James Thomas Rook Jr.

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.
 

@James Thomas Rook Jr.  Basically everything runs well until one day it doesn't. ;-)  Oops.

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.

When Able was killed he was 126 years old.
How do I know this?
I do not have the slightest idea.
Not even a hint of the smell of a clue.
.... and since the Bible does not say .... I strongly suspect anybody elses WAG would carry equal weight.

Many fail to realize I try to be , what one enemy once called me (actually it was meant as an insult, but it is the nicest compliment I ever had ...) a "Champion" for Jehovah's Witnesses, and the 15% Core Truth that we have.
An Elder asked me recently if I could fully support "Jehovah's Organization".  I replied that I always have.
He asked me if there was anything I had against the Organization. I replied that I could do without Caleb and Sophia..
That seemed to satisfy him, and we went our separate ways.
I am so glad he did not ask about the 85% silly stuff.
Perhaps I should have kept what my Mother taught me when I was 3 to 6 years old .. "Never talk to strangers.".
I am a slow learner.
 
 

It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
So... go for it.
I would love to see how THAT Judicial Committee could justify a disfellowshipping.
 

So for decades where we were told that our worldwide increase was PROOF of Jehovah's Blessing....
This would then be PROOF of what exactly?
Or am I just being too picky?

Wait a minute!
Oh... nevermind.... we already got rid of the song "Theocracy's Increase".......
new light.
Continue on.

This afternoon (Saturday) was our weekend meeting, and the public speaker said that at the Orangeburg, SC Assembly last weekend it was said that the Brotherhood had dropped to 7,500,000 worldwide.
It was my impression that we were at somewhere around 8.2 million, and growing.
That means (if true) that even with several BILLION HOURS of public witnessing .... there was a net LOSS of 700,000 JWs.
So, have we actually had that much decrease, and does anybody have any "official" numbers to verify what I heard today from the platform?

This used to be very important to me, and I know all the arguments, pro, and con.
It's intellectually interesting ... in small doses ... and the older I get ... the smaller the doses I need.
There is a saying "Is this the Hill you want to die on?'
I have had and sustained enough cannonades from the REAL world that I no longer care if Jesus is Michael ... or not.
It's just not important to me ...... anymore.
Plus ... you have to give SOME consideration to the apparent mental competence of those who do still intensely care about such things.
 
Gravity Electricity Wind .mp4 2 CHAIR pORNEA .mp4

Yes, indeed. I'm very happy about this too.
I've seen this happen for other types of abuse (1983, 1995, 2005), but have never personally seen it happen in a case involving child sex abuse. My father (in the 1970's) was part of a judicial committee that had to try to get a Witness disfellowshipped as fast as possible when police picked him up for a crime that would ultimately result in jail then prison time and, of course, some very bad press. The goal was to make sure that by the time the papers might have picked up on the fact that he was associated with our congregation, we could honestly say that he was a former Witness. This directive came directly from Harley Miller, who as head of the Service Department in those days, was sometimes considered to be "the Society." Elders at the time would actually joke that when someone said, "The Society says this or that" on policy, that they meant "Harley Miller says this or that" on policy.
My father complied because the person really had sort of slipped out of the purview of the congregation and had been known for drunkenness and running (riding) with a questionable crowd of worldly people, some of whom had been in trouble for robbery, B&E, etc. Had they bothered to follow up with him at earlier junctures they might have disfellowshipped him then too. I brought this up as a question at Bethel in '76 and was told that there "many" cases like this. But Harley Miller is now considered to have been very "old school" and harsh in his tactics. While he was the running the service department however, I could see a potential counter-claim to what you say here:
Another reason that could call this claim into question is that I have it from a reliable (Witness) source that the Society had already paid out "millions of dollars" long before Barbara Anderson went on that 20/20 program to expose a sexual abuse problem among the Witnesses. A primary goal, I'm told, was to pay for silence among victims.

