User talk:Cobaltbluetony/Discussion with Central

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[edit] What is the real issue?

Moving your complaint to your page Central 01:17, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

  Central, if you really are sincere in merely writing an encyclopedia article, then why not tone down instead of stirring up more contention? Regarding your comments such as the ones you recently made on Duffer's talk page, Witnesses don't want to discuss these points with you. We have our reasons, and even if you don't like them, trying to force us to react differently will not be productive for you or anyone else. Your characterization of our faith does not represent an accurate picture of how Witnesses feel about it. It's as if you were trying to tell us that we really actually believed in the Flying Spaghetti Monster when we know what's in our heads, and it's not noodly. Even if you don't respect how Witnesses feel about much of the material you present, you still have to be civil about it and edit faithfully, even trying to honestly think from our vantage point. Civil relations with Witness editors might help you gain that perspective.

  Whatever you feel your true motivations are, I simply do not understand why you persist. Are you trying to wear Witnesses down? Are you trying to make sincere and honest people suffer for the supposed sins of people who aren't even connected to them in any personal way? Do you make these efforts against any other religious group? How can the Witnesses alone be so wrong, and no one else deserve such attention? If your interpretations are truly beneficial, they should inspire you to build up instead of tear down.

  When you misquote passages from our literature, or misrepresent them, you do not reflect what is being studied by individual Witnesses, and their comments in the congregations. What Witnesses say and do in response to this point or that point (which happens to contradict your interpretation of it) shows to every Witness editing here that you do not really know what Witnesses believe. What happens within the congregations, and the living faith of each Witness, is so far removed from your presentation of our beliefs that it simply improper to insist to interpret in the manner that you do. I would expect Catholics, Buddhists, Taoists, animists, Wiccans -- anyone -- to react and object if they felt a supposedly impartial article on their faith was mischaracterizing them or putting them in a light that reflects only the opinions of those who dislike them. You may feel as if you're protraying "the real truth" about Jehovah's Witnesses, but the resulting image looks nothing like what Witnesses see in their faith, nor what onlookers see when they become interested in our faith as a possibility for themselves. It's just not the point, trying to disprove Witness beliefs at every turn. And honestly, I don't know who here would be able to sufficiently present your points as incidental material without strong views as to their accuracy, one way or the other.

  Regarding these articles, I have this sincere request: please stop interpreting what we believe for us, and resist the temptation to argue theological points in this academic forum. Even if you feel that some Witnesses are behaving improperly towards you in discussion pages, don't worsen the situation by responsing in kind. Two wrongs don't make a right, and regardless of our position and yours, the academic effort of portraying fairly factual information about Witnesses is our collective goal. I will talk to other Witnesses editing here about how they interact with you as long as you keep yourself civil. This can deflate reactionary replies, and cool off tensions. If you don't, then the whole thing blows out of porportion and way out of anyone's hands.- CobaltBlueTony 18:06, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll make this brief wading through your red-herrings, straw men, and off topic whining.

1. You said: "Regarding your comments such as the ones you recently made on Duffer's talk page, Witnesses don't want to discuss these points with you."

Matthew (Duffer) asked me to post on his page. He wanted to know what I believed in, and he brought up the subject (off topic as it was) and he was the one to want answers on his page or via email. So, I suggest very politely that you keep your damn nose out other's business, and stop the meddling and highly patronising big brother crap. Is Duffer such an immature child he cannot speak and think for himself without you emailing and manipulating him every five minutes telling him not to speak to Tom or I? (And I'm sure you also slander Tom and I behind our backs with your nasty little emails "don't talk to them Matthew, they're apostates bla bla bla")

2. You said: "how Witnesses feel about it. . . we know what's in our heads. . . from our vantage point. . . . their comments in the congregations. . . insist to interpret. . . etc."

You fail over and over to see that Wikipedia is here to represent accuracy, warts and all. Your subjective personal opinions, or "feelings", or other JWs' personal subjective opinions, thoughts, and fantasies are not to be posted here. They are all POV, not official doctrines from the "channel of God" and that kind of subjective propaganda is totally against all forms of objectivity. Nobody cares about the personal subjective interpretations of rank and file members, as they are not the ones to formulate the doctrines, or on the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, or "anointed", or part of the "faithful and discreet slave", and don't have any input into the doctrines and Bible interpretations of the Watch Tower organization. Please stop bridging this totally unsuitable propaganda here, as it will be strongly refuted and exposed for the machinations it is. The only information that counts is that which is officially sanctioned, and approved, by the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses. This is not the place for you, or anyone to come and say for example: "Well 99 percent of the publications do say that non-JWs will all die, but we believe they are all wrong in our imaginations, and the 1 percent that say 'we cannot comment' actually overrides all the others, because CobaltBlueTony feels, imagines, or saw it in the tea leaves." If you cannot prove a point with the officially sanctioned doctrines in print, then I'm sorry, but no one is interested in your subjective opinions.

