Anna

And their answer no doubt is: yes! 

You are right in part about the critical thinking skills, but that is no fault of the organization I feel, I don't think the organization discourages critical thinking, on the contrary. You don't necessarily have to go to college to "get an education", you can educate yourself quite well by being inquisitive and by reading a lot, and that's up to each individual. I believe in these particular instances the gullibility comes from being too trusting of the brothers and wishing these things were true. It's like they are already living in paradise, but in the present world it's more like La La land. It's note worthy though that many people in the world lack critical thinking also. You only have to go and read the comments after some news article and the "logic" is amazing. It's like the whole of mankind is either infantile, or cynical to the extreme, there seems to be no happy medium and  common sense any more.

Here it is. And the caption says "Mail in the USA. All these are letters to Russian officials in defense of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia". Don't worry about the privacy of that person, their Instagram account is public. The sad thing is this person was repeatedly informed that these are not our letters by a large number of the friends in the comments. She deleted all the comments and disabled further commenting. The even sadder thing is I have a feeling she is stubbornly keeping her post there because it has over 1500 likes, (which shows how many were duped) and all her other posts have barely 40, so she must be very proud of it! This picture was shared like wildfire by many others on all the social media as our letters to Russia ......
 

Awww you should have! This feed, including "bible speaks" defense rhetoric was getting my funny juices flowing (hence the memes) I probably would have enjoyed it. But you're probably right about the easily understood part. You know I received my first negative like on here? (Oh, I dont have the crying smiley I was going to insert here) And I thought it was a pretty good comment. Perhaps I should have liked it myself. 

Here it is. And the caption says "Mail in the USA. All these are letters to Russian officials in defense of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia". Don't worry about the privacy of that person, their Instagram account is public. The sad thing is this person was repeatedly informed that these are not our letters by a large number of the friends in the comments. She deleted all the comments and disabled further commenting. The even sadder thing is I have a feeling she is stubbornly keeping her post there because it has over 1500 likes, (which shows how many were duped) and all her other posts have barely 40, so she must be very proud of it! This picture was shared like wildfire by many others on all the social media as our letters to Russia ......
 

Here is a nice bit of trivia I heard: IF we have sent 9 million letters to one official (a realistic possibility) and each envelope is 1mm thick and  stacked on top of the other, then they will reach higher than Mt. Everest . I like this visual. Better than the picture of a US post office with Christmas mail, hailed as our letters to Russia. Yes, this was circulated on social media and thousands fell for it, just like they did with the "announcement at morning worship"

I think True Tom was just being "poetic" not realistic. He is a writer you know, they can't help themselves . No offense @TrueTomHarley it was a good read

I thought by posting it you are already agreeing with it. Why would you post something you don't agree with?

Ummmm......if you don't mind me asking, why do you always like your own comments?

Which one was this?
They can indeed.......and do extensively. But there is a gentle reminder at Proverbs 27:2......
"Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth; Others, and not your own lips."
 

https://nyti.ms/2oy0BNW 
Good article I thought 

Is that a rhetorical question or you want my opinion? ....No, you don't.

https://nyti.ms/2oy0BNW 
Good article I thought 

I thought by posting it you are already agreeing with it. Why would you post something you don't agree with?

Sometimes we have to be careful that we don't single ourselves out as being the only religion that is persecuted, because that simply is not true (I know you are not saying that). Even the Orthodox Church in Russia has as its fair share of persecution during the Bolsheviks. However, your Bible study is quite right, at present it seems that the only ones that are due to be banned are Jehovah's Witnesses. Interesting indeed
Here is an interesting article (I apologize if someone has already posted this). I like this comment: " “No one else is in a comparable position to that of the Jehovah’s Witness community,” Alexander Verkhovsky of the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis told Forum 18 last month".
http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2017/march/russia-liquidate-jehovahs-witnesses-evangelicals.html
 

Yes. Not only that, but it doesn't cease to amaze me that we still have a hard time understanding that all our info. (pertaining to spiritual and/or organizational matters) always (should) come either from the Bible, via a letter read to the cong. or on the website. Any other means is hearsay or opinion. As regards the veracity of pictures shared, well a little bit of common sense definitely helps!

