James Thomas Rook Jr.

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

it doesn't interest me in the slightest. Once I see myself on the list, and compare where I place with @James Thomas Rook Jr., then maybe we can talk.

I am at the bottom of the list, where all chainsaw theologists are .... by choice.

The bad news is:

You know when "60 minutes" film crew is following a person casually dressed, invitation in hand, through JW Assembly Security, with everyone dressed as MIB,  the Video will be cringeworthy.

The good news is:

NOTHING will EVER be more cringeworthy than the Society's "Pillowgate" Videos.

What kind of security check?

They check your I.D.?

Frisk You?

Put you through a metal detector?

See if that cane has a built-in sword?

Check your briefcase?

Lift you up off of your wheelchair to check for grenades?

Examine your countenance for the right attitude?

Check to see if you have "tight pants", concealing or not concealing?

56 minutes ago, Anna said:

Of course. I wasn't talking about coincidence though.

Without hard facts, the probability is that, yes, you were.

I relate as a reply the story of the Masochist and the Sadist.

The Masochist says to the Sadist "Beat me, beat me !"

... and the Sadist replies "No, No!"

Sometimes tact and diplomacy do not work.

I have that problem with robo-calls, and people cold calling me, trying to sell "free" vacations, alarm systems, home mortgages, health plans, etc.

My wife is polite to them ... even a recorded robo-call.

I either hang up, or play them along to see how far they will go.

These people CANNOT comprehend logical thinking.

The classic is my internet provider trying to sell me a cable TV package ... AFTER I have told her we do not watch television AT ALL.

There is much to be said for being rude, nasty, difficult, and loud.

2 hours ago, JW Insider said:

So, who knows, a little self-control and an unshaken box with pristine, unbroken giraffe necks might someday yield $50 on eBay. I thought I'd sell my basement full of Hostess Twinkies on eBay when they were to be discontinued in May 2013. But since a new company bought them out of bankruptcy and resurrected them in July 2013, I guess I'll just have to use them for insulation, or maybe to stuff into pillows or something.

It may be apocryphal, but I understand Hostess Twinkies are good for 300 years.

You COULD sit on them, and see if any of them hatch!

1 hour ago, Anna said:

Ok, here goes:  there may be evidence that we don't know of. We don't know everything. So the correct thing to say would be YOU haven't seen any evidence. There are brothers or sisters who believe they have seen evidence of Jehovah's interference during Nazi occupation. Of course which of it was actually interference from Jehovah we just don't know.....In any case, Jehovah is and has always been concerned more for our spiritual safety, rather than physical safety. If our physical life is in jeopardy and we die, well he can make us live again. However if we are in jeopardy spiritually and it leads to our spiritual death....well...that's different story...

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

How did it turn out with Sarah and the Terminator?

Anna:

Everything you say is true, but that does not change the facts that there is no evidence you could present.

Coincidence is NOT the same as causality.  Not the same at all. 

Wishful thinking even less so.

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TTH:

For about $12 a month, you can have Netflix deliver to your door the entire Terminator Series, The Notebook, Hacksaw Ridge, and other answers .  These things are part of contemporary culture, like Star Trek, James Bond, Jack Reacher, Asimov, Heinlein, and  more.

During WWII, the common culture was represented by Baseball .... today it is general knowledge of movies.

You need to catch up, even if only to understand contemporary references and sub-references in context.

And as for me evading an issue multiple times ... that is a laugh (hoohahoohaaa). I was just bypassing your request for the outcome of a movie .... hardly "an issue".

Thank you for correcting me,. where I was wrong about the 10,000.

I sincerely wish someone COULD correct me about the rest of my post.

13 minutes ago, Jack Ryan said:

Notice @JW Insider or @James Thomas Rook Jr. hasn't called me out on any of these? Not even the holier than though mightiest @AllenSmith wherever he is has taken this list on.

Your posting was July 10.  I just discovered it today, August 26, 2018 ... so the reason I have not 'weighed in" is mere ignorance that this post existed.

There is no question that there is a clear "pecking order" in the WT hierarchy, but without analysis ( first, I would have to care ...) it seems your ordered list conveys the general idea.

However, any time two or more people get together, a pecking order evolves.  It's true with barnyard chickens, and it is true with people.

That's just the way things are.

It cannot be undone.

Even in a box of Animal Crackers with Lions and Giraffes, the Giraffes often get their necks broken.

MY policy is " ... eat 'em all ... let God sort 'em out".

The last two videos/movies I saw that gave me "courage" to persevere in the face of adversity were 'The Notebook", and "Hacksaw Ridge".

36 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Calling them nobles, princes, or dukes, doesn't make a difference;  they are still sons of earthling man, humans. The idea above subverts the scripture.

Yes, it does.

Also it subverts plain old common sense ... which seems to be completely nonexistent.

It could only be worse if all those Brothers and Sisters in the video were ordered out into the middle of an open field by the GB or Elders, to be murdered by the mysterious  black suited boogymen, had been told to take shovels with them, and dig their own graves, prior to being attacked.

Jehovah and his armies are seen preparing to slaughter those about to slaughter the Brothers and Sisters, but there is NO evidence that during the years of terror in Germany and Nazi occupied lands, that Jehovah saved a single person, or interfered with any side of the conflict, and approximately 10,000 Brothers and Sisters were murdered by the Nazis.