3. You said: "you misquote passages from our literature, or misrepresent them"

Please give some specific proof of both of your unfounded accusations.

4. You said: "Are you trying to wear Witnesses down?"

"Can there be false religion? It is not a form of religious persecution for anyone to say and to show that another religion is false. It is not religious persecution for an informed person to expose publicly a certain religion as being false, thus allowing persons to see the difference between false religion and true religion."—Watchtower 15 November 1963 p.688

"Therefore, how will you respond when pointed statements are made about false religious teachings and corrupt practices? Will you immediately condemn the person or organization making the exposé? Do you feel it is all right to teach lies and misrepresent God's Word, but wrong to expose the error? Contrary to what some may think, it is not unkind and unloving to lay bare falsehood and corruption."—Watchtower 1 March 1966 p.132

"God, who is himself "the God of truth" and who hates lies, will not look with favor on persons who cling to organizations that teach falsehood. (Psalm 31:5; Proverbs 6:16-19; Revelation 21:8) And, really, would you want to be even associated with a religion that had not been honest with you?"—Is This Life All There Is? 1974 p.46

"How many are aware that adhering to false religion can mean their eternal destruction?… Are true Christians going to stand by quietly and say nothing about such gross misrepresentations? Hardly!"—Watchtower 15 April 1970 p.24 (more here if you are interested)

5. You said: "nor what onlookers see when they become interested in our faith as a possibility for themselves."

I'm sure they don't see what the Governing Body and organization really teach and has printed over the years, you bet! They are too busy being 'love bombed' and force-fed sugar-coated fluff, with a good dose of carefully worded Watch Tower propaganda and theocratic warfare if needed, when they ask any uncomfortable questions.

CobaltBlueTony, you need to really take some of your own advice, and also stop projecting your personal views as if they are somehow magically transubstantiated into official Watch Tower Society doctrines and policy. You may think you have noble aims, but you are sadly grossly misguided. You must also stop using this forum as a propaganda tool for your religion, we all know how much they demand their PR promotions are given top priority at all times, "seek the opportunity to 'give a witness' bla bla bla". But Wikipedia is not the place for JW double speak, outright lies, false IDs, red herrings, and endless straw men diversion when they are backed into a corner, and wounded egos when they don't get their own way. We have all seen that members of your religion do not put honesty as a top priory, especially when it's about how their religion appears to the public's eye. And before you start, I know a great many JWs, and know of how they are, and all the back stabbing and scandals that come out of the Kingdom Halls, so don't try the "your don't understand us really". I also have access to far more Watch Tower material, especially confidential documents, than you can ever imagine;-) Have a Happy New Year! Central 01:17, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

1. I have invited you to my page to discuss theology, or perhaps some of the major tenets of your belief system as I am rather curious, however, the only thing you have talked about so far is Raymond Franz, and in that CBT is very accurate in saying that Witnesses really don't want to hear it. As my spiritual brother, I am CT's business (that's how we work, and a large part of why we work) and I welcome, and look forward to his input on any subject that he wishes to talk about with me.

2. To infer individual Jehovah's Witnesses' beliefs differ from what the WT officially teaches is downright misleading, and even contradictory to yours and Tomm's derision. I don't think you really believe our beliefs differ from that of the official teachings, I think you believe we're lying to you (as you and Tomm have both stated to me multiple times). What we say on this site constitutes a teaching of the official Jehovah's Witness doctrine. If we were to LIE to you about such doctrine, we would be guilty of 'false teaching' and up for removal of congregational privilages and possibly even excommunication as apostates. What we say to you regarding our doctrine is not only accurate, official teaching, it is also what we believe, therefore you and Tomm both are guilty of unreasonableness.

3. How can you claim to be unaware of such an instance? It is such an important point to ensure accuracy of that I took it to the first step of conflict resolution (the Mediation Cabal). The quotes you presented, and the summaries of those quotes do not accurately reflect both the context of the quotes themselves OR official Jehovah's Witness doctrine. There's also the dubious 1980 letter that claims even "thoughts differing from official teaching is apostacy.." (or some such), now I'm not sure if that's you or Tomm, but either way, it's not only innacurate but not even conregational elders know of it. If the elders don't know of it then how can it be a doctrine to abide by, since they don't know it, how can they instruct the congregations to adhere to it? Nothing even remotely similar exists in ANY WT text, publication, article, etc.. Do you not see therefore that it is most certainly NOT an official teaching (on top of being 100% unverifiable).

