James Thomas Rook Jr.

NO  ONE !

17 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

At least internally, we should all be bitterly weeping at such things. 

Amen to that.

... but NO ONE at Warwick is !

NO ONE!

10 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

On 9/7/2018 at 12:11 AM, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Blood fractions NOT being blood, and other silly stuff

Betty Crocker reached for the parsley 

“You can’t touch that, it’s cake” restaurant manager Rook shouted.

”It’s not a cake until you mix the ingredients,” she replied. 

Instead ... think of a police car ... which you can assemble from parts, just like a cake , and once assembled both the cake parts become cake, and the police car parts become a police car.

A Police car is not just a car ... it is a car DEDICATED for police use., and the Chief of Police has rules and regulations for its use, care and maintenance, and who can use one, and who cannot.  I can imagine County Secretaries or Utility Workers NOT being permitted to use a police car. 

Unauthorized use of an automobile can be considered Grand Theft/Auto, with a two year prison sentence ... at the discretion of the Chief of Police.

Jehovah has set the standards of how blood can and cannot be used ..... and it is quite clear that he considers it as his PERSONAL PROPERTY. 

Being Omnivores, which is clearly evident from the created design of our teeth, we were CLEARLY designed to eat meat, and AFTER the Flood, with the limited supply of animals available, and a year long by necessity enforced vegetarian diet ... God ONCE AGAIN gave mankind permission to eat meat ... as some animals had made copies of themselves during the restful, romantic  Love Boat voyage.

Jehovah set strict rules for the use and handling and sanctity of blood.

But I digress ......

If Jehovah had said "Thou shalt NOT use MY police car!", I seriously doubt he would have been too happy if he caught you sitting on the ground with a set of mechanic's tools, a fender in your lap, and parts all around you, looking up with a sheepish ... " But Lord!, I am not UUUUUUUUSSSSSING your police car .... just some of the FRACTIONS!".

Gone Away:

I very much appreciate your perspective, and wish I could be so cavalier ... but faith in Jehovah God and his Christ is much to be desired ... and faith in men who are duplicitous and dishonest continually for  a half century and more is idolatry.

47 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

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Now for just a few more recent examples:

*** w18 January p. 26 par. 19 What Kind of Love Brings True Happiness? ***

• 19 After some 6,000 years of human misery, SatanÂ’s world is coming to its end.

*** w12 9/15 Peace for a Thousand Years—And Beyond! ***
[Study Questions]
1. What exciting prospect awaits the “great crowd”?
2. What have humans experienced during the past 6,000 years?
3. What will the Thousand Year Reign bring about? ??

*** ws12 10/15 pp. 15-16 par. 2 Obey God and Benefit From His Sworn Promises ***

 

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

”Yeah, whatever,” crewman Jack replied, as he removed his pants on account of the blistering heat. “This ‘keep on the watch’ stuff can be overdone. I’ll spot the TerribleA when its bow crashes through the deck and pinches my toes!”

But alas, Captain Goneaway was wrong ... as every Captain in the history of the World had also been wrong ... and the TerribleA ... so far... had been only a seafaring boogyman to scare the deck hands, and empty their pockets.

... and crewman Jack got a nice over-all tan while the rest of the crew got heat stroke, and died.

2 hours ago, Gone Away said:

10 hours ago, JW Insider said:

he said it's for measuring urine samples.

Which (with respect)  is what you are taking, judging from some of the comments here.

First of all, it was a joke about a label maker machine. Sssss second, if it had been real, it was MY imaginary graduated pyrex measuring cup, with handle and spout that had the label marked "Urine Sample" in the bottom.

After all .... what's a metaphore?

29 minutes ago, tromboneck said:

er....uh.....no you will be dead with no conscious thought at all...sane or insane. Get a grip JTR 

I did not exist at all .... anywhere in the Universe ... for somewhere around 14-1/2 BILLION YEARS, before I was born .... and it bothered me, to the best of my recollection ... not at all.

There are people that will go insane to stay alive .... but I hope I never succumb to that temptation.

You can only die once .... you can be insane for many, many, many years.

The general perception difference between sane people, ( who are merely eccentric ...) and insane people is usually around 40 million dollars and lots of real estate.

4 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I heard that @James Thomas Rook Jr. has a graduated scale that he might loan me, but I think he said it's for measuring urine samples.

 

Here is one thing to consider ... the Earth itself is about 3.5 BILLION years old, from the time it became a molten target for what is called "The Great Bombardment" of meteors as gravity sucked up almost all the material in the solar system into piles we call planets.

There are six creative days, and one "Day of Rest".  A total of seven "days".

3.5 billion ..... divided by 7,  is 0.5

That would mean the "Day of Rest" would be 1/2 Billion years long. (  For those in Rio Linda, that is 500 million years...).

