James Thomas Rook Jr.

I think that scripture about "food at the proper time" might actually mean "cartoons at the proper time."
This is today's DILBERT cartoon.
Quite often, I have found, the DILBERT cartoon of the day exactly fits what is being posted here.

.... and whatever happened to Caleb and Sophia?
 

And it has to make sense (or be "justified") to you because you are...(insert impressive title here)?
 

Let's have everyone start to use the new rule: BNBR .  Be nice, Be respectful.
Or at least stop calling one another names.
Attack the ideas and not the person directly.
That is why I banned Allen Smith who cannot seem to help himself from ad hominem attacks... and John Butler for his calling harm to be done to actual human beings (illegal).
 

The Librarian said to James Thomas Rook:
You might look into the BB software that runs on this board:
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/

Same, circumstance. It's to a greater degree with God. When has god needed man for anything, yet man needs Jesus for salvation. I don't believe the watchtower is spoken as the wife of God, but rather an earthly instrument of God, which God has used from the starting of time. He gave the Holy Spirit directly to the prophets in the O.T. and he gave the Holy Spirit in the N.T. to those that would become his ambassadors by baptism. The difference is literal and spiritual. It has not stopped.
Then why give access to anyone. Do opposers and witnesses receive the same consideration? Let's just drop it. It's insulting to see the justification.

Then why is it in an open forum? This justification makes no sense.

I remember when the Bell Telephone Company was called "Ma Bell".

I understand the new French military salute is both arms held straight up, with palms forward.

I understand the new French military salute is both arms held straight up, with palms forward.

I am creating this thread in response to all the non-sequitur replies all the other threads get. 
I will try to not care if someone responds with a Turkey recipe or True Tom spams us again. 
This is me throwing up my hands. Officially.

I love tacos.....
 
I'm about to give up on this entire site.
Or....
Maybe there should only be one thread... called Jehovah's Witnesses .... and we have ONLY one singe topic for everybody?
Let's try that....
I'll ask the @admin if we can start a club like that and freeze this one.
Oh... and @TrueTomHarley aka... a million other usernames....
Could I have the address to your blog again? I seem to have misplaced it.... in EVERY SINGLE THREAD ON THIS SITE!
 

.... as usual ... today's DILBERT Cartoon exactly highlights anything anybody is talking about, today.
... a seemingly endless supply of "cartoons at the proper time".
... eat your ink filled hearts out, Caleb and Sophia!

It's turtles .... all the way down.
I love it when I recognize an obtuse, arcane reference ... like visiting the Twilight Zone, on an expense account.

The question is not:  how stable is the structure AFTER  it has formed because we know from obserbation in nature that species can adapt to its environment.  Changes,  such as Darwin's finches, whose beaks changed when the food source changed and then changed back again when the food source changed again.... but never changed Io a different species of bird.....STABILITY OF SPECIES is confirmed.
But the Cambrian explosion was too short  and sudden  to produce / originate such a variety of complex animals..... which  brings us back to the " origin" of all species"   

When my children were young, preschool, at the Kingdom Hall I required them to be quiet and respectful, but did not require them to pay attention.  I let them scribble, and do coloring books, and play silently with very small toys in their seats.
Today my oldest is an elder, and all three are strong and active in the truth of the Truth (to the best of my knowledge), have very good jobs and married well ... VERY well. 
It was more important to me for them to have HAPPY childhoods.
Meantime, I know many elders whose children all left.
.... but then again ... I am a Barbarian and a loose cannon.
...  silly me.

When my children were young, preschool, at the Kingdom Hall I required them to be quiet and respectful, but did not require them to pay attention.  I let them scribble, and do coloring books, and play silently with very small toys in their seats.
Today my oldest is an elder, and all three are strong and active in the truth of the Truth (to the best of my knowledge), have very good jobs and married well ... VERY well. 
It was more important to me for them to have HAPPY childhoods.
Meantime, I know many elders whose children all left.
.... but then again ... I am a Barbarian and a loose cannon.
...  silly me.

