James Thomas Rook Jr.

Have any past Presidents of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society

ever had armed bodyguards .. and does the GB now have them?

14 hours ago, Anna said:

If I remember right, is it  those Bible discussions that eventually led to the "dissidency"? I don't think it was just reading and discussing the Bible, but it was coming up with another interpretation, which they liked better than the official JW teaching.....

Isn't that what we encourage people to do in the Ministry, to BECOME Jehovah's Witnesses ?

How can we encourage others to exercise THEIR freedom of thought and expression ...

... when we deny it to EACH OTHER ?

Oh yeah ... I forgot ... we hold the entire family as hostages ... to prevent that.

Never mind.

The Truth about THAT ...... is what got us thrown out of Russia.

.... even post Soviets know better.

FOXNEWS FLASH:

August 24, 2017

Donner Pass (el. 7,056 ft (2,151 m)^] is a mountain pass in the northern Sierra Nevada, above Donner Lake about 9 miles  west of Truckee, California. Like the Sierra Nevada mountains themselves, the pass has a steep approach from the east and a gradual approach from the west.

Although it is a part of History from the early days of the Western Migration, the pass was named after a later group of California-bound settlers.

In early November 1846 the Donner Party wagon train found the route blocked by snow and was forced to spend the winter on the east side of the mountains. Of the 81 settlers, only 45 survived to reach California; some of them resorting to cannibalism to survive.

Mass Hysteria grips tourists who want to photograph the Donner Party Memorial Statue, before it is pulled down in protest by malnourished Clintonista Liberal vegetarians.

For our big meal of the day, my wife and I eat at Golden Corral Restaurant almost every day, because it is right on the way home from her work, and she gets off from teaching school at 3:15PM ... and if you get there before 4PM, you can pay the special LUNCH price, and at 4 PM, the dinner menu comes out,and you can eat STEAK and the Dinner Menu, for the price of lunch.  It is cheaper than buying the same quantity and variety of foods at the grocery stores ... there is no preparation, and NO DISHES! to wash !!

I thought I could eat steak EVERY day, and did for awhile ... but it became "tiresome", and boring ... so in a limited sense I can understand how one might tire of eating people.  I have heard that human flesh tastes "just like pork" ... in fact, one nickname for human flesh is "Long Pig".

IN the Scriptures Jehovah expressed lament that Jews under siege would be driven to cannibalism, and they were ... several times while warring ...BUT HE NEVER PROHIBITED CANNIBALISM !   (... presumably war dead who had bled to death ...), so the definition of "Wrong" would have to come from CULTURAL squeamishness and aversion ... as Jehovah God NEVER said it was wrong to eat people ... just repulsive  as a cultural standard. 

I guarantee you this ... go about three weeks without eating and seeing your children starving to death in front of your eyes will add a great deal of "flexibility" to your outlook on this issue.  In the Soviet Gulags, between barracks, in winter, the prisoners would raid and murder each other, and when the bodies were found, invariably their livers would be missing.

It's really all a matter of perspective, what ideas you are used to, and how hungry you are. 

To me, wasting food is a sin, and protein is protein in an extreme emergency ... AND, Jehovah does NOT really care, except that the blood belongs to him, and must not be eaten.

When I am finished with these "mortal coils" I hope that someone can make use of it, when I no longer can ... and on my driver's license, have indicated that I am an organ donor...

...perhaps with a nice Chianti Wine, and some Fava beans. (chitchitchitchit), and some hungry Brother and his children will have me over, for dinner. ... a "Last Supper", as it were.

I will try NOT to give them indigestion.

 

14 minutes ago, Nana Fofana said:

10 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

How can you say that the world isn't Jewish .. when the Sun's first name is Sol ?

That's a deceptive partial quote of  respected scholarship.^

“And Tar Heel fans liked it so much they bought, in a barely a year, about 3,000 ‘Duke Is Puke…’ stickers, a figure that rivaled ‘If God Is Not a Tar Heel, Why Is the Sky Carolina Blue?’ (and topped ‘Teach a Young Child to Hate State.’)”

— From The Charlotte Observer (Nov. 30, 1980)

I am completely missing how  the references you made have anything to do with what I knew as a comedy line off of an LP comedy album in the 1960s.   Of course, my entire sense of humor was formed in my early years by MAD Magazine, which upon refection had at least as many "Universal Truths" as most of the drivel today that is only self-aggrandizing fluff pieces.

But, a great piece of philosophy embedded itself into my psyche from MAD Magazine ....

"WHAT, ME WORRY?"

How can you say that the world isn't Jewish .. when the Sun's first name is Sol ?

3 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

3 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I am talking about an idea... a CONCEPT ... a principle ... and you are attacking me personally.

Nonsense. I am merely looking for occasions to spotlight My Fair Lady lyrics, which the threadmeister @JW Insider himself has endorsed. 

TTH:  You are weaseling.

If " ... I am merely looking for occasions to spotlight My Fair Lady lyrics .... ", you would not have used my quote as  alleged context.

