Srecko Sostar

The best explanation and scale representation of a black Ive ever seen. Enjoy!
 
 

Srecko, would you be so inclined to deny the ancient dress code for true followers? How about their eating habits? How about how they worship? Do you believe that Jesus' purpose in coming to earth was to deliberately mislead the apostles and the people?
Srecko, to validate the argument, all we need to do is look at what you have become. 
 

Imagine, then, that approved association with Jehovah's people MUST include acceptance of a mix of secular chronology and "Bible" chronology!!
*** w86 4/1 p. 31 Questions From Readers ***
Approved association with Jehovah’s Witnesses requires accepting the entire range of the true teachings of the Bible, including those Scriptural beliefs that are unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses. What do such beliefs include?
. . .That 1914 marked the end of the Gentile Times and the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the heavens, as well as the time for Christ’s foretold presence.

*** w83 1/1 p. 12 par. 5 The Kingdom Issue to the Fore! ***
Properly, then, the ending of the Gentile Times in the latter half of 1914 still stands on a historical basis as one of the fundamental Kingdom truths to which we must hold today.
 
Rather than:
(2 Timothy 3:15-17) . . .. All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, so that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.

Exactly on each point!!!
Now imagine Jehovah telling a "faitfhul slave" or pre-cursor of that "faithful slave" that the only way Jesus is going to distinguish between the 5 wise virgins and the 5 foolish virgins (in our time period) is based on their acceptance of a specific mix of secular chronology and "Bible" chronology.
And it's a chronology that started out as:
Oh look how great Ptolemy is; all astronomers agree that his dates are perfectly well-established! Which soon turned into:
Look how terrible Ptolemy is; his chronology is suspect because he gives different dates than the ones we need prior to 539. Let's go so far as to highlight a book that calls him a "criminal."  Which turned to:
Oh look how great the Nabonidus Chronicle is; it proves that Cyrus overtook him in his 17th year. Which turned to: 
Oh wait, let's stop mentioning the Nabonidus Chronicle; turns out that the number 17 was added by expert secular authorities, and that the same chronicle links him directly to the full length of Neriglissar's reign, which is the one tiny window of vulnerability we still need to raise suspicion about a possible 20 year gap!! Which turned to:
Oh look how great Strm. Cambyses is, it tells us directly that 539 is the only absolute date in ancient history!! Which turned to:
Whoops! Now we have to admit that this only works if we accept the authority of secular experts to correct numerous known mistakes and copyist errors on that same tablet, the astronomical tablets' understanding, and ancient tablet methods for measurements of two eclipses, and the authority of modern experts to date those eclipses taking into account the slowdown of the earth by about 16,000 seconds, and a non-contemporary King's list (like Ptolemy's) that is assumed to be correct, and some secular business contract tablets that help establish the length of the reign of Cyrus and Cambyses, (and which we reject when used elsewhere) and some [hi]stories by much later Greek historians that we don't really trust on most other matters. Which turned to:
Look how great the Olympiad dating system is; if we accept that it has been properly tied to the current BC/AD eras, it appears to tells us that the dates for Cyrus are accurate. Which turns to:
Oh wait! We reject the same Olympiad dating system even from much more recent times when it conflicts with our theory of Artaxerxes which we would like to say is 10 years off.  

The BIG question is …
… is it worth all that effort to prove something happened that really didn’t happen,  in 1914?

…. ah yes ….
…… the “Closed Club”  ….

Before my time, they sold literature for money or exchanged it for some material goods (eg eggs or similar). Later we said that this "voluntere preaching work" was supported by voluntary contributions and that the tenant could give some money of his choice. Later it was stopped because it is money that was not declared as income and taxed.
Apropos the cessation of preaching. I think it's an outdated dogma because new "clarifications" have arrived, about how people being able to turn to God at the last minute and be saved. According to this new explanation, it no longer makes sense to rely on the idea, from the past, of "stopping preaching" and "closing the doors of the contemporary Ark".
George, you have to keep up with the organization! You're behind! lol

It’s not so much the tying of the shoes, but getting the head unstuck from the water bucket.

In Land Surveying it works the same way in spatial location as in temporal location.
You have to have solid data in both systems to fit “System A” to “System B”, and only then can you translate and rotate so there are no gaps or overlap.
Without a solid “benchmark” in BOTH systems, your data will not match.

