Pudgy

People in California deny reality all the time. 

I think that’s why everyone leaves me alone, more or less, because I don’t go to Bethel and tell everyone what to do.

In the sequel, Dorothy follows the yellow brick road as instructed. ‘Ah crap!’ she says at movie’s end. ‘California!’

Screcko Sostar
The 'celebrated' WT scholars wish to remain anonymous and that is also the stated policy of the NWT Committee by way of comparison. Their origin remains unknown but they no doubt have been chosen by means of the Holy Spirit and were originally of the Anointed. Their qualifications also is unknown at this time suffice to say they both as a class and as individuals champion the Bible as God's Inspired Word. I hope this helps!!
scholar JW

I think it's important to be able to see the fallacy of relying so much on secular chronology and pretending it's Bible chronology. It's important to see that it's a mistake for Christians to think they have pretentious insight to know about the "times and seasons." If we can see that our supposed Biblical chronology is actually a man-made idol -- a pseudo-chronology -- then we wouldn't keep using it as a means for "bragging rights" about having supposedly predicted something the Watchtower never actually predicted. We wouldn't keep using it as a way to brag about how our special insight into the "times and seasons" proves we have Jehovah's spirit and backing and have had it for over 100 to 150 years. 
For me, I think we need to shift our "bragging rights" away from having made Palestine-Zionist-Times-Rulership vs Gentile-Times-Rulership predictions in advance of 1914, and focus on our real Christian progress in terms of teaching and promoting conduct in response to Jehovah's love, the ransom, and the good news of the kingdom:
(2 Corinthians 1:12) . . .For the thing we boast of is this, our conscience bears witness that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you, with holiness and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but with God’s undeserved kindness. 
(2 Corinthians 10:3-5) . . .For though we walk in the flesh, we do not wage warfare according to what we are in the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful by God for overturning strongly entrenched things. For we are overturning reasonings and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, . .

It's curious to me that this is not the first time you have mentioned "counting backward from 568 BC." You should know that ZERO of the dates you listed are discovered by calculating backward from 568.
For readers who wonder what this question is all about it comes from the mistaken idea that a certain tablet called VAT 4956 is somehow all-important to those who argue for Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year as 586 BCE.
That particular tablet refers to Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year, and even Rolf Furuli says that all the planetary references on this tablet definitely refer to 568/7 and no other year as NEB 37- which puts Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year (NEB 18) in 587 BCE, which would destroy the WT claim of 607. Rolf Furuli is confident that the tablet contains information that MUST refer to 568 and NO OTHER possible year, which is what scholars have been saying all along.
He goes so far as to say that the correct information must have been spliced onto the incorrect information and that someone might have forged parts of it, but not all of it, or faked some of the markings on it, or even potentially used saws and sanders to create it -- all things that are obviously impossible when you look at it.
 But he also (inexplicably) claims that the LUNAR positions on that tablet refer to a different year, 20 years later, in support of the WT Chronology. Furuli spent so much time on this ridiculous SPLIT theory that it makes VAT 4956 seem more important than it is. He attempts to create confusion over the LUNAR positions (and makes embarrassingly amateur errors in doing so.) But no one seems to remember that he could NOT create any confusion about the PLANETARY positions. He admits that the planetary positions ultimately support 587/586 as Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year, invalidating the WT claim. 
All this craziness about 568 can make some less-informed Witnesses believe that this particular tablet must be so important that those who still support 586 for Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year must have used this "NEB 37" tablet and simply counted backwards to "NEB 19".
Those who think that way probably don't realize that you can actually just toss out this particular tablet VAT 4956 that Furuli focused on, and still find that other independent evidence supports ALL those other years mentioned in the list. Counting backward from 568 was not done for ANY of them. 

