Pudgy

You have good memory.
Yes. Still practical, but leaning into the wind rather than merely getting swept away in a gust. Optimistic!
 

So here I am plowing through some Great Courses professor lecturing on the great questions of philosophy and I’m getting madder and madder because it just seems a primer for atheism. I don’t recall philosophy historically being on such a mission. Imagine being a student in this fellow’s class, where you have to spit back some variation of what he told you, otherwise you get a failing grade. 
The litmus test for the problem of evil, he says, is the Holocaust. He cites some scrawling on a barracks wall from a prisoner who soon thereafter died to the effect that if he meets God in the afterlife, God will have to beg his forgiveness. It’s not hard to empathize.
Sometimes when your back is up against the wall and you’ve got nothing to lose you take a few shots.
Nonetheless, there were hundreds of Jehovah’s Witnesses also consigned to the camps. They were unique among the prisoners—actual martyrs rather than victims—in that they alone had the power to write their ticket out. All they need do is renounce their faith and comply with the war effort. Only a handful complied.
In the context of reviewing Carl Jung’s ‘Answer to Job,’ written in the early 50s, I explored the topic in a certain blog post, quoting first a Watchtower article, then adding my own comments: 
“From the Watchtower of 2/1/92:
'In concentration camps, the Witnesses were identified by small purple triangles on their sleeves and were singled out for special brutality. Did this break them? Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim noted that they “not only showed unusual heights of human dignity and moral behavior, but seemed protected against the same camp experience that soon destroyed persons considered very well integrated by my psychoanalytic friends and myself.”'
“Why didn't the well-integrated psychoanalytic-approved prisoners hold up? Probably because they read too much Jung and not enough Watchtower!! Not Jehovah's Witnesses! They weren't hamstrung by having been nourished on Jungian theology. Job meant something to them. It wasn't there simply to generate wordy theories and earn university degrees. A correct appreciation of it afforded them power, and enabled them to bear up under the greatest evil of our time, a mass evil entirely analogous to the trials of Job! They applied the book! And in doing so, they proved the book's premise: man can maintain integrity to God under the most severe provocation. Indeed, some are on record as saying they would not have traded the experience for anything, since it afforded them just that opportunity. (another fact I find staggering)”
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2011/02/carl-jung-job-and-the-holocaust.html
 

I find your logic and reasoning irrefutable.
Thank You!  
A whole two millenia thousand piece puzzle just clicked into place.
 

Allow me a few more thoughts on the aforementioned "controversial issue".
WTJWorg has a doctrine that says; it takes a very long time to answer Satan's challenge about who has the right to rule over people. Well, they say, how JHVH could have destroyed Satan immediately, but that would still leave doubt in God's justice.
This could mean that the angels in heaven were ignorant of the nature of God and his virtues. This could mean that the angels grew up in a climate of doubt and mistrust of God from the very beginning, so it was easy to persuade them to believe Satan. This could mean that all that time (say, millions of light years) was not enough for the angels to develop "complete trust" in God. Everything said also applies to people, of course adapted to the spatial and temporal frameworks on Earth.
So, the famously silly claim that God allows evil on earth because his credibility must be proven and that it takes time, a very long time, in which, among other things, millions of innocent children and adults will be subjected to the greatest suffering and torture, does not hold up to the argument .
Angels don't need any further evidence that Satan is wrong and God is right. As for humans, they have never seen God anyway, nor do they have any insight into the relationship between God and Satan. The only thing they can do is read the Bible and "invent" explanations and assumptions.
The idea of a "Universal Court Case" is a construction of people who came up with new ideas by reading the Bible. Jesus, who is the unique "witness for the living God" did not provide such material in his teachings that this WTJWorg doctrine could be developed.
At the end of the day, if there is such a great and inevitable need to prove some kind of "Universality" that belongs to God, and how that "Case" includes countless millions of years in the past and countless millions of years into the future, then I would say that it is already long ago answered.
Since the book of Job is taken as the "biblical argument" of this WTJWorg doctrine, then I can say that in this sense Job gave the "Universal Answer". To further insist that every child, man and woman (born after Job) should be subjected to horrors in the name of the same cause is silly.
The second turning point is the life and death of Jesus. He answered the same question once more. Job, as an imperfect man, passed the test. Jesus, as a perfect man, passed the same test.
So what else needs to be answered?

