Caption this photo for me please

[TrueTomHarley]

18 hours ago, The Librarian said:

 

We should all try to practice opening new topics when forking a conversation in the future. Or is it that my inner Librarian is just not feeling organized?

 

Oh, very well. Sheesh! Once a librarian, always a librarian

[Queen Esther]

Curious,  I  also  saw  such  of  pics....  but  mostly  Babies  near  him !

*ITS  SHOW - TIME*  -  SEEMS  SO

[TrueTomHarley]

Yes. Show the little girl hugging the smiling Pope. For the Pope is loved by many, even if he is not our guy. I don't like to see him maligned any more than I like to see our people maligned. If he has organizational misconduct he has to account for, do it in its proper setting and context.

[Arauna]

Tom - interfaith is not accepted by Jehovah.  It is seen as disloyalty to him. Remember when Solomon started interfaith by going of the gods of his wives?  He lost Jehovah's favor and common sense left him. His previous wisdom was gone!  He became oppressive to his people by transcription of them for his own material benefit.  They had to build many buildings for him. After he died his son kept on with this practice and was more harsh. The climax came when the 10 tribe kingdom broke away from Solomon's son and left only 2 tribes and the Levites (Juda).

The pope is the head of a major false religion of the world that not only has killed many faithful servants of god and approved of wars (in their past history) but this particular pope is now having interfaith sessions with Islam leaders - praying with them and putting his head in the direction of Mecca!  If this is not idolatry then what is!  This tells me he has no common sense and no knowledge of the bible / or of Islam ... and yet he is seen as a great spiritual leader!  A false teacher and a person who does not know the personality of the true God, Jehovah - who exacts exclusive devotion.

Yes - it is good to have a photo opp with children - it always makes unthinking individuals go soppy!  I personally think it is a great ploy.  Took many photos like that myself for the newspapers many years ago! 

 

[TrueTomHarley]

On 3/8/2017 at 9:53 AM, Arauna said:

 interfaith is not accepted by Jehovah.  It is seen as disloyalty to him.

Of course you are correct, Arauna. I refer only to how his photo was immediately redirected to one of child sexual abuse. it seemed not right to me.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

Among rational people ... reputation is EVERYTHING ... and the Catholic Church has a reputation that goes back a THOUSAND years of the clergy and the privileged enslaving children, herding tens of thousands them across Europe in the custody of Monks in the "Children's Crusades" where more than half died of starvation and exposure, to end up off the Northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, to be met by Muslim ships, where they were sold into slavery .

Recently Ireland published 5 books of data of Catholic Orphanages who used children as sex slaves, worked them to death, and MURDERED (if memory serves..) 90,000 orphan children  since the 1930's.  Their reputation is SO BAD that about three years ago, there were riots in England protesting the actions of the Catholic Church in Ireland over this issue, when Ireland issued their encyclopedic report ... which by the way, is available in it's ENTIRETY in PDF form on the Internet.

Cardinal Bernard Law, Archbishop of Boston, Mass., was driven out of office for protecting pedophile priests, and covering up the HUGE pedophile priest scandal, which is what the movie "SPOTLIGHT", starring Michael Keaton (Batman) was all about.

It is SO pervasive that in Los Angeles, the Catholic Church was ordered to pay 3/4 BILLION DOLLARS in reparations to victims of pedophile Priests child sexual abuse.

They did not have the money, so the courts started selling their buildings out from under them by court order ... putting whole orders of Nuns out on the street.

The Catholic Church has a reputation of incredible wealth, absolute control, being the favorite religion of mobsters and the Mafia, warfare and political assassination so much that books such as the best seller, made into a movie,  "The Divinci Code" with a traveling albino Monk from the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) as the Vatican's assassin to maintain discipline, struck no discordant notes in the minds of the readers.

SUCH THINGS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS SO NORMAL, so pervasive, and so universal ... for centuries and even millennia ... THEY ARE NOT EVEN NEWS .. just a footnote on page 14.

A search of Amazon dot com has a huge selection of the paper trails they have left throughout history.

We as Jehovah's Witnesses have gotten that VERY same reputation .. it is news now ... but soon it also will be a footnote on page 14.

The FIRST thing people will think of when the hear "Jehovah's Witnesses", is their duplicity, irrational and corrupt organization, which not only makes us JUST LIKE any other Church in their minds .. in will be in actuality ... TRUE!

If wearing a beard or tight pants reflects badly on Jehovah's name ... this is catapulted excrement!

It's just like when you see an "Indiana Jones" movie ... when the Nazis show up in their prescribed uniforms ... you instantly know who the BAD Guys are.