4. Exposing a religion you believe to be false is not proper behavior for this website. You are more than welcome to your edits and criticisms as long as NPOV and accuracy are maintained. You and Tomm have repeatedly demonstrated that you cannot do that, on top of being rude, disruptive, verbally abusive, and uncompromising. You to a lesser extent, but Tomm to a degree where he really needs to be blocked entirely from editing for a reasonable amount of time. Look at Dtbrown, he cordially asked several questions, and even e-mailed me privately for further clarification, even though he still doesn't agree with me on that particular subject he was still constructive, and even-handed about it.

5. Another instance of point 3 (above). Your misconceptions about our 'theocratic warfare' doctrine are beyond unreasonable and patent absurdity. Not only that, but none of them say what you're infering. We preach, and teach, the truth in all parts of the world, so what on earth makes you think we'd give someone at their doorstep something less than?

.."oppurtunities to give a Witness.." Exactly, it is NOT: "..oppurtunities to give a FALSE witness." You accuse us of lying, ad hom yet when we say and prove you wrong you blanket your compromising abilities with your (perhaps intentionally) ignorant misconceptions about our 'theocratic warfare' doctrine. I know there's no such thing as true objectivity, but really man, try going for just a little bit (at least!!). Duffer 10:31, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

1. I gave you eight points that I agreed on. If you recall, you were the one focusing on Ray Franz, and using that as some kind of excuse to ignore the eight points. As I have already said, he has nothing to do with collating them, formulating them, or sending them to the Governing Body. I put them up to show that JWs merely discussing these points in private has lead to multiple excommunications. I also put them here because I happen to agree with the points, not because they are on that letter, but because I came to that conclusion long before. If you choose to ignore all of them, then why did you ask for what I believe in if you are not really interested?

2. You said: "To infer individual Jehovah's Witnesses' beliefs differ from what the WT officially teaches is downright misleading". Come on Matthew; let's be realistic about this. I know many JWs with all sorts of nutty ideas about what the future will hold for them, none of which are official doctrines of the Governing Body. What individuals believe is not what is relevant, it's what is official doctrine from the Governing Body that counts, not the 1001 different subjective opinions on each topic that rank and file Witnesses may concoct.

3. These points have already been answered before. Private confidential letters obviously would not appear in the Watchtower or Awake! magazines, because they are private, why is that so hard for you to grasp? The same with the Elder's manual, that is also not for the eyes of the rank and file members. If you missed it, someone has posted a copy of the letter your claim does not exist here: Page 1 Page 2. I look forward to your apology, although I doubt I will ever receive one.

4. Exposing the truth is essential, regardless of whether you or I think it might demonstrate your religion to be true or false. The readers can make their mind up from direct quotes, and links to the actual teachings of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, not the biases of the subjective interpretations of lower rank and file members, who as you know, have zero input into the formulation of doctrines/interpretations of the "channel of God" Governing Body.

5. You said: "misconceptions about our 'theocratic warfare'" I merely point to what your leaders have written about lying and the terminology they've used. I am not the author of those teachings.

You said: "We preach, and teach, the truth in all parts of the world, so what on earth makes you think we'd give someone at their doorstep something less than?" You gave me a laugh Matthew, "the Truth©". I like the way you start with a false leading question, talk about circular reasoning! You know very well how you are taught (and so do I) to deal with householders, and that is to give them only positive information, or something that may be relevant to their life at that time to pull the heart strings to draw them in, 'slowly, slowly, catch the monkey!' The Reasoning book is full of it. I've had enough conversations with JWs over the years that have knocked on my door, to know very well what they say on the doors, and that it is not a candid honest picture of what their organization officially teaches.

