Patiently waiting for Truth

https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20210127003800315?section=national/defense
SEOUL, Jan. 27 (Yonhap) -- A conscientious objector, now carrying out his alternative military service as a prison staff member under the current law after refusing to enlist for religious reasons, has filed a constitutional appeal contending that the alternative military service law is unconstitutional due to its punitive nature, judicial officials said Wednesday.
By law, all able-bodied South Korean men must carry out military service for 18 to 22 months. But the National Assembly passed the Act on the Assignment and Performance of the Alternative Service in 2019, allowing conscientious objectors who refuse to take up arms for religious reasons to do 36 months of alternative service at local correctional facilities.
According to the officials, the conscientious objector, who began his alternative military service at a local prison last year, filed the petition with the Constitutional Court on Monday, saying that the alternative service act violates the freedom of conscience and the rights to happiness and equality. In particular, the petitioner insisted that two clauses of the law, which require 36 months of in-camp service twice the active-duty service duration of 18 months, run counter to the Constitution, due to their punitive nature.
It is the first time that a constitutional petition has been filed in relation to the alternative service law.
The petitioner has been known as a believer of Jehovah's Witnesses, who was recognized by the Supreme Court as a conscientious objector last year.
Discussions on the alternative military service began after the Constitutional Court, while upholding the criminalization of conscientious objection, ruled in June 2018 that not allowing alternative measures for military service objectors does not conform to the Constitution.
Following the parliamentary passage of the alternative service law in December 2019, the first batch of 63 men began their assignments at local detention facilities, such as serving and cooking meals and supporting facility management, in October last year.
Conscientious objectors in South Korea have long drawn a heated debate as to whether their claims for the right to refuse to perform military service should be tolerated in a country where national security remains an important issue amid tension with North Korea.
Jesus and some of his closest followers were murdered for serving God, but these people are now complaing about doing 3 years confined service instead of taking up arms.  They are breaking the Law of the land, so should be happy that they are offered the chance to do work that does not go against their conscience. Do they really expect to live a happy and peaceful life in Satan's old world ?  So say, 'serving God' in opposition to Satan, what do they really expect ?  Where is thier FAITH ?

The guy is a piece of work. Sometimes I fear his cherished evolution is true and that he is the final product. In that event, the end of all things will come far quicker than by any of the scenarios you have floated.

The Librarian and I are tight. If I am not too in-people’s-face, I can self-promote a little. After all, I certainly do earn my keep here.
Plus the book is absolutely unique, even if deeply flawed. There is no other integrated account of all that transpires in Russia today regarding JWs, and JWs are clearly the ones on the front burner (almost literally).. And the repaired version will be much better.

Think Santa Claus

Saying your own work is a disaster necessitating repair efforts is not exactly self-praise. 

Just out of curiosity... do you already have time to sleep? Sometimes I wonder if you are not an alien.
Well, now seriously, I just wanted to tell you that all this information is appreciated. It is sure to be valuable to some. Frankly, I don't understand practically anything. It happens to me like when I go to a museum and see a beautiful painting, I don't have the ability to paint it, but I recognize the merit of whoever did it.

So your argument appears to be: we can only know the Bible is true or its true meaning when other people - the 'right' people - tell us it is true and explain the meaning to us. Is that correct?
I see. Are you saying the 'true anointed remnant' are not men and women, and they have no tune to call?

For once, I will help 4Jah. I’ve turned over a new leaf.
Think Frank Sinatra: “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...”

By faith one can believe that the moon is made of cheddar cheese. One can believe that the earth is shaped like a pizza pie.
On the other hand, if supposedly God-inspired writings contradict demonstrable reality,  it should be evident that those writings are mere manmade speculations.

