James Thomas Rook Jr.

Sweden is just exercising their right to challenge anyone they think is no conforming to the E.U. empowerment of gay rights.

While they can scrutinize the Watchtower, they will not be able to prove malice. We are in an age of religion being challenged by the far left that has embodied itself to atheism rather than a religious order. But why would it surprise anyone within the Watchtower organization, if these events are foretold?

LGBT people have the same human rights as all individuals, which include the right to non-discrimination in the enjoyment of these rights. This
principle is enshrined in numerous international instruments, providing
for a wide scope in its application. Specifically, at the global level, it is

embodied in Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) and Article 2 of the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) (see Annex 1).
The EU unanimously supported the December 2008 United Nations
General Assembly (UNGA) Statement on human rights, sexual orientation
and gender identity

1
supported by 68 countries from five continents. The Statement reaffirms the principle of non-discrimination and condemns executions, arbitrary arrest or violations of human rights on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.


 
The same principle that is emerging in the U.S. Religion has been steadily being attacked since the millennials took over. 2000’s

The E.U will someday decide who is more beneficial. Christianity had a long run, So, now?

For now, just like article 26 give rights to gays? Article 9 give the same rights to religion. What the E.U. wants is a balanced approach by conscience.

In the meantime? Read up on all the sensational propaganda news.

It just isn't possible to understand the Bible's code of conduct unless you accept it as of divine origin and obligatory. With that as a basis, then personal difficulties with it's requirements remain in that context, as a problem for the individual to resolve, not a problem with the requirement.
It just isn't possible to compromise the Bible's view on specific LBGT behavioural issues, despite the attempts of various religionists. So there will always be conflict between those who reject the Bible standard for sexual behaviour and those who adhere to and promote it. This conflict extends into the legal arena as the conflict has been blended with a human rights issue which basically excludes a consideration of God's will on the matter.
The Bible does not always give the reasons for why a course of conduct is right or wrong in God's eyes. That determination is left to the individual and may either be deduced by logic or by observation, over time. (Why circumcision on the 8th day? Also, see the book "None of These Diseases").
The basic, ubiquitous reason given for keeping God's requirements is the rather generally stated: "That it may go well for you" but this is just not enough of a reason for many. In fact, no reason is sufficient for those who just do not want to live by the Bible's code of conduct. What is most puzzling however is the fact that those who "do not" seek to impose by force an acceptance of that preference on those who "do". This takes the conflict into the thorny area of state control v freedom of religious expression.
Nevertheless, this conflict will continue. The fact remains that Jehovah's Witnesses do not discriminate against those who describe themselves in the terms of the LBGT movement. However they do discriminate, vigorously, against the sexual practices that identify such ones, and that will never change.
There's nothing new about rejection of the standards of the God of the Bible, and there's nothing new about the attempts on one group or another to introduce a reversal of those standards, even to the point of asserting that the practice once abhorred is now promoted by God. It follows the pattern of behaviour prevalent at the time of the prophet Isaiah and expressed at Isaiah 5:20:
"Woe to those who say that good is bad and bad is good,those who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness,those who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!"

Specular rather than diffuse reflection due to smooth rather than rough surface

You need to associate with a smarter group of people.
If your master's degree is in French Literature .... you have shot yourself in the foot, and paid for the bullet.
What will that qualify you to do? Nothing that I can think of off hand.
If you are in a room full of 100 college graduates, and 50% have what is my opinion, a generally useless degree, that shows the 50% is completely divorced from reality.
So, you have 50 people left, while the others are stewing in their own expensive fantasy world.
Then there are perhaps 40 people who are not willing to relocate as needed to where the jobs are, so they have tied their own hands behind them.
Risk taking and bold action is often a crucial job requirement.
So you have ten people left out of the original hundred, and 5 have no idea how to write a good resume, interview well, or are just hateful, mean, belligerent, or ugly people with no people skills whatsoever.
That leaves 5 people.
Then you have the last 5 people that perhaps studied Petroleum Engineering, Nursing, Hotel Management, or any number of valuable subjects, but reality is that they tested well, but in the workaday world, they couldn't find a door with a map. 
Or perhaps they have even an advanced degree in some valuable subject, and have let the sounds of their own wheels make them crazy, and are bat crap crazy, .... and decide after a $70,000 education,  to sell daisies, or make really cool table candles ... man.
I have a cousin who went to college for 9 years, and is as useless as teats on a bull, because he is just plain clueless. He goes around in a Star Wars robe and a a fake light saber.
Infinite Variety.
 
 

If you are the smartest person in a room .... you are in the wrong room.