For example, most of them are totally clueless as to their religion's history, especially dates, and they will argue adamantly that the organization never said anything about the world ending in 1914, 1925, or that Jesus stated his rule in 1878 etc. They are not only grossly ignorant; they are rude with it, often accusing me of being unaware of their history, "what would you know anyway, you're not even a Jehovah's Witness", or they say I'm making it all up! When I get a few quotes to show them, they back off embarrassed and change the subject rapidly, instead of honestly admitting they know little of the religion they claim to be representing. The same with all subjects, only a half view is given, the full version (in the literature) is not even admitted to if it makes them look bad, judgemental, stupid, hash, or cruel. JWs on the doors have been some of the most evasive and ignorant people I have ever spoken to, many of them are ignorant/rude and will just talk over you if they can see they are going to lose face, or change the subject quickly, and refuse to even let me speak. Most of them cannot even explain their doctrines using just the Bible. It's interesting to see them squirm if I say: "Can you show me that in the Bible, and explain it without using your Watch Tower literature?" So, Matthew, please don't claim JWs are candid on the doorstep, as you well know as I do, that this is certainly not the case.

You said: "when we say and prove you wrong" Some specific examples please where you have "proven" me "wrong". Central 20:05, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

1. No, you first suggested that I read his book and see if I was able to refute his eight points. Then you said we could have a discussion, but first I must read Franz's book(s) to avoid "covering old ground."

2. Yes, I know this article is about official doctrine. That was my point.

3. Elders, ministerial servants, and regular active Jehovah's Witnesses are un-aware of this "doctrine." It's not taught to the elders or the flock. How does that make it official doctrine? One dubious, 100% unverifiable letter? Hardly. Elders recieve extra instructions on how to conduct the 'flock', obviously, but matters of doctrine are disseminated to the entire congregation, everyone would have known of it.

4. Telling the truth is essential. Subjective, unverifiable material, that know JW has ever heard of does not constitute "truth."

5. That does not address your missconception. You infer that we lie left and right, damn the truth, no one cares, just so long as you become a JW. That is nonsense.

I'm sorry you feel that way about past encounters with Jehovah's Witnesses, however, CBT, Uberpenguin, and myself have been nothing but honest and candid about the official teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses. The amount of candor you recieve to your questions is entirely dependent on who you ask. I'll give you a full on history lesson if you ask me at the door, but others won't, instead opting to give abbreviated highlights of doctrine, saving the lengthy nuance discussions for the at-home bible studies, I don't see anything wrong with that, nor is that "theocratic warfare". The degree of knowledge of Jehovah's Witness history is up to the discretion of each Jehovah's Witness. Duffer 15:51, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

1. You are side tracking, after that I said again about the eight points, you still kept drawing back to Franz as a person and ignoring the eight points.

2. Again, you are creating a straw man; you are now changing the subject. You claimed JWs always believe the same as the organization officially teaches, and as you know this is not true.

3. Again, your third straw man, now focussing on a word "doctrine". It's a practise, a discipline procedure, call it what you want, it's from the leaders of the organization at New York. Why on earth would a private matter about dealing with "apostates" be "taught to the . . flock". Do you have a copy of the Elder's manual given to you? No. Why not? Because it's not for your eyes unless you are an elder. Have you no grasp of confidential matters? You then say: "One dubious, 100% unverifiable letter?" Ah, so we have it now. You have egg on your face, so now you come out with the weak defence and pretend you don't believe it's a real letter? You are really scraping to barrel now Matthew. Why not print it out, post it to the New York Bethel and ask them? Are you scared? Your arguments are valueless if you are still going to refuse evidence when it's from the very top of your religious organization.

4. You said: "Subjective, unverifiable material, that know JW has ever heard of does not constitute truth." Can you give me some specific examples with evidence?

5. If lying makes your organization look better, then it is often given the tacit nod of approval, and cloaked under many names, one of them 'theocratic warfare', or 'hiding the truth'.

6. You said: "I'll give you a full on history lesson if you ask me at the door" LOL, how can you do that when you are not aware yourself? You have shown a rash ability to spit out statements that have proven to be totally incorrect. You then hide your humiliation by saying "it was a mistake", when you know it was done deliberately to make your religion look good, or not lose face in front of Tom or me. You said: "but others won't, instead opting to give abbreviated highlights of doctrine, saving the lengthy nuance discussions for the at-home bible studies". That is your fourth straw man. You know that is not the point I was making. The point was clearly about ignorant JWs who think they know it all, and will argue forcefully that they KNOW the Watch Tower never said anything about 1874, 1878, 1914, 1920, 1925, 1975 etc., and when they are kindly proven incorrect, they lose face, and either start attacking to mask their humiliation, or totally change the subject, again hoping the person on the door step is too dim or just not knowledgeable so they [the JW] won't be uncomfortably contradicted with having to deal with the truth. Central 01:13, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

1. Talk about the eight points then and not Franz. You said: you were the one focusing on Ray Franz, and using that as some kind of excuse to ignore the eight points, I replied: No, you first suggested that I read his book and see if I was able to refute his eight points. Then you said we could have a discussion, but first I must read Franz's book(s) to avoid "covering old ground." Now you say: You are side tracking, after that I said again about the eight points, you still kept drawing back to Franz as a person and ignoring the eight points., I am not sidetracking, I am directly responding to things you say. If you want to talk about the eight points that's fine but I have a few stipulations: we take this to e-mail as this is not the appropriate venue, we discuss one point at a time, and I will not read Franz's books to "cover old ground."