15 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

That braggart who uses the science of speech

More to blackmail and swindle than teach!

Come smell the Rose.

Nobody knows

How the smell goes

From the Rose

To your nose.

Again, TTH .... I am talking about an idea... a CONCEPT ... a principle ... and you are attacking me personally.

May I suggest you get a hobby OTHER than stamp collecting ... it often  makes people anal retentive.

At LEAST ... you are 100% predictable, and consistent.

.

I am home now, after traveling to Cross Hill, SC to be dead center of the total eclipse ... and I have some MORE good advice ... pray beforehand that Jehovah would let you see the eclipse with clear skies .... we had a very high layer of haze, and two lower layers of  broken clouds ... but just two minutes before totality, a hole opened up in the clouds for the three minutes needed.

ALSO ... practice, Practice, PRACTICE with your cameras and do "full dress rehearsals" so it is automatic, for a month, perhaps half a day a week, tracking the sun, etc.

I wish I had done the rehearsals ... the best was actually a movie of my wife and I from a second camera on a tripod, TRYING to track the Sun through clouds,

....sigh ...

There is the old saying "Pray before Heaven, but Row towards Shore".

On 8/20/2017 at 11:35 PM, JW Insider said:

That's why you haven't really poked holes until you can hypothesize what it would mean as an alternative.

I disagree ..... I know that the filter I used on the front of my camera to photograph the Solar Eclipse today keeps out harmful visible and infrared light so it does not burn up the camera sensor.

When someone says the filter is actually used to prohibit the incandescent  screaming pain filled and raging demons from Hell from entering my camera, ( I suppose these hypothetical people would think the Sun is "Hell"?), I can assuredly tell you THAT IS NOT WHY I FILTER THE LIGHT, without getting into how EXACTLY the filter material is made to  do the "voodoo, that it do, so well".

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Field service, punk! Let's settle this in field service!! Working together - YOU and ME!! High Noon! Or are you too CHICKEN?!!

OK, but since your challenged me .. I get to pick location and time ... How about downtown Charlotte, NC the weekend nights of September 9-10 at the NE corner of Trade and Tryon Streets, at 12 midnight, for some hotel witnessing?  

The night clerks usually have time for conversations between robberies, and assaults.   We could even watch some Confederate Monuments be torn down, or during breaks, roll some drunks!   SEE YA THERE!

If you have a First-Aid kit, you might want to bring it.

I will pencil you in.

And worst of all, assuming honest mistakes (Hahahahahaa),

there is NEVER an apology ... just MORE clouds, MORE smoke, and mirrors.

... and of course ... blaming the uninvolved.

When I was a boy, my uncle had a farm that had many chickens, but only ONE Rooster.

The Rooster was old, and not "performing his Roosterfull duties", so he bought a YOUNGER Rooster and put it in the barnyard.

It was immediately challenged by the Old Rooster and they both  agreed to race around the barn three times to see who would be the "Head Rooster".

The third time they were chasing each other around the barn, my uncle came out with his shotgun, and shot the New Rooster,  exclaiming ...

"That's the third Homo Rooster I have had this month!"

Jehovah ... of course!

Flesh and blood people I evaluate on a case-by-case basis.

.

50 minutes ago, Ann O'Maly said:

3 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

It is the uneasy passenger who tried to redirect the plane - for he has studied flying himself -  and the pilot's response was 'inadequate.'

Better the pilot be redirected and take action than to crash into a mountain.

Yep, if you trying to go someplace, and the pilot(s) are disoriented and wrong ... and in crisis you CAN fly an airplane yourself, depending on them to be competent may get you killed.

The reason you have a conscience is to be able to evaluate calculated risks.  

If you are wrong ... you die

If THEY are wrong ... you STILL die.

The analogy breaks down at this point ... because if THEY are wrong ... you STILL die ... but THEY PAY NO PRICE WHATSOEVER!

.

I like the quote by Robert A. Heinlein "A man who reads his poetry in public, may have OTHER nasty habits".

I remember the story ... and found my wonderful wife "on-line".  We texted for months, then spent about 720 hours talking on the phone. She came for a visit for a week, staying at a hotel, and we spent all day together . She went back to El Paso to settle her affairs, and the next time she came, on a Monday at 3PM ... we raced from the airport to the Courthouse, got a marriage license, and were married by a JP by 5PM.  ( We rented two Notarys as "witnesses").

That was over three years ago, and we have been having a great time since then!

I learn a LOT from movies !

I remember when modems were 300 baud and you could WATCH text coming in on the green and white  monitor.

Pointing your iphone camera at the sun without constant motion will overheat the sensor and burn it up in about three seconds.

Ever burn ants with a magnifying glass as a kid?

Same thing.

This is true of ANY electronic sensor in ANY digital camera.

I bought an $85  solar filter for my camera to prevent this.

The filter has to be at least 16.5 " f: " stops neutral density to not be dangerous to eyes or sensors.

THEN ... use a tripod.

AND ... do not spend too much time with the camera ... you WILL remember this in great detail the entire rest of your life. 

Don't waste it looking through a viewfinder.