Faith is by definition belief without evidence. Without evidence, one can 'believe' anything at all -- astrology, scientology, space alien abductions, etc.
The question I examined is not whether one can believe in fairy tales, but whether there is physical evidence for a recent global Flood, and whether specific physical disproofs are valid. Hence, Ann O'Maly's challenge.
The idea of a recent global Flood has logical difficulties. Why would a God who could kill 185,000 Assyrians in one night commit massive overkill by a global Flood that wiped out nearly all life -- life that had nothing to do with "wicked men"? It's like using a hydrogen bomb to swat a fly. One who believes such things must believe that his God is a murderous nutjob.
 

On Whether Noah's Flood Is Physically Possible
Consider the amount of water needed to flood the entire earth to a depth sufficient to cover the highest mountains. What depth would that be?
The Watchtower Society quoted a source that estimated how deep the water would be if the earth were completely smooth (Is the Bible Really the Word of God?, 1969, p. 37):
<< If all the irregularities on the earth's surface were to be smoothed out, both above and below the water, so that there were no dents or holes anywhere, no land would show at all. The ocean would cover the entire globe to a depth of 8,000 feet [2,400 meters]! >>
If such a smooth earth had just one mountain during the Flood, it would have to be less than 2,400 meters high for the water to cover it. More mountains or depressions of physically reasonable size would change the figures, but not significantly.
Thus, pre-Flood mountains must have been less than about 2,400 meters high for the Flood waters to cover them.
That means that all of today's mountains over 2,400 meters must have formed after Noah's Flood. But is this geologically possible? No.
The science of Plate Tectonics along with standard geological dating show that plenty of mountains and mountain ranges are tens of millions of years old, and have been wearing down a lot longer than that.
For example, the Himalayas are at least 20 million years old and rose as a result of the Indian Plate colliding with the Asian Plate.
The Hawaiian Island chain is another example. The Big Island is as much as one million years old and rises as much as 13,800 feet (4,200 meters) above sea level (https://www.lovebigisland.com/hawaii-blog/hawaii-volcano-history/). That is already much higher than any possible pre-Flood mountain. But that's not the whole story: the Island is actually the tallest volcano in the world measured from its base on the sea floor -- some 33,000 feet (10,000 meters, but about 15,000 meters if sea floor sinking due to the mountain's weight is taken into account). That means that if the earth had been completely smooth during Noah's Flood, the Big Island would have had to rise at least 25,000 feet (7,600 meters) above the sea floor in the some 4,400 years since the Flood. The Big Island is about 150 kilometers across at sea level and more than 200 kilometers at its base. It is also the biggest volcano in volume, something like 65,000 cubic miles (213,000 cubic kilometers https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article/9/5/1348/132675/Modeling-volcano-growth-on-the-Island-of-Hawaii).
For purposes of argument, let's assume that the Big Island grew to its present size in 2,000 years. That allows some 2,400 years for all of its plant, animal, bird and insect life to accumulate. If it took 2,000 years for 213,000 cubic kilometers of lava to accumulate, that works out to about 106 cubic kilometers per year. That's a lot of lava! We can compare that to the eruption of the Laki volcano in Iceland in 1783/1784. In eight months it spewed some 14 cubic kilometers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki) of lava, killing about 1/4 of the population of Iceland, lowering global temperature significantly (http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/laki-iceland-1783) and producing widespread famine. The 1815 eruption of Tambora in Indonesia, the biggest in recorded history, produced similar effects such as the 1816 "year without a summer" in Europe and America.
Now, what effects on the earth's climate would volcanic eruptions ten times bigger than the Laki eruption lasting 2,000 years have? Very big effects, obviously. Yet world history between 2,400 BCE and 400 BCE records no such big effects.
The obvious conclusion is that the Big Island of Hawaii did not erupt for 2,000 years.
When, then, did the Big Island grow to its present size?
Again the obvious conclusion is that it so grew during the last million years, just as geologists have found.
Far more could be said about the Hawaiian Island chain, such as the 80 million year old hotspot track showing the growth and decline of dozens of volcanic islands, where the chain of Emperor Seamounts tracks west-northwest and north-northwest for some 6,200 kilometers and disappears under the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Thus, Noah's Flood is demonstrated to be physically impossible just by the geological history of Hawaii.