The Governing Body has ALREADY ruined THEIR reputation, and by claimed reflection, greatly slandered our God.

I wonder how long it will take before this is the normal expectation about the average Jehovah's Witness, due to the constant subversion and avoidance of JUSTICE to save money ... with the great slander that ascends like smoke to obscure the real face of Jehovah God, and His Christ.

When I saw that picture of  of the Pope in his whitewashed grave outfit, holding a screaming kid, also dressed in his whitewashed grave outfit ... I immediately thought of the picture below.  

 

THEREFORE: Because reputation is everything among rational people .... I think it would be quite reasonable and fair to caption the Pope and the Poppy FIRST alluding that he either HAD molested the kid, was going to molest the kid, or was feeling him up to give to someone else for their boy toy.

They have a 1700 year history of doing exactly that.

We, on the other hand ... cannot compete.

We on the other hand, have the superior moral high ground ... we are truly against such things ... but cover it up, disfellowship people that talk about it, or HAVE to leave because they cannot stand it, destroying their entire families with unnecessary and capricious CRUELTY ... and banning them to Coventry ... pervert and obstruct JUSTICE, and on JW.ORG website, the world news tells the Brotherhood NOTHING about what is really going on in the news.

[Arauna]

My dear Sir - my only comment on your comment is - on which planet do you live? 

We know about the murders, abortions and child molestation in the Catholic church,  due in part,  to their priests not being allowed to marry.  Yes, they are still covering up child molestation even though there are proper routes for them to go through now that there have been enquiries in UK and NZ and better laws have been put in place to protect children during court cases and during  the gathering of evidence.  I agree with you that these type of practices have been insidious in the Catholic Church for at least 1500 years - apart from all the other infamous historical baggage of wars and killing the true servants of the true God..

BUT to equate us with them is far fetched. I do not know of murders, abortions, and so many of the other covered up practices that you mentioned - that it has ever taken  place in our organization - not even once has it been acceptable.  

However,  I agree with you that just ONE case of child molestation that was badly handled, and is widely publicized, can give the organization a nasty reputation... and Satan will use this to his advantage to sully the name of Jehovah and the organization which carries his name.

Child molestation happens everywhere on earth but to imply that it is prevalent amongst JWs is nothing but a blatant lie - it is divorced from reality..  It is the exception - and it has NEVER been accepted as acceptable behavior.

I am very happy now that it has become the government's responsibility to gather evidence (in countries with laws in place and the infrastructure, psychologists in service, who can help to gather evidence and enforce the laws), - because it is a pretty hard type of crime to prove.

25 Years ago - many child psychologists were putting children back into homes where they had a history of sex abuse because the prevalent way of thinking was that the father can be rehabilitated. Alas - the field of psychology had to learn, through trial and error, that child molesters are rarely rehabilitated - although it is possible in rare cases.  I do not think that is it still a 'practice' to put removed children back into the home where they were molested.

 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

Arauna:

6 hours ago, Arauna said:

My dear Sir - my only comment on your comment is - on which planet do you live? 

Flippantly, I reply, "Earth, Sol 3, Milky Way Galaxy".

Please feel free to seriously analyze and dissect any of my postings, and give me advice and counsel as you see fit.

If my perspective is wrong or agendaized, or just plain screwed up, or facts are wrong .. please tell me.  I will not only recant my error, but seriously beg your, and others humble pardon, here on this forum.

People are afraid of offending me ... but to the best of my knowledge, I cannot be insulted.

I am used to living in a world culture where EVERY word, comma, and period is challenged.  For me this is normal.

For EVERYBODY, that is the ONLY road that leads to real TRUTH.

.

.

... please be specific ... I am a retired Engineer.

 

[Arauna]

Engineers seem to think they are the cream of the crop.  My brother happens to be one (not a Witness) - had a company with 50 engineers working for him (some Harvard engineers) - retired now.

Although the job requires 'logical' thinking - and this process is taught at universities so they can do the job - it does not mean that this automatically filters through to all other parts of life!   So people have to do a little more effort to be 'logical' when it comes to ' life skills'.  (Nor does a lot of money make a person more logical and 'acceptable' as a person - although the worship of money in America seems to make very wealthy people a god despite their being illogical and amoral people.)

Consequently,  I do often detect a rant from you against the organization in your postings which seems to be much more emotional than logical....

 

From your comment on this forum today, it seems you have decided to never listen to those around you - therefore the slightest 'criticism' is rejected and rolls off your back - as you yourself said. 