...... somewhere in the background I see a collection plate being polished up to be passed ... $$$$$$$$$ Ching, chinga ching, chinga ching ching ching $$$$$$$.

Robert E. Lee was a United States Army Soldier, until asked to fight against the Confederacy, and he replied "I cannot raise my sword against my native Virginia".

He resigned his commission, and joined the Confederate States of America Army to defend his State and his friends and family against Northern Aggression.

After Richmond, Virginia was burned to the ground, Abraham Lincoln, his wife AND HER LEGAL SLAVE (Remember ... slavery was abolished by Presidential Decree ONLY in the States in rebellion against the United States.) toured the ruins of Richmond. There are photographs.

Unfortunately, the Democrats ran the political systems in the South, and THEY controlled the issues of slavery.

" During his famous debates with Sen. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln explained to the crowd: “I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races Â… I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

Lincoln was no different than most white males, North and South, at the time. He was a white supremacist."  -    www.snopes.com

The American Civil War was NOT about slavery ... it was about States Rights to leave the Union when the rules of Union became oppressive and burdensome. This issue was settled, not by what was right or wrong .. but on the battlefield.

Unless you spend a LOT of time searching for TRUTH, most everything you THINK you know .... about EVERYTHING ... is wrong.

.

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Please correct me if my logic is screwed up on this ... but it is my understanding that if Jesus had died by DROWNING, instead of being bloodily wounded, that his sacrifice would NOT have been accepted by Jehovah God ... because no blood would have been shed... so it took BOTH his willingly offering his life and actually following through ... AND .. the pouring out of his blood for that blood to have value in Jehovah's eyes.

I can imagine Jesus being accidentally cut as a young man while doing carpentry, and bleeding ... and since  no sacrifice to God was INTENDED ... the spilled blood would have no value to Jehovah God. 

I almost cut my fingertip off with a chain saw, and there was blood all over the place.

I had a triple bypass several years ago (95% heart blockage) and insisted that there be no blood or blood fractions, and had to go by ambulance to another Hospital for the surgery, so my position is clear, by actual real life and death test ... but I am wondering about the PRINCIPLE of whether or not blood without the death of the donor has any sacred value ... unless it is accompanied by the death of the owner donor.

If Cain had not been successful in murdering his brother, Abel, and Abel did not actually die ... say he only had lost several pints of blood ... but partially recovered, and lived injured for 40 or so more years ... would his blood "have cried out from the ground"?

Attempted murder is not murder.  No one would have actually died, in that scenario.

When David poured out the water that represented blood on the ground, he was recognizing the soldiers had GIVEN VALUE to the water, by risking their lives to go and get it for him.  Otherwise, the water was just water.

What is the PRINCIPLE behind what we do?

We know what is stated throughout the Bible about blood.

What is the PRINCIPLE behind Jehovah's commands?

ONLY if we correctly understand that ... can we correctly apply the scriptures.

Over the years I have put a lot of bloody bandages in the trash, and had drawn at a hospital for testing  ... NOT pouring it out on the ground.

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23 hours ago, enrique said:

enrique:

Other than the fact that you misspelled the words, "Scientists", "That's", "morons", "haven't" ( ... "morrons" ... THAT was worth a hearty contextual laugh ! ), and the word  "understood", you are as wrong about television programming as the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

I am curious... where did you GET your information to support that absurd assertion?http://www.psychmechanics.com/2015/03/how-tv-influences-your-mind-through.html?m=1

 Like i said morons need all the help they can get even with google.And by look looks of your photo you have surely spend most of you life watching tv eating chips FAT BOY HAHAHA

You can always tell when a person is caught up in the Mass Hysteria of the day, the "nuts du jour" ... they cannot themselves answer a simple question of WHY they believe what they do ( television programming ) and then they try to divert attention from their ignorance to some other person. 

It is so frequent it soon becomes boring in its predictability.

I have not watched television on over a year, now, and being 6'-6" tall and weighing 287 pounds, I am not overweight ... I am undertall. ( ... makes note to Program Director to cue the laugh track ...)

And by the way ... I read the link you posted .. and it is based on MANY false premises ... influence is NOT HYPNOSIS! 

If you had TRIED to explain it in your own words, perhaps you would have realized how goofy it really is.  That is very often the case.

I too, jumped off of porches with a towel around my neck when I was a small boy, imitating Superman ... but I did not leap out of windows from tall buildings.

There is a difference!

We hope for the "New System" ... all the Dinosaurs

could ever hope for was to come back as WD-40.

Some signs are CLEARER than others .... Do you REALLY think Jesus

would make signs less clear than the average small town mayor's signs?

WHEW!

With this posting there have been 14 LOOOOOONG pages of discussion.

I am so, SO glad it has been resolved.

It has absolutely NO application to my life, that I can do anything about, BUT, it's like watching people pick, and pick and PICK at their dandruff ... it's SO hard to look away.

The ONLY "saving grace" is that when on our deathbeds, we will get all this time back, spent discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin ... but ONLY to check our emails.