The news that could signal that times are changing at WTJWorg will be when they announce that donations of any kind are no longer being accepted. lol

It just makes life easier when people don’t go kicking against the goads over every silly little thing. Save your kicking for when it is important. 
Nathaniel Hawthorne put it this way in The Scarlet Letter: “It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society.”
Nobody speculates more boldly than Jehovah’s Witnesses, who, in the main, are able to “conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society.”
This can result in dumb situations in which people resist innocuous trends in the greater world because nobody wants to be the first to upset the status quo. In such cases, people quite reasonably look to examples from those taking the lead, It is sort of sheeplike behavior, but then—what does the Bible say about sheep? 
We’re clearing out a lot of nonsense now that you might have hoped would have been cleared out long ago. Times change. If you can change with them without sacrificing any core principles, that’s the thing to do. It makes life easier. You find yourself not taking a hard stand over things that don’t matter. 
I don’t think the GB particularly like saying, ‘Okay, now you can do this or that.’ But apparently they have come to feel sheeplike people need that from time to time. In 2017, they said beards are fine where local norms don’t get in the way. I think they were surprised that no one took them up on it, necessitating a GB update complete with bells, whistles, video history, and chariot:
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2023/12/beards-get-the-green-light.html
 

…
…. It just occurred to me!
The subliminal hidden message with the Norwegian red white and blue “flag tie” is NOT FOR JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES!
… IT’S FOR THE NORWEGIAN COURT SYSTEM OFFICIALS!

JWs, Show Your Fashion Attitude!
lol

When beards were permitted it was explained that was because the view of those in the world had changed.
So what view has changed in the world so that JWs women can wear slacks? 
 
 

I think Anna was exactly correct about this !!                                    Norway Flag

 
Remember the hidden message in the propaganda photograph of captured sailors from the U.S.S. Pueblo that slipped past the North Korean military?
Same idea……
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/north-korean-officials-had-no-idea-what-their-hostages-were-signaling-in-this-photo
 

I try to see both sides of the issue, and both sides and perspectives, so occasionally I think about how the Elders who over 60 years persecuted the brotherhood about the never-ending issue of beards … I myself being called into “the little back room” / “the red room” (some walking out embarresed to tears, with red eyes) / “room 101 (where Winston Smith was tortured with a cage of rats attached to his face) at least five times that I remember, from Virginia to California,Texas, North Carolina, sometimes several times ….. and how these God fearing men of good conscience must NOW feel for having been agents of unwarranted and continuous tyranny that has divided the Congregations, and literally soured the Truth in tens of thousands of Brothers (and their women, girlfriends and wives … destroying, and I do mean DESTROYING the credibility of the Governing Body, and any valuable principles of righteousness they may have tried to impart.
Whew! THAT was a very long sentence…
When I was a young man, I would on Fridays after work to a bar with fellow employees and the Client, ( who expected us to pick up the tab on our overhead account) and we all got thoroughly plastered. No matter how drunk I got I never forgot … in fact I focused on … that I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and it was a great protection , always. After everyone else went home I sat there hyperventilating to burn off alcohol, then took a cab home.
But, I am rambling …..
In over 55 years, because of MANY COMMON SENSE issues like “beards” I can truly say as I worked all over the United States and three foreign countries, the Elders were never an encouragement to me, except in Pittsburgh PA, and Lima Peru.
It will take another 50 years I am afraid, and  soon for me it won’t matter anymore.
But I worry about the young Elders that grew up watching this all , and were either willing or unwilling participants in this and suchlike tyrannies, including “shunning” as it has been practiced since the 1960’s.
I suppose I also worry about the possibility that they are oblivious.

The expression, "the scene of this world is changing", is certainly the reality of WTJWorg, which is changing the scene of its own dogmatic construction by which it oppresses its own followers. 
"You must not greet an excluded person who comes to KH", was the previous order. As of today, that changes and the instruction instructs JWs to give a welcome, but not "too much of a welcome." lol

Or maybe they all still hate beards, but one of them had to sacrifice his personal preferences to show that the GB will lead by example. Perhaps he drew the "short straw" as they say here. 
Maybe next time, another one will go without the tie: 

https://www.jw.org/en/library/videos/#en/categories/VODStudio

You know, Georgie, your plethora of “rhetorical“  questions give the impression you don’t know that people are not ants … You ask ten people the same questions, and your questions, often based on your agenda or false information and/or assumptions, will generate 10 honest answers …all different.
For a change, stop asking your thousands of loaded  questions and start making flat statements of what YOU think is correct. 
You might as well, because in the thousands you have asked… I have not yet noticed a single response.
It’s like singing to pigs … you just ruin your voice, AND IRRITATE THE PIGS.
That’s why you get bounced from this forum so often, no matter what new name pops up out of the whack-a-mole hole.
No one answers your endless, never ending questions, transparently due to your desire to be known as the Vicar of Warwick, recognizing your attempts at self aggrandizement by attempting to denigrate others.
I will give you a much needed hint:
It’s not working. It has never worked. It will only fool some of the people, some of the time.…
.…. mostly your self-created upvoting and downvoting and fawning self created clones.
 
 

That is something jw's refuse to do.