This is a theory that agrees with Genesis ( if you view it from the perspective of an observer standing on the Earth, or where it would eventually be .... ), all the Fossil HARD EVIDENCE that exists by the hundreds of thousands of metric tons,  Geology, Physics, and all the sciences that we know ABSOLUTELY to be unarguably true. (If you are sane ...).

Get your calculator, some paper to make sketches on and take notes and re-read Genesis using a creative day being 500,000,000 years, and see how that solves MANY theological quandarys.

.... it even solves the "problem" of who Cain married in the land of exile. ( Although he was the son of "Homo Theocraticus" humans directly created by God, the "Homo Sapians" people who had evolved before that were living all over the Earth by this time ... ).

However, unfortunately for professional theologians of all ilk, It DOES NOT generate an artificial sense of urgency, or scare you out of your wallets.

... follow the money .... money always answers the question "why?".

Once you drop agendas in the search for TRUTH .... you will actually come to know what is true.

The reason humans keep sheep ... is to shear, or eat them ... or both.

... unless you are Taliban ... but that's another story.

WE do that with disingenuous Kingdom Hall confiscation walletectomies.

18 minutes ago, Anna said:

I agree "shunned" is a term we Witnesses don't generally use, but a non Witness will know what it means in practice; that the person in question will be ignored, and avoided. This was clearly encouraged by the video, where the mother ignored her daughter's telephone call. What if it had been an emergency?  

I have known several people disfellowshipped and reinstated multiple times.

Forget about them for just two minutes .... what is the effect on US who deal with it?

There is another word that we do not use to describe this cruel, brutal shunning practice by:

1.) Loving our Family unconditionally,  (assuming they are in fact lovable...) if they are approved by the Congregation Elders;

2.) Abhor them and treat them like they were dead if they are NOT approved by the Congregation Elders;

3.) Loving our Family unconditionally, if they are approved by the Congregation Elders;

4.) Abhor them and treat them like they were dead if they are NOT approved by the Congregation Elders;

5.) Loving our Family unconditionally,  if they are approved by the Congregation Elders;

6.) Abhor them and treat them like they were dead if they are NOT approved by the Congregation Elders;

etc., etc. etc.

Being able to flip your emotions completely on and off ... on and off ... on and off like a light switch ... which is what we have been trained year after year to do .... through shunning ...

..... is INSANE!

I firmly believe THIS is what the Bible says when it uses the phrase "... the love of the greater number will cool off".  It does NOT pertain to worldly people.

It applies to US.

Everything that comes around ..... goes around.

That tactic assumes that sheep LIKE to be fleeced and eaten.

My wife statistically will live  20 years longer than I do,  and I hope she leaves EVERYTHING  to the local County Animal Shelter.

Dogs will never betray you.

 

On 6/26/2018 at 2:08 PM, John Houston said:

Driver of the bus is swerving, but he is staying on the road.

The question was:

"If the organization did not actually prophesy the end in 1925 and 1975, then how come so many Witnesses left the faith immediately afterwards?"

The answer is:

"We" actually did ... exemplified by MANY things of record, which can be denied ... but it  is disingenuous.

During the run-up to 1975 the slogan was " .. STAY ALIVE 'TILL '75."

I have decided to merely try to do the best I know how ... consider 90% of theology to be encapsulated in James 1:27, TRY not to get "thrown under the bus", and where theology assumes cartoon characteristics ( Caleb and Sophia, Overlapping Generations, Blood fractions NOT being blood, and other silly stuff ...) , resolve to try to stay on the road to life ... but stay WAY BACK from the clown car.

And verify the route with  my own map, from now on.

 

I agree about moving on ... but not forgetting the indelible lessons cruelly burned into our bodies and souls as if with  fire, by those who intended to rule wisely ... but who, above all else ... intended ....... and still intend .......  to rule.

They CANNOT be fired ... and they know it.

To a reasonable, rational person, what you have stated above is inescapably true .... ALMOST all of it.

What is also true is that Jehovah God considers blood his personal property, and demands respect for it ... a common theme that runs throughout the ENTIRE Bible.

The fact that the WTB&TS is now run by the Lawyers and Accountants, and the PR Department is whole OTHER issue.

That is why, in my recent heart surgeries, I insisted on no blood or blood fractions.

The GB caved to public pressure, and a fear of losing money via court actions ... and they changed the rules.

God did NOT.

They had the blood issue correct ... and instead of "new light" ... they dove into deep darkness with insane  reasonings .... for political reasons.

All cases are different, and this is not a "scientific" observation .... but having had five heart surgeries completely without blood or fractions is what I attribute my good health to today.

If you insist on a more capable, skilled surgeon, then "Manny-the-Used-Car-Salesman and Heart Doctor" who insists on using blood will have to use his messy sharp spoon on someone else.

