Pudgy

Of course, for 40 years and more I believed that Cain married a sister, because I never thought of it that there could be another explanation that made a lot more sense.
At the time he was exiled, besides Adam and Eve he was the only direct created man on earth … “Homo Theocraticus” if you will … and since there is hard fossil evidence … hundreds of tons of hard fossil evidence from all over the world of “homo sapien” civilizations that predate Eden … enough that Cain was afraid of being killed WHEREVER HE ROAMED, there is no need to assume incest with his imaginary “sisters” who did not yet exist.

WTJWorg is not government!
 
A marriage between Tamara and Amnon would be incest by today's moral standards. In the culture of the Jews of that time, it would have been normal. Rape is another part of the story of Tamara and Amnon, so I don't know how you came to the conclusion that it is something I approve of. Rape as a crime has nothing to do with whether people are related or not. You are strange when you draw wrong conclusions about my comments.
The problem that arises from the fact that the Bible is silent is a problem that is not mine. I have the right to my interpretation, regardless of whether my opinion is wrong or right or something else. The positive side is that I do not impose my point of view on anyone, and on other side, GB implements its interpretations as a dogma that you JWs are obliged to obey.
 

What to Know
Prosecute is most often used to refer to bringing legal action against someone else, and is related to the Latin word for "pursue." It is often confused with persecute which means "to harass, torment, or punish, especially for one's beliefs." If you find yourself frequently one the wrong side of prosecution, you might end up feeling persecuted.

…. kinda makes you wonder if Santa Clause and Jesus got into a fist fight … who would the children root for?

Well, in order to get the straight story and an accurate explanation of what is going on, simply go to the JW. org website and read the current news about this.
Let’s ALL of us curious about this do that, and get this explained and cleared up immediately!

… or an igloo shaped doghouse !

The details have already been checked for timeline accuracy and hard fossil evidence under the working title “ The First Cain Mutiny”.
I rejected including two big honkin’ dinosaurs because they died 65 million years ago.

More has been accomplished in this discussion than meets the eye. Maybe there's more life to it yet. We'll see.

Oh yeah, it happens all the time. A thread will deteriorate into a bunch of ‘treading water’ remarks, then a new wave comes along and everyone washes off in a new direction—must to the consternation of The Librarian (that old hen) who cries about her card catalogue and how it exists to keep separate topics separate. 
Sometimes a thread even deteriorates into, ‘You’re stupid!’ ‘No, you’re stupid!’ ‘When you were born the doctor probably slapped your mama and not you!’ and so forth. You come along with your shovel to bury the thread, then it catches another breath and it is Game On again in a new direction.

This is what happens when a thread gets worn out. Everyone starts mucking about, with no more meaningful contributions to add. It's a sign.
Tacos anyone?

I’m on it. It will be a fine successor to ‘TrueTom vs the Apostate!’

Did I ever tell you about my three-legged pig (circa 1973) that I used to ride in my car? I hit a drunk driver, and Norma pushed me out of the car before it burst into flames. 
A pig that special and talented you just can’t eat all at once.

She was a good companion, and never gave me indigestion …..

I developed this understanding when I started integrating information from all sources, and STOPPED ignoring hard evidence.
It explains who Cain was afraid of and why they would want to kill him on sight, even if he wandered a thousand miles away.
It even explains who Cain “married” in exile.
It even explains the Aborigines in Australia, whose culture is 60,000 years old.
Genesis 4 even explains how God considered the blood and lives of his direct created “Homo Theocraticus”  in Eden his personal property as a special possession.
Learn all you can about “Punctuated Evolution”, then substitute the term “Punctuated Creation”
Then TEST your conclusions against the Bible. They should be consistent.
It’s like the Genesis account of Creation. It makes no sense from a Space based reference point, but from an observer standing on the Earth, it does.
(  … assuming you already understand the last 4 billion or so years of Earth’s geological and atmospheric development …)
 
 

I can confidently completely ignore what “some” influential Jews of any rank or ilk thought about the character or nature or substance of Jehovah.
Moses brother Aaron saw with his own eyes the column of smoke and the pillar of fire, and STILL made a golden calf and said  paraphrased “See, this is jehovah your god, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”.
Sometimes … most of the times … almost all the time … “church” authorities are dumber than rocks.
It seems to be a job requirement.