2. Again, I was directly responding to your criticism: "You fail over and over to see that Wikipedia is here to represent accuracy, warts and all. Your subjective personal opinions, or "feelings", or other JWs' personal subjective opinions, thoughts, and fantasies are not to be posted here." My response was that of assurance that what we are telling you here constitutes official teaching, you have not addressed the facts that I have put forth regarding this: ..what we say on this site constitutes a teaching of the official Jehovah's Witness doctrine. If we were to LIE to you about such doctrine, we would be guilty of 'false teaching' and up for removal of congregational privilages and possibly even excommunication as apostates. You have not addressed the fact that you and user:Tommstein have told myself and nearly every Jehovah's Witness here that you believe we are lying to you and Wikipedia about our doctrines with comments that range from "JW PR machine in action" to the outright "you're lying."

3. It doesn't matter what word I use to describe it, it's 100% UNVERIFIABLE with nothing in ANY Jehovah's Witness publication that supports what it's saying. I'm not saying it isn't a teaching, I'm saying it CANNOT be verified to be an official teaching. The difference between this unverifiable 'letter' and the elder book is that one is a current BOOK that every elder in every congregation has, therefore, verifiable. The letter on the other hand, is a letter that has no official support from any Jehovah's Witness publication, and allegedly disseminated to only circuit overseers 26 YEARS ago.

4. I was refering to the issue surrounding point number 3 above. It literally is: "Subjective, unverifiable material, that know JW has ever heard of.." Why do you ask for evidence from me? You know no such evidence exists that supports the contents of the alleged 1980 letter.

5. Nonsense. To not bring reproach upon Jehovah's organization (and by extension Jehovah himself) one must exemplify Christian conduct. THAT is what makes our "organization look better." Not some misguided notion of yours that thinks we lie to make ourselves "look better". Sheer nonsense.

6. I made a mistake, once, that is not a "rash ability to spit out statements". I even acknowledged it was a mistake, an error, on my part. Why must you assign malicious intent to me when there clearly was none? I wasn't really sure how to further respond to your pervasive prejudice. You seemed to insinuate that I think I am some "know it all" Witness, but that I'm just as misguided as the ones you claim to have meet on your doorstep. This is all nonsense Central. Let's consolidate this to our other discussion and take it to e-mail, or drop it entirely. I want to focus on the articles again now, not you; not Tomm. Duffer 16:40, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

1. I can see you will never look at the eight points, so I will leave them.

2. You are arguing a straw man, as your original reply said, "To infer individual Jehovah's Witnesses' beliefs differ from what the WT officially teaches is downright misleading." Now you are changing the subject, as you know you are incorrect.

3. Now you lie (again) by saying, (or screaming in this case): "it's 100% UNVERIFIABLE with nothing in ANY Jehovah's Witness publication that supports what it's saying." How can it be "unverifiable" if there is a copy of the letter (Page 1 Page 2) there for you to see, examine, print out and post off to the Watch Tower Society? You also lie or have bad reading comprehension, as the letter directly addressed one Watchtower magazine and builds on that premise: "There is a fine study of this subject in the August 1, 1980 Watchtower. All of you want to get thoroughly familiar with the contents of the study articles." It then goes on to state that "an apostate does not have to be a promoter of apostate views. . ." Again, you fail to admit you are incorrect and didn't have a clue what you were saying when you claimed the letter didn't even exist. You then go on with some new straw man: "and allegedly disseminated to only circuit overseers 26 YEARS ago." Have you taken a copy of this letter to the Watch Tower Society? And what did they say? And what does "26 YEARS ago", have to do with anything? The Elders manual was published in 1981, and has hardly changed in its new edition in 1991 (25 and 15 years ago) so what's your point? You don't have one, just another red herring! Shouting numbers does not prove anything, and just demonstrates your own frustrations for being proven wrong yet again.

4. You said: "Why do you ask for evidence from me?" Because you were the one to accuse others of posting this "Subjective, unverifiable material". You have been proven wrong, and you still arrogantly refuse to accept that this letter is real and was a direction from the organization you believe to be the "channel of God". Do you now doubt "Jehovah's word"? Tut, tut, naughty boy.