I appreciate your honest reply, but the fact of the matter is this:
You have your opinions on how the Universe and the "Real World" operates ... and I have mine.
The Universe does not care about either of our opinions ... only what the facts really are.
OF COURSE
I never said it did.
Ever see the movie "Dr. Zhivago"?  An older movie well worth the effort to find and see, starring Omar Sharif, and Sir Alex Guiness (Obi-wan Kanobe) .  Dr. Zhivago is in Siberia or somewhere in the winter during the Russian Revolution of 1918, and he is freezing .. so he leaves his "girlfriend's" apartment and starts destroying someone's fence for firewood to take back.   His Brother is a policeman spying on him, and see's this, but lets him get away with it.
The brother muses (paraphrased) "You know ... my brother is a Doctor, and I am just a policeman ... but that does not bother me ... I have killed people much better than me with a small pistol."
OF COURSE chance and circumstance befall us all .... but other things being equal ... the race is not always to the swift ... and the battle is not always to the strong .... but that is the way to bet.
In any horse race you are going to be at a decided disadvantage ... if you are a cow.
 

Okay, now Allen, behave yourself. Seriously.
It is excellent stuff that you contribute. Don't mess it up.
You have made what appears to others as personal attacks and have been tossed on your ear several times. Have others engaged in attacks and not been tossed? I many times have been called a liar with no repurcussions at all. It doesn't matter. It is what it is.
Nobody will ever say that you do not get worked up. You cannot afford the luxury. Please, never post a comment immediately. Take time to think it over and cool off if you are heated. The most brilliant comments that you, I, or anyone else, make are quickly buried. There is no need to be hasty. Take your time.
Remember it is a public forum that you are on and people can (and do) say whatever they want. You cannot stop that.  You have to work around it somehow when they post what seems malignant.  If you hurl something ultra-harsh that gets you tossed, you have indulged your own fury, but fallen short of reaching your full power.
 

1.)  God cannot die.
2.) If Jesus did not actually and really die, his sacrifice was NOT a sacrifice .... merely a REALLY bad weekend.
3.) Therefore, to rational  people ... Jesus CANNOT be God ... or .... if Jesus was God, who CANNOT die .... he did not redeem anybody from anything, as he DID NOT REALLY DIE, then no REAL sacrifice of his life was ever made.
Pick ONE.
You cannot have it BOTH ways.
 
Period.

Never heard about it. The gym had just been put down in the old Squibb bulidings (25 Columbia Heights) and I always meant to get down there and never saw it except when volunteering for overnight guard duty, when we had to walk through all the buildings and turn a key at various points to punch a sort of time card. I only walked through the gym when the lights were out and wouldn't have noticed the mirrors. I don't remember hardly any brothers who went down there for the bowling, basketball and weightlifting. There just wasn't a lot of time for that sort of thing. I heard that you had to pick up the bowling pins and reset them yourself manually. I remember one brother telling me that age 19 to age 25 were the perfect years for weightlifting, but he was skrawny and I doubt he did much himself.

I am not too comfortable with this idea either, only because of the simple fact that Jehovah gave the Bible to everyone, and he gives holy spirit to anyone asking, so that they can understand the Bible.  From experience I have known spiritually mature brothers and sisters express some ideas which were not at the time "officially" taught, but did become so later on. It seems like they had divine insight? Or was it just that they were very good Bible students and reasoned on things logically? Even ones who had not known what Jehovah's Witnesses taught,  like @Gone Away were able to work some things out that were contrary to popular belief in Christendom. I believe it is the capacity of every good Bible student, whether of the anointed or not, to have insight. The important thing is though to have the wisdom to wait if we have reasoned out something which is not an "official" teaching. Are we going to get upset about the 1% or more that we think is not right, and forget about the bigger percentage that has benefited our lives as one of Jehovah's Witnesses? I have know people who had previously been involved in all kinds of religions who upon reading one of JW publications have declared "this is the Truth". One studious lady (a staunch Catholic) who became a very good friend of mine, even flung the "Truth Book" across the room because she could see that what she read made perfect sense and that what she had previously believed was wrong, and that upset her so much. My own mother in-law, who had always been God fearing, after reading the "Truth Book" , said all those unanswered questions she had were answered, and all the pieces of the puzzle came together. There are many, many more examples I could cite, and I am sure you have read the many experiences of people who have benefited from learning from a small group of anointed Christians who collected their perception of what the Bible "really" teaches into publications, which helped them understand the Bible's message more clearly. I think when we start doubting  the "exclusive group" it is good to focus on the positive things we have gained from our "associating" with them.