The “Neolithic Period” STARTED about 12,000 years ago.
Before that, people were living all over the Earth, before God directly created a NEW specis, in Eden, that had an opportunity to live forever.
Their blood was sacred to him, for the first time in history, and He considered these people, and their signature blood, his personal property.
Much like the Jews later became a “Special Possession”, and if you were not a Jew, you were SOL.
Pre-Neolithic, human societies were primarily characterized by a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. While they didn't develop complex civilizations, several notable cultures and groups existed during the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. Some examples include:
1. **Paleo-Indians:** Early human inhabitants of the Americas during the last stages of the Pleistocene epoch, known for nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles.
2. **Upper Paleolithic Cultures:** Various cultures in Europe, Asia, and Africa known for sophisticated tools, art, and symbolic expression, such as the Aurignacian and Magdalenian cultures.
3. **Maglemosian Culture:** Inhabited parts of Northern Europe during the Mesolithic, known for microlithic tools and hunting.
4. **Natufian Culture:** In the Levant, a pre-agricultural society that practiced sedentary living and some early forms of cultivation around 12,000 BCE.
5. **Jomon Culture:** In ancient Japan, known for pottery and a hunter-gatherer lifestyle during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene.
6. **Hoabinhian:** A term used to describe various cultures in Southeast Asia during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, characterized by tool technologies.
7. **Mesolithic Cultures in Europe:** Including the Azilian, Tardenoisian, and others, marked by continued hunter-gatherer lifestyles and regional variations.
While these groups did not form complex civilizations, they developed unique technologies, artistic expressions, and social structures that laid the groundwork for the transitions into more settled agricultural societies during the Neolithic period, which STARTED about 12,000 years ago.

That’s why Cain was terrified of being banished …. outside the Garden the whole world was filled with proto-people that were not direct creations from God … “the land of exiles”, where life was hard and dangerous, and NO ONE lived forever.
They would naturally want to kill Cain on sight, because his family would have lived forever in a protected Paradise …. and they did not.
A modern day example is “everybody” hates and wants to kill the Jews because they suspect they might REALLY be God’s chosen people, and suspect that they, themselves,  are not.
Grrrrrrrr ….
 

Being the oldest should mean more wisdom and respect wouldn’t it…🤭

Going back on topic, (of a post that hasn't been on topic, lol) in reading everyone's comments I see the reasoning behind both the against and the for blood. Personally I can see why someone would abstain (which means both eating and transfusing). My main issue is that the organization says this is a conscience matter, whereas in practice this is not true. It is the societies conscience we are told to obey. We were always taught to tell the doctors that our conscience will not allow us to break God's law on blood. But what if someone's conscience did allow them, for whatever reason? This is why I think the blood issue (whole blood) should be something between them and Jehovah only. (Someone said well then we could say the same about fornication. Well, if no one in the congregation finds out about it, then it will still be between them and Jehovah, and they will have to answer to Jehovah for it in the end.
In line with this, I have noticed that elders on the HLC no longer "interfere" or are privy to a person's medical decision. In the USA hippa laws are strict, and absolutely no one should be able to find out if someone has had a blood transfusion, even relatives. So if someone does get a blood transfusion, it remains between them and Jehovah.
I think Tom's handling of the situation with the young brother in hospital was very good. No elder should be persuading another person to follow his (the elder's) conscience, or anybody else's conscience for that matter. The conscience is each person's their own. (This is why the conscientious objection to alternative service was a farce because the brothers who objected, for the most part, didn't know why they were objecting, they were just following the societies conscience). 
The stance now is we do not fight the Superior Authorities when it comes to transfusing children. Which makes me wonder where the principle "obey God as ruler rather than men" went to? Did we decide this because we do not want to make a spectacle of ourselves, fighting court battles and making it look like JW parents want their children to die? Don't get me wrong, I am glad about it, but where in truth does it leave  "obey God as ruler rather than man?" It seems like the organization has compromised... or not? Same with the fractions becoming  a conscience matter. I get why this was so, they "didn't want to get "dogmatic" (a phrase we will probably be hearing a lot more). But how much of this was also for practical reasons? The guidance about blood fractions itself says that people should realize that many vaccines (which members of Bethel used) and other therapeutic medicines contains blood fractions. So the person who says no to blood fractions should realize this, and then make an informed decision. I wonder if the covid vaccines had been based on blood fractions, or contained blood fractions, how would the organization have handled that? Probably they wouldn't have been able to "push" it like they did, and would have just had to say it's each person's decision, based on their own conscience. 
For me, when it comes to the question of blood, we don't want to be putting our life at risk just for man made rules. We have to be sure it is Jehovah's law, and by the looks of it this camp is split into two. Some say yes and some say no. 
I feel like we should apply Occam's razor and go with the simplest and clearest explanation. 
It's all giving me a headache...
 

You are flat wrong.
This proves it.
 
 

Well … for me … I’m gonna go with the comprehensive integrated context I have … not guess that God changed his very character.
As I said before, it’s not REALLY about blood. It’s about respecting what God specifically says BELONGS TO HIM.
If I should say “You have permission to use my drafting tools, but if you touch my Hewlett Packard HP-41CX Calculator I will kill you …” it would be wise to take that at face value, and not look for “loopholes”.

Are we still under the full text in context of “Abstain from blood”?

Next, I will ask the Librarian how she feels about algebra. (that old hen)

I prefer enchiladas.

How do you feel about tacos?