5. You said: "one must exemplify Christian conduct", what like lying on these boards? (As you have done). And also I'm sure your JW friend Retcon|Missionary knows all about lying. What a wonderful example and advertisement he was for your religion!

6. You said: "I made a mistake, once, that is not a 'rash ability to spit out statements'." WOW, you have just added another lie to your list. You said: "You seemed to insinuate that I think I am some 'know it all' Witness" Well lets look at some of your "know it all" posts and lies. Here are but a few of many out there:

A: You lied when Tommstein suggested to you twice that the word "Society" was not suitable as it referred to the Watch Tower Society, and you later claimed you had not seen that angle, but Tom had already told you that twice just a few posts before. example 1, example 2, and you deceitfully claming ignorance here

B: You lied and said "An examination of our publications will show that the term 'weak' was only used 3 times in regards to brothers/sisters, and that was in 1966, the term is no longer used due to it's provocative and derogatory connotation". You were exposed for lying by the next post here.

C: You adamantly stated as fact that "EVERY publication" of the Watch Tower's literature was on their CD. This again proved to be totally without base and unashamedly false!

D: You staunchly stated as fact that "There's [sic] literally thousands of publications in [sic] the cd-rom" that statement of yours again proved to be totally without foundation and blatantly false.

E: You said: "I made a mistake, once, that is not a 'rash ability to spit out statements'" Again I have just proven this is lie number seven, eight, nine? I've lost count! I'm sure there are many more that can be rooted out. I will ask Tom if he can remember any more blatant ones.

You go on: "This is all nonsense Central. Let's consolidate this to our other discussion and take it to e-mail, or drop it entirely". Ah, we have it; the heat is on your judgementalism, and blatantly false statements that you ever so easily type to ineffectively defend your religion, and now you want it all hidden in email? No way! If you want to stop, then stop, the public can make their own mind up how you operate. Personally I've had enough of your running around in circles, you refusing to look at your doctrines, and your endless nasty ad hominem on Franz as an excuse to not look at what you believe. You appear to have not enough faith to uphold your own views. Views I might disclose you have admitted are from the interpretations of men in New York, not your own deductions. Central 23:51, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

1. I just said I would...

2. ..I was directly responding to your criticism, that is not a strawman. I even provided a review of the point over the past few responses to further illustrate this..

3. I have acknowledged its existance. What I contest is 1 - it's veracity, and 2 - your inference that it is a current, VERIFIABLE, doctrine. You cannot prove either beyond the fact that it does exist as a sheet of paper with words on it that contradicts everything the WTS has ever written on the subject (including the 1980 WT article it cites!). Did you not look up the 1980 article? Dtbrown sent me an e-mail cordially asking for the paragraphs cited, I e-mailed him the entirety of the article, why do you not do this? I have never claimed it has not existed. My point regarding your comparison to the Pay Attention book is that one is still in current use with readily verifiable doctrinal guidance, the other 1 - cannot be legitimately verified to have ever been sent to any Jehovah's Witness, 2 - cannot be legitimately verified to be a current teaching, 3 - If it at some point ever did get sent out from the WTS as an official policy it has likely been disgarded for new guidance on such matters (which happens quite frequently).

4. It is unverifiable. There is absolutely no way around that. If it has ever existed why is there absolutely zero support for it in any WT publication INCLUDING the 1980 WT it claims to cite. Duffer 07:53, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

5. Being mistaken is not lying. I have not lied to you, nor have I assigned motive to your mistakes beyond the labels: 'prejudice' and 'bias'.

A. Tomm said: "the word "society" kind of has its own life when it comes to Jehovah's Witnesses.. and That the word "society" has a special connotation in the context of Jehovah's Witnesses is a fact, not an opinion... On top of being unrealistic, neither objection was coherent or proved. He failed to specify what "life" the word does have to Witnesses, he failed to provide facts that support his contention that the word "society" has "a special connotation". You cannot expect someone to have a reasonable idea of the thought that someone is trying to convey when that persons' conjecture is presented as ambiguously as Tomms' was in this instance. It wasn't until Jeffro came in and actually presented a coherent point on how someone may mistake the term "society" to mean: "The Watchtower (Bible & Tract) Society". If this is what Tomm was refering to then it should be readily obvious to everyone as to why I misunderstood, though I still really don't know what he was refering to, could he possibly have been more vague?

