James Thomas Rook Jr.

I think everyone knew that this was one of his favorite subjects along with his favorite numerology topics. I'm sure he was the one who wrote the article in 1956. I have been assured that he was the one who often repeated the idea that 999 people out of every thousand would die at Armageddon. This was even included in assembly speeches open to the public. The 99.9% figure was also included in the Watch Tower publications a few times.
*** w58 10/15 pp. 614-615 What Will Armageddon Mean for You? ***
Revelation 9:16 gives us an inkling of the size of Jehovah’s forces when it speaks of him as using, on a certain occasion, cavalry to the number of 200,000,000. And 2 Kings 19:35 tells of just one of these destroying a host of 185,000 warriors in one night. . . . On Satan’s side will be all the rest of mankind, more than 99.9 percent, even as we read: “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” He was also the one who said that due to the current laws of the land, we aren't allowed to kill our apostate children even though they are our own children.
*** w52 11/15 p. 703 Questions From Readers ***
In the case of where a father or mother or son or daughter is disfellowshiped, how should such person be treated by members of the family in their family relationship?—P. C., Ontario, Canada. We are not living today among theocratic nations where such members of our fleshly family relationship could be exterminated for apostasy from God and his theocratic organization, as was possible and was ordered in the nation of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai and in the land of Palestine. “Thou shalt surely kill him; thy hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him to death with stones, because he hath sought to draw thee away from Jehovah thy God, . . . And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is in the midst of thee.”—Deut. 13:6-11, AS. Being limited by the laws of the worldly nation in which we live and also by the laws of God through Jesus Christ, we can take action against apostates only to a certain extent, that is, consistent with both sets of laws. The law of the land and God’s law through Christ forbid us to kill apostates, even though they be members of our own flesh-and-blood family relationship. That's a very useful reminder not to kill our children, based on a question probably sent in by Percy Chapman, the Branch Servant in Ontario at the time.
And of course, Fred Franz was the one who assured me that the hundreds of thousands of Christian martyrs who were willing to die for their faith in the 2nd and 3rd centuries were mostly all in Gehenna now, with no hope of a resurrection.
Yes, he had a dark side. But at least he could snicker and joke while saying such serious things. I don't know if that makes it better or worse, though.

I'd be very interested in what you would consider proof that the teaching isn't true. 

Ok show me what I misrepresented 

Only because they burst out in laughter while explaining it.

These doctrines are NOT necessary for Salvation.
But if you DON"T give lip service to believing them,  you get slandered, "banished to Coventry" and your family gets taken hostage, until you lie and say they ARE ...
.... and do it convincingly!

I designed a 10.000 year storm model for Savannah River Site (Dept. of Energy, near Aiken, SC), for a radioactive waste burial grounds, which was silly, as it would be part of the Atlantic Ocean ... and no records exist, it was calculated using a great range of assumptions and questionable formulas. ... but Houston supposedly is a 500 year storm, which would have cost billions of dollars to design for, and may turn out as a 1,000 year storm before it is finished.
NOBODY can afford to plan for every possible emergency.
Putting up barriers to prevent a person from running into porcupines is an example.
I used to work in Houston, and it has flooding problems with a five year storm, and less ... and cannot afford to design for normal annual rainfall without underpasses into the city flooding.
Theoretically, you have a thousand year storm every thousand years ... practically you can have two in one week.

I will get it started ... be sure to scroll down
after you have seen these amazing photos !
 



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Be careful what you believe ... ALL of these photos are FAKE!

I designed a 10.000 year storm model for Savannah River Site (Dept. of Energy, near Aiken, SC), for a radioactive waste burial grounds, which was silly, as it would be part of the Atlantic Ocean ... and no records exist, it was calculated using a great range of assumptions and questionable formulas. ... but Houston supposedly is a 500 year storm, which would have cost billions of dollars to design for, and may turn out as a 1,000 year storm before it is finished.
NOBODY can afford to plan for every possible emergency.
Putting up barriers to prevent a person from running into porcupines is an example.
I used to work in Houston, and it has flooding problems with a five year storm, and less ... and cannot afford to design for normal annual rainfall without underpasses into the city flooding.
Theoretically, you have a thousand year storm every thousand years ... practically you can have two in one week.

