James Thomas Rook Jr.

That is EXACTLY ... and I mean EXAXCTeLLY .. the same job that Winston Smith had in the George Orwell Book "1984".
THE BOOK "1984" WAS A WARNING ... IT WAS  NOT INTENDED TO BE USED AS A SCRIPT!
 

beautiful pictures of magnificent animals ....

At the same time that I risked my life before a triple bypass heart surgery, about 9 years ago, and insisted on no blood or blood fractions ... and had to be taken by ambulance to a hospital 30 miles away, kept alive en route by six VERY BUSY EMT technicians, to get the operation without blood, I was beginning to understand that unless an animal, or a human actually dies ... the blood does NOT represent his life.
The soldiers who got water for King David RISKED their life to get it ... and the water represented their life, and LIKE blood, he refused to drink the water.
In ancient Israel, NO ONE drank live animal blood, and when the animal was slain for food, the blood was properly returned to God, BECAUSE the animal died. 
BECAUSE the animal died ... its blood represented its life .....
NOT BEFORE.
If the ancient Israelite Priests had drained blood from animals for sacrificial use, sprinkling it on the crowd, etc., and not killed the animal, allowing it to heal up ... would THAT blood have been proper for sacrifice to God?
NO ... because the animal had not been sacrificed ... only wounded.
If when as a young carpenter someone accidentally injured Jesus, and he had almost cut a finger off, would THAT blood have redeemed mankind?
NO.
When Jesus was killed by punching holes in his body, he bled ... and AFTER he died ... his blood represented his life.
NOT BEFORE!
Further, if he had been executed by drowning, or strangulation ... yes he would have died, but no sacrificial blood could be offered to God for that LIFE!
KNOWING what I know now, would I still insist on no blood for myself should I need more surgery?
The LIFE belongs to God ... and when life dies, specifically for hemoglobin carrying air breathers  (not fish, as an example), Jehovah has ORDERED the blood returned to him "on the ground", or in specifically approved ritual sacrifice.
The human blood would have NO sacrificial value unless it was blood from a cadaver .....  ANY MORE THAN A BLOODY NOSE AND SWALLOWING THE BLOOD UNTIL IT STOPS, HAS ANY VALUE WHATSOEVER.  And I have not quite figured that example completely out.
People used to eat blood saturated animals they had strangled ... the animal was DEAD. 
The blood, representing THAT LIFE, was ordered returned to God, from whence it came.
The blood had value to God, THE ANIMAL HAD DIED, and God demanded its return to him out of respect for his being the force behind ALL LIFE. 
In  some African tribes, they cut a cow and drink the blood, sometimes mixing it with milk.
The Jews did not do this, the very IDEA was totally abhorrent.
The New Testament admonitions specify keeping away from "... blood ... and things strangled ..."
                           FROM ANIMALS ACTUALLY KILLED .                                       
KNOWING what I know now, would I still insist on no blood for myself should I need more surgery?
Yes ... Jehovah, as an example,  ALLOWS pacifism, even though it is not required ... and many, many other things not required.
It's called FREEDOM.
People that believe in FREEDOM, often will sacrifice their lives ... for reasons that make no sense to someone else ... because they believe In certain symbols, and ideas.
I would bind myself with that restriction ... but I would not bind YOU.
To the best of my understanding at the present time. I could be wrong, and am completely open to other reasonable interpretations. I suppose I bind myself .. just in case I might be wrong, which is unlikely, but possible.
... but then again ... I have been at death's door many dozens of times without turning the knob, and am USED to the idea.
Not everybody is.
Perhaps the Russians are right ... and we are wrong ... in requiring of our Bretheren things God does not, and which civilization in general has the "high moral ground", and in addition to destroying families by shunning, we are destroying families by actually causing them to medically suicide.
This is a VERY REASONABLE definition of "extremism".
Perhaps it's a good thing to take the signs off of the confiscated buildings.
In about 5 years,  about many, many things .... we will all know.
.
 
 

An  autumn  video  with  an  English  song  - Jehovah's  beautiful  season...
HERBST  is    ? ? ? .•*¨`*•..¸???¸.•*¨`*•.  ? ? ?    AUTUMN....

@James Thomas Rook Jr.
You caught me away! I know you might go to the Kingdom Hall when signs of Armageddon comes? Perhaps the name will change by then? Perhaps it will “the secret place of the Most High?”
Get on board my Friend it’s coming don’t see you?
???

