Arauna

CNN is about reliable as a 2 year old teaching rocket science.

JB never added things exactly out of nowhere. You always knew what was coming. And I never complained about it. But the complaint was that, no matter what the topic, you always found a way to turn it into a CSA topic. Believe me, there were plenty of others doing things like it. Sometimes a topic was very serious and suddenly 4 Dilbert cartoons would run back-to-back-back-to-back.
Most of us appreciate a good diversion now and then, but they shouldn't always divert to the same old topic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah—tell me about it.

I had no doubt that YOU knew it. But there are some people here from the UK, like @4Jah2me (assuming of course that he is the reincarnation of @John Butler). And, I'm not so sure that they had any groups like the Beatles over in the UK. 😉

I know the original lyric. And I also know something of women.
I once told JTR that I would love to hear from his kids. I begin to think that I would love to hear from yours as well.  

Seems like a lot of you 'Elders' have control over this forum.  What with the control and your own 'secret' 'forum' for insiders only, us 'outsiders' must be the 'minority' Um, new protest, 'Outsiders Matter'. 

Quote @TrueTomHarley When push comes to shove, all is a manifestation of the whole world lying in the power of the you-know-who.
Something we can all agree on Tom. 

Probably a subject not worth answering on.
Those with spiritual wisdom know the Almighty God is greater than Jesus Christ. 
Jesus said so many times that : "the Father is greater than I am"  and such as : "I do nothing of my own initiative but only that of the Father"  And Jesus said he was sent forth by God. 
As  for the Holy Spirit, we know it is God's 'active force', not a spirit being. 
If Jesus was God then who resurrected him when he was killed ?
And who was it that spoke from heaven saying "This is my Son whom I approve " 
(Sorry quotes are not perfect but close enough to give meaning). 

Nothing makes sense because demons are performing their signs and mesmerizing the different violent groups who perceive themselves only as victims. Some atheistically have ordained themselves to bring about a revolution in Bolshevik-style and are funded by the usual subversive front organizations. Other victims do not matter...….. the looted shops, burnt buildings, lost businesses etc. The personality traits exhibited remind us of 2 Tim 3: 1-5... they are fierce and without mercy themselves.
Police are being killed and hurt in the riots (I think 27 killed this year and hundreds hurt - and not much attention in the news).  Police also have families they have to provide for, which makes the present police resignations  and retirements so relevant...….. Yes, there is racial injustice but not all whites, and neither are all police, racist. Reasonableness has left the planet.
The iron and clay in governments are acrimonious...…… and whatever happens in the next election in USA - it will not be accepted by the losing side.  This is how far we have moved down the stream of time. Healing of this wound will not happen quickly - it will keep festering.  People have crossed the mark of peaceful protest. 
They are ready to murder each other - brother kill brother....
 

Nothing makes sense because demons are performing their signs and mesmerizing the different violent groups who perceive themselves only as victims. Some atheistically have ordained themselves to bring about a revolution in Bolshevik-style and are funded by the usual subversive front organizations. Other victims do not matter...….. the looted shops, burnt buildings, lost businesses etc. The personality traits exhibited remind us of 2 Tim 3: 1-5... they are fierce and without mercy themselves.
Police are being killed and hurt in the riots (I think 27 killed this year and hundreds hurt - and not much attention in the news).  Police also have families they have to provide for, which makes the present police resignations  and retirements so relevant...….. Yes, there is racial injustice but not all whites, and neither are all police, racist. Reasonableness has left the planet.
The iron and clay in governments are acrimonious...…… and whatever happens in the next election in USA - it will not be accepted by the losing side.  This is how far we have moved down the stream of time. Healing of this wound will not happen quickly - it will keep festering.  People have crossed the mark of peaceful protest. 
They are ready to murder each other - brother kill brother....
 

I didn’t even know that it was within the power of an appeals court to do this—to harshen the sentence. I thought the only role of an appeals court was to determine if the preceding trial had been error-free and fair. Is the real message here that once a Witness is convicted, they had better not think they have the same right to appeal as anyone els.?

The only reason the Russian orthodox is tolerated in neo-communism is because the church is hollow.  They do not teach the bible and resort to icons and candle lighting, singing etc.  The building of nationalism - worship of the state - is its main function.
Other religions are not tolerated.