You like yourself the way you are and have decided to never try to adapt to changing circumstances and new ways of doing things or new ways of thinking.  It seems you are a law unto yourself. Well, the thought I have for you is this: one only learns new things when you are humble like a child... and eager to learn.  We all improve ourselves when we 'capitulate' and realize we must change something... and try some new way of doing something.... (experience talking - LOL).

To 'challenge' every little detail without seeing the big picture is also off the mark.  While small details are important - they are not more important than all the small details put together in the big picture. The planning of the electricity, sewerage, air conditioning is important in a building BUT if the foundation of the structure of the entire building is defective ..... what's the value of challenging the air conditioning? 

To 'question' things is different to a "challenge".   A challenge is more aggressive.  This is NOT how you win people over to your way of thinking. (I often have the same problem.)

I am a duck ... and everything rolls of me .... makes you a bird that cannot fly.....

One is never too old to learn to fly...

 

 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

Arauna:

Thank you for your honest and valid criticism .. every word you typed is valid. I am impressed, and at 70, and having "paid attention", not much impresses me.

Like I tell my wife, Susan, when she is right and I am wrong ... I do not mind at all when she is right .. but it embarrasses me when I am wrong.

... same thing with your coherent analysis.

I do recognize that Jehovah's Witnesses have the only true theology, even though the TRUTH is 15% of the billions of words spent, and opinion, and drivel, and irrelevancy clouds it, and creates enormous damage.

By people who suffer my rants I have had the accusation (paraphrased) "With what you know, and how you have been treated, how can you POSSIBLY still give your allegiance to that religion?".

I have resolved it in this way .... My allegiance is to Jehovah God, Christ Jesus, and the Brotherhood ... and I respect the WTB&TS for the very improbable fact that I stumbled across the Truth about God's Kingdom, so many years ago BECAUSE of the WTB&TS,   ... however I personally expect NOTHING from anyone. 

You cannot be stumbled if you have NO unreasonable expectations, and realize that we are all just big ugly bags of water with DNA ends that get shorter every year until we wrinkle up and die.

However, people with the very best of intentions have a HEAVY responsibility to do things RIGHT when they claim to be God's "Faithful and Discreet Slave", and command respect and obedience to their CULTURAL as well as Theological perspective.

November of 2015, everything we studied in the Ministry School, and the Watchtowers, and the Public Talks was on the topic of Justice.

I see the magnificent things the Brotherhood has accomplished but I also see a continuous string of injustices and cover-ups ... and the Society is paying the price for that now both in ruined reputation globally, and because they claim to reflect the will of God, which in many cases they do .. but the incompetence has gotten so bad that it has gotten silly, and embarrassing.

You can cover up a LOT with an unlimited supply of free money, and free labor ... but the damage grows and escalates, year by year by year.

We are not in Kansas, anymore, ToTo. 

The Internet has opened the whitewashed graves of those who have been cruelly treated .... by an institution with presumably the highest motives.

I have an advantage .... I was baptized in 1964, when the baptismal oath was "The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit" .. so my allegiance is not to the Corporation or to the "Organization".  If you were baptized AFTER 1985, when the oath generally took it's current form .. you are STUCK.

if 85% of what we promote was not irrelevant drivel ... we would not have to knock on other peoples' doors  ...

THEY WOULD BE KNOCKING ON OURS!

If you don't think so .. just ask Caleb and Sophia.

[Arauna]

We are here to assist each other and not be hypocritical in our love.  So we expose our bad sides when we are honest and way too often we may need adjustment - but this is good if we willingly adjust - because then we can be more pliable to be used by Jehovah and we improve as time goes by. We do not miss the mark as often!  LOL.

I use the words from the Bible when I say that a sweet fountain will not bubble forth bitter water all the time....  And sometimes we can come across as too critical and bitter and we do not allow the sweetness to bubble forth.

I had a friend like this in England.  She was too quick to see all the mistakes that everyone made and yet, ....    I learnt a lot from her about persistence under difficult circumstances. She did get some resistance from others because of this trait ... and I sometimes had to give myself a break from her because she was too much regarding her temperament to see the negative. On the other hand she was like a mother to me and taught me a lot.....

To influence others in an beneficial way we need to not be afraid to show our sweetness, to be perceived as weak and vulnerable.  We then are true towers of strength.  We can show empathy.

You have the experience of a lifetime.  I am sure you know a lot of positive things that other brothers can benefit from but you must gain their trust by allowing the wholesome, healing water to flow out of you.  Become a vessel for good use.  You seem to have the zeal! 

 

 

[Guest Nicole]

and there is also the mini Pope