Malawi and MCP Cards?

[Many Miles]

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Does @Many Milesor anyone else know the origin of our ‘universal court case’ theodicy?

You might also want to take a look at Russell's Zion's Watch Tower of February 1884 in the last 2 paragraphs of the article View From The Tower. That might be the first nibbling at the notion of what our publications later on terms universal court case. If what you're looking for is from antiquity, then maybe my prior comment on the subject is helpful.

[Srecko Sostar]

1 hour ago, Many Miles said:

universal court case

In my days (1970s) it was kind of summed up in the questions of who is the true God and will man choose the God whose name is YHVH or will he choose the false Gods of Babylon the Great. And the question, does YHVH have full right to rule.
It turns out that man, not God, answers both questions about the status of God. A bit strange, isn't it?
The man answered only one question; Who will he choose for. Only because it is about the freedom of choice that people have.
The question of who is the true God and whether he has the legal right to rule is not for man to answer. Because how can "created matter" answer that question? Not at all. If a man chooses his master, this does not speak of the status of the master, but of the status and condition of the man who is given the opportunity to choose. One can argue; "my lord is good, just, merciful, generous, etc." But then it is primarily an expression of the perception of a man, who has actually never seen his master or talked to him, in this case. It is the product of some other experience in a person, outside of the classic, well-known and experiential way of getting to know another person.

Today's believers, as well as many from the past, primarily "got to know" God through the upbringing and teachings of their parents, people and/or reading the Holy Scriptures.
Every other "experience" of God is up for debate. Biblical characters mostly literally heard "God" (or angels) with their ears, experienced through visions, through supernatural manifestations. Today, say JWs, this cannot happen, and if someone were to claim that this happened to them, then JWs will say that they are under the influence of demons, drugs or mentally ill.

Our personal choice, about own selection of one of the organized religions headed by YHVH, which spreads to other people through street or house preaching, gives testimony to our choice of religion. It cannot answer the question whether God has a legal right to be God. It is presumptuous to attribute such importance to oneself, to a human being. If God is really God then he does not need our confirmation, consent or testimony that he is really God who has the right to rule. It is utter nonsense that God is so dependent on human testimony. Angels in heaven are not stupid. Everyone should have seen and understood who their God is, if they were with him every day of their lives. They don't need an answer to such a human question posed by WTJWorg.

So, what kind of universally, controversial, disputed question (Universal Court Case) do JWs actually answer?

[TrueTomHarley]

53 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:

It cannot answer the question whether God has a legal right to be God. It is presumptuous to attribute such importance to oneself, to a human being

It is a little like the signs we saw posted repeatedly at the Columbus Zoo reptile house.

”How do you know if an animal is venomous?” they say, and then answer: “If it bites you and you get sick, then the animal is venomous.”

Pretty much the same answer applies here, I think. “How do you know if God has the right to rule? If Armegeddon comes, and you’re not around afterward, then he has the right to rule.”

[Many Miles]

39 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

“How do you know if God has the right to rule? If Armegeddon comes, and you’re not around afterward, then he has the right to rule.”

From our level of knowledge, we are unable to conceive something that exists with no beginning. Hence, regarding the question of rights, when it comes to a creator with no beginning, answering the question is outside any objective rational argument we could form based on evidence. It would be unanswerable by us, based on objective knowledge we currently have as humans. But, if Armageddon comes and a bunch of people are destroyed, objectively we can say whatever was responsible for the event had the power to destroy a bunch of people and did so.

[Pudgy]

  TTH:  Using that same logic the Nazis had the right to rule mankind.

…, or a Comet had the right to rule the Dinosaurs.

[TrueTomHarley]

18 minutes ago, Many Miles said:

But, if Armageddon comes and a bunch of people are destroyed, objectively we can say whatever was responsible for the event had the power to destroy a bunch of people and did so.

I far prefer the term ‘Golden Rule’ to ‘Human Rights’ as the former preserves all that is noble about human rights, while discarding all that is pretentious. Our own bodies do not respect our ‘human rights,’ crapping out on us when we need them the most and finally shutting down altogether.

Moreover, it really seems that if they are ‘rights’ you ought to be able to do something about it when they are violated. Instead, rights are all-but violated with impunity today. We are reduced to saying people ought ‘take responsibilty’ and be ‘held accountable,’ neither of which happens with any reliability. Utter such lofty terms all you want; not much changes.

This years favorite word: ‘Unacceptable’

Use in a paragraph:

They finally hung that slippery politician that everyone knew should be hung. ‘Any last words?’ they asked him on the scaffold. ‘This is unacceptable!’ he cried, as the trap door swung open and the rope snapped taut.

Unacceptable or not, off he went, every bit as much as if it was acceptable.

[Srecko Sostar]

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

”How do you know if an animal is venomous?” they say, and then answer: “If it bites you and you get sick, then the animal is venomous.”

If every man named Paul is bitten by a snake, then all such people will not care about the bite. lol

[Many Miles]

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Moreover, it really seems that if they are ‘rights’ you ought to be able to do something about it when they are violated. Instead, rights are all-but violated with impunity today. We are reduced to saying people ought ‘take responsibilty’ and be ‘held accountable,’ neither of which happens with any reliability. Utter such lofty terms all you want; not much changes.

More often than not, all we can do is share our experience and training for the benefit of others, and we can work to improve ourselves too. But in the end the most we can do is honestly try our best. Whether that helps improve someone's life or some circumstance is usually beyond our control.

[Many Miles]

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

This years favorite word: ‘Unacceptable’

Use in a paragraph:

They finally hung that slippery politician that everyone knew should be hung. ‘Any last words?’ they asked him on the scaffold. ‘This is unacceptable!’ he cried, as the trap door swung open and the rope snapped taut.

Unacceptable or not, off he went, every bit as much as if it was acceptable.

That's a pretty fatalistic perspective. Though the most we can do is try our best, I hold a positive view that we do not waste our time when we share our experience and training to help others, or some circumstance that needs improvement. I also find it helpful to pursue improvement for myself too.

[Pudgy]

I find it stunning, George88, that you are completely unaware that you are perceived here to be the open club pompous Phineas T. Bluster.

[Pudgy]

See?

… of course you don’t.

[Pudgy]

What Truth, George88?

The only thing you have contributed is vague, foggy general opinions without backup, applauded with upvotes by your sock puppet Alphonse.