In the third jailing in Russian-occupied Crimea on "extremism" charges to punish the exercise of freedom of religion and belief, Jehovah's Witness Artyom Gerasimov was jailed for six years after a prosecutor appealed against an earlier fine. Jailed earlier were Muslim Renat Suleimanov for four years and Jehovah's Witness Sergei Filatov for six years. Like Suleimanov and Filatov, Gerasimov expects to be sent to a prison in Russia.
For the third time, a court in Russian-occupied Crimea has jailed an individual on "extremism" charges to punish the exercise of freedom of religion or belief. After an appeal by the prosecutor, on 4 June Crimea's Supreme Court changed the punishment imposed on 35-year-old Artyom Gerasimov from a fine of two years' average wages to a six-year jail term. He was arrested in the courtroom. He was the second Crimean Jehovah's Witness to be jailed.
 
The decision to make prisoner of conscience Gerasimov's punishment harsher without sending the case for a retrial is the first such instance in any Jehovah's Witness case in Crimea, or in Russia within its internationally recognised borders.

The first such jailing for exercising freedom of religion and belief was Muslim prisoner of conscience Renat Suleimanov. In January 2019 a Simferopol court jailed him for four years on "extremism"-related charges for meeting openly in mosques with three friends to discuss their faith.
Read more: http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2577

I have never posted a Twitter video before. (Hope this works)  

As  you know full well but your dishonesty will not allow you to ACKNOWLEDGE it --- all other Christian religions  read the bible and yet did not fathom out that the soul is not immortal....... and hence they do not understand the ransom sacrifice.
No wonder Jehovah did not use them to preach the message in the last days to the entire world Math 24:14

No contradiction if you accept that the generation is about the SIGNS that started after the crowning of Jesus. .... but I guess you have not thought about it and hence will not get your head around it.
 
The civil war definitely still affected people as late as 19 sixties..... just as WW2 signs are still affecting me........ There are some people still alive which were born during WW1........so the staggered approach is not as luny as you pretend it to be with sarcasm.
You do not believe in any of the signs and the generation -  be honest...... so why would you think further?  I suggest you can start quoting all JWs  history  to prove how incompetent they are........ then you will fulfill your  Christian duty to bring the absolute truth to the friends here who love your quotes which is supposed to prove a superior insight.  Because after all you have so much inside knowledge!  

No contradiction if you accept that the generation is about the SIGNS that started after the crowning of Jesus. .... but I guess you have not thought about it and hence will not get your head around it.
 
The civil war definitely still affected people as late as 19 sixties..... just as WW2 signs are still affecting me........ There are some people still alive which were born during WW1........so the staggered approach is not as luny as you pretend it to be with sarcasm.
You do not believe in any of the signs and the generation -  be honest...... so why would you think further?  I suggest you can start quoting all JWs  history  to prove how incompetent they are........ then you will fulfill your  Christian duty to bring the absolute truth to the friends here who love your quotes which is supposed to prove a superior insight.  Because after all you have so much inside knowledge!  

Pardon, I do not understand what you are conveying in this regard. My only issue is I do not like misconception and falsehood of any subject, this includes faith communities. You can agree/disagree with someone of that community, but to speak of something that is misleading and or off the rails, that demands a refute. Outside of that my biggest focus and concern is mainstream Christendom, and the ill use of their own exegesis when it comes to Scripture. Also I am a truther, so I take misinformation very seriously too.
That being said, the fact you mentioned Bill The Kid and referring to him as a parrot.... Relation to John Butler? He refereed to me as a parrot several times when I corrected him on history, race, child abuse statistics by race/sex to which he deemed me racist when I simply use facts straight from the F.B.I. (Federal Bureau of Investigation) itself, and Strong's and Tradition vs. Bible Teachings.
Mr. Butler's engine runs on emotion to the point he evades facts, and the last time I responded to him was concerning an issue, to which he has never updated anyone of of us on regarding a CoCA, something, as I mentioned in my solutions, which is quite difficult to combat even by means of the Law of the Land in the UK (even in the US).
 