Oh dear.  I would hope you would know me better than that by my comments.  Our only leader is God's Word in Christ.  

.. said in video:
I hope that perpetrators everywhere are brought to justice 
Not to use groups as scapegoats
Crimes to not go unpunished
Family CSA and Institutional CSA
Beliefs of organization not driving behavior of CSA
JW have not/are not guilty for "typical" CSA as it is case in many other religious organizations because JW do not have set clergy as in Catholic Church. JW operate as lay organization. No "Sunday Schools"
JW are not "closed society" 
Most cases in JW are in fact incest, abuse inside family and relatives
The JW families decided to keep the matter a secret
Ex-JW demonized WTS
Victims with their lawyers want money 
WTJWorg Lawyers made claims how Elders are Clergy and how JW have hierarchy which is same as in Catholic Church. 
 

The history that emerged in Croatia in 1991 has no influence on the history that was created in the USA at the same time. The records that were created at that time are of the greatest importance for each nation separately. And every nation can best interpret the historical records of its own history.
But let's say that the then president of Croatia, F. Tudjman, asked the then president of the USA, George H. W. Bush, to send an air force and retaliate against the JNA, which was against the independence and creation of the Croatian state. What will be written about it in Croatia, and what in the USA? And what about the rest of the world? What documents can we find today, 30 years later? What will we find after 2520 years? One could argue that the conversation between the two presidents did not take place, but would anyone argue that these two presidents did not even exist, just to prove that this kind of conversation did not take place? Or vice versa.

I don't know if you have accidently or deliberately side tracked on my comment. I did not even mention the CSA problem in my comment. My comment was more about the Leaders of the Watchtower Soc / Org  being puffed up with pride, and running in front of God and Christ, to declare that they knew the 'day and the hour', many times.
As for some “American scholar of religion Holly Folk " having any importance, I think not. Americans are born and bred on a diet of 'collateral damage'.   That's what they know, that's what they live by.  
That is one reason the Leaders of a True Organisation serving God, cannot be all American.  
Let's say the British Government have murdered thousands of people in wars over the years.  So in the opinion of Holly Folk it would be fine if I murdered only a few people then ?  Child Sexual Abuse is as bad as murder in God's eyes. But of course 'Holly Folk' is not a spiritual person. Neither is anyone that says CSA is ok in small numbers.  CSA is NEVER OK. 
BUT remember Tom, it wasn't me that started on this subject, it was YOU.  
Back to your comment. This is a serious problem with the Leaders of the Watchtower and the CCJW. 
Your leaders pretend to know the things they, in reality, have no idea about.  If they stuck to basic Bible truth they might actually start to serve God properly.
Hence I admit to not understanding the Bible fully, as the Bible was written for the True Anointed, not for me. 

“American scholar of religion Holly Folk show[s] ...that, although there have been cases of sexual abuse by members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the number of perpetrators is not higher, and may actually be significantly lower, when compared to the prevalence of sexual abuse in other religions and in our modern societies in general. It is also not true, Folk said, that Jehovah’s Witnesses oppose reporting of cases of sexual abuse to secular authorities when it is mandated by the laws, nor that they sanction those who report. When governmental documents or media repeat unfounded allegations by anti-cultists, or single out Jehovah’s Witnesses falsely alleging that sexual abuse is more prevailing in their congregations than in other groups or in society in general, they are consciously or unconsciously supporting an agenda that attacks the Witnesses for reasons that have little to do with the protection of the victims of abuse.”
https://bitterwinter.org/jehovahs-witnesses-why-are-they-persecuted/?fbclid=IwAR28ZZKjsBCMX3Ht_ufL_LQa5JtgEWCVhYfGKSo8CePLQBjEb5-n_9mUnsE
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2020/02/i-almost-wish-there-would-be-more-public-response.html

Come now. Since the purpose of impeachment is to remove a sitting president and he is going to be gone in less than a week anyhow, I think there just may be some grandstanding going on.
You may have noticed a Republican member of Congress means to file impeachment proceedings of Biden over Ukrainian matters. From now on nobody will do anything at all in those two Houses except try to impeach the other. Great system of human rulership that you advocate.