I think that was pudgy that said that..that quirk in the system is at work again…but I’m sure in fact I know a few elders would speak or think of me as such….but thank you for your kind words…

I don’t know how to answer that but I do think of the chaos and deaths caused by the many kings of Israel….that sure is frustrating ..

What Truth, George88?
The only thing you have contributed is vague, foggy general opinions without backup, applauded with upvotes by your sock puppet Alphonse.
 

That's a pretty fatalistic perspective. Though the most we can do is try our best, I hold a positive view that we do not waste our time when we share our experience and training to help others, or some circumstance that needs improvement. I also find it helpful to pursue improvement for myself too.

TTH:  Using that same logic the Nazis had the right to rule mankind.
…, or a Comet had the right to rule the Dinosaurs.

TTH:  Using that same logic the Nazis had the right to rule mankind.
…, or a Comet had the right to rule the Dinosaurs.

From our level of knowledge, we are unable to conceive something that exists with no beginning. Hence, regarding the question of rights, when it comes to a creator with no beginning, answering the question is outside any objective rational argument we could form based on evidence. It would be unanswerable by us, based on objective knowledge we currently have as humans. But, if Armageddon comes and a bunch of people are destroyed, objectively we can say whatever was responsible for the event had the power to destroy a bunch of people and did so.

It is a little like the signs we saw posted repeatedly at the Columbus Zoo reptile house.
”How do you know if an animal is venomous?” they say, and then answer: “If it bites you and you get sick, then the animal is venomous.”
Pretty much the same answer applies here, I think. “How do you know if God has the right to rule? If Armegeddon comes, and you’re not around afterward, then he has the right to rule.”

In my days (1970s) it was kind of summed up in the questions of who is the true God and will man choose the God whose name is YHVH or will he choose the false Gods of Babylon the Great. And the question, does YHVH have full right to rule.
It turns out that man, not God, answers both questions about the status of God. A bit strange, isn't it?
The man answered only one question; Who will he choose for. Only because it is about the freedom of choice that people have.
The question of who is the true God and whether he has the legal right to rule is not for man to answer. Because how can "created matter" answer that question? Not at all. If a man chooses his master, this does not speak of the status of the master, but of the status and condition of the man who is given the opportunity to choose. One can argue; "my lord is good, just, merciful, generous, etc." But then it is primarily an expression of the perception of a man, who has actually never seen his master or talked to him, in this case. It is the product of some other experience in a person, outside of the classic, well-known and experiential way of getting to know another person.
Today's believers, as well as many from the past, primarily "got to know" God through the upbringing and teachings of their parents, people and/or reading the Holy Scriptures.
Every other "experience" of God is up for debate. Biblical characters mostly literally heard "God" (or angels) with their ears, experienced through visions, through supernatural manifestations. Today, say JWs, this cannot happen, and if someone were to claim that this happened to them, then JWs will say that they are under the influence of demons, drugs or mentally ill.
Our personal choice, about own selection of one of the organized religions headed by YHVH, which spreads to other people through street or house preaching, gives testimony to our choice of religion. It cannot answer the question whether God has a legal right to be God. It is presumptuous to attribute such importance to oneself, to a human being. If God is really God then he does not need our confirmation, consent or testimony that he is really God who has the right to rule. It is utter nonsense that God is so dependent on human testimony. Angels in heaven are not stupid. Everyone should have seen and understood who their God is, if they were with him every day of their lives. They don't need an answer to such a human question posed by WTJWorg.
So, what kind of universally, controversial, disputed question (Universal Court Case) do JWs actually answer?