I think it is a combination of several reasons. de Vienne offers one when she speculates that they are “incurious as to their own history.” They are doers more than contemplators of the past. They lead with the heart more than the head. There is a plank devoted to such things, but it is not a rudder that steers the ship.
@Arauna advances another reason—it must be in the other thread—that to a certain degree, history is unknowable, written by the victors, modified over the years by those of myriad agendas, and much of the original data is lost forever. Thus, because they are doers more than thinkers, they research the past, come up with what seems tight enough, and say (as one local sportscaster used to say) “that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.” To do otherwise is to yield to thinkers who frequently not engage in doing if you light a stick of dynamite under them. “God gives his holy spirit to those doing his will,” they say, not those writing about it. 
It is a scholar-light approach that infuriates scholars too caught up in the suppose ascendancy of their own discipline—scholars who simply assume takeover rights. They get them in many venues—and the greater world offers testimony has to what happens when the world’s scholarship runs the show—you would think Srecko would reflect upon that before he carries on about how essential higher education is—but they do not get them in Jehovah’s organization. Once in awhile they get sent to the doghouse, but only when they howl too much. 
I say, I have no problem with this,” once I get over the problem I have with it—for I come from a world of readers and books. Still, I notice that they don’t add up to much when they are poured into the world vat, and may collectively even bring that world to its knees. I yield to Someone whose ways just might be higher than mine. He gives his spirit to those obeying him as leader.
In general, when I hear any viewpoint of challenge, I look for deeds at least as much as ideas. Frequently, there are none, and the remarks can largely be dismissed on that account. That is my take on what Paul says on the prospect of confronting the self-styled superfine apostles of his day—‘when I see them, I will get to know not just their words—anyone has them and many have them in great abundance—but I want to get to know their power—their deeds. 
That’s why when Matthew4 5784 or someone, oozing malice, launches a new topic entitled: “Honestly—No Malice Here—But Let us Speak Earnestly About the Wrong-doing of the Witness Leaders,” I say, “Have you actually done anything besides quit? Do you have anything to show for yourself besides grumbling? ” Just any malcontent is going to throw a tirade about something I hold dear and expect me to engage in earnest debate with them? I don’t think so. I wait for JWI to do it on the basis of addressing the points, not the person—and Cesar with a flamethrower to do it on another basis—and then several pages in, after the original malice has been obscured, I override my better judgement and jump into the fray.
The saying goes that ‘if you can do something, you do it. If you can’t, you critique it.‘ Absent someone’s “power”—their good deeds, their honest track record—I do not take them too seriously. They are critiquing—and the reason just may be that they ar capable of nothing else. At least Rolf has a track record—how hot it is and what has been allowed to go stone cold was my first initial question about his book. 
The saying is often escalated to a usually (though not always) unnecessarily cynical, “and if you REALLY can’t do it, you teach it.” Here we come to Dr. Gene Huang, who did not fit the pattern. He taught at Cornell, and was for years, among the most published authorities on statistics. His work provides mathematical support for scientists who study gene function. He became a Witness in the late 1990’s.
I speculate in Tom Irregardless and Me that after a dozen years or so, when he has proved himself stable, he or someone like him is invited to look over our science offerings and contribute an update if they see fit. Many brothers seem to think that at Bethel, they assign such material to the Witness who did really well in high-school science, straight A’s!—he or she holed up for a few weeks, and “out came this book” on creation blowing the cover off evolution. 
No. Plainly it will be someone like Brother Huang “bringing his gift to the altar” upon invitation. However, will his work silence the critics? You know it won’t. The writings of evolutionists and those who favor “intelligent design” would fill a library so large that even @The Librarian (that old hen) would throw in the towel. So they take Gene Hwang’s book at Bethel—he is a heavy-hitter—and say: “That’s our story and we’re sticking to it,”—same as they do with history. Do other “scholars” debate their own competing version? “Yeah—well—we’ll see,” they say, as they envision a headline in the paper that they have seen so many times before: “Everything You Thought You Knew About Such-and-Such is Wrong!”
 

How silly to reason this way. No other Christian religion understands the ransom sacrifice which is the CRUX for everlasting life.  If you believe in an immortal soul - then Jesus dit not really die and did not really pay for our sins.
Jesus only received immortality as a 'reward' for his faithfulness........... so it is silly to reject the importance of this CORE teaching of JWs........ just to name one teaching.
So to judge GB on some historical old and little  thing you  personally take issue with, is not wise ......when the CORE teachings are absolutely correct and  are crucial to get absolutely right for everlasting life.... Apparently you think you can cherry pick core teachings? And reject gods organization on something which you perceive/judge to be a minor misdemeanour?  