Evading the real question.  The cambrian explosion refers to an explosion of so many different kinds of animals in  a short period of time without any hint of " precursors"  found in earlier layers of the earth........... and you turn it into an argument of the jawbone during this time - totally missing the point.   
Explain the sudden appearance of wings, explain the explosion of all the different kinds of mammals without any hint of it in previous layers of the earth.   The jawbone is a side issue..
 

I think that scripture about "food at the proper time" might actually mean "cartoons at the proper time."
This is today's DILBERT cartoon.
Quite often, I have found, the DILBERT cartoon of the day exactly fits what is being posted here.

.... and whatever happened to Caleb and Sophia?
 

In addition, anointed Christians do not view themselves as being part of an elite club. They do not seek out others who claim to have the same calling, hoping to bond with them or endeavoring to form private groups for Bible study. (Gal. 1:15-17) Such efforts would cause divisions within the congregation and work against the holy spirit, which promotes peace and unity.   wt 1/2016, "We Want to Go With You"
1) "elite club", 2) "private groups for Bible study", 3) "cause division", 4) "against holy spirit"
I am interested to know on what evidences, GB made conclusion about this 4 points?? and how other rank and file members came to same conclusion as GB, how anointed want to separate themselves in such a way and a measure to be considered as promoter of this 4 points?. This doesn't mean how some of them (anointed) are not in such state of mind to think about self as more spiritual than somebody else. But is this general problem that includes ALL anointed? All other "groups" inside WT Society and JW organization can do the same, to act according to 4 points. 
I think how GB need to offer proper, trustful evidences for conclusion and advice, for warning they made. Our comments about this, mostly are based on few premises.
For example: Can we trust GB research and objectivity on this. Did they made any research, and how they collected information's how some anointed made private study. What is problem if they gathered? People doing that all the time outside of congregation. Solely gathering can't be reason for ban they want to implement (not only to anointed, but to all JW members).      
Who gave power to GB to make decision how you or other members have to behave on such issue. To make warning that you are not entitled to have private Bible researches? What is PRIVATE in GB minds? 
I will not going to more words. Just like to make thinking question: What if this "private groups of Bible studies" and gatherings (spiritual hiding) in "caves" aka homes are in fact what this verse speaking about?
Nevertheless, I have reserved seven thousand in Israel— all whose knees have not bowed to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.” - 1. kings 19
 

... sigh .....
"We have met the enemy ... and he is us."   -   Pogo.

James Thomas Rook Jr. said:
Obviously you've never carefully considered scientific discussions. Here's one to get you started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye
You might also read Richard Dawkins' book Climbing Mount Improbable.
True, and I suspect you don't know the half of it. A typical bat ear contains a mechanical bandpass filter that rolls off at some 800 decibels per octave. That's astonishing!
On the other hand, this earbone/eardrum system evolved over tens of millions of years, as shown by hundreds of fossils from the Triassic and Permian Periods. Early Triassic animals called Synapsids split into many families, one of which evolved into the earliest mammals. The early jaw was comprised of the dentary bone (carries the teeth) and three others. The entire jaw was involved in hearing, and one of the bones was connected to the eardrum. The arrangement gradually morphed, for reasons not understood, into an arrangement where in some animals there were two jaw joints side by side. In some lineages one of the jaw joints gradually disappeared over time, leaving the modern arrangement, where what were once parts of the old jaw now comprise the modern mammalian earbones. Sounds fantastic? It certainly does, but that's what hundreds of fossils show, as does embryology. See https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_05
Correction: you see things that you already know were designed by men like yourself, and which don't reproduce, and are not capable of self-assembly in contrast with simple biological molecules. You don't know that you've seen anything designed by some Supernatural Intelligence -- you mere believe it.
When I was about five years old, I said: "Mommy! Please make the trees stop making the wind blow". Small children are extremely prone to seeing agency in things that move and in confusing cause and effect. Eventually they learn better.
I don't disagree with that possibility. After all, we don't know enough to know for sure whether some kind of super-intelligence exists outside our ken. And many competent scientists have somewhat similar views.
However, as I've shown earlier in this thread, such a super-intelligence cannot be the God of the Bible, because the Bible combined with the fossil record proves that He cannot exist:
Bible says Creator God is loving; fossil record says 'Creator' is not loving. Can't have it both ways.
How do you know all that? Ever heard of the place in Turkey called Göbekli Tepe? It's a 12,000 year old archaeological site, perhaps a temple of sorts. Apparently it predates farming. In any case, it and hundreds of other ancient sites prove that modern humans, along with all manner of cultural stuff, have existed for hundreds of thousands of years. Grave goods of modern humans and Neanderthals strongly indicate 'spiritual beliefs' of some sort.
What I've said above barely scratches the surface.
I beg to differ. Animals killing animals for food goes back 550 million years. Is that "good"?
No, I have a digital SLR and a time machine.

