James Thomas Rook Jr.

The thought just occurred to me, that is we as Jehovah's Witnesses become tired of waiting on the Governing Body to straighten out this problem, AND hold those accountable, we can do it OURSELVES.
Report EVERYTHING to the police ... and let them sort it out.
Apparently THEIR system of Truth and Justice works better than ours!
Not perfect ..... just better.

This might be a good time to REVIEW about a 7MB video clip of the FAMOUS "Pillowgate" Videos ( the complete video for Brothers at Bethel is almost a gigabyte, and the one for Sisters is about 95MB).
You can be sure that the GB is CERTAINLY giving plenty of food for thought, at the proper time.
After all .... WE PAID FOR IT WITH OUR CONTRIBUTIONS!.
We ALL should benefit from this ... uh.... this "sound counsel".

2 CHAIR pORNEA .mp4 Knowing how important this is, I tried to upload the full videos, but the system choked on it, and would not accept it.
 

The criteria Jehovah uses is quite clear.
Locally, it varies according to the year, location, and policy.

Yes. Some Witnesses would take that literally. But in the last couple of decades, there has been a toning down of the talk about who will be destroyed and who will survive. JWs expect to survive as a people, but there has been a lot more talk about Jehovah's justice and how we can't predict just how many others will survive, based upon their circumstances, age, mental capacity, opportunities to know about true Christianity, or even to know about Christianity in general. Witnesses rarely say they will be the only ones to survive Armageddon. We are not the judges. We don't know if thousands of other persons will survive, or millions, or even billions. Jonah, we recall, thought he was calling down destruction on the capital of a world empire, in effect, therefore, the entire world -- and for a while he was disappointed when Jehovah saved all the people he expected would die. 
From another perspective, #3 in that list was Armageddon, which we believe will be an obvious display of Jehovah's purposeful and selective judgments through his chosen King and Commander, Christ Jesus. This will not simply be a completely chaotic time of destruction. A scenario similar to the one Witnesses envision is that Gog/Magog will attack, and Jehovah will selectively protect the persons he wishes to protect.
Many persons will no doubt witness such spectacles of Jehovah's selective judgments, and realize they are not random, but purposeful. This would have to be interpreted as a true and spectacular judgment message from heaven. That means that, in effect, EVERYBODY who witnesses Jehovah's judgments will now be one of Jehovah's witnesses at this point, even prior to the spectacular and miraculous resurrection of persons brought back from just recently and long ago, with their memories intact. The newly resurrected, too, therefore, become witnesses of Jehovah's judgments, power, purpose. 
You will have to ask other Witnesses if they anticipate God's judgments working out differently. For me, this is a personal opinion but it can still fit the range of variations possible from current Witness teachings. It might have been difficult to allow for such variation even 25 years ago.

Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi
 

AllenSmith:
When evil men under cover of a disaster such as hurricane Florence are looting your home, or terrorizing your family, or killing them ... please feel free to give them a scripture, or a nice cone of ice cream.
My response, if I can manage it, will be QUITE different.
I will read a nice scripture to the survivors ... if any.

Jesus is also prepared to kill ... Armageddon will be a slaughter from one end of the Earth to the other end of the Earth.
...for the same reason a National Guardsman kills when called upon .... to protect the innocent.
The only difference is ... the National Guardsman is doing it NOW!

AllenSmith:
We are obviously talking about two different things.
I do not expect National Guardsman to consider anything but to protect and serve according to their sworn oath, and sometimes to protect the innocent and enforce the Laws of the Land, they have to use FORCE.
You cannot enforce laws with using FORCE, or the assured EXPECTATION of force.
Including deadly force, when the Bad Guys are stupidly mucking about.

Spoons do not make people obese.

With humans ... there is truly INFINITE VARIETY of what one thing leads to another.
.... there are people that read the Bible, and that causes THEM to become mass murderers.
Thankfully that is not the case with everybody.
Infinite Variety.
 

If we were judged by our thoughts .... NOBODY would survive God's Judgement.

