motivated solely by hatred of the man, declare Trump a racist, resorts to exactly the same tactics in dealing with the ones he hates.
The one person who knows anything, @JW Insider, because he rubbed shoulders with all concerned, says ‘Look, nothing is impossible, but racism is the last motivation one should imagine.’ No matter. To vicious persons, character assassins at heart, for whom slander goes down as smoothly as fine wine, knowing only there is a target they must destroy, it only interferes to have someone who knows what they are talking about.

Caution, my brothers. There is a FALSE APOSTATE in our midst. I know Vic Vomidog. We once pioneered together, before he went bad. He's as bad as they come now. If I am checking out a book from @The Librarian, he shoves me aside, me and all the other patrons!
If some, like me, have, for whatever reason, chosen to hang out where there are apostates,  it should at least be TRUE apostates. Vic Vomidog is a FALSE apostate!

I have not found that to be true. Have you found it to be that way?
 
I have not found that to be true, either. It is only the conclusions the Christian organization has reached that you object to, not the means of reaching it. 
An almost universal element of mind control is that the target is separated from all that is familiar. In the year or so it takes to qualify for baptism, the prospective Witness is 95% in the same surroundings he has always been in, at home, at work, among those with whom he is familiar. He goes to two JW meetings a week and has a personal home Bible study.
How does that stack up against, say - college, which is never presented as mind-control but which serves to plant many a foreign notion into the mind of emerging graduates? College, where students are completely separated 24/7 from all that is familiar - made to live in dormitories. 
Don't misunderstand. The point here is not to down college. The point is to show that your allegations of Watchtower mind-control are juvenile nonsense.
Fortunately, I have never been asked to.