“We know it can be difficult to make a wise decision when there are various opinions and conflicting reports that the world provides, perhaps making it hard to know what to believe,” said Stephen Lett on jw.org. Boy, he sure got that right!

There have been adverse reactions to Covid vaccines. How common are they? One in a hundred or one in a million? How serious are they? Like stubbing your toe? Or like being struck by lightening? These are the questions that matter. You wouldn’t think it would be so hard to find answers to them, but it is. So Bethel tells what it knows, which is not everything, but it does fill in a lot of blanks.

They tell of those they find easiest to track—fellow Bethelites and special full-time servants—22,000 of the first and 44,000 of the second who have gone ahead with vaccination. Of the 66,000, four reported “severe adverse reactions that may be linked” to the vaccine. Those four are now all “stable and their conditions under control.”

These “statistics have been collected by our brothers, so we can trust these figures,” Lett says. And we can. It’s not a scientific study. It’s data. As data, it may be better than a scientific study. Alas, “follow the science” has become a joke these days, with everyone spinning it their preferred way and calling it “the science.” We have all learned from experience that if one study doesn’t go our way, just hold out for the next one that may.

Four out of 66,000 works out to .006%. I wouldn’t want to be that in that .006% but it seems pretty unlikely I would be. How much comfort I would take in my condition being “stable and under control” would depend upon just what that condition was. But doesn’t it roughly correspond to the odds of being struck by lightning or going down in a plane crash? In a world of 8 billion people you can find countless examples of anything. 

At Bethel they are Bible-only people, and they are chomping at the bit to get back to their sole reason for being. Their special mandate is to prepare and distribute the spiritual food. Covid-19 just gets in their way. Take the vaccine and be done with it, seems their position. They can look around themselves and see people are not dropping dead once they take it. Might it cause long-term problems down the road? Well, so will Armageddon if left unannounced, so they don’t dare unannounce it. Bro Lett concludes with the line, using gestures peculiarly his, “The coronavirus is not the worst trial to strike out at all mankind and it won’t be the last. We can expect things to deteriorate even further as these last days march on till their end.”

In this eighth Governing Body update since Covid-19 began, he also relates some disaster relief efforts and introduces the next year’s text: “Those seeking Jehovah will lack nothing good.” (Ps 34:10) They are putting the pandemic behind them. Were lockdowns the answer and had the world followed their lead, Covid-19 would be a distant memory by now, since they locked down almost immediately. Been there, done that, they say of lockdown, it’s time to move on. They invite everyone to “get behind” them, which led one bro to say, “get behind them in what?” Take the vaccine is the first interpretation that comes to mind.

I admit this has not gone down the way I thought it would—you can’t always get your way. Several months ago, it was ‘vaccination is a health care matter and we do not presume to choose for others on such things.’ Later the statement was made that Witnesses were not anti-vaccine, apparently to counter the impression of some that they were, and it was pointed out some at Bethel have chosen to accept the vaccine. Then that “some” turned out to be just about everyone—99% in the U.S! It’s ‘pedal to the metal’ time there. You are not allowed to do stuff without the vaccine. You are allowed to do stuff with it. So they take it and move on. If it hasn’t gone down the way I thought it would, it has gone down in a way to get things done, so maybe I should have figured it. 

Now, the trouble with all this, if there is one, is that you may suspect the Bethel brothers haven’t looked deeply into what’s cautionary of the vaccine. It is a downside of being single-minded. Do you suspect they just monitor media that ardently cheers the one hand and does all in its power to proclaim Tevye-like that “there IS no other hand”—which satisfies them because they want to get back to serious work?

If there’s one thing Witnesses are convinced of, it’s that this whole system of things is going down. Whoever looks aside from the plow is not well-suited for the kingdom of God—you know they’re not going to forget that Luke 9:62 verse. If one set of scoundrels isn’t driving the whole world into this ditch, then another set is driving it into that ditch. Who cares about winning a shoving match with Big Pharma or the conniving globalists? Losing out to the “normal” ungodly state of things is just as bad, and that’s what the pharma and globalist enemies want to get back to.

Of course, Bethel will never tell people to get vaccinated. They will not forget that “we are fellow workers for your joy” and not “masters over your faith.” (2 Corinthians 1:24) They will remember well: “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls.” But they will lead by example, and this they are doing.

Maybe it’s because I hang out online a lot that I have come across a lot of friends aghast that the organization would so quickly embrace the Covid vaccine. Some of these friends are not listening to “the voice of strangers,” but they have vetted those strangers to separate the relative sheep from goats. They know, or at least they think they know, that Covid 19 responds readily to early treatment with mostly cheap (though increasingly hard-to-get) drugs). They cheer when the Nebraska Attorney General kicks back at the “official” storyline. The doctor who wrote the White House with the medical regimen that quickly cured Trump thinks there will one day be the equivalent of Nuremberg trials for those who let hundreds of thousands die by discrediting and even withholding treatment of an eminently treatable disease.

Moreover, their concern on vaccines is for long-term safety. Short term safety appears okay, per the Bethel stats, but on the long term these “hesitant” ones are dubious. They’re not moved by official promises of safety. They know that Vioxx was perfectly “safe” until the day it was pulled from the market to reveal a phalanx of Pharma lawyers empowered to beat away all its injured customers. They know the new vaccines are not like the old vaccines that when you took them it meant you didn’t get the disease. They don’t think they’re safe.

Some of these hesitant ones feel arm-twisted. Bethel explicitly says no one should be made to feel arm-twisted, but they feel it nonetheless. It is simply the nature of peer-pressure. One local bro reminds all at the meeting how we ought submit to government mandates, apparently misunderstanding that there are no government mandates in the US at present, but only a mandate that certain employers fire those unvaxxed. Feel strongly enough about the issue to walk away from your job and you have violated no mandate. Another speaks of how “our loyalty and obedience really allows us to get back together,” implying that those not onboard are disloyal and disobedient.

Relax. Not to worry. The game is the same, its just up on another level. If the concern is one of safety, a whole different set of Bible principles come into play. Nobody would dispute that Jehovah’s Witnesses are among the most safety-conscious in the world. And with safety principles on the front burner, even ‘obey the superior authorities’ principles begins to fade. Madame Moaaga pointedly did not obey the secular authority when she convinced herself that obedience to them would cause her harm.

