James Thomas Rook Jr.

Then, assuming she accepted the proposal, the brothers asked them to become disengaged (Form S-78) and to become re-engaged anywhere outside of Warwick, since the Governing Body also meets in Warwick and does not want anything related to the Branch location area to become idolized, either. Then they decided on a 50-mile radius, which would also include the old Brooklyn Bethel, because, well, you just can't be too careful. For engagement services, they are now providing a special bus that runs from Warwick to the old Burnt-Over Disctrict of New York, where it all began. An announcement comes over the loudspeaker of the bus when the 50-mile radius has been reached, and engagements are allowed again.
 
[edited to add: I just received a note from someone who couldn't tell if I was joking, so I thought I'd better add this explanation to the post. Yes, I'm joking.]

( placekeeper for some incredibly wise comment, if I should think of one later....)

Sometimes in life ... you get the Bear ... sometimes the Bear gets you.
In a car group with the smartest brother in my Kingdom Hall, we were discussing all the MASSIVE Internet presence of the Society, nowadays, between return visits, and I mentioned (paraphrased) "Yeah, I remember when anyone who had an Internet connection was called in and chastised ..... " .
He thought for a moment and said " ...... yeah ......".
It is a difficult spot to be in, when the people that occasionally have GOOD ADVICE ... have squandered their credibility on drivel, like TPT has.
 

Period

These are my favorites ... if you disregard the "Tight Pants Tony" comedy.
 

I can see Tom your hard working in thinking. You have battle inside you, and that is good. I also see that you still looking at all this through black/white lenses and that is not good.
You mentioned "Witness" and "separated college students" = brainwashed. After reading your text, my conclusion would be that all are brainwashed no matter are they 24/7 or 2/2. You are sure how students are deceived because mount of hours in class, but i will say that WT education program is much effective because they have same result (brainwashed) with only 4 hours a week :))))))))))))))     
"Human agency" aka WT has hidden things, some of them we talk about. "Shepherd  the Flock"  or "Preparing for child custody cases" books are one of them. 
"How could anybody be so stupid? No", you said. People must not to be stupid, but deceiver must be much more clever while making people stupid. :))))))) Deceiver must gain trust from the victim, and one of method is to tell some truth and some half truth, after that false truth will take place.  
you quote: "the 'world will chew you up and spit you out". With power of clever-stupid explanations GB chew up and spit out many Bethelites and pioneers after many years of "faithful service", because economic issue aka - money the god-. Issue of money and power, control over people are always main reason, not "adjustments" to the Truth. In WT terminology, "Adjustments" are made for the goal of hold and gain control over masses of followers.     
 

Glad to hear your experience, but i will quote your big brother A. Morris III who all this what you told us say in one nonsense statement: "Stick with what we have authorised and you will be saved."
Must i remind you or readers of WT how GB also said:
"We need to obey FDS..."
"WE need to obey any instruction...."
"We are not inspired, we can err in instructional and doctrinal matters ...."   
But anyway ----- "Stick with what we have authorised and you will be saved."
That make me sadly laughing :))))) 