We all have reasons for choices we make. You've experienced some troubled waters in your journey. I only applaud that you are still around and willing to speak your mind to help others with your experience. Hopefully that's what we're all doing.

Jehovah understood it all before it got started. This is evidenced by the following image called by physicists and mathematicians “The Thumbprint of God”. The equation that generated this image shows up in EVERYTHING! 

There are irregularities in nature that are studied as chaos theory. Even in this chaos there is a certain order, but that order is different from our usual understanding of order and organization. I am reading a written work and there it says.

There are three basic characteristics of chaos:
1. disproportion between input and output;
2. inconspicuousness of the entrance;
3. unpredictable output
In the last few years, the application of chaos theory in social phenomena has been seriously considered. It is interesting that in the last 10 years or so, a number of physicists have moved into the field of sociology and political science.
They realized that some nonlinear equations that describe certain processes, even those that describe quantum physical events on at the level of the atom, can be applied to social and political phenomena, with the proviso that instead of the flow of liquid, for example, the transfer of information is considered: that instead of a phase transition, where a parameter suddenly changes, in society, for example, a law can change, and that instead of an essential phase transition can have a political revolution, so systems of differential equations that describe physical processes are applied for describing changes in society. By solving this system of equations, treating society as a chaotic system, one tries to predict the likely outcome. Politicians in the West are now closely following these pioneering studies.
Organizational chaos represents disorder, confusion, commotion in the organization. Organizational chaos means that the organization is in a state of entropy. Entropy is a measure of disorganization of the system, it is a state in which the system falls apart. The tendency towards disorganization, that is, organizational chaos, is a natural tendency of the system. organization as a measure of order in the system, the entropy of the system and its tendency towards organizational chaos is reduced.
My comment:
The schisms within the initial, Russell's WTS, and later other doctrinal turmoil under other presidents, indicate a certain chaotic state and consequently dramatic changes that the Society goes through, constantly. They could say that the leadership's pursuit of order and control is possible, but it is also not impossible to have disorder and chaos.
What kind of chaos could or should YHVH have anticipated, foreseen before the creation of angels and men?
 

Nowadays kids don’t know what stamps are…I made my grandkids write a thank you letter  to their great pop.
They didn’t know about stamps or writing a real letter and buying a stamp and walking to a post box and posting it….they thought it all tedious and a waste of time…and as we trudged back home they said……‘I dont see why we couldn’t have just rang him it doesn’t make sense…aaaah those bygone days…when getting a telegram was so exciting….we’ll sort of as it usually meant someone had died….

Yeah … first class mail was 4 CENTS !

Why do a re write….its good and truthful….it would help others who have been hurt…..

Wow fancy having stamps like that…how interesting…

When  I was about 13 years old I started collecting stamps, and having ADD I focused on this like the proverbial laser, and could even recognize stamps that had different numbers of perforations around the edges that were valuable, and those which were common because they had different numbers of perforations.  
This was about 1960, and it was the same time that I started getting an interest in Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The United States government came out with a series of stamps called “The American Credo Series“, about 1962 which has influenced my entire life, hopefully for the good, sometimes demonstrably for the good.

One stamp particularly resonated with me quoting Thomas Jefferson, and in 1964 when I was baptized it had become a part of my occasionally obnoxious and overbearing personality. 

I took the long version of this oath before my baptism oath, (… quite different from today’s baptism oath …), and in a massively imperfect way I consider both to still be in force.
Thomas Jefferson was also a massively imperfect man, as is the JW Governing Body.
Thomas Jefferson's second inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1805 expressed his commitment to protecting individual liberties and declared, "I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for the past, and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all."

When  I was about 13 years old I started collecting stamps, and having ADD I focused on this like the proverbial laser, and could even recognize stamps that had different numbers of perforations around the edges that were valuable, and those which were common because they had different numbers of perforations.  
This was about 1960, and it was the same time that I started getting an interest in Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The United States government came out with a series of stamps called “The American Credo Series“, about 1962 which has influenced my entire life, hopefully for the good, sometimes demonstrably for the good.