These things happen. It’s human nature. Nothing to get all excited about. Indeed, if meetings should open with vax requirements and without a Zoom option , or even if there is a Zoom option, just how far will people go in sticking to their conscientious guns? It is a question some are asking of themselves.

As much as we are concerned about safety these days, what if someone does research and concludes they can best stay safe by relying upon distancing and other preventative measures? Stand your ground, if you think best, but be respectful standing it. That way you become an informed voice on something that is not the specialty of the Bethel brothers. So long as you do not get strident over it, who knows? In the event you are on to something, maybe they will one day take some pointers from you. In the event you are not, maybe you will take some pointers from them.

“Get behind the Governing Body” the bro said in Update #7, but get behind them in what? How about get behind them in remaining undistracted from the main mission? Don’t let it become our new cause, for we already have one. That is something everyone can agree on, and it doesn’t call for any decision as to vaccination. Through Zoom, informal, letters, phone & other non-contact means, many have proven to themselves that they can yet have a meaningful share in the ministry regardless of vaccination status. Research the matter all you want, for those so inclined, in case you’re cursed with being one of those high-information people who has to know everything about everything, but don’t become emotionally divided. You don’t want to be distracted from the good news.

See: To Jab or Not to Jab: Part 1

Edit: I’m going to append all future Covid-19 posts to this one, in effect making one super-long one. No matter how controversial the topic becomes, no matter how strong opinions get, it is not the issue, from Jehovah’s Witnesses point of view. As Brother Lett stated, Covid-19 is not the last crisis to be faced as this system of things marches on to its final end. So in addition to other posts in this category—this will now be the featured post—here they are:

Here in the US, the new gold standard of ‘sleever’ information has become an almost 3 hour interval with podcaster Joe Rogan and Dr. Peter McCullough. 

For background, Joe came down with Covid, took the medications that supposedly don’t work, and promptly got better. He has since become very vocal about it.

Peter McCullough is a cardiologist. He has hundreds of articles published in medical journals. Since the early days of the pandemic he has cleared his decks to focus on the worldwide response to it.

The interview is here:

https://covidvaccinesideeffects.com/joe-rogan-interview-with-dr-peter-mccullough-video-full-episode/

Of course, it has been removed as ‘misinformation’ by the major social media sites. However, rebuttals to it are posted, such as this hour long interview at Facebook by Dr. Zubin Damaria, who goes by the handle ZDogg.

https://zdoggmd.com/peter-mccullough/

I think it’s good to post both. Let people sort them out as they will.

We moved so quickly (and for obvious theocratically practical motive) from: “Vaccine is a personal choice and we do not presume to make health decisions for others” to “Follow the Bethel lead and get vaccinated” that it is a challenge to adjust. Deep deep deep down in my gut I hope that the brothers are not so immersed in preaching & Bible matters that they simply acquiesce to the mainstream’s word on COVID without further inquiry.

’You’re not following the direction of the Governing Body’ one of my wife’s close friends said to her (nonconfrontationally—we have not had any confrontations). ‘Well, I guess we aren’t,’ I told her, and I am not particularly comfortable with that. However, I could counter (though I haven’t as of yet) that if I really was into not following direction, I would buttonhole every Witness I know and implore them to get more familiar with what goes on behind the scenes of the COVID 10 campaign.….

Within days of the McCullough interview, Joe Rogan did another with Dr. Robert Malone, arguably the inventor of the mRNA technology used in Covid vaccines, He has since turned very cautious regarding them:

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/joe-rogan-robert-malone-interview-covid-vaccine/

And, as with the McCullough interview, a rebuttal:

https://factcheck.afp.com/http%253A%252F%252Fdoc.afp.com%252F9V36YN-1

…

I was amazed that this ‘gem’ should somehow slip through at Newsweek:

“As a healthy 36-year-old woman, COVID-19 does not pose a statistically meaningful threat to my life. I have a 99.97 percent chance of survival. Why would I get a vaccine for a virus that I do not fear and that isn't a threat to my life—particularly when there is an element of risk from the vaccines?”

https://www.newsweek.com/why-im-not-vaccinated-opinion-1648024

For young children, the risk of death from COVID is statistically zero. You would never know it from the insistence of those holding the upper hand that they must be vaccinated as an emergency measure.

Here’s one of a daughter who had to sue the hospital to treat her father on his deathbed with the treatment that they had refused: 

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/health/dying-covid-19-patient-recovers-after-court-orders-ivermectin-treatment

The judge had ruled that since the man was on his deathbed, what could be the harm of a ‘risky’ drug? The man recovered so quickly that I could almost envision hospital chiefs wanting to apply a John 12:11 to him.

The chief priests now conspired to kill Lazʹa·rus also,  since it was because of him that many of the Jews were going there and putting faith in Jesus

If you want people to get vaccinated, said Sen. Ryan Paul, why don’t you try honesty? Instead, there is so much deceit at so many levels, and I don’t know how the prevailing powers manage that there never be heard a discouraging word for as long as they have, nor if their version can continue to prevail.

….

McCullough spoke of the ‘absolute’ advantage of the vaccine vs the ‘relative’ advantage. The relative advantage is quite high. That is, the vaccine offers significant protection as opposed to doing nothing at all. This is the protection that media fixates on.

Absolute protection compares the vaccine with taking other measures to protect oneself. These include the masking & distancing, but primarily it is fortifying oneself with substances that make catching the illness unlikely—the ingredients—ivermectin—is among them, that front line doctors testified before Congress that they took in treating thousands of Covid patients that did indeed fully protect them. 

The ‘absolute’ advantage of the vaccine is quite low, he said. It is a percentage point or two, probably not worth the risk of taking it.….….

***

The following is a beaut, not primarily because of anything it sayo on climate change, but because of what it tells of ‘fact-checking’ sites.

Facebook was sued for its fact-checking. Their defense? They can’t be sued, for it is just opinion, and opinion is protected speech.

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/facebook-admits-fact-checks-pure-opinion/

****

Someone spoke of

Working doctors who speak out are targeted. Such as FBI raiding your consulting rooms and taking all patient records to determine if and when you prescribed ivermectin etc. 

I didn’t know this. It certainly isn’t everywhere, but it is consistent. In NY, the attorney general has sent threatening letters to out of state pharmacies filling ivermectin prescriptions for NY residents.