I suppose it really is a "take it or leave it" scenario as you suggest. Whatever one's opinion of the "communication conduit" or "media channel", it remains that a large group of people have a peception, based on the Bible, that there is a strong possibility of surviving a world cataclysm to life on a cleansed earth. And they have learned about this from a rather smaller group of people who are convinced of themselves having a rather more immediate destiny in the heavens as rulers with Christ.
Now they didn't make it all up themselves. Clarity on the idea and detail on it's connection with Bible teachings and prophecy was shared with them to a greater or lesser degree. Some, like myself, were able to discern the bare bones of a concept of people living on earth forever, by resurrection or survival, from the Bible,  and certainly rejected the notion of "all good people go to heaven" long before associating with Jehovah's Witnesses. It was refreshing to come across an organised approach to sharing this Bible based view with other people, and to get a lot more detail on the whole concept of it.
Granted, there is a measure of human imagination thrown in as is always the case in matters of understanding God's Word. But, fanciful ideas  have a way of being skimmed off in time, whilst the genuine core concepts remain. There are plenty of critics and criticisms around, exhibiting varying degrees of emotion toward both groups amongst the Witnesses, ranging from a sort of benign and patronising disbelief through to plain vitriolic hatred. Rather like the "intellectual" Greeks at the Areopagus (Acts 17:32) and the hate-driven Jewish leaders at  Jerusalem (John 11:53)., and all manner of in-between shades.
Really, it is simply a case of "take it or leave it". You either believe or don't believe, accept ot don't accept. It is presented as an invitation in Scripture, so there is no compulsion, other than it's appeal, which has persuasive power, but not to everyone to the same degree. It seems, judging from the forum comments, there are even those who have a better understanding intellectually of the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses on this matter than do some Witnesses themselves. Yet to them, this only spurs an active disbelief and rejection.
But notwithstanding, the invitation to both groups remains and there is still a response to it. It seems that Jesus's words in connection with the kingdom invitation at the time of his preaching still have a very real application in the current period of time.
"From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of the heavens is the goal toward which men press, and those pressing forward are seizing it."  John 11:12

How many suppositions are made in the WT quote? The org states that they 1. have special anointed ones with access to exclusive info from heaven 2. this info is specifically being imparted by heavenly anointed ones 3. this connection has led to correctly identifying the great crowd.
We're just supposed to "take it at their word" in 3 different ways. That's a lot of faith with no evidence to back it up. How can we know their info is correct? 

This reasoning just hurts to read. Are we supposed to just take their word for it that they have the "correct identity" of the great crowd? Isn't it odd that only an exclusive group have access to this divine insight? Where's the proof?

1.)  God cannot die.
2.) If Jesus did not actually and really die, his sacrifice was NOT a sacrifice .... merely a REALLY bad weekend.
3.) Therefore, to rational  people ... Jesus CANNOT be God ... or .... if Jesus was God, who CANNOT die .... he did not redeem anybody from anything, as he DID NOT REALLY DIE, then no REAL sacrifice of his life was ever made.
Pick ONE.
You cannot have it BOTH ways.
 
Period.

This will sell very easy in the future if need be unlike the current design khs which are more difficult to sell. It could be converted into a fast food restaurant or professional office without huge costs. Also, the location is excellent as it is located on the corner of a busy state highway and main entrance to the town

Surely a university didn’t randomly approach her and give her a scholarship? ?
This week's WT-study:
The Watchtower - April 2018 - "Young People, Are You Focused on Spiritual Goals?"

Watchtower is trying to influence those who might be thinking about a university level education to drop the idea, based on simplistic and anecdotal information
First, lawyers are usually not talking to bank staff - the lawyer's assistant is.
Second, what lawyer ever says: "I'm so unhappy," especially to some random person at a bank.
That doesn't invalidate the reality that just because one person noticed that some of the millions of people who followed the career path are unhappy, does not mean that it is wrong to follow that career path or that anyone who does will be unhappy. Flawed reasoning at its worst. Notice I did not say logic, because there is no logic to their reasoning.

That's why as I walk down the street, I constantly stop and look behind me, or dodge into a doorway, or hide behind a lamp post, looking back ....or dodging and weaving get off a few shots ... just in case.
.... better to be safe ... than sorry.
 
 

.... and my favorite, Mickey Spillane.
Agenda driven examples of ANYTHING are only generalizations, that may .. OR MAY NOT apply.
Infinite experiences....
.... Infinite results.
Often as we get older ... not having been able to make the cut as a helicopter or commercial airline pilot causes us to remember that our goal was always to be a shoe salesman.

*** Insight volume 1, p. 15 Abel ***
Since Seth was evidently born shortly after Abel’s death and when Adam was 130 years of age, it is possible that Abel may have been as much as 100 years old at the time of his martyrdom.—Ge 4:25; 5:3.

Jehovah God withdrew his holy spirit and they began to die.

When I was a jw I found a nice looking bottle, so I started to dust it off and a genie popped out and told me he didn't do demon impressions.

If this is true, then they would be using the same information posted in JW.org. Meanwhile, the service year ends in September.

I remember when this was a hot topic ..... 1966 .... I had just graduated from High School..
I was young, and had NO life experience ... and took it all at face value, as presented.
51 years later, and never having seen one particle of evidence of demon activity at any time
... anywhere ...  I am less concerned.
I did give it some thought in one 2014 Bible Movie "Son of God",  when they cast an actor that looked exactly like Barack Obama, as Satan.