James Thomas Rook Jr.

There is no way to lose weight without being hungry.
... except of course, for cancer, or something.

Yeah .... I had to give up bacon many years ago, because I just could not afford it ... or would not afford it because the price was so high ... and MANY foods escalated in price to the point I stopped buying them.   But Golden Corral Buffet has a TREMENDOUS selection, and my wife and I are "Seniors", and if we get there before 4PM, we can get the dinner menu for the price of a "Senior Lunch/Early Bird Special".
That means that for $9.00 apiece, we can feast like kings ... steak, spare ribs, giant shrimp prepared four different ways, pizza, fried chicken, chili, beef stew, clam chowder ( my favorite...), and before 4pm we get free soft drinks, as well. Every kind of desert you could want, and any kind of salads you could fix. Eight different kinds of fruit,  and all the real, quality ice cream you can eat!
I calculated that by eating one large meal a day, we can eat like kings for $10 a day apiece, which is less than the cost of groceries to eat half as well,  AAAAAAND ... no preparation, OR dishes to wash! 
Even including the fuel cost to get there and back,, it's cheaper.
..and light years better!
 

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck.
IT'S A DUCK!
A duck by any other name is still a duck!
 
....except of course, when there is a fear that if it is admitted to being a duck, the donations will stop.
 

1.)  Since the beginning of life on Earth there have been two kinds of animals .... those that eat plants, and those that eat each other.  This is the natural order of things, and as sentimental as I am about animals, I cannot ignore this scary fact.
That is obviously how life on Earth was designed, cartoon theology notwithstanding.
If the Lion, and the Lamb lay down together, it will be because the lamb is inside the lion.
To answer your question ... it was never God's intent to give animals everlasting life, and that includes pre- creation humans that evolved. Only the New Creation ... "Homo Theocraticus", was ever intended to have the opportunity for everlasting life.  Neanderthals and such just lived whatever they could manage and died. End of story.
2.) That is a good idea, not to provide an answer, because the very, very BEST answer would only be a best guess ... including no. 1, above.

There is no way to lose weight without being hungry.
... except of course, for cancer, or something.

I would like to know the answer to THAT one!
By the way ... that "Millions Now Living Will Never Die '' ... how well did THAT turn out?

Some of us cannot afford such luxury. I'm happy to get a bit of bacon.
@Anna  You see how some guys use this world     Love of the world and it's food.   

Sounds like a good idea. However, get a good breakfast - it is very important.  The body needs the food when we are facing the pressures of the day not late in the evening. It dumps most of the stuff then and we put on weight.  Before 4.00 p.m. seems OK, but get some healthy snacks in between.

Yeah .... I had to give up bacon many years ago, because I just could not afford it ... or would not afford it because the price was so high ... and MANY foods escalated in price to the point I stopped buying them.   But Golden Corral Buffet has a TREMENDOUS selection, and my wife and I are "Seniors", and if we get there before 4PM, we can get the dinner menu for the price of a "Senior Lunch/Early Bird Special".
That means that for $9.00 apiece, we can feast like kings ... steak, spare ribs, giant shrimp prepared four different ways, pizza, fried chicken, chili, beef stew, clam chowder ( my favorite...), and before 4pm we get free soft drinks, as well. Every kind of desert you could want, and any kind of salads you could fix. Eight different kinds of fruit,  and all the real, quality ice cream you can eat!
I calculated that by eating one large meal a day, we can eat like kings for $10 a day apiece, which is less than the cost of groceries to eat half as well,  AAAAAAND ... no preparation, OR dishes to wash! 
Even including the fuel cost to get there and back,, it's cheaper.
..and light years better!
 

I have found FOXNEWS to be the best news source available.  Not perfect, by any means, but their agenda is OPENLY STATED, and their news is peer reviewed.
Who YOU gonna trust?
Your Stock Broker?
 