I can’t see how this can do anything but escalate. It’s a little like Abraham Lincoln’s recognition (“I’m not smart enough to lie.”) that once you lie you have to keep on lying to cover yourself. Can you imagine if it ever became more that ‘conspiracy theory’ that hundreds of thousands died unnecessarily—that most could have been saved by early treatment with cheap drugs that were withheld? Do you think relatives of those victims would let bygones be bygones? 

The whole facade would come down, with massive, not just civil litigation but with criminal prosecution.

It is something how so many times in history have villains gone down by turning on each other. 

“I will call for a sword against him on all my mountains,’ declares the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. ‘Every man’s sword will be against his own brother” (Ezekiel 38:21)

Can foreglimmerings not be seen today?

***

1/14/22. Pfizer, Moderna Sue Human Immune System For Patent Infringement, reports the Babylon Bee.

It is satirical, but my very own personal conspiracy theory is that these snakes have come to view the human immune system as ‘competition’ and would like to—ever so slowly so as not to overly attract attention—replace it. It would be not just for profit, though it will be very profitable for them (Prizer stock was up 59% in 2021) but I think it is also hubris—those who worship science thinking they can do anything. The human immune system is great, they say, but it doesn’t stop all illness. They aim to remedy that little problem with their science—whereas anyone with a good dose of godly fear and common sense knows that ‘you don’t mess with the laws of nature.’ 

Zdogg, the establishment doctor, in his snarky rebuttal of Rogan/McCullough (After back-to-back Joe Rogan grand slam interviews, one with Dr. Peter McCullough and one with Dr. Robert Malone, there is intense lobbying effort to get him kicked off Spotify) seriously floats the idea that he is in awe of the magnificent human immune system. That’s why he loves these new mRNA vaccines that train it to do what it has to do!

I never did get around to saying what I thought of his patronizing twaddle and it’s about time I did. You want to choke him. He points to McCullough’s supposed ‘logic fallacies’ as he commits his own that are twice as bad. I already posted this guy but here he is again:

https://zdoggmd.com/peter-mccullough/

Commenting on how Dr McCullough was not swayed by the establishment hit pieces against Ivermectin, he points to how the objection to one was ‘it wasn’t given soon enough’ and his objection to another ‘it wasn’t given in combination with the other substances we all use’ and then complained: “It never ends!” Isn’t a trail of two a little early to say ‘it never ends?’ Of course, the history of the front-line doctors taking the stuff and remaining untouched by Covid in the course of treating thousands of patients—and testifying to this before Congress—is not something he mentions.

And then—this is just a classic with these ‘critical thinking’ champions who assume they have a monopoly on the stuff—he admits that he has a bias. He is pro-vaccine. There. He said it. And then carries on as though this makes him a hero, as though it never occurred to anyone else that they too had a starting position! You notice how @JW Insiderand @Araunahave been squabbling forever over how we should view the CCP and they do no more than to reach stalemate? I have the answer. All one or the other must do is say, “I admit I have a bias.” Instantly that one becomes a hero and his/her adversary is manipulative Hitler.

He patronizes us all lecturing about ‘causation vs correlation’ as if no one other than he has ever thought of such a thing—whereas they (the doctors he is attacking) all have. There is also abundant ‘guilt by association.’ And if you say something like “it happens all the time” he dismisses the entire point since it doesn’t happen ALL the time.

If he wasn’t taking out a greater enemy (this is also true with the rebuttals of Malone), I almost think tech media would seek to ban him as well, for he acknowledges McCullough is an expert and further skewers several sacred cows, asserting that the government has frequently lied, even naming Fauci himself, and stipulating the mandate policy is ridiculous.

And then he dismisses (Rogan told McCullough, who hadn’t heard, about this) the tech fellow who has offered $1 million to anything who will live-debate Covid with him but can’t find any takers with the criticism that Steve Kersh (I went back to find his name) ‘is a fellow with success in the search engine field who now thinks he knows everything’ and ‘talks a mile a minute’ and has ‘quick command of all the medical studies’ and ‘nobody can possibly keep up with that.’ So it is a crime to be on top of your game? Why can’t he find someone on his side that is on top of hisgame? Find someone who also  is in-your-face (it is not as though the world suffers for lack of pugnacious people) who also has quick command of papers and research, and who can say, ‘Hold on! What is wrong with this paper is….’  Instead of just saying ‘nobody can keep up with that!’ 

It’s what the anti-cultists do.  If you represent your cause well they present that as a liability. Would they not side with the scribes against Jesus at Matthrew 7:28?  “When Jesus finished these sayings, the effect was that the crowds were astounded at his way of teaching, for he was teaching them as a person having authority, and not as their scribes.”

‘That’s because they were listening to a manipulative cult leader,’ they would say. ‘Nobody can keep up with that stuff.’

***

“We jokingly said we would wait first to see how many died from it.”

Quite a few apparently. That doesn’t mean it is blatantly obvious. If you doubled the death rate of a specific illness, would that be immediately obvious to you? Probably not.

Life insurance companies are now facing a massive unattributable increase of non-Covid death increases of millennial and younger persons of heart/clotting related issues—a sudden 40% spike was the last figure I heard. Since it can’t be attributed to anything else, by default some begin to mention the vaccine. 

 

“When I talked to my pharmacologist friend who was involved with the vaccine, and I asked her if the vaccines were safe, she said as safe as any other drug we might take,”

If the above findings are so, she is wrong. Moreover, the bugaboo with the vaccine is that it violates the Hippocratic oath: ‘First of all, do no harm.” Beyond all question, it does do harm to a relatively tiny group of people who formerly were not sick at all. That is the difference between it and the other medicines you speak of. In the case of the latter, the person is sick and must make the decision whether the benefits of a given medicine will outweigh the risks. In the case of the former, the person is not sick and may feel he/she never will be if he takes precautions that pose no danger in themselves.

 

“this was an unprecedented, extremely contagious and dangerous virus affecting the whole world.”

Far less so than is still constantly stated. For healthy adults it carries a 99% survival rate. The vulnerability of small children is almost zero. Moreover, the illness readily responds to treatment—it is anything but the “kiss of death’ that the mainline authorities made it out to be. Everything possible was done and is still being done to obscure this fact. 