B. I was mistaken, even consenting the point to Jeffro in my very next reply and I stated the reason for my mistake: "You are right. I searched "weak brothers/members". It's use is unfortunate. I have never experienced it's use in my local congregations.. Duffer 12:27, 22 December 2005 (UTC)". The search I used gave me 3 results, I should have searched more but didn't, I was wrong.

C. Ya I forgot the "Pay Attention" book out of literally thousands of publications available on the CD-Rom. Then you started in with nonsense about past revisions of books and books that had been entirely replaced with more comprehensive, current, versions. I forgot about 1 book, big deal. Why would they include past versions, and entirely replaced and updated books on the Cd-Rom also? Obviously I was not refering to those when I said "all". At most I am guilty of ambiguity, at the least you and Tomm were guilty of verbal abuse, harrasment, and failure to follow the Wiki guideline of [[WP:AGF}Assuming Good Faith]].

D. Such nonsense, there are literally thousands of PUBLICATIONS on the WT - CD-Rom, confirm with your dictionary. "Publication" does not mandate the connotation of "seperate published entities", it also means plural instances of the same publication with differing content in each. My following reply: "approximately 1,296 WT magazines on the cd-rom, not including Awake, not including Books, KMs, Booklets, Brochures, Tracts, and the 2 Insight volumes." clearly indicates which connotation of the word "publications" I was using. I let the matter drop due to not wanting to further here yours and Tomms hostile, and baseless, nonsense.

E. I made the mistake of ambiguity once, and I made an outright mistake of saying "Every" when I should have said "all but 1". I was mistaken about "weak brothers" and consented the point. 2.5 mistakes? Why are you doing this Central? I assure you, I am not ashamed of being wrong, shame comes when I fail to do something about it.

I have responded to EVERY issue you have set before me either here or on my own discussion page (Duffer's Talk Page), including your attacks on my beliefs and the amount of faith (or lack thereof) I possess. I have explained to you in great detail (in the above link) how my use of "apostate" in reference to Raymond Franz is not meant as a pejorative, but meant appropriately, as an adjective that discribes his behavior from my point of view. I'm not worried about the public seeing your nonsense, I'm worried about Wiki guidelines and the fact that this is not the appropriate venue for our discussion. Again, do not suppose to know the amount of my faith and/or conviction. Your continued and growing hostility towards me is rapidly becoming harassment. Duffer 07:53, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

1. You still haven't.

2. You have given no proof just an opinion.

3. You said: "contradicts everything the WTS has ever written on the subject." Now you are posting gross hyperbole. So Matthew, "believing and continuing to believe apostate thoughts" has always been/or is now an approved teaching from the Watch Tower Society? Where is your corroboration for this? Then you say: "If it at some point ever [sic] did get sent out from the WTS as an official policy it has likely been discarded for new guidance on such matters." Now you are contradicting yourself. Where is your verification for "likely discarded" as you say? Make your mind up what your opinion is. If you've changed your mind and now claim it's an old out of date policy, then can you post some newer Watch Tower quotes that unequivocally say "believing and continuing to believe apostate things, even after rejecting counselling to stop/change, is a perfectly acceptable practise for Jehovah's Witnesses" and I would like verifiable proof of this, to quote you. If you have none, then the letter is still holds its weight from the "channel of God". A question: Did you send a copy of the letter to the Watch Tower by express mail, or standard? Please let us see a scan of the reply letter when they reply to your question: "Is it ok to believe apostate things and continue to believe them even after spiritual council has been given to stop/change these apostate beliefs?"

You then say: "I e-mailed him the entirety of the article, why do you not do this?" Why don't you post him the entire Watch Tower CD, then that would save a lot of time finding quotes, or would that make him too informed so maybe he would see through your false statements?

4. Again, write to your leaders in New York with a copy of the printed out letter in question, and scan the reply letter with your original letter to them so we can all have a read.

5. You said: "Being mistaken is not lying." It is, if the claim is not worded as a possibility based on guesswork. All your claims were made, as facts to try and win an argument or make your leaders in New York look good; they were not presented as uninformed speculations. You are like your leaders, and their false prophecies, "we were merely speculating, we never set a date for Armageddon"—all lies! Your post was also lying, as you never corrected yourself, you just left the blatantly false information there to influence others in your favour; you were exposed as posting false information by others, it was not a correction/admission on your part, thus indicating your less than ethical behaviour.

5A. You knew well from Tom's words what he was talking about, for goodness sakes, what JW does not know that "the Society" is referring to the Watch Tower Society, they use that term all the time!

