Pudgy

If memory serves, You are getting the two letter writing campaigns mixed up. The politically motivated one was a complete failure. The personal one to the imprisoned Brothers a complete success.

And just how would that be obvious that someone opened ANY of 48,000,000 "overseas" letters? Paper is just thin sheets of wood .... the winters are bitter cold ... and they had 11 boxcars full of "fuel at the proper time", and $57,000,000 to buy Vodka. but.... as a reasonable concession, I will give you that perhaps 1,000 letters were opened and read by low-level clerks and other functionaries, until the pattern and value .. as they value pattern and value, was established. What we really DO KNOW, is that 48,000,000 letters, had absolutely no effect whatsoever in influencing the Russian Court system, or politics. A complete waste of money and time .... for that purpose. Years ago, there was a movie "Bridge on the River Kwai" where the Japanese had captured British soldiers and put them to work building a bridge and rail line through the jungle, and the ranking officer remarked to his lower officers that he was glad his soldiers had work to do. Otherwise they would get into trouble. This is, in my opinion, a valuable thing to do, and besides, later, Commandos blew up the bridge.

You need to take either a reading comprehension course, or a course in the elements of joke composition. ... or both.

Sigh ……. Do you even understand that both those things are ONLY RELEVANT if it answers the Topic’s question? Sigh ……. Let me rephrase ……., New question. Two parts. 1.) Premise: the Brotherhood spent about $84,000,000 sending 11 railroad boxcars packed with letters to the Russian Government to try and influence them, which were never delivered, and never read, for which the Universal Postal Union paid the Russian Government about $57,000,000 to deliver (70% of face value of the postage). The 60% of the Brotherhood that sent 10 letters each spent about a day each doing this. That is 4.8 million days, engaged in political activity, attempting to influence the Russian Court system. 2.) The rephrased question: Do you think the GB should respect the Brotherhood enough to provide translated Official Russian Court transcripts, so the Brotherhood can see the results of the fruits of their labors? …………………. I mean, after all, the Russkies were paid about $57,000,000 for SOMETHING! ….. and the Society IS IN the translation “business”.

Sometimes I realize it was not a cruel twist of fate, that I am drawn without cartoon thought bubbles above my head.

dereck1958: First of all . WOW! .... a reply to a 2017 posting! Since the topic, and the question you supposedly answered (but did not) was "Why doesn't the Society translate and provide the Russian Court Transcripts for us?", your credibility is either 100% ....or zero ..... depending on whether or not you actually checked and KNOW that the translations of the Russian Court Transcripts are really there, and know what they say so that you can actually make a credible statement. I think it would be very fair to assume, since you did not give a link, that you did NOT check, and further, that you do NOT know if "All the information about Brothers in Russia is on the Russian website access anytime.". If you can provide a valid and credible reference that actually is to the Russian Court Transcripts, translated into English .... please accept my humble apologies for assuming what is the normal case, that you are living in an agenda driven self-constructed fantasy world, completely divorced from reality, and I will here publicly apologize to you. PS: A summary paraphrased or a general synopsis is NOT a Transcript.

Cartoon dogs do not get baptized .... we have Bark-Mitzvahs.

.... changing the subject! There is a big difference between showing virtue and being a nation over the entire globe! You are changing the definition of words. A Nation exercises sovereignty within its borders. Jehovah's Witnesses the ORG is subject to the laws of every State and Province, and several hundred real Nations with various political subdivisions that tell them what they can and cannot do. JWs cannot even build a Kingdom Hall unless they get permission from someone else in THEIR Nation. If Jesus was exercising Kingdom Power now, If he was ruling invisibly now, the exercise of Sovereign Power should at least allow for building a Kingdom Hall without having to get a permit from a REAL nation, or to even build a garden tool shed behind a Kingdom Hall. Playing with words will seriously mess up a persons mind when they change definitions .... as a classic example, calling "Gay Marriage", marriage is not marriage. Not Really. It may be accepted as marriage by the LGBTQFA community, but it is not. Not Really. As far as JWs being a Nation over the entire Planet Earth, that is a fantasy. 27, or whatever the number is, Witnesses hiding out in China, a nation of billions of people, is not a Nation. Not Really. Putting a racing saddle on a cow will not magically turn it into a thoroughbred race horse, even if you hang a sign around its neck labeled "Race Horse", and get 100% agreement that it is a race horse. Not Really. .... if you play with words you can contest that, but enter it into the Kentucky Derby Races, and see if reality agrees with screwball theories. The idea of the "Rainbow Bridge" is an idea that appeals to me, all the way down to my innermost feelings .... so much so that I believe it with absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support the idea. Yes ... there are bridges. Yes ... there are rainbows. Yes ... grieving dogs and their guardians. But the existance of all those things are NOT evidence of a "Rainbow Bridge"! Not Really. And yes, there is a loving God, Jehovah who MIGHT make the idea reality sometime in the future, possibly out of love for humanity and its potential ... or some other reason. But in the here-and-now, there is absolutely NO EVIDENCE to support that idea. And dear Arauna, there is no real evidence to support the idea that Jehovah's Witnesses are a Nation, any more than the Catholic, Methodist or Baptist Churches are Nations. Whatever they are ... they are NOT nations. Not Really.

