In fact.... we need no personal conscience whatsoever!

Anything not specifically approved .... is forbidden..

...try using unapproved words and extra-magazine phrases and concepts to make a comment at the Watchtower Study, and it will be like someone threw a brick through a plate glass window.

2 hours ago, Matthew9969 said:

Souls... not physical bodies will be taken up. 

I understand the point you are making ... and it is a good extrapolation ... except a "soul" is someone ( OR SOME LIVING CREATURE ...) who breathes atmospheric oxygen mix.   The reason we do NOT have to bleed fish (often caught in nets by the thousands ...) is that they ARE not souls. They do not live and breathe air.

I eat clam chowder at least four times a week.

How would you bleed a clam?

They are CHANGED in the twinkling of an eye ... to another life form ... not extracted.

Uh... people, not clams.

29 minutes ago, Outta Here said:

You are a clear example of the truth of this statement.

I hope you meant that in a positive way, as I use the normal common usage of words ... even the word "Grok", which can be looked up ... but my favorite, is the standard definition of the word "generation", which some have stretched, and bent into a pretzel

When Jesus used the expression " ... this generation will not pass away until all these things occur ...", how did the people he spoke it to understand what he meant?

Whatever that understanding was ... that's how we should understand it ... because ..... that is what he ACTUALLY said.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok

15 minutes ago, Outta Here said:

I mean, "1914" has come and gone; the "generation" is as long as it is; "Armageddon"? well, it will come when it comes. What I or any one else believes makes no difference to these as realities

If you continually change the definitions of words, and people trust you, you can short-circuit even their ability to think rationally.

  "New Light" is stroboscopic, and can give you cognitive epilepsy.

I do remember noting that "Anything that does not kill you will make you stronger", was fraught with lots of scars, and callouses.

OK John .... what is YOUR solution to the way humanity really is?

.... remember Billy, the anagram of God, is doG.

karb?

oops....

Grok?

41 minutes ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

Things don't make a person stronger, they may show the person their own strength, but many have no strength. If you have strength then be happy with it, but don't take it for granted. Many of us don't have that strength. 

Very, very true ... but the first step to becoming invincible ( which is only a goal you might get CLOSE to ..) is to grit your teeth, and form an unbreakable resolve that that is who you WANT to be.

The following poem helped me a great deal ... written by a man who was dying of disease. I was taught it in the 8th grade in public school, and it took me 40 years of repetition to learn it by heart, without missing lines.

Invictus

By William Ernest Henley

6 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

James, none of your cartoons hide the facts that a person cannot sit on the fence. A person either supports the whole rotten lot or does not support them.

I disagree .... you lack the perspective that only time and a LOT of varied experiences can give you.

Jehovah's Witnesses management does a LOT of things wrong, but they also do a lot of things right ... that no one else is doing right.  In the Corporate world, a good executive is one who gets 50% of his decisions right ... and of course WHICH 50% makes all the difference in the world.

Would you quit a job at Microsoft, because every other operating system they release bombs out, and drives everyone nutso?   I would not.

The reason God commanded us to be in subjection to the "Superior Authorities" is NOT because they are even right most of the time .... but because even the VERY WORST are better than anarchy.

The fact that we know Jehovah and Christ as they really are gives us a significant edge in having a quiet, peaceful, and prosperous life.

The TRUTH sets us free.

Humans are just nasty, selfish and no-good, so stuff ALWAYS gets lost, in translation.

I don't bitch and moan about what the Catholics, Baptists, etc., ad nauseum do or do not do, because they are a lost cause, and cannot reform.

My sincere hope is that we, do.

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Whether I can use you as a modern-day example is dubious.

Although it may leave a lot of scars, callouses, and actually make you stronger and more aware ... "Anything that does not kill you will make you stronger".

If you want a good audience laugh ... use me as a good example.

22 minutes ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

That is how stupid JW's sound when they stay physically in but spiritually / emotionally out. But I've said before, we all know why they do it. It's that Blackmail of losing everyone and everything. It frightens some people too much. 

YOU ARE MAKING A GENERAL STATEMENT THAT DOES NOT APPLY TO ME, ON ALL POINTS.

... and there is no hypocrisy on my part.

No one has EVER accused me of being "Brother Watchtower", nor have I ever been, or represented myself as such.

If I was "two faced", my head would have a LOT more hair!

38 minutes ago, Anna said:

I  know for sure @James Thomas Rook Jr. only agrees with about 15% of the interpretations made by the GB and yet he remains a part of the congregation as far as I am aware.

Yeah ... I don't expect much from people, and less from people getting free money.

What they do or do not do does not affect the TRUTH, that I could not have learned anywhere else, and has been a blessing to me my whole life .... keeping me out of the hospital, prison, and the graveyard. Knowing the TRUTH has set me free, and KEPT me free.

