James Thomas Rook Jr.

1 hour ago, Queen Esther said:

Importend is the learning point of that story and not the source where I got it !

Agreed ..... Bro. Charles Taze Russel in the FIRST issue of the Watchtower stated that if the Truth came from Satan, it would still be the Truth ... which of course is self evident ... UNLESS ....

Something did not go someone's way, and said something that was "unapproved" ... or from an "unapproved" source.

THEN  they start collecting fire wood and start chanting  "She's a WITCH ... BURN HER !".

... or "him", as the case may be.

2 minutes ago, tromboneck said:

who do you think is behind all of this?

... all of what?

I expect NOTHING from the world, so I do not care about that .. we HAVE to just endure that.

I only care about how we treat each other in the Truth.

I don't worry so much about Satan the Devil, as I worry about clueless men trying to consolidate their own power and self-appointed authority, and who and how many they are willing to hurt to do that.

.

... which by law, the Russians have NO OBLIGATION to honor their (ECHR) rulings.

Prior to just recently,  Jehovah''s Witnesses were in Russia for at least a half century.

... ALL OF THIS... all of this ... could have been avoided if we had just treated the Brothers and Sisters decently.

People don't burn others at the stake because they are rational... they do it based on how they FEEL!

Reality is that the Russians .... FEEL .... that JWs are extremist with an iron fist in a velvet fur glove.

If there is ANYBODY on Earth that understands that, it is the Russians who grew up under Soviet tyranny, where families were turned against each other.

I hope the Court will, in it's ruling(s) explain the reasons WHY they ruled the way they did.

If so ... then we will know.

3 hours ago, bruceq said:

Unbelievable all they say is we are : MOJ: "Their crimes are dangerous, systematic, deliberate, and gross

We may be going to the ECHR

Everything the Defense said was fair, and true .... Jehovah's witnesses are the most peaceful and non-extremist people on Earth ... EXCEPT IN ONE AREA ... and that is how we destroy whole families to disfellowship one individual ... which unravels  and destroys the very fabric of civilization.

I hope the Court will, in it's ruling(s) explain the REASONS why they ruled the way they did.

.

53 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I do not expect to encounter a "fast draw" situation, as I pay attention to my surroundings, and an extra three seconds seems not that important to me.

Almost .... I might need that three seconds after all.

30 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

you could almost plant a kiss on his leathery mug.

TTH:

Are you EVER able to discuss any real ISSUE whatsoever ... without trying to divert attention to someone to blame?

How about this ...

You tell me WHY? .... and I will tell you WHO?

Since you have no reading comprehension skills  for what I have already said, in which already answered your question ... that might be best.

...... at least,  you are 100% consistent!

I try to not upset people unnecessarily, and there are even holsters that are concealable .. many different types and styles.  Google IWB Holsters (Inside the waisteband) .

I do not expect to encounter a "fast draw" situation, as I pay attention to my surroundings, and an extra three seconds seems not that important to me.

Like a fire extinguisher ( I have six), or a first aid kit (I have several of different sizes).

I hope at the end of my life the whole exercise will have been a complete waste of time and money ... merely a hobby, in retrospect.

22 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

How is this a benefit to ANYONE!?

This condemns THOUSANDS, perhaps TENS OF THOUSANDS of Brothers and Sisters to a lonely cruel death for no apparent REASON.  (... that I can think of .....)

6 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Much of it, I would think, depends upon how you regard this life. If this life is all there is, then such a policy is tremendously burdensome. If one regards this life as a forerunner to the real life of 1 Timothy 6:19, then it is less so.

Less so?

LESS SO?

Gimme a BREAK!

Sort of like a Catholic who died in the 14th century "going to hell" for eating meat on a Friday ... and being tortured continuously for 600 years, until the 20th century when the Pope changed the "rules", and said it was OK to eat meat on Friday?

It's the same idea.

"tremendously burdensome", or LESS "tremendously burdensome" is euphemistic for torture and LESS torture.

FOR NO APPARENT OR DISCERNIBLE REASON

6 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Who can say what God is thinking?

EVERYBODY SAYS. 