Holly Folk has no idea what she's talking about.
The fact is that JW leadership has always put protection of "Jehovah's name" -- actually the JW organization's own name -- above all other considerations. That's why it was only in 2001 that they issued a specific instruction to elders not to prevent any molestation victim from reporting to the police -- until then it was understood that reporting was to be discouraged. Victims and their family members were actually disfellowshipped for reporting against elders' instructions.

You’re entire premise is wrong on so many things:
“American scholar of religion Holly Folk ... show[s] that, although there have been cases of sexual abuse by members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the number of perpetrators is not higher, and may actually be significantly lower, when compared to the prevalence of sexual abuse in other religions and in our modern societies in general. It is also not true, Folk said, that Jehovah’s Witnesses oppose reporting of cases of sexual abuse to secular authorities when it is mandated by the laws, nor that they sanction those who report. When governmental documents or media repeat unfounded allegations by anti-cultists, or single out Jehovah’s Witnesses falsely alleging that sexual abuse is more prevailing in their congregations than in other groups or in society in general, they are consciously or unconsciously supporting an agenda that attacks the Witnesses for reasons that have little to do with the protection of the victims of abuse.”
https://bitterwinter.org/jehovahs-witnesses-why-are-they-persecuted/?fbclid=IwAR2zd8KhV4N2QVcCYM4x3LpatStWrA8b2ZPLr3H2Pt4R9KyIoG_Egi95yh0
 

I am not versed in this subject enough, but I suppose that the ancient peoples at some point introduced a systematization (record) of their history on the basis of several factors; the change of seasons, the movements of the sun and the moon, and the existence or duration of rulers. Were the Egyptians more precise than the Babylonian and Assyrian “astronomers and historians”? Did the Babylonian astronomers know better than the Assyrians? That can be discussed, of course, but for some other reasons.
In the context of this club, the question arises; Is all this dilemma aimed at further proving that one religious theology followed by 8.5 million believers possesses the “truth” about the beginning and end of the “gentile times”? Is it really necessary to revise the chronology from that time because it is wrong? Or people who disagree (as WTS researchers and scholars) have failed in calculations, similar to Mr Mansikka's first version when he added 20 years to Nabonidus?

I agree on that what you said about "revision". But in "second edition" author came with completely new idea, not just add few new information about old theory. In fact, he completely rejected his own old theory. 
For example, "overlap generation" is not just minor revision of "generation of 1914" with one or few new details. That is completely new doctrine based on old (wrong) elements. When Mansikka add 20 years to Nabonidus rule period (17 years) which is official by historians, that is serious thing. When author rejecting own previous conclusion and bring to readers idea of new king, "Neb V", which he installs in history simply by writing a new edition of the book, that is completely irresponsible. This says a lot about the value of both books, and puts the author in the position that the reader should not devote his time and attention to reading the books, and should by no means believe what he says.
JW or ex-JW, many of them can say and write nonsense.
I have never read a single book of COJ and don't know about editions. :)) Thanks for info :))   