One stamp particularly resonated with me quoting Thomas Jefferson, and in 1964 when I was baptized it had become a part of my occasionally obnoxious and overbearing personality. 

I took the long version of this oath before my baptism oath, (… quite different from today’s baptism oath …), and in a massively imperfect way I consider both to still be in force.
Thomas Jefferson was also a massively imperfect man, as is the JW Governing Body.
Thomas Jefferson's second inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1805 expressed his commitment to protecting individual liberties and declared, "I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for the past, and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all."

There could never have been a Mission Impossible without him.
 
No, but organizing does seem consistent with giving God a lot rather than giving him a little
It may be that as long as you don’t work to sabarolf organization, as though a freedom fighter, you’re okay—even as you stand apart from it yourself. Or it may not be okay. I’ll err on the side of sticking with what my experience tells me has worked to a reasonably fine degree, given that ‘we have this treasure in earthen vessels.’ I remember giving that talk on ‘Unified or Uniform,’ contrasting the unity of the earthly organization with the uniformity often demanding by nations, which goes so far as to stuff people into actual uniforms.
Yeah—I always figured it was something like that. You said it well:
It makes a difference, doesn’t it? It’s a little bit like coming back from the dead when you finally get back on your feet.
I put the following in ‘No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash,’ a book I took down pending rewrite that I haven’t gotten around to, so now it is nowhere:
“After studying one book seemingly written for no other purpose other than to harp on dress and grooming and harangue about field service, the conductor said to me: “Tom, why don’t you comment? You know all these answers.” It was a turning point. He was right. I did know them all. It was time to stop sulking. From the circuit overseer on down, they had stirred up major chaos in the family. They had been heavy-handed and clumsy - but never malicious. And it had never been Jehovah. I had read of ill-goings-on in the first-century record. Congregations described in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 were veritable basket cases, some of them, but that did not mean that they were not congregations. Eventually things smooth out. Eventually 1 Timothy 5:24 comes to pass: “The sins of some men are publicly known, leading directly to judgment, but those of other men will become evident later.” “Later” may take its sweet time in rolling around but it always does roll around. Should I stumble when it becomes my turn? I’d read whiner after whiner carrying on about some personal affront or other on the Internet. Was I going to be one of them? 
 . . . Recovery didn’t happen overnight, for I have a PhD in grumbling. Indeed, I was so good at it that few noticed I grumbled, for I had never left the library – I had only strayed from the same page. Now it was time to get on the same paragraph. Was that book truly a dog? They’re not all dazzling flashes of light, you know, for the treasure is contained in earthen vessels. Or was it the conductor? Or was it me? No matter. If life throws you for a loop, you thank God for the discipline and move on. “For those whom Jehovah loves he disciplines, in fact, he scourges everyone whom he receives as a son,” the Bible says Tell me about it. “Half of those at Bethel are here to test the other half,” the old-timers said. Yeah – tell me about that, too.”
Everyone has a mid-life crisis or two, during which they have to reassess. It doesn’t even matter if it is a servant of God we’re speaking of. Everyone has a mid-life crisis.

I’ve been there and experienced such pain that lead to a death….you are speaking with a sister that was engulfed with a huge amount of anger and resentment and righteous indignation which led to my two ears of inactivity…….its a long story but eventually I had to reason out that I came into the truth knowing all these things existed within the org….why do you think we have the Judas types….the haughty…the cruel even amongst us.
Unfortunately they tend to have a lot of power within congregations.
Jehovahs people are no different to his people of old times….once I got a grip on that..and working on my feelings .( which I might add they caused ) …I guess I was and still am being refined by fire….and I am NOT going to let those sorts of men push me out where I know Jehovah led me.
 
 
 

Yes. True. An unavoidable observation. We should all learn from one another.