I also think this is much bigger than most people know. On a recent trip to California I visited a brother who had been involved in many of the scholarly efforts with people like Greg Stafford and many of the names that Juan Rivera mentioned some time ago. In fact, I had to double-check that this brother was not using the name "Juan Rivera" here on this forum. Years ago, a few of these names had contacts going up to HQ (Bethel), although HQ began cracking down (again) on any further scholarly groups, and finally was able to effectively get rid of them. This crackdown had also been tried in the early 1980's for obvious reasons too.
Maybe the WTS was right to crack down because, when I met with this brother in California, he listed so many of the names of all these brothers who had finally left the Witnesses, including more famous names like Rolf Furuli and Greg Stafford, and even a scholarly member of the late 1980's Writing Dept, kicked out of Writing, but possibly still a JW as far as he knew. 
I might be wrong, but I think sunlight is still the best disinfectant. People who are curious enough to go venture online "on their own" are going to hear all these things sooner or later anyway, so why not prepare them. Even when someone mentions Ray Franz' books, we can say:
"Imagine, Ray Franz already knew firsthand about all of that stuff he reports and yet he still did his best to stay within the brotherhood, the organization. Even after he resigned from the Governing Body, and was no longer allowed to be an elder, he STILL tried his best to remain a member in good standing with  his congregation in Alabama."  
Going around saying these things never happened, or that they are all lies doesn't help. In fact, it makes things worse for those who end up believing that and trying to defend the WTS against what turns out to be true. We end up looking uninformed, or haughty, naive, or worse yet, like liars ourselves.

Al Kapp, the cartoonist, stuck to traditional ‘follow the flag’ values. He didn’t think much of the young people protesting, and lampooned them with the group, S.W.I.N.E. (Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything) 
He would appear on campus and tell them off. One of the protesting youths asked the pugnacious fellow whether he thought young people held any advantage at all over older ones. ‘Yes, they’re better at carrying luggage,’ he replied.

And what about the most important thing: they know everything!

I got into some trouble with this post on FB. Several who use Zoom a lot were indignant, thinking I was calling them luke-warm Christians or worse. One, who has always been a pal, proceeded to tell me off on no uncertain terms.
Of course, it is my own fault, as @George88 pointed out. Had I made clear from the beginning that the opening question was not mine, it would not have happened. I told this brother that 
“I wasn’t speaking at all about you or any of the situations you mention. I should have stated—and would have were I to do it again—that the Question about ‘boring meetings’ is not mine, but was taken off a social media site (Quora) that pitches out questions for anyone to answer. I decided to answer it, and so the next three paragraphs are mine, but not the question itself. It may be the question was not written by a current Witness at all, but a former one. There are some in that population that openly boast of being PIMO, with the eventual ‘goal’ of being POMO (physically out/mentally out). Many of the friends have never even heard of that terminology, but it is sort of a modern-day ‘Demas has forsaken me because he loved the present system of things.’ It is among the reason that our numbers have been stuck around 8 million for many years now, barely growing at all. I wasn’t in any way speaking of ones like you.”
upon which, he made a graceful reply and all is well again.
On the one hand, I was heartened that so many black screens chewed me out, taking umbrage that I should think them PIMO. On the other, I was disheartened that so many had never even heard of the term—not the term itself, really, but the phenomenon. Alas, it does kind of smack (in the case of those who are shepherds) of not knowing the appearance of the flock.
 

My behavior in communication on the forum is subject to subjective (yours or someone else's) judgment because they observe my actions through their individual prism of judgment, which they acquired mainly under the influence of their religious affiliation.

I'll go back and read, but I've been busy, and I won't be rushed.
So far I've used https://skyviewcafe.com/ I've entered the coordinates for Hillah, Iraq. It's not looking promising. No visible lunar eclipse according to this software (if I'm using it properly)

After 12 pages of discussion/argument about this,  I have lost track which side is “winning” the argument.
But either way, what is the end product of WHY this is apparently so important?
What practical value will knowing the correct answer have?
It seems to me that being able to PROVE MATHEMATICALLY that Christ began ruling in 1914 or 1918, and Armageddon occurred then is useless …. as there is not a single piece of evidence on planet Earth that supports that supposition.
None whatsoever.
World War I and 1914 was, based on everything that is real, was only a coincidence.
 

…..

Nonetheless, from this point on, I strapping on a guitar when preaching among the young.

In this "secular" report JWs volunteers say the opposite. That the people around them are nice, that they approach them and that they chat nicely with them, they say Hi to them, (this remind me on GB command how "simple Hello" is forbidden if you are ex-JW), express their appreciation for what JWs do.
Hey, nobody hates you. Here are your brothers and sisters confirming it George! Wake up!
 