5B. False. You are now grasping at straws.

5C. Your reply is a massive straw man. You compellingly posted false information as solid fact, you did not correct it, you tried to make others look ignorant or stupid, you only claimed the weak excuse of "a mistake" when you were exposed for lying. Now you are trying to cover it all up, which just makes your motives look even worse.

5D. False, you know well they are one publication, and they are all in bound volumes. There are 122 publications listed on the Watch Tower CD, under their "Publication symbols". As you know, the Watchtower magazine is just one magazine publication, of many issues and volumes, that is why it has one publication code. Each issue is not a new publication; it's a new issue of the same publication, that being the Watchtower magazine. You are not fooling anyone Matthew; you are just digging a bigger hole in an attempt to cover up your false claims presented as well founded facts.

5E. You said: "I made the mistake of ambiguity once" LOL. Always an excuse with Jehovah's Witnesses, You were never 'ambiguous'! You go on: "I made an outright mistake of saying 'Every' when I should have said 'all but 1'." Matthew it's called a lie not a "mistake", your mistake was lying three times in one post; you shouted it three times as "EVERY", you knew exactly what you were claiming and why you were shouting it. You are still lying now, with "all but 1", you were clearly given a list of several publications that are not on the CD, so why are you making up more fraudulent claims of "all but 1"? Do many lies = one truth to you in your mind?

Duffer said: "I have responded to EVERY issue you have set before me either here or on my own discussion page." Is this lie number what—12, 15, or 20? Who knows! Why can't you grasp reality? If you care to look at your page, you have not answered any of my post from my last post on "00:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)", and your reply above is "Duffer 07:53, 7 January 2006 (UTC)" Is the word "EVERY" one of your favourite words? You seem to use it without a care in the world to applying it to something that it actually matches reality. You will now I'm sure just claim again, "it was a mistake, not a lie". I suggest you learn to get your facts and research together before you post false statements so quickly. You cannot keep hiding your fraudulent claims with dubious semantics like "a mistake" each and every time you get caught out. The fact that you keep doing this demonstrates your deliberate attempts to deceive and manipulate readers and posters. You sound like that JW Retcon|missionary, when he was caught compulsively lying, and all he did was blame others and make endless excuses.

Is this how the Governing Body teaches you JWs to behave? Make blatantly false statements to defend the organization, hope they stick, and then get all upset when someone exposes them? Then deceive again and say, "it was a mistake" and then attack the one exposing it as being pedantic or harassing you? LOL. Your last statement gave me a good laugh: "Your continued and growing hostility towards me is rapidly becoming harassment." I will translate that into reality: "Central, Your continued and growing exposing of me and my machinations is rapidly becoming humiliating, please leave me alone to post deceitful false statements and to and manipulate the public in peace, if you do not, I will make up some bogus reason to try and get back at you out of malicious revenge."

Duffer, some kindly advice: Do your homework before you make a claim, or start an edit war. If you are not sure, say "I'm not sure, can someone clarify this subject", don't just post whatever comes into your head and then argue like your life depends on it, and then get all upset when you end up with egg on your face, and need your friend Cobaltbluetony to come to your rescue (and he always fails). If you did your research before you got involved, you would gain more respect and stop wasting posters time in having to show up your often ludicrous, so-called statements of "fact". If you researched before you post you would also stop the distinct growing impression that many Jehovah's Witnesses (or at least the majority who post here) are ignorant peasants, that have an extremely limited one sided and uniformed view of their own religion's doctrines, practises and background. Here is a classic of yours to leave you with "I lied about: 'at no time have we taught..', I should have verified before posting"—Duffer 10:10, 24 December 2005 (UTC). Duffer please think before you write, you have also made some totally incorrect posts on blood recently, when will you get it? Get your facts correct first! Central 12:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Central: I hate to quote myself, but I feel I must. "If your interpretations are truly beneficial, they should inspire you to build up instead of tear down." To this I add, if your intentions were at least 50% noble, if there were any spiritual value to any argument of yours, you would know when and why to desist. I like to see you rant and rave, albeit at the expense of my young friend here, because you are only proving without a doubt who and what you really are, and exactly the opposite of who and what you unconvincingly claim you are. Every snide comment, every minute point you drag out [ad nauseum]], whether or not you gain any logical or technical victories by aiming to trip others up or misspeak (and call it lies if you can), your intentions become increasingly difficult to hide from those who aren't usually looking for it. But don't let me stop you. Please, speak your mind, and don't hold back. - CobaltBlueTony 03:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)