In today's news a pre-Edenic settlement was found in Israel ... over 9,000 years old.
It would be another 3,000 years before Adam was created, etc., etc.
This is one of many thousands of examples, all over the Earth, why I believe there were  two species of humans .... "Homo Sapiens", and "Homo Theocraticus" ... those created directly by God to for the FIRST time, having an opportunity for  everlasting life, and those who evolved, for which there is also irrefutable hard evidence, although they were not considered real men and women, legally.
 

For a woman to only have two sons ... and one was murdered .... where did theses sisters and nieces come from?
There is no Biblical support for EITHER concept. 
None whatsoever.
Please correct me if I am wrong ....
There is, however ....  solid Biblical support that Cain was condemned to wander the Earth, and EVERYWHERE he was afraid of people, MEN AND WOMEN ... that would want to kill him.
They were ALREADY THERE.
 
 
 
The question is, and should be  ... Where did THEY come from?
 
 
 

Melinda, I respect your opinions, and have also carefully considered the Scriptures you posted.
I am not trying to convince ANYBODY, as Jehovah shows us all mercy for being wrong ... or who could stand?
My problem is I know for an absolute fact that at one time, Dinosaurs  ruled the Earth, and much, much later there were human civilizations in almost every nook and cranny of the Earth ...... who left hard evidence of their existence .... LONG, LONG before 6,000 or so years ago.
How do you resolve irrefutable hard evidence ... verified a dozen different ways .... with the idea that no people existed on the earth before Adam?
Cain certainly was worried about them killing him!
 

There is no conflict between what I said, and what you said Anna.
My words stated "during the time of Abraham". Perhaps I should have been more specific, because obviously Israel came into existence and a road to salvation was started ONLY because of God's love for Abraham .... but I think the prophesy in Genesis  about wounded feet, etc. had already been solidified, and God was looking for the right person to implement his purposes.  Salvation restored for "Homo Theocraticus"  and their hybrid descendants, through Abram and his descendants. That is how the purpose became the plan.
All of what I say here is only a best guess .... but it is a GOOD best guess.  Please feel free to punch holes in it.
Iron sharpens iron .... soft soap sharpens nothing.
 

Because of Cain intermarrying  with a woman naturally evolved, eventually (by the time Jesus arrived) the blood lines would have been  completely intermixed, and ALL men and women  could benefit from that Ransom. (?).
Remember ... during the time of Abraham, if you were NOT of his blood line, all people of the Earth were pretty much ignored by God, and were NOT a special possession of God, so salvation has not always been for all people .....
It's just an example to keep in mind as we try to figure things out.
The unsubstantiated story of Cain and Abel, before he was murdered, having sex with their sisters, who were NEVER mentioned,  to progenate the human race always seemed silly and contrived to me, and there is no Biblical support whatsoever for that idea.
 

By the way .... if you ever wonder WHY God created mankind ... "Homo Theocraticus" .. only about 6,000 years ago ... to me the answer is quite simple.
For billions of years the Moon has been moving away from the Earth, getting smaller and smaller as it moves about two inches away further each year. 
Only at the time we are living in RIGHT NOW is the apparent size of the Moon and the Sun EXACTLY coincident, which because of solar eclipses you can see how starlight bends around the gravitational influence of the Moon, and by recording that on photographic plates, as was done circa 1918, you can PROVE Einstein's theory of relativity, and give us an understanding of how the Universe REALLY works.
At the EXACT time we were ready to become Spacefarers on the seas of light!
Jehovah wanted to create a people that would live FOREVER, for the first time ... so that they would live to see their destinations, when they became Spacefarers.
It's a BIG physical Universe out there, folks, and Jehovah does not need ANY of it for himself.
 