Haha you guys are all funny ? Find the “right” Kingdom Hall and you won’t be disappointed! I find one and when I travel I check it out first! Keep on the “right” road my Friends. Perhaps soon we may not be able to meet there but underground. Rejoice cause we’ve been counted worthy of bearing His Name!
???????

I  hope  -  Jehovah  will  quickly  STOP  that  crazy  Russian  judgement  !!!!
Our  poor  Brothers  and  Sisters ;-((
But  perhaps  it  belongs  to  Jehovah's  special  plan...  we  don't  know  it.

It is truly sad when one cannot express their belief, but rather can only try and attach negativity to anyone who opposes a view that has been given to them. You seem to disagree, but can't quite get the thought out as to why. My only conclusion, since you cannot elaborate, is that you don't know why other than "because we (the gb) said so" 

I understand Gnosis Pithos, that you disagree with what I wrote by your downvote, it doesn't matter about votes to me. What I would like from you though, is a discussion as to why you disagree. Please include scripture for support of your position. 

Mr. Rock, I am still trying to Figure you out after reading some of your comments over the past year are you a devout Jehovah’s Witness are you a apostate are you in the middle or are you something else? Perhaps you to are trying to figure that out.

And to think ... I used to think a "conundrum" was a wide belt  worn with a tuxedo ....

All these explanations are wrong. It becomes tiresome. 
Luckily Fortunately for everyone here, I will elucidate. The answer is found in our family folklore.
I invited my profane great uncle to a meeting long ago. He attended only one. He sputtered and groused throughout the talk and Watchtower study, just like some on this forum. Afterwards in the parking lot he grumbled to a brother, who turned out to be hard of hearing: "What is this nonsense about a Kingdom? Hell, I don't believe a word of it!"
The brother mistook his remark as appreciation. He thought it would make a really cool name for something that had, up to that time, been called a "place."
The term caught on. Brother Rutherford heard about it one day and said: 'Yeah. I can live with that."

To my mind, the following three things determine the "real answer", in the absence of the elderly brothers who were there, who have all since died, and we cannot sit at their knees and hear how it REALLY happened.
1.) The story I was told in Honolulu Hawaii, when I was on vacation, about 40 years ago, when I visited a random Kingdom Hall there, and had before never thought about how the name  happened,  did not know any better,  nor did I care at all ... it was only a piece of remembered conversational trivia to me at the time,  and
2.) JWI's astute comment that the term used at the time was kingdom hall, not Kingdom Hall ... in the manner that a "car wash" is a functional name, and "BOB'S HONOLULU CAR WASH" might be a brand name, or identifying label of WHICH car wash, of many. 
There could be many public meeting halls in Honolulu, Hawaii ... but only one kingdom hall (at the time...) in Honolulu, Hawaii.
I can see that from the Society's own quote, it was called a kingdom hall while it was under construction.  and so when the electrified sign was put up, I can visualize the Brothers saying, in effect "What shall we call our new kingdom hall? 
DUH!  .... It's a kingdom hall ... let's call it a Kingdom Hall !", and
3.) The Society has a LONG HISTORY, of rewriting the past both in oral presentations, rewriting the bound volumes of the Watchtower, and rewriting electronic copies of older publications to make it many years later APPEAR they were right, when they were flat wrong. 
The PERFECT example of this is the "Overlapping Generations" insult, to us and to God.
This is the exact same job Winston Smith had, when he worked in the "Ministry of Truth" in the George Orwell book "1984".
In order to have a self-appointed Governing Body today, there has to in the realm of PR "Public Relations" spin that shows the wisdom of PAST leaders.
The easiest way to do this, is to change history, which JWI directly pointed out, and which I also have seen and do see happening incrementally.
It's blatantly, and to use a word that shows up in the 2013 New World Translation that previously never showed up in any Bible, anywhere in the world, THREE TIMES, including Benjamin Wilson's Emphatic Diaglott, nor the Kingdom Interlinear Translation, nor the previous New World Translations (!) of the Holy Scriptures ... BRAZEN ...  intellectual dishonesty.   
Brazen intellectual dishonesty ... because they think we are ALL too stupid or uneducated, or both,  to know and understand what that is.
It tries to be invisible, but not everybody who knows the difference has died off ..... YET.
As soon as those who know the difference die off .... as soon as those who remember die off ... revised Watchtower history will be the ONLY history the Brotherhood will know, and control will be complete, and like Pavlov's dogs ... when the dinner bell rings ....  automatic salivation begins.
The motto of the BOOK "1984"''s  "Ministry of Truth",  was "HE WHO CONTROLS THE PAST CONTROLS THE FUTURE".
It was a WARNING ... and was not supposed to be adopted as a SCRIPT!