I have read scholarly real life studies on human sexuality spanning decades of research, in big thick bound volumes, some I have here in my personal Library ... that somewhere around 95% of all men masturbate, and 80% of all women masturbate. 
100% of all men and women masticate, consumate, defecate, urinate, expectorate, perspirate, and exfoliate.
(That means chew, eat, poop, pee, spit, sweat and shed skin ... for those in Rio Linda...)
Men ejaculate and women menstruate.
(That means squirt semen, and leak blood ... . for those in Rio Linda .... )
Presumably, all these things have occurred since the beginning of humans on Earth ... and in fact all sexually reproducing animals on Earth ... for MILLIONS ... even BILLIONS  of years.
You might think that if Jehovah cared about such things as men and women masturbating he would have mentioned it AT LEAST ONCE in the Bible.
... actually, God did have an opinion about it ONE time, in one specific instance, specifically concerning Onan.
Other than that ... zero...zip... nada.... goose eggs.
( ... that means NOTHING .... for those in Rio Linda.)
Sometimes, as part of out cultural upbringing, and our particular proclivities, we come to believe, to our very souls ... to our bones ... things that God has NO stated opinion on.
Cannibalism is one of those things ... which we consider ABHORRENT, which is a natural reaction for some, and as for an example, the Early Hawaiians, not so much.
They ate their slain enemies as a matter of convenience.  Presumably they bled to death ... and they ate them.
Jehovah ALSO never prohibited cannibalism, but he does prohibit eating blood.
Nowhere in the Bible has Jehovah spoken against what for approximately 90% of the planet's human population is a common human practice ... and always has been.
There are good Biblical Detectives ... and there are bad Biblical Detectives .   Bad ones don't detect much, and always get it wrong.
Dishonest ones attribute as the will of God, things he has no interest in.
 
Dishonest ones attribute as the will of God, things he has no interest in.
 
Dishonest ones attribute as the will of God, things he has no interest in.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Let me spell it out for you in one sentence.
I am NOT making fun of the "problem", which NOWHERE in the Bible is spoken against ... I am making fun of the VIDEO, which is absurd, and world class CREEPY.
 
2 CHAIR pORNEA .mp4

" Can anyone explain this to me?: The rest of the dead did not come to life UNTIL the 1,000 years were ENDED."
How could it be any simpler than what is stated?
Idea No. 1.) 
"And they came to life and ruled as kings with the Christ for 1,000 years. 5 ....  This is the first resurrection."
Idea No. 2  
(The rest of the dead did not come to life until the 1,000 years were ended.) ...
There.... that make more sense?
What could be simpler?
 

As my grown daughter once said to a "Brother" who was showing her  unwanted "attentions",
"If you don't leave me alone my Dad will kill you. Yes, he will go to prison, but YOU will be dead!".
This man and I had met, and he knew that was true .... and he turned his "attentions" elsewhere.
Sometimes the most complicated interpersonal problems have a simple solution.
... and I am a man who takes spiders outside when I can so as not to harm them.
 

What do you do when the interpreters you are paying for do a bad job of interpreting?
You stop paying them.

AllenSmith:
When evil men under cover of a disaster such as hurricane Florence are looting your home, or terrorizing your family, or killing them ... please feel free to give them a scripture, or a nice cone of ice cream.
My response, if I can manage it, will be QUITE different.
I will read a nice scripture to the survivors ... if any.

I will wait for Gone Away's explanation, as it may be entirely different, exactly the same, or anything in the middle.
Even when Jehovah fought for and with the armies of ancient Israel, individual soldiers were killed. How do you explain THAT? It may not have "been the issue", or "in the overall scheme of things" spiritually, but it was them who did the dying..
I SEE your viewpoint ... I just disagree with it. 
I cannot believe that the reason that Jehovah God is letting millions of good people die, one at a time, or in groups, is to ALLOW his arch enemy freedom of action.
I believe something very common to people causes the death of these six Witnesses by drowning.
1.) perhaps the road was wet, and the car skidded into the river, ditch, pond or whatever, or
2.) perhaps the driver fell asleep at the wheel and ran off the road, or
3.) perhaps a tire blew out and they lost control, or some other very common occurrence.
I personally do not believe that God or Satan had ANYTHING to do with this accident .... that it was merely "chance and circumstance befall us all".
THAT is what makes the most common sense, and is the most reasonable explanation ... and dragging up a scripture to invoke supernatural intervention by acting, not acting, or some universal agenda is wrong, and delusional.
Oh, and there is one more of many more possibilities....
4.)  They never learned how to swim, and/or never visualized in advance what they would do if their car was submerged in water.
People that think about emergencies, and meditate on how to handle them, and mentally prepare themselves for specific scenarios, OFTEN don't have life killing emergencies .... merely "experiences ".
It is my opinion that Jehovah has NEVER protected individual people in everyday situations, as if he did, that means that the freedom to screw up would not exist, and true Freedom requires "chance and circumstances befall us all", without divine interference ... or it is NOT really Freedom.
If there is no REAL Freedom, and unfettered consequences full and complete .... then as night follows day ... there is no responsibility, as our actions are not our own.
You can't have it BOTH ways.
 

