Forum participants we have known

[TrueTomHarley]

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.

[Many Miles]

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Believe me, if he was ‘tortured,’ he gave no sense of it here.

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.

Sometimes it's not enough to walk in another man's shoes. Sometimes you have to feel their feet walking in their shoes, a thing most of us are untrained to do. But fellow feeling would have us recognize a tortured soul when it's screaming at us. Bullies aren't born; they're made, and typically they didn't ask to be made. Rather, it was done to them. That's not to say AlanF was a bully, but in a text only format it could come across that way. In real life the man would stand up for the downtrodden every time. Every single time. Particularly if he saw someone being intellectually manipulated. He'd jump into that like a dog on a snake!

[Many Miles]

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

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.

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. But that's not what we find, even in westernized societies where people are freer to do so.

 

[TrueTomHarley]

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.

[Srecko Sostar]

15 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

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. 

Dad had a "rebellious-lost son" who left and came back. But dad also had a "faithful JW-son" who showed that dad made a mistake somewhere in his upbringing. Not only with the "lost son" but also with the one who "stayed at home".
Now, did the father make a mistake in upbringing, so he created a "broken household"? And where was the mother? Or was he a "single father"? Or was the older JW son actually the "goat", because he showed all the accumulated negativity when his younger brother returned?

SO, MM made a good point. JWs have no solution even for their own social deviations. They have the same sufferings as the rest of the religious world, who are in "the safe place of their own religion".

I think the population of "nominal JWs" is increasing, regardless of whether they were "born into the religion" or accepted it by coming "from outside". 

My impression of this view increases when I see "mute" JWs standing by the carts and carrying on their private conversations with each other a few meters away from the "source of spiritual food".

Jesus was active in reaching people with the "good news". What is "active" about standing 10-15 feet from the cart?

On the other hand, JWs want to "fix the world", because they want to "fix people" so that they turn to God. So what exactly is the WTJWorg mission? "Going/flee out of the world" and not returning to it?

So why are they fighting for tax breaks and state money?  It is a form of returning to the world from which you supposedly escaped.

Or for "freedom of speech and belief"?  Within their church they have complete freedom to believe their own speech.

 

 

[TrueTomHarley]

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?

[JW Insider]

37 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

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

It's not that Jehovah doesn't "watch" errors, but he is all-knowing and all-understanding and has provided the ransom as a means for forgiveness. So he doesn't watch for errors to slap us down like a human boss might, and he doesn't judge by the number of errors.

But there is one exception for humans. We are to watch for errors in "teaching." And since ours is a teaching ministry, even for the youngest among us, we MUST watch for errors when it comes to teaching wrong doctrine and the possibility of misleading others:

• (Matthew 16:12) . . .Then they grasped that he said to watch out, not for the leaven of bread, but for the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
• (1 Timothy 4:16) Pay constant attention to yourself and to your teaching.. . .
• (James 3:1) . . .Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive heavier judgment. 
• (Galatians 6:1) . . .Brothers, even if a man takes a false step before he is aware of it, you who have spiritual qualifications try to readjust such a man in a spirit of mildness. . . .
• (Ephesians 4:14, 15) . . .So we should no longer be children, tossed about as by waves and carried here and there by every wind of teaching by means of the trickery of men, by means of cunning in deceptive schemes. But speaking the truth. . .
• (Matthew 23:15) . . .Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you travel over sea and dry land to make one proselyte, and when he becomes one, you make him a subject for Ge·henʹna twice as much so as yourselves.
• (Hebrews 13:17) . . .Be obedient to those who are taking the lead among you and be submissive, for they are keeping watch over you as those who will render an account, so that they may do this with joy and not with sighing, for this would be damaging to you.
• (Matthew 18:6) But whoever stumbles one of these little ones who have faith in me, it would be better for him to have hung around his neck a millstone that is turned by a donkey and to be sunk in the open sea.

 

[Many Miles]

8 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Haven’t you spoken disparagingly of George88 or some of his personas?

I placed George88 on ignore. That's what I did.

[Many Miles]

8 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

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

That was an instance of a person who, as an adult, returned to what he had been raised in. The situation with JWs is to the contrary. Children raised in the religion, as adults, cease identifying with it and don't return.

[Many Miles]

9 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

You mean that every obnoxious troll on the internet is underneath it all a gentle misunderstood soul?

It's no excuse for bad behavior, and I don't suggest a notion of interior 'gentle souls'. There are people who appear to be inherently straightforward in expressing their views and to the more genteel that might strike as crass or obnoxious. But that's different than being a bully. A person can be born with a personality that is straightforward. Bullies are made. Person's who project their thoughts straightforwardly aren't hurting or threatening anyone's person. Maybe their ideas. But not their person. So when it comes to "obnoxious trolls" I'm not sure what behavior you refer. I don't think AlanF was a troll. AlanF was a man who cared about facts, evidence and sound thinking. He also cared about people. Concern for people drove him, and in particular concern for people who were being intellectually manipulated.

[BTK59]

4 hours ago, JW Insider said:

It's not that Jehovah doesn't "watch" errors, but he is all-knowing and all-understanding and has provided the ransom as a means for forgiveness. So he doesn't watch for errors to slap us down like a human boss might, and he doesn't judge by the number of errors.

This statement is incorrect. God graciously offers repentance to bring about forgiveness. Therefore, those who fail to repent of their mistakes, as evident in the past biblical examples, will face divine judgment. God holds accountable those who claim to be His children, but later betray Him by renouncing their commitment, just as it happens today through baptism.
 

[BTK59]

4 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

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

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?