"Unity at all costs" - Hayden C. Covington. Vice President of the WTB&TS, and by his own claim, a member of the Governing Body.
Willing to disfellowship someone, and EVERYONE for holding to TRUTH, when it was different from what he admitted in court, under oath ..... was false.

I do get warm feelies here. I don't think that's a bad thing. (I don't mean here, with @The Librarianand all; I mean in Jehovah's organization)
I am like most Witnesses who do not have to have every single duck lined up to declare this the truth. Actually, every duck is lined up, but I will concede there are a few chicks that have yet to straighten out and fly right - they being chicks.
@JW Insiderhas listed the main ducks, and he has appended a few more. In response to someone asking why I remain a Witness when bad things happen in the organization, I have written some additional reasons:
https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/42302-why-remain-a-witness-when-bad-things-happen/
Each of these desirable tenets is rare today. The combination of them in one faith is unique to Jehovah's Witnesses and that is why I have chosen the faith and am not likely to leave, especially for the greater world described in the last post. If you think your glorious freedom to engage your critical thinking without check has resulted in such a wonderful world, you are welcome to remain there.
When one has assembled the jigsaw puzzle and reproduced the box cover mountain vista, you are not easily put off by the critic who insists you have it all wrong. This is especially true if his own puzzle lies unassembled in the box.

Like I really should watch CNN to learn the truth about Trump or Breitbart to learn the truth about Obama?
I'll choose what I choose to see in proper context, neither cherry-picked nor skewed.
If tiny sound-byte snippets appeal to you - I have never known you to post anything else - they do not to me. I prefer comments well-rounded, in appropriate context, and not thrust upon me by someone who so pleadingly and pathetically has an agenda. I'm not opposed to looking at things, and I have looked at things. I will just not allow opponents to focus the lens for me. I'll do that myself.
Nobody is in prison, are they? You are trying to bake some acknowledged grains - even if they be more than grains - into a seven layer cake.
Please don't harp on this with me. There were two or three very long threads on this subject not long ago. I participated fully and you even threw in some cartoons. I don't want to re-invent the wheel throughout eternity. Go back and revisit those threads. Add to them if you think there is anything not covered.
I don't view this forum as your own personal courtroom, to cross-examine people at will. In any real courtroom, the judge eventually tells a lawyer to shut up when he does nothing but hurl accusations, repeat his same questions, and takes no note of the answers.

In that case, it was just too juvenile. There is such a thing as adulthood, you know.

Well, then, why aren't you, the very ESSENCE of TRUTH, disfellowshipped? Somehow, they put up with you.
If you are to be believed, you go out in service. Why? - when you hate those who present the message so? Do you tell your students to cross their fingers at their baptism?
You go to congregation meetings and each convention. It must be pure hell for you, gnashing your teeth at every word. I don't mean to be unkind here, but....what kind of a loser does that? At the conventions, part of the delight is seeing and visiting with old friends. Who can you speak with? Doubtless there are some of your ilk, but by far - it was no contest -  the largest round of applause came after the line: "would you like to convey your greetings to Bethel?" Say - was that you I saw across the auditorium with smoke coming from your ears?
I disagree vehemently with @Albert Michelson, but I would never call him a loser. He doesn't like Jehovah's Witnesses. So he doesn't go to all their meetings. He does other things in life that presumably have brought him satisfaction. He is fighting valiantly for his point of view on this blog - it has caught his attention. But I never heard of him before, and am unlikely to hear of him again. He has a life. He is going to get back to it when this battle is done, whether he wins or loses.

Oh for crying out loud! How do I know? And I'm not going to retrace it all so as to recall.

This is SO TRUE .... especially in Toontown.
 
 

I get it. You don't agree with child baptism. I don't either. However, whatever criticisms I have of the org...I will never regret my dedication to Jehovah God.

NOPE
None of those ideas ever occurred to me, and since I am the one who created the edited graphic.... I ought to know.
I made it as a reaction to the tens of thousands of Bethel Layoffs and Special Pioneers being "shown the door" in the "Red October" Meltdown of 2015, after many years, and sometimes a lifetime of faithful service to the Corporation.
 

Meanwhile all this discussion is going on, poor Caleb is being held
Prisoner in the confiscated Russian Bethel Branch Office by Russkies !!

Meanwhile all this discussion is going on, poor Caleb is being held
Prisoner in the confiscated Russian Bethel Branch Office by Russkies !!