Can we agree that this fellow featured at video’s beginning is not pulling with both oars in the water? Lemon juice doesn’t make him as invisible as he anticipated?
Nevertheless, university psychologists Dunning and Kruger seem to think this loopiness has broad applicability, as though anyone might commit such a faux pas. Reading of this idiot in the newspaper “led to Dunning and Kruger to examine this phenomenon more deeply.” This suggests to me that they too might not be entirely pulling with both oars.
There is a sneering quality to this video. Rather than view this fellow as a mental health candidate, these psychologists—or maybe it is just the video-maker—seem to expand his nuttiness to whomever might disagree with them over matters of science. Specifically, it is hurled at me because I do not lap up every bit of evolution they want me to lap up. I do lap up some of it. It wasn’t me who put dinosaurs on the Kentucky ark. But I don’t lap up the works.
In their experiment to “examine this phenomenon” more thoroughly, Dunning and Kruger take the lazy person’s way out and employ graduate students as their guinea pigs. Obviously, it is easier for college professors to do this—always there are graduate students lying about—but are graduate students representative of the overall population? In the matter of low-information people tending to overestimate their knowledge, are they not significantly different than the overall population? Probably the difference is not enough to make the experiment worthless, but it is enough to relegate its conclusions from book-status to pamphlet.
The cure for Dunning Kruger syndrome, as proposed in the video, if not D&K themselves? ‘Taking in more knowledge’ is the antidote. I doubt this goes anywhere near as far as taking in more humility, and graduate students are not known for this quality. Young people in general are not known for it—all the more so those who have entered the competitive heady world of graduate school. Rather than advanced learning being a cure for Dunning Kruger, it is more likely to simply transform an ignorant braggart into an educated one. Which is worse? It is hard to say. On the one hand, it is “I can handle a stupid person, and I can handle a belligerent person, but a stupid AND belligerent person...” That’s a pretty tough combination, my coworker said as we were batting the topic around. So yes, eliminating half the problem—that of being stupid—would seem to be an improvement. On the other hand, equipping braggarts with knowledge doesn’t necessarily change them into more tolerant people—as often, it simply makes them more insufferable. 
Better than the recommendation to take in more learning, which depending on one’s circumstances, may not be feasible, is the recommendation to take in more humility. The world of academia probably provides the least fertile ground for growing that counsel, whereas the world of spirituality is probably the most fertile. You won’t find Philippians 2:3 on the quadrangle—counsel “consider others superior to you.” Rather, it is usually just the opposite. Still, even in the most skewed comparison, everyone has at least one quality in which they are clearly superior. The trick is to find that quality and hone in on it like a laser beam.
The world of the head does not rule as it imagines it does. If not coupled with humility, then even when the heady person is right, he finds that people resent and will not cooperate with him simply as a reaction to how ill-mannered they are. It’s staggering how the high IQ can be coupled with an infantile EQ.
To underestimate the gravity of what you do not know is a human tendency that will afflict all to some degree. No one is immune to the Dunning - Kruger effect. The video acknowledges this, even if it does propose a faulty solution. But the humble person who truly “does not think more of himself than it is necessary to think” has a leg up on the one who consistently does think more of himself than it is necessary to think, even when his increased knowledge reveals to him that the subject is more massive still. That doesn’t necessarily humble him. As often, it puffs him up with self-importance at the thought of what he has been able to figure out.
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2021/01/the-dunning-kruger-effect.html

Well I think we all have our own personal experiences and private logic behind what we believe to be true. That being said this was definitely written from a private logic, none of these things are my true for me personally. 
 
Men and women alike can grow past any and all stereo types, however it is a matter of choice. Will we choose to make decisions that make us a more well rounded, happier individual? If the answer is yes then so be it, if the answer is no well then this is where you’ll choose to be. 

Just some food for thought.

... Popeye..... and there would be no difference. Both are imaginary characters.    :))

Interesting.  They have created a condition where they believe the "world" of 2 Tim 3:1-5  includes everyone else on the outside.  The disciples of Christ left the "world" of their own people to follow him.  It seems clear that these scriptures were being applied to those they had left behind.  Sounds familiar, doesn't it.  
Just today, I was comparing the GB and their living conditions and status, to what Paul wrote in 1 Cor.  4:9-13:
"For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. 10 We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ!  We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! 11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. 12 We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment."
The governing leaders are so far from following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, or in the footsteps of the apostles whom they love to compare themselves with.