"Everybody" includes the Society, which also extrapolates and interprets what Jesus said 2,000 years ago ... to a specific audience about a specific practice of that time, of getting new wives every few months, and dismissing the old ones. This was so the perpetrators could not be accused of fornication or adultery, and be stoned to death, to today's  cruel application that makes no sense at all ... in this specific example being discussed in this thread.

The Jews of that time figured out how to "juke the system" and with a pad of divorce certificates legally as far as the local law was concerned, and never be convicted of adultery, allowing them to  "play around" all they wanted with complete impunity, as long as they were legally certified.

They had their stack of "get out of jail free" divorce cards ready to show the Pharisees  with spears who showed up to accuse them of adultery ... but their "paperwork" was all in order.

In that case of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" ... PAPER beat ROCK(s).

In our time 2,000 years later ... the Brotherhood gets beat up with the same rocks they are forced to carry, for no REAL discernible reason.  "Because that's what we do" is not a valid reason.

Those thousands or tens of thousands in the Brotherhood who have been abandoned .. ARE BEING PUNISHED FOR NOT SCREWING AROUND!

... being PUNISHED for NOT screwing around.

When the one abandoned's FIDELITY and INTEGRITY is punished with a lifetime of hardship and cruelty ... JUSTICE is ONLY a seven letter word, and EVIL stalks the land.

In this specific situation ... does it serve Jehovah God's, or any humans', or ANY theocratic interests in any way, shape or form, for an innocent person to be stuck forever?

NOT THAT I AM AWARE OF.

If you know something I am missing, please explain it here, so the Brotherhood will know WHY (remember WHY?) they, although innocent,  are being punished.

.

TTH:

That is very cute TTH ...  aaaaand it recommends your skill and imagination as a writer of novels.

You should excerpt that, and build a novel around it.

It has real potential to sell a LOT ... as extrapolational  comedy.

It would have to be a novel such as "Alice in Wonderland", or "Gulliver's Travels" as it has NOTHING to do with reality.

... absolutely NOTHING AT ALL.

But it is good writing, as a macabre visual comedy!

Oh, and by the way .. um ... people do cross streets by themselves, you know.

...... at least,  you are 100% consistent!

To be courageous, half of EVERYTHING is just "being there"

The brother that took a beating and scooped up their cell phone and truck keys did his part, and he was a pacifist, and did not strike back at all.

But he did run TOWARD trouble, to help.

The only thing necessary for evil to prevail, is good men to stand by, and do nothing.

In the world, it's called "... taking one (a beating or some other awful thing) for the team".

1 hour ago, Anna said:

If someone at the KH gave you a hug would they feel it?

uh ... depends on the hug.

"... Is that your gun, or are you just happy to see me?"

What you just posted is INCREDIBLY important !

THANK YOU!

Small brass plaque in a boating supply store : "Pray toward Heaven ...

Row toward shore."

Think about this .... how long would it take YOU to read  11 train boxcars packed with letters?

You probably could spend the rest of your life merely opening the envelopes.

IT DID NOT HAPPEN!

But since the Russians still use wood burning fireplaces, and paper is just thin sheets of wood, this coming bitter winter those in Moscow will appreciate that the Governing Body gave them fuel at the proper time ... even though it cost the Brotherhood Eighty Million Dollars in International Postage, and Fifty-Four Million dollars of that was transferred to the Russian Government by the Universal Postal Union as "terminal duty" ( That means they were paid to deliver the mail at their end...).

GOOD FOR THE BROTHERS!

That's what MEN do ... and pansy Snowflakes do NOT do.

Obama probably took the "Bible Teach" book home and put it next to his Koran.

The Moon was blasted away from Earth by a Mars sized planet that hit the Earth a few billion years ago.  Do we count that Natural Disaster?

Or, how about the three mass extinctions that EACH destroyed about 95% of all life on earth?  Those were natural disasters ... do we count them?

Uh ... and how SPECIFICALLY does that apply to JWI's comment?

WHY DID GOD CREATE THE EARTH?

To make a very LONG story VERY short ... Jehovah God created the whole UNIVERSE to provide an environment for DNA based life.