..but I can completely do without Caleb and Sophia, and nutso stuff like the "overlapping generations", which is so transparently completely fake, and completely contrary to ANYTHING Jesus taught.

..... ad 85 percentum.

.... and have the Governing Body solemnly charge the Watchtower Lawyers to pursue JUSTICE, wherever it may be found ... NOT to forsake and pervert justice, to preserve the WTB&TS Treasury, and Warwick lifestyle.

I see no evidence that the Governing Body is trying to "extricate" themselves from the 100 and more years of failed false prophesy, and all the arrogant presumptuousness that accompanies their brazen self-aggrandizement,

I think, JWI that your considered assessment is a hopeful fantasy ... until they openly and completely and unambiguously make a full and public written apology for all the harm they have caused over the last at least 60 years with their arrogant and transparent manipulations for the sake of power and money, and real estate.

.... and put into effect policies and procedures for it not to happen .... again, and again, and again, and again, as we have watched for half a century.

.... and fer crying out loud .... throw those atrocious "Telly Awards" in the trash.

Nothing is more embarrassing than watching a con-man that is not good at it....

... and get those Caleb and Sophia dolls out of Tight Pants Tony's Office!

We have met the ENEMY ..... and he is us!   -   Pogo

(my emphasis)

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Pass me back my medallions, @James Thomas Rook Jr.

10 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Hmm. Billy has not uttered a word since this speculation, and he is NEVER silent. 

Has JTR become man of the hour? Do I have to pin my medallions where I never ever EVER thought they would be pinned?

You said you HAD medallions ..... I never got any.

Probably just as well ... I have to staple my Tie to my chest.

... I know that weasels do .....

... think about how EFFECTIVE it would be if therapists just let patients beat the hell out of them for a half hour ....

... it probably works like that, both ways!

13 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Hmm. Billy has not uttered a word since this speculation, and he is NEVER silent. 

Has JTR become man of the hour? Do I have to pin my medallions where I never ever EVER thought they would be pinned?

More like the "man of five minutes" ... unless you are distracted by a squirrel outside your window.

You have medallions?

4 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Suddenly the unthinkable has happened. JTR has become the wise and intrepid man of the thread—daring to holding go where no one has gone before 

holding?

Usually intrepid is prefaced by  "Here...hold my beer"

...... I just cheeked this thread, all the way back to the beginning, and there are no "Weasel" series cartoons here, so that gives me a good excuse to post some of  them here, on THIS thread, which is already 11 pages.

3 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

It is sort of a fine line—the distinctions between engaging, responding, conversing, answering, and fraternizing. Billy (the bad cop) sees no distinction at all between them and simply practices roasting and toasting. I am not so sure that he is wrong—though I am sure enough about it not to do it myself. It’s mostly the horrible PR that he leaves in his wake that is objectionable. To the extent people think he is a Witness, he paints them as the most intolerant, rigid, and anger-prone people on the planet. 

" To the extent people think he is a Witness, he paints them as the most intolerant, rigid, and anger-prone people on the planet. " - TTH

That is an incredibly IMPORTANT observation, that I also have considered at great length, as I have seen that many times in the secular world, and occasionally in the Truth.

That is why I personally think it is VERY important that BillyTheKid46 come out of the closet, and declare whether or not his opinions are that of a Jehovah's Witness, and even whether or not he is a Watchtower Lawyer  ... specifically, himself. He is trying to sit on the fence, hide behind his fake avatar, and fake persona.

I have often (every time he starts typing ..) thought that he is a bitter enemy of Jehovah's Witnesses, and an excellent psychologist, and deliberately portrays himself as a petulant, angry, demented, slow and  truly nasty person (when he may in actual fact be NONE of those things ...), in order to with reverse psychology make Jehovah's Witnesses look like all those things ... so that others are deliberately CHASED AWAY from any idea that they might want to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

That's why I started my series of "Weasel" cartoons, to try and "force the issue", of having Billy declare who he REALLY is, behind his anonymous false front .... that he deliberately keeps as a false front to deceive, and mislead.

I hope Billy clarifies this issue, and I would be heavily inclined to accept his clarification at face value, as stated.

Years ago, I told a Brother who had come to visit me, that he might want to consider not doing so, as I was not a very good example of a Jehovah's Witness, officially, and hanging around me might get him in serious trouble with the Elders.

.. I seem to have lost my train of thought ... but there is a lesson in there somewhere ....

Fortunately, I have a stockpile of cartoons to get refocused on ....

2 hours ago, Melinda Mills said:

Way off topic.

...it comes with the testosterone ....

... AND NOW I RETURN THE  PROGRAM TO A SOMNAMBULISTIC  STATE OF OBLIVIOUS GLEE, PERCHANCE TO DREAM!....

zzzzZZZZzzzzzz.

( ...suppresses a chuckle, and tries to keep a straight face ...)

...actually Billy, that is  spelled "heunk! heunk!" 

Tiny European cars ... remember?