Trump is GOOD at it, and as far as I am concerned is the best President since Jackson.
As far as I am concerned, he saved the Republic from the evil liberal swamp creatures, already.
President Jimmy Carter was a fine, "christian" man, and a nuclear engineer, and a good carpenter building houses for the homeless ... and a tireless worker, even when exhausted, and my guess is absolutely honest .... .... but was a really crappy President.
As far as Trump goes, politics is like playing poker ... You are there to cut the others' hearts out and eat them, or you should not be playing.
...that's what the job is.

I can see the likeness 

I can see how a rudimentary eye might develop, but not one with multiple coordinated lens systems, an iris, to regulate light and exposure, etc, etc. and then there is the neural interface to the brain, etc., etc.
And the ear, which has miniature bones that move, and is an electromechanical marvel.
That being said, which to me, who spent a lifetime designing things... all kinds of things ... before I retired, and recognize designed things when I see them, I believe in ... based entirely on my own insight and experience, and observation ... in seeing in all life on Earth the directed hand of God.
After much study and reflection, taking into account millions of tons of hard fossil evidence that cannot be ignored, I believe in "Punctuated Creation" over the past few billion years, where guided evolution and dramatic corrections took place , which if explained simply enough to a 3rd grader, by being simplified into the word "Evolution".
The Humanoids that lived before the direct creation of Adam and Eve, did exist, and they did in fact "evolve", but had no spiritual component, or opportunity to live forever .... that we know about (!).
If you have a better idea, I am "all ears", as mine is only an educated and thoughtful "best guess", with what I know.
EVERYTHING that took place before Satan rebelled against God about 6,000 years ago ..... was "good".
...even versions 1.0, versions 2.0, and versions 3.0.
I do not have Polaroids.
.... and neither do you.
 
 

I can see how a rudimentary eye might develop, but not one with multiple coordinated lens systems, an iris, to regulate light and exposure, etc, etc. and then there is the neural interface to the brain, etc., etc.
And the ear, which has miniature bones that move, and is an electromechanical marvel.
That being said, which to me, who spent a lifetime designing things... all kinds of things ... before I retired, and recognize designed things when I see them, I believe in ... based entirely on my own insight and experience, and observation ... in seeing in all life on Earth the directed hand of God.
After much study and reflection, taking into account millions of tons of hard fossil evidence that cannot be ignored, I believe in "Punctuated Creation" over the past few billion years, where guided evolution and dramatic corrections took place , which if explained simply enough to a 3rd grader, by being simplified into the word "Evolution".
The Humanoids that lived before the direct creation of Adam and Eve, did exist, and they did in fact "evolve", but had no spiritual component, or opportunity to live forever .... that we know about (!).
If you have a better idea, I am "all ears", as mine is only an educated and thoughtful "best guess", with what I know.
EVERYTHING that took place before Satan rebelled against God about 6,000 years ago ..... was "good".
...even versions 1.0, versions 2.0, and versions 3.0.
I do not have Polaroids.
.... and neither do you.
 
 

That's O.K.
I don't trust a man who doesn't..
I felt sorry for a man who had no shoes .....
,,... until I met a man who had no gun.
 

I quite often think about that also ... and lament the burdens we have to bear because of legalism, verses common sense, love, mercy and justice.
Under the current environment and polices, if we DO "rescue a sheep on the Sabbath", we will be disfellowshipped and ostracized.
I know this, not on a theoretical level, but from recent personal, painful experience.
Fortunately, I was tough enough, and experienced enough to survive the experience.
...many, many .... are chased away forever.