Jesus is also prepared to kill ... Armageddon will be a slaughter from one end of the Earth to the other end of the Earth.
...for the same reason a National Guardsman kills when called upon .... to protect the innocent.
The only difference is ... the National Guardsman is doing it NOW!

I have seen Witnesses who were told by the person to be disfellowshipped that it would happen next week, try to get in as much time as they could with that person until the announcement was made ... THEN ... they "ceased to exist".

“The EAS is a national public warning system that provides the president with the communications capability to address the nation during a national emergency,” explained FEMA on its website.
In England during World War II, they had mail service twice a day, and notified people of national emergencies BY MAIL!
This EAS is a system set up to warn people of national emergencies, like thermonuclear war, where you have PERHAPS 15 minutes to take cover.
FAKE NEWS is when it is alluded to that Trump is going to use it for ANY personal purpose.
 

I will wait for Gone Away's explanation, as it may be entirely different, exactly the same, or anything in the middle.
Even when Jehovah fought for and with the armies of ancient Israel, individual soldiers were killed. How do you explain THAT? It may not have "been the issue", or "in the overall scheme of things" spiritually, but it was them who did the dying..
I SEE your viewpoint ... I just disagree with it. 
I cannot believe that the reason that Jehovah God is letting millions of good people die, one at a time, or in groups, is to ALLOW his arch enemy freedom of action.
I believe something very common to people causes the death of these six Witnesses by drowning.
1.) perhaps the road was wet, and the car skidded into the river, ditch, pond or whatever, or
2.) perhaps the driver fell asleep at the wheel and ran off the road, or
3.) perhaps a tire blew out and they lost control, or some other very common occurrence.
I personally do not believe that God or Satan had ANYTHING to do with this accident .... that it was merely "chance and circumstance befall us all".
THAT is what makes the most common sense, and is the most reasonable explanation ... and dragging up a scripture to invoke supernatural intervention by acting, not acting, or some universal agenda is wrong, and delusional.
Oh, and there is one more of many more possibilities....
4.)  They never learned how to swim, and/or never visualized in advance what they would do if their car was submerged in water.
People that think about emergencies, and meditate on how to handle them, and mentally prepare themselves for specific scenarios, OFTEN don't have life killing emergencies .... merely "experiences ".
It is my opinion that Jehovah has NEVER protected individual people in everyday situations, as if he did, that means that the freedom to screw up would not exist, and true Freedom requires "chance and circumstances befall us all", without divine interference ... or it is NOT really Freedom.
If there is no REAL Freedom, and unfettered consequences full and complete .... then as night follows day ... there is no responsibility, as our actions are not our own.
You can't have it BOTH ways.
 

Sure, but in this instance I was talking about one thing specifically. There is more chance of someone having immoral thoughts when they masturbate, than if they take a cold shower.
Plus, someone who is masturbating cannot be said to be deadening their desire as per Colossians 3:5, (generally speaking, as there are always exceptions to the rule)

This winter when I see reporters shivering in the frigid cold despite being dressed like polar bears I will look for two guys in the background strolling by in their shirtsleeves.

I understand everything you say. Don't get me wrong, I was never agreeing with this video, in fact I think it's one of the worst videos WT has ever made. What I was doing was refuting what someone said, about love being switched on and off. It isn't. The love is still there, and a lot of heartache for the parents who believe this is the right thing to do for the benefit of their child. 
Like you say, no situation is the same. I have reasons to believe the scenario in the video was based on actual events. I know of a very similar one myself. However, as you say, this video does not take into account any other circumstances that could happen in real life. For that reason  I think it is a dangerous video, especially for someone who  is bound to do things unquestioningly. I am hoping most parents who know their child well, and who are in a similar circumstance, will know how to act so that a tragedy does not happen.