Lessee ... um ..... there was Adam ... uh... Eve ..... and, uh ... Cain (who killed Abel), so that would mean  that 1/3 of the directly created "Homo Theocraticus" humans  alive after the murder .... was a murderer.  
Only four of the "Homo Theocraticus" family created by God, on the Earth, and one of them kills his brother.
That leaves three people.  One in three is a murderer. (Stops to count on fingers, just to verify ....)
(1/3 = 33.3333% for those in Rio Linda)
That does not take into account all the evolved humans that were NOT a part of "Homo Theocraticus",  
Those  humans  who already lived outside the Garden of Eden, all over the Earth, all the way to Australia, and beyond, who left extensive hard irrefutable evidence  of their civilizations.
The ones that Cain feared would kill him, no matter where he went on the Earth. 
The ones from whom Cain took a wife, and bore children, that eventually became us.
Take my word about the 1/3 = 33.3333%..
It's based on REAL MATH!

To me, 1 Tim 6:20 seems more related to the so-called knowledge that comes from inside the congregation, because this would be consistent with the prior context of 1 Timothy. The idea of falsely called wisdom from the outside is referred to especially in the first three chapters of 1 Corinthians, which @Outta Here referred to. Not that the idea is wrong, but bringing up 1 Tim 6:20 in the context of something that the JW Organization should be particularly good at seems wrong to me. That's because I believe it refers to something that SHOULD be a pet peeve of every Witness about a particular habit of the Watchtower writers that continues to get us in trouble.
We very often, historically, have made claims about certain interpretations of the scriptures that are completely unnecessary, and which turn out to be things that we end up dropping when the contradictions to actual events or other scriptures become too untenable to stretch belief any further. I could relist every single teaching which has had to be updated to make this point.
But each of those interpretations was treated as knowledge when it was taught. Even though they turned out to be false, and required updating. Just because we like to avoid the word false, and call it "refinements" or "increasing light" changes nothing about the falsehood of the previously called knowledge.
But spiritual food does not have a shelf life. Those false teachings were never spiritual food to begin with. There has NEVER been a reason to turn a specific interpretation into "knowledge."

... when they have baby back beef spare ribs at the Golden Corral ( a USA all you can eat buffet restaurant ...) my table looks like a dinosaur graveyard...

No, i do not think you are ..... we  are not Vegetarians, so we have  to learn how to move on  Next Level.   :))

BTK46 has stated many times that everybody but him is ignorant, uneducated, a fool and worthy of derision ... and that we have no understanding of human psychology in dealing with his criticisms.
I think he may be right about that one,  as I often sit here wondering "Where does he GET these ideas?"
After all, it's not what WE think, it is what Scholar Emeritus BillyTheKid46 thinks that matters!
I have never seen in my entire life a person with MORE TALENT to be a Watchtower Lawyer.
He makes evil seem so effortless!
 
 

I would like to know the answer to THAT one!
By the way ... that "Millions Now Living Will Never Die '' ... how well did THAT turn out?

I wasn't sure if you saw an answer to your question. Melinda pointed out that the more common teaching was that 'black people' were descendants of Canaan, not Cain. There is a less common religious belief that 'black people' were the descendants of Cain. The Cain theory is still mentioned (but rarely) in the Southern parts of the United States. I've heard it in Illinois and Missouri too.
But even the earliest Watch Tower magazines dismissed this idea about Cain marrying a "negress" or producing the 'negro' race.
The Watchtower never explicitly accepted the curse on Canaan to refer to black people either, but some articles came quite close to accepting it, or something very much like it. We still accept that the Bible teaches that the African nations descended through Canaan's father, but not specifically because of a curse.

That is a GREAT idea ... as I am sure that only a Box Turtle could make sense of it.
 

I had a 5 year or so old Box Turtle ( tortoise, actually) that I rescued from a highway, and as I watched "him", ( and yes, you can tell...) it often occurred to me how ignorant we really are of what they think and feel ... and the colossal arrogance on people's part to assume they think less of their lives than we think of ours.
As I watched "Mr. Henry II", the thought occurred to me that beneath those plated decks might dwell the mind and heart of a great lover, and a consummate mathematician ... all day quietly working on equations for orbital mechanics, or parallel dimensions.
The things I have seen with my own eyes belies the arrogance and cluelessness of  Clergy who worship themselves.
When they pontificate about such things, they declare aloud their incompetence, and lack of credibility.