WOW!
When the people who know die out, the only thing left will be the Snowflake puff pieces, with no one to contradict them.
People will forget that Caleb and Sophia were once only cartoons invented by TPT, when they are elevated to Saints.
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED... WHY DO JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES CALL THEIR MEETING PLACE A KINGDOM HALL RATHER THAN A CHURCH?
There are two ways to look at that question, some of it already addressed ... but about 40 years ago I went to Hawaii, and here is what the story I heard was .... Once upon a time all Kingdom Halls were called something else, perhaps meeting places, I do not know. 
 
Then, one congregation in Hawaii in the early 1930's started calling their meeting places "Kingdom Hall", and later, about 1935 "Judge" Rutherford visited Hawaii and saw that, and when he went back to Brooklyn or San Diego directed that all meeting places be called "Kingdom Halls".
I wish I had been paying more attention when this was being told to me by some older brothers, all now dead (their entire generation having passed away by now) , but it was just a piece of trivia, to me, until about 11 to 15 years ago when the annual Watchtower Calendar came out and showed a picture of a Hawaiian Kingdom Hall, that credited Bro. Rutherford with INVENTING the idea, and the first place that was instituted was in Hawaii.
I pointed this out to my then wife and children, as we had that calendar
hanging in our kitchen and the caption stated what directly contradicted what I thought I knew.
So now we have two completely different stories .... close .... but no banana.
NOW.. I think I will try to have Mr. Google find out for me.
It's just like the Big Bang!I do not have Polaroids, and I wasn't there.
But without more evidence, I believe the Hawaiian Brothers ... NOT the calendar.
Oh, and the software is screwing up my formatting, etc.
 I suspect JWI would have a better answer.
 
 

I found the address of the first KH ... That little house of worship at 1228 Pensacola Street, which has since been expanded and renovated three times, holds the noteworthy distinction of being the first to be named Kingdom Hall.
I would assume that is in Honolulu

WOW!
When the people who know die out, the only thing left will be the Snowflake puff pieces, with no one to contradict them.
People will forget that Caleb and Sophia were once only cartoons invented by TPT, when they are elevated to Saints.
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED... WHY DO JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES CALL THEIR MEETING PLACE A KINGDOM HALL RATHER THAN A CHURCH?
There are two ways to look at that question, some of it already addressed ... but about 40 years ago I went to Hawaii, and here is what the story I heard was .... Once upon a time all Kingdom Halls were called something else, perhaps meeting places, I do not know. 
 
Then, one congregation in Hawaii in the early 1930's started calling their meeting places "Kingdom Hall", and later, about 1935 "Judge" Rutherford visited Hawaii and saw that, and when he went back to Brooklyn or San Diego directed that all meeting places be called "Kingdom Halls".
I wish I had been paying more attention when this was being told to me by some older brothers, all now dead (their entire generation having passed away by now) , but it was just a piece of trivia, to me, until about 11 to 15 years ago when the annual Watchtower Calendar came out and showed a picture of a Hawaiian Kingdom Hall, that credited Bro. Rutherford with INVENTING the idea, and the first place that was instituted was in Hawaii.
I pointed this out to my then wife and children, as we had that calendar
hanging in our kitchen and the caption stated what directly contradicted what I thought I knew.
So now we have two completely different stories .... close .... but no banana.
NOW.. I think I will try to have Mr. Google find out for me.
It's just like the Big Bang!I do not have Polaroids, and I wasn't there.
But without more evidence, I believe the Hawaiian Brothers ... NOT the calendar.
Oh, and the software is screwing up my formatting, etc.
 I suspect JWI would have a better answer.
 