Unless one is elderly or has ‘co-morbitities’ one is not especially at risk even if they catch covid. As to advanced age: historically society has not inflicted risk upon the young to protect the elderly. Rather they seek to protect the elderly without risking the young, by increased quarantine measures upon them, for example, as the need arises. As to co-morbidities, a great many of these stem from unhealthy lifestyles, so to vaccinate so as to shield this group in effect is wanting those who deliberately make healthy choices to subsidize those who deliberately do not, or at least subsidize the business concerns that promote unhealthy choices.

Then there was the revelation a few months back that ‘Covid hospitatlizions’ did not necessarily mean that people were in the hospital because of Covid, but only, once there, were tested and found to have Covid. What possible reason could there be for this obvious miscommunication other than an attempt to pump up the numbers?

The reason so many were not in a hurry to comply is that they weren’t born yesterday. They were suspicious that a vaccine could be developed at ‘warp-speed’ since all previous vaccines had taken years to be approved. Even more so because the technology was radically new. The covid vaccine does not work like any previous vaccine that exposes the body to an inert sample of a disease so the body will ramp up a defense. Instead, it retrains the body to manufacture a defense against a pathogen it has never encountered. Many put no faith that human science would get that right on the first try, if at all.

Those resistant knew that Pharma is absolutely not to be trusted, that it has a long track record of insisting a product is safe when they know better, insisting it right up to the second the product is ruled unsafe, and they lawyering up to beat back the onslaught of lawsuits. Note the horrendous things that medical experts said about them in the aftermath of Vioxx:

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2007/11/vioxx-the-athei.html

Making the rat smell ten-times worse is that in the case of any vaccine they have negotiated immunity for themselves. They have no need to lawyer up. Get injured with a vaccine? It’s on you. There is no redress. For various reasons the VAERS system, supposedly put in place to remedy these wrongs, does not. Have you ever heard of a lawyer going after a vaccine case, even from VAERS. They will go after other government agencies—SSI lawsuits are a burgeoning legal industries these days—but they have not heretofore thought it profitable to tackle the vaccine industry.

 

“There was no information about possible long term complications because.... well it's self explanatory....because not enough time had elapsed. They simply didn’t know.”

This did not stop them from and has still not stopped them from insisting the product was safe. In fact, though buried for the longest time, it is now revealed that the most widely used vax initially failed its safety data. The CDC director acknowledged being misled by Pharma. Then there was that bizarre request to keep safety data hidden for 75 years. What could possibly account for that other than widespread fraud? the suspicious people said. Subsequent events have shown they were right to be suspicious. 

Arauna previously cited a former hedge fund manager from Blackrock. It is he who first drew attention the the 40% spike in non-covid deaths. He says he has lived through three Wall Street debacles, the ‘dot-com’ bubble of 2000, the ‘people will never default on a mortgage/house prices will never fall’ bubble of 2007, and the ‘trust the science’ [his label] bubble of today. Wall Street is now figuring it out, he says, adding that ‘these people are caught, they know they’re caught, and so they do what all fraudsters do when they know they’re caught: they “triple down.”

 

“The information is out there,”

It depends upon what you mean by ‘out there.’ If you mean whatever would advance the cause of mass vaccination, yes, that is out there almost no matter where you look. But if you mean the factors such as been outlined above, these are largely scrubbed from social and news media. The relatively small channels of independent websites and small coalitions of professionals that cannot be snuffed out are thereby labeled anti-vax conspiracy theorists in hope of discrediting them. 

You have to follow some of these persons, subscribe to their email lists, to become aware of anything that is not pro-vaccine. If you do, you will find they routinely cite highly credible sources, medical and scientific experts, even government agencies themselves. To my mind, their offerings are far more persuasive than that of the ‘fact-checkers’ employed to ‘disprove’ them.

 

“I would presume that by now there would be recommendations against it”

One would think so. The fact that there are not in the face of the above highly-discoverable facts defies all logic. With that we enter “Arauna territory” of attempting to assign motives or intended outcomes. This is far harder to do, but is done because the ‘facts on the ground’ make no sense. Trying to make sense of them, people veer into what would be called ‘conspiracy theory.’ I do not know if Arauna is right about some of the dire statements she makes. But nothing she says strikes me as so implausible it should be ruled off the table.

 

“Instead, the recommendation now is to get a booster once a year as we learn to live with the virus.”

This could have been done from the very beginning, the hesitant ones have maintained. ‘Learn to live with the virus’ as humanity has learned to live with hundreds of diseases in the past. The fact that it was not done, that the world was and is still being turned upside down in a futile attempt to eradicate a treatable disease, creating enormous social and economic upheaval, puts enough wind in Arauna’s sails, and the millions like her, to blow her to Mars and back a dozen times on any given afternoon.  

***10/2022:

And it remains to be seen how many conspiracy theories over the mRNA vaccines will be validated. Many assertions that would once get you banned from Twitter are now being admitted by official sources, such as this recent admission of Pharma execs that they didn’t actually have time to see if their product to stop transmission of the virus since they were traveling “at the speed of science.”

“Do you know why I stopped you, sir?” “Not exactly, officer. All I know is that I was traveling at the speed of science.”

***

“[Drugmakers] Sue Human Immune System For Patent Infringement,” reported the Babylon Bee on January 14, 2022.

It is satirical headline from a satirical source. Still, one nifty conspiracy theory is that some in this industry have come to view the human immune system as ‘competition’ and would like to—ever so slowly so as not to overly attract attention—replace it. It would be not just for profit, though it will be very profitable, but also hubris—those who worship science thinking they can do anything. The human immune system is great, they say, but it doesn’t stop all illness. They aim to remedy that problem with their science—whereas anyone with a good dose of godly fear and common sense knows that ‘you don’t mess with the laws of nature.’ 

Zdogg is the establishment doctor. In his snarky rebuttal of Rogan/McCullough (After back-to-back Joe Rogan grand slam interviews, one with Dr. Peter McCullough and one with Dr. Robert Malone, and the intense lobbying effort to get him kicked off Spotify as a consequence) he seriously floats the idea that he is in awe of the magnificent human immune system. That’s why he loves these new mRNA vaccines that train it to do what it has to do! Awesome as it is, it doesn’t know how to do it’s main mission?

