James Thomas Rook Jr.

That's why I have no objections to telling religious jokes on the Amish . ... they don't even have electricity ... much less computers.

They will never know !

3 minutes ago, Anna said:

  On 9/3/2017 at 8:44 AM, JW Insider said:

 And another way to look at the verses above (about returning to vomit, re-nailing the Son of God), is that they are not about any specific religious organization, but about a specific type of personal relationship with Jehovah that is rejected.

Agreed JWI ... in context, you are exactly right.

Don't worry ... remember in 2014 when they collected an average of $16 from every Brother and Sister on the planet to cover such things in full?

I probably missed the mid-week meetings where this was done in 2015 and 2016, and if precedent follows, the NEXT $16 collection won't be until this coming November.

However, It might have all changed and I missed it.

That, and/or their multi-billion dollar stock portfolio which can be liquidated is MORE that enough to cover EVERY damaged Kingdom Hall, and other Company property there is ...

No problemo!

Of course ... evidence of THAT will be unmistakable .... no need at all for any interpretation or explanation.

It will be instantly self-evident.

Until then ... they are having a grand old time spending the 56 MILLION DOLLARS they were forwarded by the Universal Postal Union as their share of the  80 MILLION DOLLARS in international postage spent to send them letters to help with prayers to achieve religious liberty for the Brotherhood in Russia, recently.

  ( The terminal duty for Russian International postage ... the amount they get for delivering mail from other countries to addresses in Russia is 70% of the face value of the postage affixed...).

And the 11 boxcars filled with mail ... sitting on a railroad siding somewhere in Russia, will keep a LOT of Russians in "fuel at the proper time" in their cast-iron pot bellied stoves this winter.

If they DO send a thank-you letter to the governing Body in Warwick, they can send it by diplomatic mail franking, and not spend a single kopeck (1/100 of a Ruble ... their equivalent of a penny) for postage.

They may have to spend SOME of the money the Brotherhood gave them for meds to stop the uncontrollable laughter.

14 minutes ago, Anna said:

Very good point!

Yes... excellent and valid points .... assuming you are not lulled by endless repetition into the Pubspeak that it applies to ANYTHING, but allegiance to Jehovah God and His Christ.

You think the ruling Russians care one iota about any speeches of denunciation that don't topple their leadership positions, put mushroom clouds over their cities and military installations, or have tanks and infantry roll across their borders?

HahahHAHAHahahaha !

That's what happens when you live in a fantasy world of a million words where words CAN destroy you.

Even questions can get you put on "The List".

You need to get out more ... read more, and talk to intelligent, informed people in the REAL world more.

The reason the Russians CAN do what they do ... is because words mean NOTHING to them.

Only bayonets.

Anna:

I agree with your varied assessments 100%.

I have a great capacity for unlimited cruelty and destruction ... but I do not exercise it ... so I fully understand the psychology  of cruelty, and I recognize instantly when it is being used for the consolidation of arbitrary and capricious political power.

If a person is justly disfellowshipped ... that is an agreeable thing with Jehovah.

What is being practiced today, under threat of similar cruelty .. is just plain cruelty to generate fear among the cowardly, and loathing among those that love Justice.

... including Jehovah.

Wouldn't you like to know what each one is actually thinking?

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

But if he starts lying about Prince, MY PRINCE, THEN he has crossed a line of decency. Before he slanders the man, he should list each transgression he thinks he 'got away with' accompanied by proof and um - to quote his constant refrain - "FACTS!! DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHAT FACTS ARE?! " without which rants are worth (to use his favorite words)

        "ZIP - ZERO - NADA"

I think he will not find any.

TTH:

Just for your information .... everything I said about Prince is absolutely true .... to the extent it was such a serious charge that in order not to drop ANOTHER 1,000 pound weight, my last three paragraphs of that specific post concerning the same subject... money buys dispensation ... concerning Michael Jackson' s Organizational "Get out of Jail Free" card, I tried to lighten up combining fact with satire.

You, of course, have an open invitation to prove me a liar ... but you cannot focus on the issue actually being raised, and always take a canoe up a dirt path into Booger's Woods.