Nothing unusual about that .. the Catholics have been doing that for 1700 years ...once ANY human organization reaches a certain size, money, power, and position (or fear of losing it ..) becomes the controlling factor.  This is especially true of those claiming divine approval.
It was even true of the Japanese Empire, during WWII, with the Emperor of Japan as their god.
It "comes with the territory".  It did in Jesus' time, and it does now.
Nothing new.
Samo Samo.
There never have been any exceptions ....
There are none now.

I don't know, I haven't heard the talk yet.
Just kidding. I can see this going either way. It makes more sense to me that Jesus meant the other sheep were the literal gentiles. But then again not everything that appeared to apply to literal Israel appears to be strictly about literal Israel, and the Bible gives us some good reasons to see Israel as a kind of "type" of the heavenly Jerusalem, and of course Christ's Bride which is associated with the 144,000. Since that Bride includes people of the nations, an argument can be made for a "spiritual" rather than a "literal" application.
I'm usually for the most simple and straightforward explanation however, and I suspect that if this topic were opened up to entire congregations with only 15 minutes for each of these two perspectives -- I'd say that the simpler perspective would win the day.
Meaning of course that the difference in "little flock" and "other sheep" is this:
(Galatians 2:8) . . .for the one who empowered Peter for an apostleship to those who are circumcised also empowered me for those who are of the nations. . . I think Jesus pretty much gave away the answer when he said:
(Matthew 15:24) He answered: “I was not sent to anyone except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (John 10:16) . . .And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; those too I must bring in. . .

If the meetings were this open I would consider going back but only to engage in a respectful discussion. Ironically the early Bible students did this very thing. 

It is possible but I wouldn't say it's easily avoidable.  And again as I've stated many times it requires one to essentially take a vow of silence and live in perpetual fear.
 
 I would say that it's more like the Pharisees who encourage their followers to cast the followers of Jesus out of the synagogues.  It's more a matter of information control and uniformity then anything else.
 
 And yet he was raised without any opportunity to hear or see contrary evidence.  I wanted to get baptized at 10 as well because that's all I knew.  But this is a lifelong commitment that they are never allowed to retract.  And yes it is the organizations goal to get these kids young and to entrap them.  As I said before if they can do that then they can ensure that they will either stay in or that they'll keep their mouths shut if they leave.  The latter prospect seems to be what you are advocating for and I find it ironic considering the circumstances.  As I have already pointed out witnesses regularly go to peoples homes and encourage them to leave their faith systems and join their's.  They encourage them to speak out against the false teachings of their former religions and yet for a Jehovah's Witness to do this very thing is met with cruelty.

During the "Middle Ages" these types of discussions consumed people for HUNDREDS of years ... and the synopsis was the phrase "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"
I try to keep my life simple, and since no one can prove that invisible things that SUPPOSEDLY happened a hundred or so years ago, using "evidence" that can be interpreted a hundred different ways ... and all with internal reasoning that makes sense to the proponents, and, I ...having ALSO been consumed with such things earlier in my life ... have come to the conclusion that it is ALL a complete and utter waste of my time,.
Soon enough ... too soon, perhaps ... we will ALL KNOW !!!
AND ... since there is absolutely NOTHING I can do to change reality ... whatever it is ... to quote Rhett Butler ...
 "Frankly Scarlett, I don't give a damn!"
I have a long list of REAL concerns, I CAN do something about.
..based on HARD EVIDENCE.
Remember EVIDENCE?
 

During the "Middle Ages" these types of discussions consumed people for HUNDREDS of years ... and the synopsis was the phrase "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"
I try to keep my life simple, and since no one can prove that invisible things that SUPPOSEDLY happened a hundred or so years ago, using "evidence" that can be interpreted a hundred different ways ... and all with internal reasoning that makes sense to the proponents, and, I ...having ALSO been consumed with such things earlier in my life ... have come to the conclusion that it is ALL a complete and utter waste of my time,.
Soon enough ... too soon, perhaps ... we will ALL KNOW !!!
AND ... since there is absolutely NOTHING I can do to change reality ... whatever it is ... to quote Rhett Butler ...
 "Frankly Scarlett, I don't give a damn!"
I have a long list of REAL concerns, I CAN do something about.
..based on HARD EVIDENCE.
Remember EVIDENCE?