Agreed. One can view yourself as a scholar of the 'past' and study every non-perfect word uttered by GB or their imperfect choices, then inadvertantly play into the hands of those who hate JWs for very silly reasons....... all this in the search for the absolute truth of the past...... something which a human cannot do...... this is Jehovah's domain.
These brothers at the time, seemed to reason without 'soundness of mind' ..... without seeing Jehovahs vision for the future - large expansion.
One needs some form of structure to provide 'food' and distribute it to all the brethren in the world to keep all on the same page.....Jehovah knew this and he provided a slave which is easily recognizable today.
I value these principles extremely highly - not to overstep my boundaries and dominate others in any way.  This problem of domination over others (even in slight ways) has plagued mankind in all spheres of life since Adam sinned. We are constantly reminded by GB to not do this BUT individuals do overstep the mark due to imperfection........ no matter how spiritual they are.  However,  this does not imply that we must be disorganised as a people and not have a central organization, especially if the central organization is committed to these godly principles.... 
To have a coordinated world-wide nation ..... implies some order and organization of thought to create a unity of mind and action....... especially to fulfill the preaching 'and teaching' commission. Each one cannot teach their own interpretation.
Thank you for the outlay of these scriptures....... 
Maybe dementia?   .......  Did not take advice from other brothers, acted alone and egotistically?  Very sad...... for a book that does not seem so good........(I do not intend to read it.... but I listen intently to the comments about it here on the forum. )
They were heavily influenced by Greek oratory tradition....... the Mishna was already part of oral tradition, although not yet written down..  Few of Sanhedrin were levites.  Were the Levites not appointed by jehovah under Law to do the teaching and judging? But they no longer followed the law - as brought out by Jesus.
The Sanhedrin it seems were appointed for life.  Annas was already retired (if I remember correctly appointed by Roman official) but carried the title of lifelong appointee.  So he was brought back into the trial of Jesus to give more credence to the descisions. Caiaphas was high priest (married to daughter of Annas) and appointed by Herod. 
Here is an excerpt found on JW.org:
"The Sanhedrin had 71 members—the high priest and 70 of the nation’s principal men. In Roman times it was made up of priestly nobles (mainly Sadducees), lay aristocrats, and learned scribes of the party of the Pharisees. The priestly aristocracy, supported by distinguished laymen, dominated the court. Whereas the Sadducees were conservative, the Pharisees were liberal and were chiefly commoners who had great influence with the people. According to the historian Josephus, the Pharisees’ demands were reluctantly met by the Sadducees. Paul took advantage of their rivalry and the differences in belief between these groups when he defended himself before the Sanhedrin."
The Sanhedrin became an established political body from the time of Antiochus IV.  Although the decapolis cities had many gymnasiums etc and the culture  became more and more  hellenistic (koine Greek the language) the Hasmodeans violently resisted Antiochus's  idea to replace their God with Zeus in the temple and revolt and resistance against pagan authorities started the extremist downward spiral  which eventually led to destruction of Jerusalem.

It seems barely possible that one could have been a JW for decades and later ask such a dopey question. It may be that the entire persona is a facade.
It reminds me of how all my life I had searched for truth. I knew I had finally found it when I learned that there really was a people who were cool on beards.
I don’t think so.

How silly to reason this way. No other Christian religion understands the ransom sacrifice which is the CRUX for everlasting life.  If you believe in an immortal soul - then Jesus dit not really die and did not really pay for our sins.
Jesus only received immortality as a 'reward' for his faithfulness........... so it is silly to reject the importance of this CORE teaching of JWs........ just to name one teaching.
So to judge GB on some historical old and little  thing you  personally take issue with, is not wise ......when the CORE teachings are absolutely correct and  are crucial to get absolutely right for everlasting life.... Apparently you think you can cherry pick core teachings? And reject gods organization on something which you perceive/judge to be a minor misdemeanour?  

That is where you are wrong.  I study much world history  and philosophy and I also know the JW history. I do not need to be a scholar of what every witness said 100 years ago  to understand that jehovah is using this organization, flaws and all.
If the Organization wants to highlight a point it is ok with me but I find the current fulfillment of teaching and preaching and fulfillment of current events in prophecy much more edifying and strengthening.
I compare our core teachings  to what the world has to offer and see nothing better.....anywhere....  on top of the fulfillment of bible prophecy of the world-wide preaching work and giving timely and strengthening spiritual food to the world.
That is why you guys are stuck on the past - to try to dig up dirt.  You are like an old nagging woman - emotional and continually accusing her  husband over and over again of something he did 60 years ago. 

That is why you study for two or three years. You can investigate the organization's  links and. .... but why go and get familiar with Russels opinion and Rutherfords opinion when their opinions no longer count in the organization?  They are dead and we have moved on from their teachings.
It is only opposers that go and dig up old stuff to try and say we do not have the truth while they ignore all the core teachings that are absolutely correct.
Bring me another organization that teaches Jehovahs name, teaches the mortality of the soul, that jesus is not God, understand that the kingdom is a government, does not get involved with politics and does not vote or riot,  preaches the kingdom world-wide   etc.etc. ....... please go on and tell me if there is another organization out there ........