I never did get around to saying what I thought of his patronizing twaddle and it’s about time I did. You want to choke him. He points to McCullough’s supposed ‘logic fallacies’ as he commits his own that are twice as bad. I already posted this guy but here he is again:

Commenting on how Dr McCullough was not swayed by the establishment hit pieces against Ivermectin, he points to how the objection to one was, ‘It wasn’t given soon enough’ and his objection to another, ‘It wasn’t given in combination with the other substances we all use,’ and then complained: “It never ends!” Isn’t a trail of two a little early to say ‘it never ends?’ Of course, the history of the front-line doctors taking the stuff and remaining untouched by Covid in the course of treating thousands of patients—and testifying to this before Congress—is not something he mentions.

And then—this is just a classic with these ‘critical thinking’ champions who take it for granted that they have a monopoly on the stuff—he admits that he has a bias. He is pro-vaccine. There. He said it. And then carries on as though this makes him a hero, as though it never occurred to anyone else that they too had a starting position! All you have to do these days is admit you have a bias. Instantly you become a hero and your adversary a manipulative Hitler.

He patronizes all lecturing about ‘causation vs correlation’ as if no one other than he has ever thought of such a thing—whereas they (the doctors he is attacking) all have thought of it. There is also abundant ‘guilt by association.’ And if you say something like “it happens all the time” he dismisses the entire point since it doesn’t happen ALL the time.

If he wasn’t taking out a greater enemy, I almost think tech media would have sought to ban him as well, for he acknowledges McCullough is an expert, and further went on to skewer several sacred cows, asserting that the government has frequently lied, even naming Fauci himself, and stipulating the mandate policy is ridiculous.

And then he dismisses (Rogan told McCullough, who hadn’t heard, about this) the tech fellow who has offered $1 million to anything who will live-debate Covid with him but can’t find any takers with the criticism that Steve Kersh [I went back to retrieve his name] ‘is a fellow with success in the search engine field who now thinks he knows everything’ and ‘talks a mile a minute’ and has ‘quick command of all the medical studies’ and ‘nobody can possibly keep up with that.’ So it is a crime to be on top of your game? Why can’t he find someone on his side that is on top of his game? Find someone who also  is in-your-face (it is not as though the world suffers for lack of pugnacious people) who also has quick command of papers and research, and who can say, ‘Hold on! What is wrong with this paper is….’  Instead of just saying ‘nobody can keep up with that!’ 

It’s what the anti-cultists do.  If you represent your cause well they present that as a liability. Would they not side with the scribes against Jesus at Matthrew 7:28?  “When Jesus finished these sayings, the effect was that the crowds were astounded at his way of teaching, for he was teaching them as a person having authority, and not as their scribes.”

‘That’s because they were listening to a manipulative cult leader,’ they would say. ‘Nobody can keep up with that stuff.’

******  The bookstore

Public Talk today: “Jehovah is a Secure Height for this People”…“We’re living in the midst of an unpredicted an unpredictable pandemic,” the speaker says as part of his intro.

This is the talk that considers Psalm 94 verse by verse. “O god of vengeance shine forth, repay to the haughty what they deserve,” (vs 2) and there is a reference to a particular atrocity in Russia—they all get play on jw.org, where they are picked up by others. None are done in a corner.

“How long will the wicked, O Jehovah, How long will the wicked continue to exult? They babble and speak arrogantly…They crush your people, O Jehovah, And oppress your inheritance. …They say: “Jah does not see; The God of Jacob does not take notice of it.” (3-7)

“The One who made the ear, can he not hear? The One who formed the eye, can he not see? The One correcting the nations, can he not reprove? He is the One who imparts knowledge to people! Jehovah knows the thoughts of men, That they are but a mere breath. (9-11)

“For Jehovah will not forsake his people, Nor will he abandon his inheritance.  For judgment will once again be righteous, And all the upright in heart will follow it.” (14-15)

“When I said: ‘My foot is slipping,’ Your loyal love, O Jehovah, kept supporting me. When anxieties overwhelmed me, You comforted and soothed me.” (18-19) “The point is that Jehovah’s greater than our hearts,” the speaker says.

“Can a throne of corruption be allied with you while it is framing trouble in the name of the law? They make vicious attacks on the righteous one…..But Jehovah will become a secure refuge for me, My God … will make their wicked deeds come back upon them. (21-23)

Today’s #WatchtowerStudy: “Strengthen Your Faith in the Creator”….Theme scripture: “Faith is . . . the evident demonstration of realities that are not seen.”​

Para 3: “….To help us, this article will discuss (1) why many do not believe in a Creator, (2) how you can build your faith in Jehovah, your Creator, and (3) how you can keep that faith strong.”

Para 4: “Some people think that having faith means believing in something without proof. But according to the Bible, that is not real faith.”(Read Hebrews 11:1 ….. [but] is based on convincing evidence. (Heb. 11:3) What convinces one may not convince another. Don’t worry about it.

With but some prep, you can turn that parade of ascending thugs around and march them right back into the slime from which they came—or even another slime.

Para 7: We live in a world of division, where the majority team gets the ball and tries to run the opposition off the road, as though it did not exist. Examine the opp, though, and you may come to think it makes more sense. Such can be said of creation.

Para 11 It is such a good series, ‘Was it designed?’ …Just try examining the intricate feats and behaviors of living things and insist they came about haphazardly. Just try it….https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/science/was-it-designed/

I love this statement from https://www.jw.org/en/library/books/origin-of-life-5-questions/  “Similarly, if scientists ever did construct a cell, they would accomplish something truly amazing —but would they prove that the cell could be made by accident? If anything, they would prove the very opposite, would they not?

Joe contrasts the wisdom of created things with gadgets he has purchased. ‘What kind of an idiot would design this?’ he says….then adds, ‘and what kind of an idiot would purchase it.’

Para 20: “At that time Jesus said in response: “I publicly praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to young children.” Just how does he do that?

Joshua 10-11, the assigned Bible passage for this week’s #midweek meeting.

Great hailstones from the sky, each like a huge spike virus….“In fact, more died from the hail than from the sword of the Israelites.” Jos 10:11.  Well, THAT part is true.