This is an interesting concept and has a bit more to it than it's context.
For the congregation, in the absence of an alternative, there is a 2 witness rule. Now the debate about what does or should constitute the 2 witnesses is being tested elsewhere.
But what is it to accomplish? That one judged as guilty as charged and unrepentant is excluded from the congregation. Pretty pathetic sanction when compared with the gravity of the crime wouldn't you say? Aw, the poor little molester's relatives won't talk to him no more What a shame.....not.
There are probably other crimes that could be similarly characterised. The congregation today only has a spiritual role and the sanctions against crime can only be handled in that context. Isn't that why Romans 13:4 says current secular governments serve as "God's minister", and "it is not without purpose that it bears the sword"?
There is no need for 2 witnesses to report an allegation of child abuse to the secular authorities, although the inconsistencies of requirements and conflicting legislation make it very prudent for legally-inexperienced congregation elders to seek legal advice in carrying out this action where it is not specifically mandated.
The congregation is simply neither authorised nor equipped to carry out the kind of investigation and victim support needed, or to try, and if found guilty, impose sanctions that God's secular minister has within their remit  at this time. And if God's secular minister finds such a perpetrator guilty of a crime of this nature, then we can trust that the finding is sufficient once the appeal process has been exhausted. The perpetrator, if found guilty, has carried out a henious crime and will likely find that the hands of Caesar are a lot rougher in the short term than the hands of Jehovah via the current congregational structure, to which stoning is no longer an option.
So it will always be true that Theocratically, we can trust that Jehovah's current arrangement, which allows for the secular authorities to execute judicial decisions, is always going to be better than our own. And, thankfully, they answer to him, not us, as how they are discharging their responsibility.

Agree, absolutely !
While watching second video with Gary's illustrations, examples, explanations in plastic way expressed ... yeah, even small doses of mental competence were NOT been visible, for sure. 
After mental gymnastic to understand and mental visualization (making  picture on/of subjects) about given lesson  on what porneia is and what is  not ::::: you can cry or laugh ...out loud. Or both... out loud.  What ever you choose is better then listen him /them again. :)))

@Gone Away I'll have to be brief because I have no access to my research information to post it here. The belief started centuries ago. Some will say around the 7th-9th century, others have information going centuries back, but such info is small. Most information we have today is in regards to the 16th-18th century, with such ones like John Calvin who also has this belief, as with others, which also reflects that of biblical passages that seem to equal Jesus to Michael in both title and or action, perhaps even more things.
Moreover, there is a literal counterpart to JWs, known as SDAs, who also has this view, but maintain an Orthodoxy approach and they not only see Micheal as Jesus, but they see him as God,f or such ones are Trinitarians.
When I do get back, I'll be happy to post here my findings from a few years back regarding this whole Jesus/Michael thing and the view of others on this matter.

This used to be very important to me, and I know all the arguments, pro, and con.
It's intellectually interesting ... in small doses ... and the older I get ... the smaller the doses I need.
There is a saying "Is this the Hill you want to die on?'
I have had and sustained enough cannonades from the REAL world that I no longer care if Jesus is Michael ... or not.
It's just not important to me ...... anymore.
Plus ... you have to give SOME consideration to the apparent mental competence of those who do still intensely care about such things.
 
Gravity Electricity Wind .mp4 2 CHAIR pORNEA .mp4

Wrong Sir!
Bro Jackson is correcting an outsider (STEWART) that HE is being presumptuous? PLEASE! When using the ARC transcript! Use them, CORRECTLY!!! Any JW is a spokesman for GOD!!!!
Thank YOU!

 
 

Wrong Sir!
Bro Jackson is correcting an outsider (STEWART) that HE is being presumptuous? PLEASE! When using the ARC transcript! Use them, CORRECTLY!!! Any JW is a spokesman for GOD!!!!
Thank YOU!