The last six times I challenged you to prove I was a liar with just ONE instance out of 7,000 or so posts, you choked, and were not able to do so.

Please ... disprove any statement I made about Prince.  OTHERWISE ... your credibility REMAINS at ...

"ZIP - ZERO - NADA"'

W

12 minutes ago, David Normand said:

James, It cannot be a good thing. Sooner or later it will be abused and as an organization we will suffer. It will be used as a mean to shame and harass the friends. 

My only concern is that it violates Exodus 20:4-5, and is BRAZENLY offensive to Jehovah God, apparently with no concern whatsoever.

NONE.

  Well, that, and the pain and suffering that we do to OURSELVES by destroying whole families to perhaps legitimately discipline ONE person.

.... there is THAT.

15 minutes ago, David Normand said:

Is JW.ORG becoming an idol?

Of course.

Once ANY organization becomes sufficiently  large, with real estate, a huge treasury of money that never stops rolling in ... to spend as they see fit, they start to worship themselves.

This is NOT new.

It's not even unique.

It is the normal evolution of human practices.

The next step is they begin to "eat their own" for not worshiping at the Altar of "Caleb and Sophia", in whatever form it takes specific to that organization.

This is NOT new.

It's not even unique.

The Catholics have been doing that for millenia.

It's worked so far.

 

Cos:

On 9/17/2017 at 1:40 AM, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I would like to hear what you have to say about that specific investigation ... your hard data would of course trump my guessing what the outcome of YOUR actual experiment was. 

Remember however, if you use my qualifying criteria,  the qualifier was that my experiment basis was that  the Greek speaking person person had to be educated enough to understand the uses of Greek predicate positions, etc., specifically the anarthrous predicate as it was used in context of the complete sentence being considered.

Please provide as much detail of your experiment as you can remember ... I wallow in enjoying long detail accounts.

 

Cos:

In the REAL world of establishing FACTS .. ( remember FACTS? ... ) there are criteria to determine the credibility and applicability of those facts to any questions needing answers.   Some facts are incredibly important .. some are completely irrelevant.. and only fuel for idiot word games.

If I ask you how many oranges you have ... and you reply your car needs to be repaired ... that does NOT count as a legitimate answer.

There are Good Detectives

There are Bad Detectives

Bad Detectives do not detect much.

..................................................................................

Your quote of my post still stands on its own, as follows.

6 hours ago, Cos said:

Without evidence to the contrary, it appears that you LIED about having asked anyone at all from the Greek speaking community about this.

You avoided the actual issue.

I look forward to your complete, rational and comprehensive details of the experiment YOU ALLEGEDLY ran, if you really did .... which I currently doubt almost to the point of certainty ... and I am being generous.

Cos:

It APPEARED to me at that point in time that you were lying ... I did NOT call you a liar, a point you missed in avoiding making a legitimate focused reply.

A reasonable person analyzing your foggy unfocused and choppy replies would conclude ....

YOU DID.

.

Uh Oh!

You got me started !

Here we GO ... again!

10 minutes ago, Gone Fishing said:

More to be said on this topic I am sure.

... just one complex thought ... destroying whole families  to discipline one person is philosophical familial genocide.

Shunning should NOT be an institutional mandate ... or why do we even NEED a conscience at all?

There is a REASON "The love of the greater number will cool off".

Cruelty.

On 9/15/2017 at 2:15 PM, Shiwiii said:

  Lastly, what is the rewards program listed in the screen shot above? 

The rewards program goes like this, as an example ...

The JW singer Prince (PBUH) contributed about $38 thousand dollars a month to his local Kingdom Hall.  Most of this was sent to Brooklyn, which was then the JW Headquarters. 

In exchange, he lived a lifestyle, and had associates both personal and professional that you and I would be disfellowshipped for.

When he died of drug overdose, you could almost hear the salivating over his estate across State lines.

You have heard that after you die, you have to pay for your sins?

Down here on Earth there is an unofficial "good ol' boys" price list.

And don't even get me STARTED about the Australian JW Michael Jackson Day Care Centers!