Why DNA?

BECAUSE ... only with DNA can you create NEW life that is not static, and predictable. Every thing that has EVER lived that reproduced sexually is (or was) entirely new.

Reducing over a million words to one short one....

ENTERTAINMENT

INTERLUDE

( ... The part I like about these interactions is after I have proved my points with actual facts and evidence ... when I get to stand in the background and play the violin to imploding irrational opinions, frothing multiple personalities, lurid fantasy projections,  and cop-out obtuse rationalizations ...)

Humor, is where you find it !

Ok .... the next questions that beg to be answered are ....

WHY?

Does it serve God, or theocratic interests in any way, shape or form, to be stuck forever?

NOT THAT I AM AWARE OF.

Does it serve any human or Theocratic interest to be stuck forever?

NOT THAT I AM AWARE OF.

Perhaps someone else knows WHY this interpretation would be a righteous thing to insist on, but I just don't see it.

WHY would Jehovah God require such a thing ?

How is this a benefit to ANYONE!?

This condemns THOUSANDS, perhaps TENS OF THOUSANDS of Brothers and Sisters to a lonely cruel death for no apparent REASON.  (... that I can think of .....)

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

My current theory is this:  You cannot have a crime or sin without an injured party, whether it is God, or human ...  and the abandoned spouse when abandoned forever remarrying ( after a legal, civil divorce ) hurts NO ONE ... neither God, nor human.

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

Any takers?

..... LISTENS TO THE CRICKETS CHIRPING IN THE BACKGROUND .......

Wooo.. this is gonna be hard!

Sean Connery is supposedly a Scotsman, with a very pronounced Scottish/English accent that is often parodied .. the same way that William Shatner's stop-and-start speech patterns are parodied when he plays Captain James T. Kirk, in Star Trek. He may live in Wales, England (?).

The joke has two parts, and is a "play on words" ... and is nested several layers deep.

It's a word play humor, making fun of the similarity of the words "save, and "shave" ... and the words "Wales" and "Whales". It's PHONETIC (how something sounds to your ears..) humor.

There are so MANY things going on in this joke that the stretch ( in English) throws the mind off balance trying to fit the pieces together, and the panic reaction of that is humor ... we laugh to relieve the pain of thinking too hard.

It's also funny just because it is so clever! (In English).

1.) There is ALSO the  parody of Sean Connery's heavy accent ....  that he would pronounce  the word "save", as "sHHave", and of course .... he has a beard.

1A.) Wales is an area of England, and the same word applies to people FROM that area ... " a Wale, from Wales"

The second part of the joke is that here in the USA, and elsewhere,  there is an animal rights and environmental activist group called "Greenpeace", with a LOT of money, whose goal, among others was (is) to "SAVE THE WHALES". They have a ship of their own and challenge Japanese Whaling ( killing whales) operations in the open Pacific Ocean.  20 and more years ago one might see "bumper stickers" on cars with the expression "SAVE THE WHALES", by people concerned that humanity was killing Earth's whales to extinction.

2.) So the expression "Shave the Wales"  ( with the letter "H") is funny (In English), because you are asking someone to shave a geographical area, or the people FROM that area, and

2A.) "Shave the Whales" ( with the letter "H") is funny because it parodies the wording of the car bumper sticker. 

It is PHONETIC humor.

So, with this  one joke you are going in about 12 different mental directions with very few words.

Humor often DOES NOT translate across languages.

Another example of PHONETIC HUMOR .... the Latin expression "Sempre ubi sub ubi" literally translated means "Always where under where", which makes no sense at in any language, including Latin and English, but because of how similar the word "where" sounds to "wear" in English, its funny for two reasons ...

1.) Latin Expressions sound so much more wise and profound in Latin, rather than English. They sound "wise", and smart.

2.) So, Phonetically, in English, it sounds like you are saying "Always wear underwear"... which is a wise thing to do, usually.

It is clever, and one of my favorites. Phonetic humor.

Now you perhaps can puzzle out the connections between bearded Sean Connery, and Whales, which do not have beards

It's a real STRETCH ....  but the mental snap back is what makes humor work.