Hmm. “Or he can let the movement of the earth and the moon remain undisturbed while refracting the rays from the sun and the moon in such a way that the light from these two luminaries continues to shine.” Hadn’t thought of that. (Jos 10:13)

What is this Book of Jashar that nobody needs to know about? ….“the Book of the Upright or the Book of the Just Man,” per the literal meaning, says Wikipedia. A collection of writings of the time.

“There has never been a day like that one, either before it or after it, when Jehovah listened to the voice of a man, for Jehovah was fighting for Israel.” Jos 10:14. The student from Myanmar drew this reading & conveyed real urgency & nailed all the unpronouncible words.

Huh. Once again, “she mentioned to her roommate how she had tried to invite her student…” It’s not her roommate, it’s her Mom. But I’ve heard others say roommate, too. Could I be wrong? #IDontThinkSo [Alas, I am]

“Those seeking Jehovah will lack nothing good.” Psalm 34:10…As a year text, I like it.

“The coronavirus is not the worst trial to strike out at all mankind and it wont be the last. We can expect things to deterioute even further as these last days march on till their end,” says Bro Lett.

“The circuit overseer sometimes gives strong counsel to the elders” as he leaves, said one sis. It reminds me of long ago when Andy left & I said is this like that meeting when weeping breaks out because they will see his face no more? (Acts 20:38) …1/2

“Well, if any tears are shed,” he said, “it won’t be for that reason.”…2/2

“What is mortal man that you keep him in mind?” the psalm says. “You made him a little lower than godlike ones [angels]” Psalm 8:5

The fallen angel from John Milton’s 1667 poem, Paradise Lost, plots revenge with his fellow fallees. All of them are smarting at being cast out of heaven. He tells of a rumored secondary creation of God, only “somewhat inferior” to themselves, only a little lower. ‘Maybe we can sabotage them,’ he suggests at the supernatural counsil. It’s pure revenge. What better to get back at the God who cannot be outpowered? That new human creation God says will be made in his image, so that when he looks at them he sees himself? Maybe it can be made into Satan’s mutinous image instead.

Does the Bible state the Devil was already cast out from the heavens at this point and was thereby plotting his revenge? Or was it his ruining the human race that caused his ousting? The Book doesn’t rule out the first, through it doesn’t specifically say it either. Since it doesn’t specifically say it, Watchtower publications play it safe. They confine themselves to what it does specifically say and indicate the ousting came after the fall in Eden. John Milton, however, speculates that Satan, chief of the outcasts, had been outcast for some time. Their rebellion against God, and punishment, was a done deal prior to Adam’s creation.

In Paradise Lost, Satan’s scheme to ruin Jehovah’s newest creation wins wide approval with the debased horde. They have nothing much up their sleeve anyway. One of the more warlike fallen angels bearing the name of a warlike deity wants to counterattack and fight till the probable death; anything is better than the place of torment they have been banished to. One of the more timid fallen angels suggests that they should just do nothing, for if they fight further against God maybe their punishment will be even more severe. Nobody thinks they can defeat God. His almighty status his accepted by all.

There’s plenty of speculation in Paradise Lost. If you’re going to dramatize Bible accounts, you have to do that to some extent; the Book is scarce with details in many a place. That’s why the ‘bad attitude’ kid in the new Daniel movie catches the apple from that hussy and his expression all but says, “Whoa—They don’t do that back home! I could get used to this!” while Daniel and loyal friends continue grim-faced in their resolute march. It’s filler. Make it consistent with the overall theme and you should be okay.

But can you do it to the extent Milton does? The Witness organization speaks favorably of John Milton. He is one of the “good guys.” He knows God’s intention was [and is] for a paradise earth. He also sees through the Trinity doctrine. He knows that when a person dies, the soul dies as well. He gets all this because he is a diligent student of the scriptures. I don’t see where his “filler,” massive though it is, is inconsistent with the overall Bible theme.

His portrayal of the snake talking to Eve resounds to me even better than ours. ‘Like a ventriloquist throwing his voice’ is how JW publications have put it. Well, okay, but don’t you think coming across a talking snake would really confound a person? Everything is new to Eve in those early days, so maybe she just takes it in stride, but even so… I like Milton’s account better—even if you can’t go beyond what is written.

Don’t worry, I won’t be starting a new sect over it. Exactly when rebellion began is not something you start a sect over. But I like it better that Satan ruins the first human pair as an act of revenge rather than a package of little premeditation. Yes, I’ve explained that James 1:14-15 passage of “being drawn out and enticed by his own desire,” [in Satan’s case, a desire for prominence, even worship]. “Then the desire, when it has become fertile, gives birth to sin; in turn sin, when it has been carried out, brings forth death.” It gets the job done. But there is not the prerequisite hatred in that explanation as there is in Milton’s poem, and the ruining of Adam and Eve seems such a hateful act.

Milton relates that in response to Eve’s surprise the snake attributes its speaking ability to eating from the tree of knowledge! Formerly, it was just a dumb snake. Now it can speak! And he dangles the prize before her that ‘If eating off that tree did this for me, just think of what it will do for you!’ No temptation could be more enticing.

He is a liar and the father of the lie. When he speaks the lie, he speaks according to his own disposition. (John 8:44) There is a lie right within his first question, a recent speaker pointed out. It is a lie calculated to engender discontent: “Did God really say that you must not eat from every tree of the garden?” so as to implant the idea of, “Wow, he won’t let you guys do anything!” It finds its counterpart today in those who carry on about what those in the faith won’t do, stretching it to convey that they can’t do anything, as though the guard rails of the highway are in reality a strait jacket to stifle human freedom.

Midweek Meeting: Assigned Bible reading: Joshua 8-9

Did that yo-yo bro really take from the Gideon account that it’s okay to lie to elders because maybe they won’t check with God and then it will be all okay? (Joshua 9:14)

The apple drops in Newton’s hand. It’s okay, the universal symbol that points to him. But it didn’t really happen. Word is that Isaac made up that story “to dispose of stupid persons.” (Yo, Isaac, how’d ya ever think of THAT?) 

Weekend Meeting, Public Talk title: Can Love Conquer Hatred? It is the CO talk. “Wouldn’t we expect a book from God to answer questions like that?” he says.

Genesis 1:27, let us make in our image, ability to love, peaceful, joyful, ‘when we look at them we should be able to see ourselves in them.’