 
 

Even in discussions of religion and what we personally believe about God's judgment of others, no one should tell another person --in so many words-- that they are going to be judged adversely. Then again it's easy to creatively work around such judgmental words and still say much the same thing.
We don't say: "You are going to hell!" (or Gehenna, or the lake of fire, or eternal oblivion). But as long as we don't make a habit of prickly accusations we could easily get away with "You are going to find yourself ending up in a place different from what you expect." To the person being judged, however, the meaning is ultimately the same thing. Yet, there are so many factors to consider:
Is a person who may or may not be using their real name in a forum really ever making a personal attack on another person who may or may not be using their real name? A discussion forum is just a set of personal opinions, and a discussion forum that tends toward religious topics is just a set of personal opinions about sets of personal opinions. The whole point of religion is to stake a claim that our opinions and interpretations about things that are largely unfathomable can still somehow reach a level that we can call "knowledge."  Biblical religion, perhaps especially so, is known for trash-talking other religions, and therefore any person who takes on another version of Biblical religion probably already knows that he or she should expect the kinds of judgmental opinions that are so common. Here are some historical examples that make the point: Look at Elijah and the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18:27. Did Elijah really have to imply that Baal was making a bowel movement? ( Holladay’s Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon says the verb could be translated as “bowel movement.”) For that matter did Elijah really have to massacre the prophets of Baal in the way he did? Was it so necessary to fling expressions of dung on false idols as was done so often in the Bible, in ways so that the expression "dungy idol" comes across as if it were using the "s" word? Note that before the Bible had used many expressions about the ultimate eternal fate of people that it sometimes creatively reminds us that a person deserved to be no more than, for example, dog p**p, or bird p**p. (Jezebel eaten up by dogs for example.) Anyway, the more creative idea that TTH had somehow dodged a future cosmic disaster by "Witness" not actually being one of the anointed was clever "trash talk." It was no more offensive to me than was a now-deleted initial post by Allen which referred to a generic list of unspecified sins or offenses by "Witness" that was so long as to be of Biblical proportion and which would result in bloodguilt before God at the time of judgment. Sure it was harsh and not clever, but what of it? We deal with topics about our belief in harsh judgments. The Bible itself is full of them. I vote for more leeway and flexibility.
Besides, did you notice who really did have the world spinning the wrong way as their primary backdrop for the Monthly Broadcast at tv.jw.org for three months before it was corrected? I called it to their attention (as did others, I assume) after the very first monthly broadcast in October 2014, and the next two broadcasts still had the earth spinning in the wrong direction. They didn't fix it until January 2015, and since then all is right with the world for these last 43 broadcasts up through the very latest (July 2018).

Jehovah has NEVER changed ... although he has changed his mind many times when entreated to do so, and he DOES "learn as he goes along".
He was genuinely surprised when children were offered to the fires of the god Moloch as human sacrifices, and before that there was of course ... the dinosaurs ... which did not end well, for them.
And the name "Jehovah" is in ENGLISH, a standard convention since about AD 1600 when the letter "J" was invented, and the name is different in different languages, the same as Jesus' name is different in different languages.
I under understand in Spanish my name James is pronounced HIGH-ME, or Santiago ....
Who knew?
 

Hey Jack!
You know better than  to post an unsubstantiated accusation with no backup !
It would be a shame if your credibility was destroyed by such suppositions.
Do you have the real nitty-gritty bird's eye low down on this caper .... or not?
 

I suspect @James Thomas Rook Jr. made this one... LOL

Compulsive Habit?

It seems to me if you take twenty different believers, they will have 20 different expectations, depending on their intelligence, maturity, experiences and sharpness of perceptions.
You cannot legitimately castigate someone who is doing the best he or she can, with what they know to be true at any particular point in time.

My greatest creation, @JW Insider, has kept them all fooled for the longest time.

PS/PS:
Before 1934, here in the United States, any child could buy ( ..it was legal ..) a water cooled, tripod mounted,  50 caliber machine gun and ammo, BY MAIL.
There were NO "school shootings".
Remember that before King David was King David ... he was a soldier in hand-to-hand combat with a sword. 
Back then, they did not take scalps to keep count of the enemies killed ... they cut off the ends of their penises.   David's idea of a present to his wife was a box of such war trophies.
Yet .... David ... was beloved by Jehovah God .... even covered with the blood and gore of his enemies.
... it all depends on what ideas you are USED to considering.
Most people need "to get out more".