Agree,  Ann. Seems like you can post any old picture or video with any date about some current event and call it something and people would believe it and forward it to others.  Witnesses  should learn to spot fake news and evaluate information as they should be more attuned to what is truthful.  We  were warned in the Kingdom Ministry years ago when the Internet was new.

Isaac was young and his father old.  He could have pushed his father away and said: No.  So he willingly lay down to be  sacrificed by his father - a willing participant - so he also displayed faith in the resurrection and the promises from Jehovah about the seed coming from his  family line.  
Abraham did not have to go the whole way.... but Jehovah did go the whole way by allowing his son to die.   Jesus willingly came to earth and offered his life to be sacrificed.  This is a future picture of the greatest sacrifice offered up for mankind.  As appalling as it feels to us that Abraham did this - it is actually a picture of how appalling this was to Jehovah se offer up his son.  Both Jehovah and Jesus knew how necessary this was - otherwise we could not have the opportunity to live - we needed a legal ransom.
When Jesus died it became night and the earth shook which demonstrated Jehovah's distress that his son had died..... while being perfect..... it was an unjust death because it was not deserved.  Jesus, by his death proved that Adam could have stayed faithful to Jehovah - he was not created with a flaw.  He knew what he was doing when he chose Eve above Jehovah. One perfect man sinned and brought death upon his offspring and one man's loyalty to Jehovah until death (under much more taxing circumstances than Adam), provided the ransom to give us life.
I always ask Muslims why did god allow Abraham to offer up his son. (They believe it was Ishmael- and they do not believe that Jesus died.  They say it was made to appear so....)  If this was a picture of a future event..... Who provided that sacrificial death?   Jesus or Mohammad?

Bible believers have anguished over this account about Abraham and Isaac for thousands of years. Some have tried to soften the impact, because it jars our sensibilities. It's like reading about David having his enemies hacked up, or Jephthah offering his daughter as a burnt offering. Or Hosea being asked to marry a prostitute, or Ezekiel being asked to cook with human excrement, or Isaiah being asked to father a child by a prophetess who isn't described as his wife, and to walk around completely naked for three years. The list could go on and on. For centuries, Bible translators have often made decisions to soften the ideas from the original languages to protect more modern readers.
But this particular account is the most disturbing. How many of us would kill our child because we heard a voice and we had faith was God's voice. Abraham had the faith to go through with it. And we have no idea if the already weaned child was 5 years old, 6 years old, 10 years old, or even 20 years old, which is about the maximum age that the Hebrew word for "boy" is generally used of someone's son. We know he could speak, and that he could carry a bundle of sticks.
It's hard to say if Isaac really had faith in the resurrection at the time. Abraham lied to him or misled him when Isaac asked where the animal for sacrifice was. If Abraham was not misleading him when he told Isaac that God would provide the sheep, then that would mean that Abraham did not really have faith to offer up his son, because he expected a replacement all along. The Bible does not say that Isaac was willing to be bound. If Isaac was really willing to have a knife plunged into him, there might be no need to bind him anyway.
At any rate, this is not a story that we should just think of as another story for a book of children's Bible stories. It should make us anguish over what it really means to have faith. What is the difference in following a voice and dreams that tell you to murder, or voices and dreams that really come from God? The difference in Abraham's case seems to be a relationship with Jehovah that was undeniably real and close, as if he were speaking to a friend. And yet it wasn't completely based on things actually seen, but things unseen: faith.

Here is a nice bit of trivia I heard: IF we have sent 9 million letters to one official (a realistic possibility) and each envelope is 1mm thick and  stacked on top of the other, then they will reach higher than Mt. Everest . I like this visual. Better than the picture of a US post office with Christmas mail, hailed as our letters to Russia. Yes, this was circulated on social media and thousands fell for it, just like they did with the "announcement at morning worship"

I agree with several of you that ours is not the only religion that is being persecuted. I did read an article about a Baptist minister that has been there for six years or so who was arrested under the same charge and is now leaving his missionary field and returning to USA. However, most other religions are being persecuted as individual churches or groups. Ours is the only one (at least at this time) that is persecuted in-mass. Congregations do not even have to have violated their extremist laws personally to risk being shutdown and having assets confiscated and members jailed for worship of the only true God.