Certainly evidence of virtue, righteousness, and steadfastness in Theocratic goals. It however, is NOT evidence that Christ is ruling invisibly in the midst of his enemies. IT'S INVISIBLE! Much like an expert Skydiver, who fantasizes he is Superman He can't REALLY fly. Not Really.

I totally understand. You will se miracle happening in front of your eyes and will turn around and say: "it should not have happened on the sabbath!" Actually, I would not say that. I would say: "Miracles are things that really do happen, not because they have, or not, an imprimatur from God, but because they almost never happen at all." Schrodinger's Cat is not alive or dead until you check on it, but it is easier to discern the condition of Schrodinger's Elephant.

I do not see hard evidence that either one of your two premises are true.

Remember ..... Seeing is Believing. For almost everybody ..... If you did not believe something ... you would not have seen it.

Dogs have a real, and vested interest in whether or not there is a God, and whether or not these rumors of a "Rainbow Bridge" are real or not. Since we die first (usually) the story goes that all dogs go to Heaven, but they wait on the other side of the "Rainbow Bridge", playing and being happy, waiting for their Guardians to die, and catch up with them. Then one day, all the dogs specific to a Family, will assemble at the Rainbow Bridge, with great joy and happiness as their Guardian comes into view and with wagging tails and tears of joy they will meet before continuing their journey. Although there is absolutely no scripture or evidence whatsoever to support this idea, I believe it with all my heart, because that is what faith is. It's sorta like humans believing, also with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, after filling a blackboard with chronology equations, charts, graphs and tortured scripture, bent into a pretzel and hammered to fit, in an invisible war in heaven, culminating in an invisible king taking power, and ruling over all the Earth ... of course .... invisibly. It seems to me that a King with absolute power and authority from Jehovah God ruling in the midst of his enemies would show some kind of evidence that is not completely and absolutely invisible. I am as sure as I can be, also a matter of faith in the righteous principles of Jehovah God and his Christ, that this will happen SOMETIME ... but as of today, there is in actual real fact that can be proven true by direct observation, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever NOW. None whatsoever. Not REALLY.

Young dogs have more problems, but life is tougher when you do not have opposable thumbs. When you can't turn a door knob ....... well ...... things get messy.

WHEN? Jehovah says NOBODY knows! I am more inclined to believe Him, than any group or individuals that about such things …… without exception ….. have a recorded track record of ALWAYS being 100% WRONG.….. and then change the definition of words to cover it up..

As an aside, I was having some nuclear testing done at the hospital recently and I mentioned to the nurse who was about to light me up like a bulb that the things we learned at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, August 6 and 9, 1945, probably saved 1000 times more lives than those events took at the time. She was thoughtful for a moment and replied “… Probably more than 100,000 times more than how many were killed there.“ …… upon reflection, perhaps considerably more by a large margin than even that.

Something is always happening….. be glad …. Be VERY glad you were not alive during the period in Colonial America during the English/French and Indian wars … or during the carpeting plagues of Europe, where carts went through towns calling out “Bring out your dead!”. All that we are experiencing now is just a different variation of “normal” …….. with 24/7/365 news coverage by people that worship at the Church of Covid. I personally would rather live now than at ANY OTHER time and place in the past.

Why, specifically? Would you instead of the Urban Bulldogs, prefer Metropolitan Poodles?

Sometimes, doing a "good deed" is as simple as not eating the cat.

This is always true for people with a total lack of imagination, and motivation.

For humans, the older you get, the more of the threat of being rounded up and put into an interment camp appears to be a good alternative to going to a rest home your children have picked out. Dogs have the advantage however because we know we will be loved and cared for at the home of those who love and care for us until the very end, and if necessary they will take us to the vet to be painlessly put down before we start to rot while still alive. A very great kindness, not available to most humans.

How did you get the year 2055? It makes no sense whatsoever. Why should not a normal, rational, common sense person not consider this “2055” as a delusional fantasy? To illustrate …. If I arbitrarily change your “2055” to “2255”, what’s the difference?

I think the real question is, if a person of good heart decided he wanted to become one of Jehovah’s Witness, do you have to really believe all these superfluous things that are of no consequence in order to be baptized as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses? Would you have to give lip service to these things which are in retrospect blatantly wrong? Would you get a pass from the elders for things which in good conscious to you seem silly and stupid, if you firmly believed in all the core beliefs and wanted to dedicate your life to Jehovah God, through Christ? ……. what I am afraid of is that the travesty is, that we already know the answers to the above questions.

The people in the south United States, which really is the southeast United States, are definitely weird. The people in the south United States, which really is the southeast United States, are definitely weird. Wealth is determined by how many cars you have up on cement blocks in your front yard and how many dogs you have under your front porch. and, if you go to a restaurant and order a tea, what you’ll get is iced sweet tea, where sugar is the main ingredient and tea and water are the second ingredient.

Considering who Saddam Hussein really was, I think any manufactured excuse was excellent to hang them, and him. Grrrrrrrr.