The race is not always to the swift ... or the battle to the strong .... but that's the way to bet!

Hmmmmm.... I wonder where they got the stem cells to transplant from?

The Society approves Hemopure, an  "artificial human blood", which is made from highly filtered cow's blood.

Where do they get the stem cells?

Soon enough .... perhaps TOO soon, we will ... each and every one of us ... will know for sure.

In the meantime, my major concern is to have common sense, a correct view of reality the way it REALLY is, and to stay sane when it seems all around me, people are going bat crap crazy, interpreting invisible things with absolutely no REAL evidence of any kind.

What that means is ... I am going to do the best I can ... and ignore all the prognostications.

In the history of civilization .... no one ... no one at all ... has so far gotten it right.

I hope it will be good enough .... but if it is not, perhaps I will die ..... but at least I will be sane.

Meanwhile .... during construction of World HQ, at Bethel Warwick Infirmiry ....

Anna:

Oh yeah ... I had forgotten about THOSE crazy years ... because I never believed any of that .... but I did get caught, BIG TIME, in the "1975" fiasco, even though during the run-up to 1975 I openly ridiculed it ... right there at the end, I reasoned, in the fall of 1974

"How could I be right, and everybody else ... people I respected, loved  and cared about .... everybody ... be WRONG? ( About the end coming in 1975)."

It did not seem probable to me that EVERYBODY (In the Truth) was wrong so I quit the best job I ever had, in Zaire, the Congo, to be back home with my Mom and Dad in Virginia, when "the END came".

To this day, Brothers and Sisters "swear" that never happened .....  but in the  Watchtower, March 15, 1980 issue , paragraphs 17 and 18 ONE TIME admitted that they did say that ... in the book "Life Everlasting - In Freedom of the Sons of God".

I did not find out about that "soft admission of culpability" until Mr. Google and I became good friends, many, many years later ... but long before that I learned to trust my own instincts over that of anything the Society said or published.

If they are wrong, only we down here at the bottom have to pay the price for their error.

If they permanently screw up our lives ... they pay no price whatsoever.

Obedience to who, or what?

It DOES make a difference.

"The Devil is in the Details" -  Anon

When you go to a car dealership to buy a new or used car ... you are met by a friendly, personable car salesperson who is truly happy to see you. 

Unless he has bad teeth his smile will be large, and radiant!

"Our friendly smile and warm greeting say much about who we are and what kind of God we worship."

Not necessarily.   Not even a majority of the time.

In fact, there is probably not one person in twenty thousand sane people that would draw that conclusion.

THAT'S the person that pays the list sticker price for a new car.

I am a Dog Lover ... I love all dogs ..... and have spent many thousands of dollars on Vet bills ... but if my dog and her puppies got rabies ... because I DO LOVE THEM ... I would shoot them all.

.... same thing.

Immorality outside of adhering to the direct commandments and underlying principles of those direct commandments is not "galactic standards morality".  It is local or personal preference.

Snowflakes think different than Warriors.

Children think different than adults.

Everybody decides what their own morality will be ... and it can be based on their own standards, or any standards.

August  6, 1945 the United States Government burned to death about 80 thousand  men, women, children and babies, one morning before noon, and three days later, August 9, 1945, burned to death another 30 thousand men, women and children and babies on another sunny morning.

Those not instantly killed lingered in agony with little or no medical care and over the next four months  approximately 100 thousand more Japanese died of their injuries sustained on those two mornings.

When civilization and liberty or tyranny is in the balance, Jack Ryan's sentiments expressed by proxy closely imitate the thought processes  of a petulant, child who has no concept of the big picture. 

May I suggest to ANYONE getting the "Big Picture", and start thinking like an adult.

Destroying the Empire of Japan's ability to wage war against the United States necessitated the deaths and torture to  death by injury,  of perhaps a quarter-million total Japanese, including infants, with two Atomic Bombs. 

That does not even count those who survived and were maimed for life.

In this theater of war, approximately 400 to 600 Americans died in this effort, most from radiation poisoning.

The alternative was to accomplish the same ends  (winning the war, and unconditional surrender of the Empire of Japan) with, based on experience in battle,  4 million Japanese killed, and 1 million American deaths in battle.

The destruction of the Japanese Empire actually freed the Japanese as well from a millennium of tyranny by their own internal Bushido code based Imperial government.  Women were treated like animals. Men were treated like slaves.

Grow up people!

Start thinking like an ADULT.

What Jehovah did in Egypt thousands of years ago, was justified, and in the best interests of all parties involved ...  a whole NATION OF GOD'S PEOPLE was freed from slavery, oppression, mistreatment and tyranny .... but like any dramatic cancer surgery ... there is a bill that has to be paid.

There is no other way .