Someone said somewhere: 'what you are doing, get done more quickly,' so you almost wish that if someone is going to leave the faith, they would have done it long ago. That way they do not carry on about being misled or even brainwashed. Why do they not leave quicker?
Does one become a Witness through brainwashing? If so, there are far better examples. College is foremost among them. The student is separated almost 24/7 on campus from all that is familiar to him or her. In contrast, on the pathway to become a Witness, you will go to two meetings a week and have a personal Bible study which lasts an hour or two per weekly session. And you'll get to know people and cultivate new relationships in exactly the same way you would cultivate new relationships anywhere else. A special event or two and that's it. 95% of the time you are in the same well-trod territory you have always been in.
Moreover, nothing about the way God uses a human agency to direct his people is ever hidden. It is manifest from day one. So it seems disingenuous to grouse about being misled. Instead, one simply reassesses matters over time. They decide the cost is too high and the reason for paying it too nebulous or far off. They depart because they were 'not of our sort' and because they decide that they like this system of things after all, or at least do not dislike it enough to keep such distance.
An exception would be those raised in the faith. They never did see both sides. Or, rather, to the extent most of them saw both sides, it was both sides presented through the eyes of the theocratic organization, which hardly represents the other side as that side would represent itself. How to solve this?
I don't know. It may already be solved to the extent it can be. The reason Obi-wan does not want Luke to go over into the dark side is that he really thinks it is the dark side. He is not trying to control Luke. He is not trying to deprive him of anything. He is looking out for him. He truly believes the dark side is bad, and he doesn't say 'why don't you go over there and roam around for a while so you can make an informed choice.'
So it is with the GB. Charges that they try to control people are so juvenile, so adolescent, that they are hard to countenance. How could anybody be so stupid? No. They truly believe the theocratic side is good and the other side is - well - the dark side. Though that viewpoint is objectionable to some, it is exactly how the Bible presents matters. I don't know how you get around it, or if you even want to, though it does result in the problems mentioned above. 
Furthermore, if the GB ever 'misrepresents' the non-Witness world, it is not because they are sinister. It is because they don't know it themselves. They take their own counsel, which is the Bible's counsel, and they don't go there. They are lowly people who have poured themselves out and who now find themselves in places that are 'high for them.' They don't puff themselves up over it. They trust in God and actually, like the kings of old supposedly did, read their Bibles daily. They keep away from what is 'falsely called knowledge' and from 'empty philosophies that violate what is holy and toss people about as though the waves of the sea.' They have run their own lives with the lesson of Haggai ever foremost - 'clean will be contaminated by unclean,' not the reverse - and so they don't go there. Because they don't go there, they know it only through the lens of Scripture.
If the Bible says, in effect, that the 'world will chew you up and spit you out,' they assume that it does. if they find someone who says exactly those words, they eat it right up and broadcast it. And who is to say the words are untrue? Some get chewed up and spit out so decisively and quickly that no one would ever deny it, but with others? Who is to say the scriptures are wrong on that point? It may just take a longer time to get chewed up and spit out. Certainly the one out of ten senior citizens from the other post might have come to think that, seeing everything they had worked for drained away.

I also endured Detention in Military prison for 14 months Srecko - I don't regret the experience because I also learned a lot about myself and about others while in prison. 
But we found out later that brothers are allowed to take alternative service now ......"New Light" . 
This is an organization that enjoys having people being persecuted because it "markets" their goals ~ 

An interesting observation I had to wrestle with before leaving, experiencing the world and then coming back again. So ineffect, I had to learn the "hard way" that Satans system and allurements were not what they appeared to be. That is not to say all is well within either. (I have seen the bad things that can happen and at times it's far more than just "imperfections" that seem to be our go-to response to these matters - but that's another story). 
In leaving the truth (for over 10 years) to try to see things more objectively - to see things without a JW lens, asking questions (and actually living a VERY worldly lifestyle) I came to a realization at one point that there was no real future in this system. It was a garbage can painted to look like gold. So I did a more earnest study of different religions, but I always had to come back to one fundamental question that could have saved me a lot of time. What did Jesus say would identify his true followers? Did the answer really require the lengths I was going to, to sift through all that garbage? John 13:34, 35 was what did it for me. How can you be fulfilling this requirement and killing your same brothers in war? How can you love even your enemies by killing them and their children in war? That really narrowed things down for me. 
Still, I wondered how would someone/me narrow it down further? Be exposed to different questions I may not have thought of asking? Or points of view that were foreign to me that I may have neglected to consider? Or even contrary to what I believed? How could the "scientific method" of thesis, antithesis and synthesis be practically applied? How could I be exposed to all this important information? The answer was simple and obvious: be active in the ministry. That is an acid test. People will express their views to you, uncoloured by a JW lens - directly from their perspective and it is up to you then to weigh the evidence in your reply. If your reply carries scriptural weight it will reinforce your beliefs. If not it will weaken them or require further research. So someone raised in the truth doesn't really need to waste years of searching. They just need to get down to doing what every Christian should be doing anyways. Preaching to others. 

Looking back, I'd have to say that @Srecko Sostar is exactly right on this point. Although I agree that it's "unusual" for even a JW to know about this particular point, he was responding to your point about Mexico, TTH, when you said that the rules are different in each country
The rules were exactly the same in Mexico for a religious organization, and the Society could have done in Mexico exactly what other religions were doing there, and exactly what the Society had chosen to do in other Central American countries. The only difference was that a religious organization could not own property but had to lease it. The brothers and sisters could have prayed, and sung Kingdom Songs, and conducted Bible studies, and used the Bible in field service just as we do almost everywhere else. When we lived in California and visited our relatives in San Diego and Oceanside, they would regularly visit brothers in Mexico on a day trip. Our whole family had visited the brothers there on several occasions when we were just a "cultural" organization. As soon as the rules changed and religious organizations could own their own property, the Society announced that we would now operate as a religious organization.
We avoided public prayer and singing and Bible reading in our meetings purely based on choices made in Brooklyn. In other countries, we fought for the right to have public prayer and singing and Bible reading in our meetings. For some reason we didn't think it was that important to our brothers in Mexico, until we could own the property. 

