May I chime in?
I didn't read either thread - have been too busy this week to do so. But 'human decency' is a relative term isn't it? I don't know what was said, or implied there, but sometimes jokes are made that are not in good taste. This board is not an 'organization', in which each member conceals his/her view or opinion based on some universal code of ethics or standards. Free people sometimes are not moral people. That is a point in fact. I'm not saying that this board is filled with immoral thinkers - it isn't that in my opinion. But when you bring thousands of people together in one place, crass comments and insensitive viewpoints will be expressed at times.
The other side of that is relativity. When I was a Jw [for the most of 48 years] I observed many Jw's who acted with a lack of human decency on many levels - and didn't even realize it. I heard some of my 'brothers and sisters' snicker at householders opinions when returning to the car, sometimes announcing to the group that soon that person would regret what he believed when Jehovah killed him and he lay in the streets. I saw some 'call dibs' on various homes in the territory - assuming that they might live there once the residents were dead and Armageddon was over. I saw Jw's pass thru the world, never once donating time or money to the homeless, the sick in Africa, the victims of Aids. After all - soon Jehovah would 'finish off' these poor souls who refused to gain 'truth' by reading chintzy religious magazines that were coming out of Brooklyn, but were claimed to be 'from Jehovah'.
No my friend, there is a lack of 'human decency' in many things - depending from what perspective one looks. You are currently still held captive to the concept that God is using a single religious institution to dispense some sort of 'universal truth' that leads to life on a paradise earth. Looking though those wine-colored glasses will distort your vision as much as looking through the various shades of opinion that resides in any given place and time. Mother Theresa was a person that is considered to have been a modicum of 'human decency' by most - she sacrificed her entire life for the 'little children' of India. Yet by Jw standards - the ones you allow to direct your vision so far in life - had she lived long enough to see the Great Tribulation, she would have been laid out as carrion due to the fact that her view of God and Life and Jesus was different from that of a few elderly men living in relative luxury in New York making up the doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Yes. You will find some bitterness here - and perhaps at times even some lack of good judgement in the way things are stated. Call it human indecency if you like - the label is unimportant. Ride the subway, walk down the streets, sit in a restaurant - you will see the same thing at times. But don't allow the fact that some may [if only in your own opinion perhaps] lack the level of 'human decency' that you would like to see, cloud your ability to see the good and decent people who post here. That would be a tragedy.
You are interested in 'truth' you state. Stick around - allow your mind to do what it was intended to do - seek morsels of reality in a sea of various opinions and moral viewpoint. You will be happy you did. Jw's unilateral view will make some of what you read here uncomfortable. But as your paradigm shifts, you will likely begin to see that most of what has appeared as unkind, may not be as unkind as you perceive at this point in your thinking.
Peace and Hope to you.
Jeff