Sort of like a "temporary tattoo", eh?

9 hours ago, Anna said:

Evidently our view has changed and become a lot more extreme. I hasten to think this was due to the shake up in 79 with GB member Ray Franz etc. He was eventually disfellowshipped because of associating with a disfellowshipped person (not because of apostasy). It seems because they had made an example of Ray, they also had to carry it through with the rest of us

That is how control is maintained ... fear through arbitrary punishment that makes no sense,  for fear you will be NEXT.

The same thing happened in Vietnam ... the logic was "we have wasted so many lives, we need to send more to validate them."

5 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

I don't think anything of significance has changed since the 74 article. There is a bit of counsel designed so that persons do not get overly casual with disfellowshipping just because it is a relative, but there is nothing fundamentally different

(With that statement it makes me wonder if you would recognize the difference between lightning, and a lightning bug.)

9 hours ago, Anna said:

Now that's what I'm talking about. It makes so much more sense, and I hate to think that this extreme clamp down we have now could have something to do with "politics" rather than spirituality.

Of course it's all politics ... and the current policy is also cruel, and unscriptural.

That is how control is maintained ... fear through arbitrary punishment that makes no sense, for something someone else did, for fear you will be NEXT.

Some people go to college six years to make some reaaaaaly cool candles, man.

Some people go to college because it was expected of them, by parents who paid for it.

Some people go to college because they KNOW through pain, disappointment and many tears they are not sharp, intelligent, or coordinated and strong enough to survive any other way.

Through the genetic lottery, and no fault of their own ...  they are naturally incompetent at everything, and need to be TRAINED to do something that will pay the bills, or to become educated enough to be able to survive in a normal conversation without being pitied or being made fun of.

Through grit and hard work, incredible years of hard work, they LEARN to survive in a hostile world without being a burden on others, and have productive lives of true worth, REAL self respect,  and REAL earned dignity. 

Those are the people that NEED college ... and have my REAL admiration.

... also the REAL admiration of employers.

Not everyone can be a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs .... and that is a fact.

They changed the world .... most of us just do not want to be buried early.

.

7 hours ago, Anna said:

And yet it goes to show that people are willing to believe anything. I could start my own religion of the  pink flying slippers and get a following. Even with a name like that. Angel Moroni, give me a break.

You would have to add polygamy or unlimited sexual partners to the sales pitch... THEN you "gots a winnah!"

10% tithing would be cheaper than dating, and alimony!

You want to tick off a Morman ... in the nicest way ... ask him how Joseph Smith received the Bible ... then comment "Well, that's not a religion you could just "pull outta a hat!".

I did this.

VERY hard to keep a straight face.

I suspect the "Angel Moroni" was a Joseph Smith inside joke, between him and the church treasurer.

As Muppet Ralph the Dog sez:

"Can't live with 'em ... can't live without 'em ..."

Wikipedia has a good insight on this "phenomenon" of children taking stands BEFORE it becomes company policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minersville_School_District_v._Gobitis

As these Passport Applications, each requiring a pledge of allegiance show ....

Everyone is equal ... but some are more equal than others.

2 hours ago, Nana Fofana said:

It's completely possible that I've missed out on news  others would assume 'should be common knowledge by now', but I don't know to what you or JTR are referring.

It's VERY HARD to keep up ... there is a LOT going on ... but, like the old Soviet Union Newspaper "PRAVDA ( that translates "TRUTH")  the only news you get on JW.ORG is "Good" news.  Approved news.  And people naturally reacting to our nuttiness is evidence of "persecution".

It is a crying shame that the nation's civil authorities have the moral high ground!

Couple that with the fact that actively searching for TRUTH, about ANYTHING that is not from the .ORG is considered tantamount to apostasy and disloyalty, may Brothers and Sisters have deliberately decided to remain ignorant, to avoid censure and punishment.

Ask too many questions and you will be invited into the "little back room".

We all know this is true ....

"Big Brother" knows everything about everything .... and NEVER admit when they are flat wrong.

.That's why there are gag orders for adverse court settlements .... they pay a LOT of money for .... silence.