Fighting To Save Lives! ?????????
We have a Brother (elder) in a Huntington Beach Congregation who works as a firefighter and paramedic.
One day while going house to house he encountered a woman who answered the door with a rude and impolite manner stating she couldn’t be bothered.
Immediately, the Brother replied; arenÂ’t you Mrs. ________ and donÂ’t you have a little child named ________?
The woman very surprised demanded to know how the Brother how could know this? He replied; I was the paramedic that responded to your 911 call and revived your child. She immediately said “please come inside.” -
???- Thank you 

Even though I don't "do Halloween", I put on my mask, and look out the side window of my car at the children playing in their front yards, and wave to them as I drive by.
 

..but it's O.K. , I live in the USA, so the "Australian "Working with Children Check Card" that all Witnesses working with children have to have in Australia is not needed.

WHAT? ME WORRY?

What I said  (paraphrased) was that a man has the RESPONSIBILITY to provide for himself, and his family, and those he can  ... and that includes food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education both temporal and spiritual, and DEFENSE of those same people.
An incompetent defense IS NOT A DEFENSE.
Before you can be a Theocratic Man, you must FIRST be a Man.



 
 
 
Do not be caught up in the mass hysteria of the un-examined liberal mind, who project their fears on you ... and blame you for resisting their insanity.
.
 

... it's funnier, south of the Mason-Dixon line.

In 1609 they had rudimentary baseball games that they played with the Cleveland Indians, in Ohio.
The team was then called the New Amsterdamn Yankees.
 

We would assume that Michael, the archangel, became a fetus, a baby, then a toddler, then a young boy, then went through puberty, and became a young man, and then a full grown man who gave himself over to the authorities to be killed. This should give us a glimpse into the level of humility and love shown:
(Philippians 2:7-11) 7 No, but he emptied himself and took a slave’s form and became human. 8 More than that, when he came as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, yes, death on a torture stake. 9 For this very reason, God exalted him to a superior position and kindly gave him the name that is above every other name, 10 so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend—of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the ground— 11 and every tongue should openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Michael means "Who is like God?" and Immanuel means "With us is God." The Bible never makes a specific point about identifying Michael as either Jesus or Immanuel or Christ. But this is not so different from Matthew saying that he will be called Immanuel, and yet we never hear Jesus called Immanual anywhere either. He was mostly called Jesus, Savior, Rabbi, son of man, son of God, and Messiah (Christ), etc.
I know this wasn't necessarily your point in bringing it up, but a lot of people think we are the only religion that ever thought of claiming that Michael was the same as Jesus Christ prior to his earthly presence. The idea had been around for many years before Jehovah's Witnesses came along. 

In 1609 they had rudimentary baseball games that they played with the Cleveland Indians, in Ohio.
The team was then called the New Amsterdamn Yankees.
 

Like Tonto said to the Lone Ranger, when surrounded by enemy Indians, and Kemosabe said "What do we do NOW, Tonto?"
Tonto replied "What you mean "We", white man?"
Yes, WWI actually ended.
THAT'S WHY WWII IS CALLED WWII !!!!
I need a beer, and a hammer, to ease the pain of having to have to read that Gone Fishing question.
 

Perhaps a technical point, but the Watchtower Officers during WWI were charged and convicted of sedition against the United States of America ... because they were GUILTY of sedition against the United States of America when at WAR.
If you park in a no parking zone, and your car gets towed away ... don't blame it on Satan.

Go to Youtube and google "12 hours dog barking".
Play this LOUD when you leave the house.

If I understand this correctly, then the new truth you have arrived at is that the world is salvageable and we should all work to fix it, rather than carry on about there being a true religion and an end of this system of things.

If you understand this, and I presume you do because they are your words, then ...get to it!
Whatever cause YOU choose to live or die for.... again....get to it!
Leave Dennis Christiansen to do the same. And as you observe how his conduct turns out, (you might choose to) imitate his faith!

We have already covered the scriptural evidence of a triune God and it is laughably small.
The reason I shy from these type of discussions is that always participants have been convinced by revelation of some sort. How does one counter that?
Truth revealed through revelation is fine until you find someone else who has also received truth by revelation and it differs from yours.

AND that is why the liberal THIEVES want those gun rights taken away.