There is NO evidence that God is in any way interfering with what is going on in the Russian Federation, today.

Not individually.

Not as a group.

Please correct me if I have missed a material fact.

Remember facts?

NO ONE carries the complete truth ..... most of us are relegated to doing the best we can.

However,  every time several billion dollars a year of "free money" (contributions) is put in jeopardy by truth, the definitions get changed to fit the financial profile.

The Society is now run by lawyers and accountants, and money and real estate are the prime considerations.

... and it can be seen that the rank-and-file Brotherhood, being completely ignored, are voting with their wallets.

I sure hope that someone calls these things to the attention of the Governing Body ... but I fear all that would happen is they would take names, and stack firewood below our feet.

The lawyers and accountants are now running the Society.

... and the Kings "have no clothes".

Wherever you go ................ there you are!

38 minutes ago, Anna said:

And those people didn't look afraid at all, and neither did the audience that you said got so emotional.

I suppose we would have to check the screenplay to find out how afraid they were.

As you hold the paper, keep your right or left  thumb on the spot where it is mentioned, so you do not loose your place.

Sarah Conner trying to get away from the Terminator(s), when she was in the nut house ... THAT was some good fear acting!

Google the "Notebooks of Lazarus Long" for a synopsis.

TTH:

Heinlein:

Lazarus Long.

The only fictional person in the Universe cooler than Inspector Harry Callahan.

(... although I do know Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" by heart, and read about 26 of his books...)

3 hours ago, JW Insider said:

This particular film is fine, but we sometimes add the impression that the WTS will still be in full control and have all the right directives that we will need to obey, whether they sound right or not. It dredges up the "Old Testament" context of military authority, and -- just my opinion, of course -- this doesn't seem to be the same context that the Greek Scriptures prepare us for. [It makes the modern-day "ark of salvation" something more physical and material than spiritual.] 

In the Old Testament, Jehovah of Armies fought FOR the Jews .... but they ALSO had to fight ... or be prepared and willing to.

9 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

It is funny that hundreds of soldiers surround the twenty civilians in the clearing, on the meadow. Strange military tactics or bad estimates of the commander of the army.

My first thought was, with the first shot,  all the surrounded JWs had to do is drop to the ground, and the soldiers would shoot each other!

My second thought was ... why are all the soldiers wearing "masks", if they are going to shoot everyone?

Fear is the compliment of courage.

A person cannot have real courage, without real, palpable fear.

Trying to be courageous is a goal of True Nobility. 

In the face of real danger, a person without fear CANNOT be courageous ... and if without fear, what he does is NOT courage, and he is also a fool.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather, deciding that something else is more important than fear.

People confuse one issue with another.

" On his day in court, Mr. Lee recalls, “I eagerly desired to prove that I was not guilty, since it was a sincere decision due to my faith and conscience.” He reflected on the early Christians disciples Stephen and Paul, who had eloquently defended their faith while on trial. “I think I spoke twice as well as I had when I practiced,” Mr. Lee declared. "

The fact is ... HE WAS GUILTY ... of refusing military service.

34 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:

We identify with characters, with the main actor, with events. In this video, the director and producer put a couple of comparative main characters. So there is something for everyone. For the old and the young, single and married, for rich and poor .... 

One thing the video was conspicuously missing was, looking with big brown eyes at the camera,  a sad, hungry puppy.

That is for each individual to decide for himself.

"The Universe" does not care what we believe.

It is not that the Embassy in Bengazi was attacked .... not the issue AT ALL. 

Embassy attacks happen all the time..

It is the fact that the Hildabeast  represented the attack as a spontaneous riot that developed because of a Real Estate developer in California  made an anti-Muslim video that the Libyians took exception to ... and in actual fact it was a coordinated mortar attack where they had the sidewalks and buildings inside the American Embassy compound targeted in advance.

When the Ambassador and his Aide, and the two retired Navy Seal civilian operatives  bodies were brought home in caskets, the Hildabeast, meeting the caskets, and the families at the airport, swore to grieving relatives that the video producer would pay.   

For seven hours the rescuers both in country, and out of the country were told to stand down ... and they had aircraft and troops ready to go, on the runways.

The security operatives  at a "secret" compound miles way were directly ordered to stand down and NOT defend the Embassy and the Ambassador, and they disobeyed those orders in order to defend the Ambassador and staff ... and died.

The Ambassador had MANY dozens of times communicated to the Hildabeast that he needed more security, as an attack was imminent, but what security he actually had was reassigned, while in Germany, money was being spent for electric car charging stations in Embassy parking garages.

It is not that the Embassy was attacked ... it was the inconceivable gross strategic and tactical incompetence of the Hildabeast that led to the attack, the gross  deliberate, and complex web of lies, lies trying to cover that up, and blaming an innocent man in California that had NOTHING to do with the military operation against the Embassy, and his arrest and imprisonment that makes the State Department fiasco especially egregious..

I have told you about 10% of the details of what actually happened.  If you are coming late to the story, It would take you a year to catch up, and separate fact from fiction.

Why, is a whole different story of gross  incompetence, lies, and more lies.

The list of people caught in the Clinton webs of intrigue , lies and graft, and multiple deaths is quite extensive, to the point that it is the subject of many memes ... some funny, all tragic.