 

I have edited two points of the quote of my above referenced comment  (click read more), changing  two points to red and bold to highlight what two ideas  go together.
... but of course since you are looking at anything I say trough AGENDA DRIVEN sunglasses, you do not comprehend what you read, so I will try to be clearer.
Ahem .... the following six lines quoted are separated by "air spaces" ... that means they are SEPARATE  definitions ... that means they are SEPARATE judicial systems.
1.) Transylvanian dictator Vlad the Impaler had a definition of "due process"
2.) Soviet Josef Stalin had a definition of "due process".
3.) The Nazi Gestapo and Department of Justice had a definition of "due process".
4.) The WTB&TS has a definition of "due process"
5.) The USA court systems have their definitions of "due process"
I clearly was talking about six completely separate and distinct forms, styles and characteristics of applied "Justice".
Completely different....completely separate.
I find it VERY SAD AND TELLING  that you, yourself made the connection, true or false, or partially true or partially false, that
" I mean, that last remark was as long as it was just plain unhinged - comparing the Watchtower to Stalin, the Gestapo, and to ...... Vlad the Impaler?! "
You AND YOU ALONE are the one that made that connection between deliberately isolated points ... you and you alone ... when my point was ONLY ... and what was also clearly stated :
" If your life was on the line, which system would YOU choose to get what approximates Justice?"
Which as usual ... as always ... the questions you NEVER answer.
I do know WHY you never answer my  questions, but go off on a tangents of misconstruction.
                                                        It's painful                                                                                                       
  although I deliberately kept the ideas separate ... with your own mind you saw that connection.
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TTH: ".. period of silence"?
You look for meaning in personal attributes, like dissecting a picture of a guy taking off a sleeve stained suit coat and becoming more worldly, as in Sunday's WT, and see nuances where there are none whatsoever.
You might have well have said he was being chased by bees!
".. period of silence"?
I do have to sleep and eat, and go to the ..... grocery store, and do yard work, etc., etc., etc.
Besides ... it's not the swing of the pendulum, as it goes to and fro ... but the essence that drives it, that makes us go.
Wha-de-do-DAH.
 
 

Are you just noting, TTH ... or chastising ... that one person has not answered another's questions?

Witness, you are a despicable HORRIBLE person, evil through and through ... trying to confuse the issue with irrefutable FACTS!

Witness, you are a despicable HORRIBLE person, evil through and through ... trying to confuse the issue with irrefutable FACTS!

I have NO IDEA what this actually means, and of course, because EVERYTHING is a "Military Secret" the Watchtower WOULD tell us ... but then they would have to kill us all!
 I used to work as a Contractor for the Department of Energy, USA, and that was a favorite joke. 
I would be working at my desk, and feel somebody behind me, and turn around to see a soldier in full battle dress, with an attack dog by his side, which was always a surprise, as he had been watching me for some time, silently ... my startled comment was "Can I pet your dog?"
He replied "I wouldn't do that, sir."
It is in this environment that driving from one building to another, there  was a billboard on the side of the road "FEED A SHREDDER ... STARVE A SPY", AND we used to OCCASIONALLY say to each other , humor intended, to anybody that wanted more than a half-sentence explanation about something ....  "I would tell you... but then I would have to kill you !"
We would grin .. and looking around, laugh a nervous laugh.
With that in mind, my first sentence was merely a joke ..... well ... uh .... "some" of it.

Witness, you are a despicable HORRIBLE person, evil through and through ... trying to confuse the issue with irrefutable FACTS!

When my dog Cubby died several years ago, I put her obituary here on the Archive, but when they switched formats or providers (?) her picture was lost.  She died of eye cancer spread to her intestines. She was  a wonderful dog, and I taught her to play the card game "Poker". 
She was very loving and affectionate, but not very smart ... when playing Poker, every time she got good cards, she would wag her tail.

Queen Ester:
I was referring to the German language ... ( it was a joke..). I took about two months of German in High school, and had no talent whatsoever for learning a foreign language ... my Mother was one of identical twins and was almost telepathic, and I did not learn to talk until I started 1st grade in school.
There is an often used joke line in the USA when someone speaks or types in a foreign language, that when they do not understand ANY of it ... to make an astonished face, roll your eyes and say "Easy for YOU to say!", which in your case ... IS easy for you to say .... you speaking the German Language.
Another joke goes like  ....
ME: "Well .. it's a good thing I was not born in Germany!"
SOMEBODY ELSE: " Oh! ... and WHY is it a good thing you were not born in Germany?"
ME: " Because I CAN'T SPEAK GERMAN!"
bADDA-BING !
 Both jokes are better after Pizza and a pitcher of beer!
.
 

All of this is HUMOR, Queen Ester ... but don't feel bad... half the people in the United States do not understand.
I am 71 years old, and I tell myself these stories, 'cause I like hearing them!