Jesus to religious leaders of his day: “you are from your father the devil & wsh to do his desires, truth is not in him, speaks the lie according to his own disposition.” They look like their father, so there is a choice—who will we look like?

“You heard that it was said: ‘You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ (Matt 5:43) The first part was said at Lev 19:18, “you must love your fellow man as yourself.” The 2nd part is nowhere said in scripture, but became a traditional assumption, a human flip side of the first.

“However, I say to you: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you,” says Jesus. (Matt 5:44) It is an example of love conquering hatred, “gives them a chance to change.”

Matt 5:38. ‘Eye for eye, but I say do not resist the one who is wicked, but turn the other cheek,’ slap represents an insult, it is not a physical attack from which you should not defend

1 John 3:8, Jesus laying down life is beginning of his breaking up the works of the devil—the wrecking ball of love through the devils system of hatred, one swoop of ball does not eliminate structure, it has to go back and forth.

Those of religion who are “stalking God” of whom Jesus would say, “I do not know you.”…1/2

“Many will say to me in that day: ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them: ‘I never knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!’ (Matt 7:22-23) 2/2

Para 3: #watchtowerstudy Proverbs 13:11 applied to a new setting, that of spiritual wealth: “Wealth quickly gained will dwindle, but the wealth of the one who gathers it little by little will increase.” First use of it this way that I am aware of.

Para 4: ditto for Proverbs 4:18,  “the path of the righteous is like the bright morning light that grows brighter and brighter until full daylight.” Here applied to personal spiritual growth, not just organizational growth.

Mama of the Wt conductor, an LDC bro, just commented, visiting via Zoom from across the country. Now I know why this fellow is so on the ball.

Para 11: God telling Habakkuk (2:3) to hold his horses—it comes when it comes. …“For the vision is yet for its appointed time, And it is rushing toward its end, and it will not lie. Even if it should delay, keep in expectation of it! For it will without fail come true.”

Para 12: not emphasized here, but a bro recently linked endurance with preaching, e.g. “The one who has endured to the end will be saved,” AND “this good news of the kingdom will be preached…” Matt 24:13-14

And he will rise up to show you mercy. For Jehovah is a God of justice. Happy are all those keeping in expectation of him.

The CO in concluding remarks spoke of Isa 30:21, the voice behind you saying ‘this is the way, walk in it’ and how it was a singular you, not a broadcast YOU, and how it would stabilize one who ‘walked to the right or the left.’ And how people identify with what they do so when they cannot do what they “start to wonder, ‘what’s my value?’”

And how as a boy, he became seasick on a boat trip (and felt as horrible as he ever had in his life.) The captain noticed and told him to focus on the distant lighthouse and nothing else, “the one thing that does not change,” and when he did so, he began to feel better. He then applied that to older ones feeling upheaval in their lives. Focus on the one thing that does not change, the ‘voice saying this is the way.’

Some of the brothers were helping another move, loading and unloading a rented truck. Talk turned to Update 7, which has now itself been updated with #8. One bro was confused. ‘Get behind the Governing Body, he repeated the expression, but get behind them in what?’

I think they want you to get vaccinated, I said, and it was as though someone had finally mentioned the elephant in the room. Subsequently, everyone seemed to agree that had indeed been the thrust of it.

They’re going to have to say it if that’s what they want. The trouble with hoping people will read between the lines (if that is what is being done) is that to some “reading between the lines” is near synonymous with “going beyond what it written.” One bro said he would get vaccinated if they said he should, but only if they said it. Meanwhile, he was inclined to “trust his immune system.” They won’t be saying it, I don’t think. It consistently will remain a personal decision—and then are presented some Bible principles so you can make your personal decision, and the Bible principles cited lean pretty heavily toward taking the shot.

To be sure, what follows is an oversimplification, but a prime “religious objection” that some religious people have cited essentially boils down to “God don’t make no junk.” Isn’t the flip side of that argument to say that he does? Back in my day, if you got a vaccine, that meant you didn’t get the disease. That’s why we’ve long heard about how such-and-such a scourge has been eradicated by vaccines. Now they don’t eradicate them. Apparently, nobody any longer expects them to. They just tamp them down some and hopefully keep you out of the hospital. So many goalposts are being moved that one barely knows how to adapt. 

Medical definitions have adapted to accommodate these new realities. Mercola gives several examples of this in his heavily endnoted book, The Truth About Covid-19. Now, Mercola found himself kicked off social media platforms and harassed to such a degree that he removed much of his own content from his own website. Nonetheless, he has been a trusted name in our family for decades. He takes anything to the nth degree and you sometimes you say, “Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” but you usually say it for reasons of practicality, not because he is wrong. He does weigh in on matters in which the jury is still out, and sometimes you wonder whether that jury is being hogtied in the back room.

He points out that as late as June 2020, the WHO’s definition of ‘herd immunity’ was “the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.” In mid-November “they updated their website, erasing any notion that humans have immune systems that protect them against disease naturally.” (bolding mine) The revised understanding of herd immunity is “a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached.” No mention of previous infection here, as in the original definition.

Further, he quotes WHO that: “Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it.” This is followed by a commentary from the American Institute for Economic Research that “this change at WHO ignores and even wipes out 100 years of medical advances in virology, immunology, and epidemiology. It is throughly unscientific….What’s even stronger is the claim that a vaccine protects people from a virus rather than exposing them to it. What’s amazing about this claim is that a vaccine works precisely by firing up the immune system through exposure. There is simply no way for medical science completely to replace the human immune system.” (my bolds again)

I wouldn’t be surprised if [my opinion, not Mercola’s—though he probably says it somewhere] if the intent is revealed in that last statement: “replace the human immune system.” The natural one is not financially profitable. The replacement one will be. For this reason it becomes very important to discredit existing means of treating Covid-10 and advance the illusion that there is no treatment. Only if there is no treatment can emergency funding at taxpayer expense be allocated to the development and subsequent mandating of vaccines. Let the cat out of the bag that you can treat Covid effectively with existing and mostly cheap drugs and that impetus is gone.