 
 

Sorry about that. What have I denied that you presented? Examples? Just one?
Well you should if that's what I'm doing. But I don't think it will mean as much if you won't produce a single example.

Not just the younger ones. But I don't think they are necessarily mentally out in the sense that they don't believe anymore (and live double lives) but because they get bored. Perhaps PIMB?
Also reminds me of an anecdote where a teacher was asked how he knew a student was looking at his phone when they were being so stealth about it. He said: no one smiles at their crotch.
 

I caught some flak on Facebook over the post, similar to yours, as though I was suggesting any black screen is a PIMO. I wasn’t. One person confessed to a certain form of social phobia but was very much in the program, saying how much better Zoom was than the old phone lines. To him, I said,
“It all works. Lots of reasons to prefer Zoom. I didn’t mean this to be a judgmental post. I just agree that among the constant black screen no-shows there are probably some who have tired of the whole program but don’t want others to think so. I didn’t mean to suggest it was anyone’s duty to figure out who was who.”
Another thought it not good to be suspicious of one’s brothers. I replied, “This is well-stated, [in both cases, I addressed them by name]. Suspicion was not what I meant to encourage. ‘Open to the possibility’ was more my point. And even when the latter is the case, that doesn’t mean a person won’t benefit from a hand of friendship. Thanks for commenting as you have.”
Two persons didn’t know what PIMO was, which I don’t think is very healthy—a little like the Russian Supreme Court refusing to look at what everyone else had seen, video-recorded evidence of incriminating material being planted by authorities. Of course, that is not to blame those friends. You’ll never hear the term PIMO at the Kingdom Hall or via the literature. It hampers people to be so uninformed about what large swaths of others are up to.
I think some were confused by the question itself. I took it off Quora, a social media site which has (I think) taken to generating many ridiculous questions about JWs (though, this wasn’t one of them) through AI, (sigh—which some brothers appear to take as though sincere questions from interested persons)
Yeah, I know the feeling. The trouble is, you almost can’t, since we are primed to overreact. 
I see you don’t keep up with modern science. I believe several genders have been discovered in which they do just that.
 
Hey, this is pretty good. And isn’t that Many Miles 8 rows back, 4th from the left? 
I hope the brothers don’t harrumph too much over it. It’s not like they could endorse it, but it is possible to say, ‘You know, there’s a place to learn more about this Jehovah.’ What to one person is not being swept along by the fads and vagaries of men is to another just being a bunch of fuddy-daddies.

😂
😂
Yes, not bad, and and most of them were somewhat modestly dressed.
 
If you read the comments left by people it seems like they're not really interested in who Jehovah really is. Most lump him together with God and Jesus, perhaps the new Trinity? And they're tight with them all.
We have a mega church like this close to us and it's packed (you can tell by the huge parking lots being full). At Christmas time they bring in live nativity animals. At other times they have concerts and make business deals. But they're all baptized in Jesus. It makes me wonder what will happen to churches like this when supposedly the governments shut them down. Will they even be able to? And the question is why would they? Most churches like this are also tight with senators.

This is Georg's frequent practice.

…. I was wondering how long it would take for others to lose patience with Wally.
….. probably two more days ought to be.enough to reach critical mass.

Armageddon did not happen in 1914.
No possible way to ignore that.
THAT makes WWI ONLY A COINCIDENCE.

Armageddon did not happen in 1914.
No possible way to ignore that.
THAT makes WWI ONLY A COINCIDENCE.

All of the above discussions, and every detail of the above discussions by all sides are totally irrelevant. 
World War One and Two, remember?
Anytime you can incinerate 90,000 people in an instant by making a star over their city makes all other previous human combat irrelevant.
The fact that it was about 2600 years ago and the only evidence is a siege ramp of hand thrown stones up to the inner walls of Ninevah, or Massda, or one wall in Jerusalem makes the whole thing ONLY, and I repeat ONLY … an intellectual exercise.
Armageddon didn’t happen in 1914. WWI was a COINCIDENCE.
Nothing argued here will change that.
Nothing!