So effective substances like ivermectin are relentlessly discredited. As a result, they are denied by pharmacies who won’t fill a prescription in many states even if you have one from your doctor. This, despite doctors testifying before Congress (which I have seen) as to how when they employed the drug in treatment, people got better. When they used it themselves as a preventative, they didn’t get sick in the course of treating thousands of patients. It being so hard to get now, people buy the animal variety, prompting the FDA to talk down (as agencies so frequently do) to people with “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously y’all, stop it.” It’s a little like mocking people for drinking polluted water because fresh water is not available.

The new vaccines are not like the old ones, which exposed you to the pathogen, sometimes deadened and sometime not. The new ones seek to train the body (through modification in the messenger RNA) to manufacture a defense against a virus it has never seen. It is an entirely new technology.

How is it working? Not all that well, it appears, at least not when compared to the shots that people have taken for the last 100 years. Israel is near 90% vaccinated and yet is still experiencing an epidemic of outbreaks. The old-tech shots, when you took them, meant that you didn’t get the disease. In this new model, people may still get the disease, they still pass it on, just hopefully not as severely. It takes awhile to adjust to this new normal.

Profits are an obvious reason that the pharmaceutical industry should seek to supplement (if not replace) the immune system. Doesn’t hubris also come into play? Those who “praise [God] because in an awe-inspiring way I am wonderfully made” are not so inclined to think human science can improve on his design. One the other hand, if you don’t believe in God at all, but put all your trust in human science—well, how hard can it be to improve on what is a haphazard evolutionary process to begin with? Beliefs have practical consequences.

The new vaccines even mess with an observation I’ve made about the “little bit of poison” analogy that we are so fond of with regard to apostates. Though the brothers reason this way, they actually do accept just a little bit of poison each time they take a vaccine—the idea is that it protects them should they later encounter the scourge full-grown in the wild. Avoiding such apostate exposure altogether is difficult in these times, and without a “vaccine” to it in the form of just a tiny bit of investigatory exposure for those so inclined, some of our people are shellacked when they unexpectedly encounter it.

Now it turns out that the above observation is invalid. The new vaccines are analogous to avoiding “even a little bit of the poison.” They do indeed seek to “protect people from the virus rather than exposing them to it.” That’s why medical dictionaries and WHO guidelines are being rewritten.

It’s also worth noting that they don’t work very well. And, as evidenced by the number of people we lose to apostasy, our present counsel to protect doesn’t work very well either. In theory it works great. In practice not so much.

Be that as it may, Jehovah’s earthly organization has a job to do, and they’re chomping at the bit to resume doing it. “The coronavirus is not the worst trial to strike out at all mankind and it wont be the last. We can expect things to deteriorate even further as these last days march on till their end,” says Bro Lett.

See: To Jab or Not to Jab: Part 2

The #publictalk for this morning: Christian Separateness from the World—Why Beneficial.

On politics, the speaker mentioned how Christians are “surrounded by persons who support a system they don’t respect” & whereas they endeavor to respect a system they don’t support.

Citing James 1:27, “Look after orphans and widows, and keep oneself without spot from world,” he spoke of ones spinning their wheels like car stuck in mud, & how close do you get?

Watchtower Study for Today: ‘Cherish Your Place in Jehovah’s Family’

Theme verse: “You made him a little lower than angels, and you crowned him with glory and splendor.”​—PS. 8:5,

“A little lower than the angels” (Ps 8:5) is how God made humans. Free will like them. How many will think humans closer to the animal kingdom than angels?

One sis comments on the 2nd portion of vs 5 (the one of ‘a little lower than the angels): “and you crowned him with glory and splendor” as a given, not something ones have to establish their own, for it is part of the package. They need only to live up to it.

On Para 5 (Made in God’s image) one bro commented on how when the teacher said his daughter “was kind to other children” it did more for him than if he had learned of straight A’s

Para 6: “He honored humans by giving them “dominion over” all his marvelous works on earth. (Ps. 8:6)”  I wonder if that’s why cruelty to an animal arouses such emotion, equal to or even above to a human? It so goes against our commission.

Para 7: one bro cites Prov 27:11–“Be wise, my son, and make my heart rejoice, So that I can make a reply to him who taunts me,” and is moved that humans have power to affect God’s feelings.

Para 10: “Jehovah gave his most precious Son so that we can once again become members of His family,” one sis commented on how at an adoption agency you similarly get to choose who will adopt.

It is a good investment of time, the Watchtower study. An hour of participatory discussion on how to live, with Bible principles underpinning all. For lack of knowing ‘how to live’ much misery stems

Para 14: “In brotherly love have tender affection for one another. In showing honor to one another, take the lead.” It kind of implies we should be trying to outdo one another in this area, one sis observes.

One bro cited that verse “In brotherly love have tender affection for one another. In showing honor to one another, take the lead.” (Romans 12:10) as what drew him into the faith, the observation of how people treated one another.

Para 16: On the power of good examples & bad examples, one bro (the speaker) recommends getting around that by simply focusing on Jesus’ example.

On Para 17: “Trust in Jehovah instead of in material things,” one bro comments on how having the dough to afford “many things” does not mean having the time to service them all. Cites the rich young ruler, holding many things, who turned down Jesus on that account.(mark 10:17-22)

#Midweek meeting Bible passage to consider: Joshua 6-7

As it turns out, we are Zooming in tonight from out of town—a very brief stop-off in Pittsburgh. Bummed that the aviary was closed—their eagle had escaped. ‘How does closing the aviary help?’ I asked an employee.  It allows them to be minimally staffed. Most of them are out searching for the eagle.

And lookee the sign we spotted on a sightseeing round. Look who spoke at Carnegie back in the day.Alas, the lighting isn’t so hot.

Jehovah wants to preserve the cleanness of the congregation, the speaker says, because Jehovah is a clean God, a holy God.

Grain found in Jericho, evidence that it’s siege was short? (Otherwise they would have eaten it) I didn’t know that.

First by tribe, then by family, then by household, and you know who is starting to sweat it. Joshua 7:!4

We’ve all been there so we all know where you’re coming from, says the chairman to the one who spoke of stubbing a toe for want of light in the corridor. Psalm 119:105

Be honest. How many of those study tips did you know on JWLibrary?

That is one sneaky looking Aiken with slimy conniving family to match.

‘Half of their sons were speaking Ashʹdod·ite and half spoke the language of the different peoples, but none of them knew how to speak the language of the Jews’ (Nehemiah 13:24) is not a great record, considering that they were all Jews