Posts by TheStumbler

97

Elder father sent me an email about Feb 2012 WT - my resposne

by TheStumbler in

i'm not sure if any of you will remember but i posted on here six months ago about a correspondence i was having with my dad, an elder, about who would die in armageddon.

i was asking some tough questions about children being killed in armageddon and i could tell he uncomfortable with the answers he was giving.. i drafted an email in resposne to his email but in the end i decided not to send it in the interest of maintaining friendly relations.. .

last week, out of the blue, my dad sent an email link to the february 2012 watchtower article about armageddon and said it would answer some of my questions.. here is my response which is a critique of the feb 2012 wt article and some of the broader ethics concerning 'armageddon'.

TheStumbler

@punkofnice,

why do you suggest that I don't send it? Just curious.

I don't expect it alone will wake him but you never know, it might plant a seed and make him realise the reality of what he really believes.

97

Elder father sent me an email about Feb 2012 WT - my resposne

by TheStumbler in

i'm not sure if any of you will remember but i posted on here six months ago about a correspondence i was having with my dad, an elder, about who would die in armageddon.

i was asking some tough questions about children being killed in armageddon and i could tell he uncomfortable with the answers he was giving.. i drafted an email in resposne to his email but in the end i decided not to send it in the interest of maintaining friendly relations.. .

last week, out of the blue, my dad sent an email link to the february 2012 watchtower article about armageddon and said it would answer some of my questions.. here is my response which is a critique of the feb 2012 wt article and some of the broader ethics concerning 'armageddon'.

TheStumbler

@tornapart

I definitely agree, he does not consider the implications of his own belief system and I don't think he is a bad person. He has said before that children will die in Armageddon because parents are responsible for their children and I could he was uncomfortable with what he was saying.

When we had this conversation last year he kept falling back on 'Jehovah will read people's hearts' so when I asked the follow question 'so you don't need to be a Jehovah's witness to be saved' he would not committ to an answer. He alternated between each answer 'God will read hearts' 'only JWs will be saved'.

I think even the most die hard JWs must be aware of the cognitive dissonence these questions raise

97

Elder father sent me an email about Feb 2012 WT - my resposne

by TheStumbler in

i'm not sure if any of you will remember but i posted on here six months ago about a correspondence i was having with my dad, an elder, about who would die in armageddon.

i was asking some tough questions about children being killed in armageddon and i could tell he uncomfortable with the answers he was giving.. i drafted an email in resposne to his email but in the end i decided not to send it in the interest of maintaining friendly relations.. .

last week, out of the blue, my dad sent an email link to the february 2012 watchtower article about armageddon and said it would answer some of my questions.. here is my response which is a critique of the feb 2012 wt article and some of the broader ethics concerning 'armageddon'.

TheStumbler

yeah, sorry, interenet dropped out before. Sorry, I jsut realised how long that post was :(

well done to anyone with the patience to read all of it - maybe I shold have broken it up a bit more.

Towards the end it may get a little difficult to follow as it refers to our previous correspondence about 6 months ago.

97

Elder father sent me an email about Feb 2012 WT - my resposne

by TheStumbler in

i'm not sure if any of you will remember but i posted on here six months ago about a correspondence i was having with my dad, an elder, about who would die in armageddon.

i was asking some tough questions about children being killed in armageddon and i could tell he uncomfortable with the answers he was giving.. i drafted an email in resposne to his email but in the end i decided not to send it in the interest of maintaining friendly relations.. .

last week, out of the blue, my dad sent an email link to the february 2012 watchtower article about armageddon and said it would answer some of my questions.. here is my response which is a critique of the feb 2012 wt article and some of the broader ethics concerning 'armageddon'.

TheStumbler

Thanks for providing the link, I read through the article with interest.

My questions were; who will die at Armageddon, will this include children and if so why would a loving God kill innocent children.

Regarding who will die at Armageddon, the Feb 2012 Watchtower article states that at least millions will die:

‘The prophecy in Revelation speaks of a time in the near future when Satan and the demons will motivate human governments to assemble their armies, thus issuing a defiant challenge to God’s interests. The attack will result in the death of millions of people when God defeats the invaders.—Revelation 19:11-18. (Watchtower February 2012)

The article also states that Armageddon will savemillions of lives:

‘The war of Armageddon results in the saving of millions of lives. In fact, it is a prelude to a period of peace on earth.—Revelation

21:3, 4.’ (Watchtower February 2012)

There are over 7 billion people on this planet so saying that millions will die and millions will survive says very little – it could mean that 7 billion people will die or that 7 billion will survive.

So, the Feb 2012 article does not definitively state how many will survive or be killed in Armageddon but does hint at who might survive or die:

‘In fact, God’s Word long foretold that Jehovah will destroy the wicked. (Proverbs

2:21, 22; 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9)’ (Watchtower February 2012)

God will defend good people from those who would crush them (Watchtower February 2012)

These are weasel words because ‘wicked’ and ‘good’ are subjective and open to interpretation. Take me for example, Am I good or wicked? I would say I am mostly good but some evangelical Christians or Islamists would probably describe me as thoroughly wicked.

I think the Watchtower is guilty here of speaking out of both sides of its mouth because it using language that has a double meaning – one meaning to the public and another to Jehovah’s Witnesses.

For example, under the heading ‘What lasting effect will this confrontation have’ the February 2012 Watchtower states that a ‘great crowd’ will survive the Armageddon:

The book of Revelation talks about an unnumbered “great crowd” who will survive this conflict. (Revelation 7:9, 14) Under God’s guidance, these will help to restore the earth to the Paradise conditions that Jehovah originally purposed. (Watchtower February 2012)

To most public readers of the February 2012 Watchtower, ‘unnumbered great crowd’ is vague and non-specific but implies many people, perhaps most people, however to Jehovah’s Witnesses it has quite a different meaning:

‘There would be "a great crowd" out of all nations who would not experience death but would have the prospect of living forever on earth. Are you among them?...The great crowd support the small number of those with heavenly hopes, who take the lead in the preaching work. Those of the great crowd are pictured as being marked for survival. (Ezekiel 9:4-6) "The mark" is the evidence that they are dedicated to Jehovah, baptized as disciples of Jesus, and involved in cultivating a Christlike personality’ (Worship the Only True God (2002) p.124)

Only those ‘marked’ for salvation will survive into Jehovah’s new system. (Ezek. 9:2-6) (KM 10/87 p. 8 par. 7 Help Others to Dedication and Baptism)

The Watchtower clearly identifies its members of the ‘Great Crowd’ since it teaches that it has ‘The Truth’ and that all other religions are false.

So, the February 2012 Watchtower is trying to appear moderate to members of the public by saying that only ‘wicked people’ will die in Armageddon. Most members of the public would consider ‘wicked people’ to be rapists and murderers but how does the Watchtower define ‘wicked’ people?

Evidently, the Watchtower views all those not associated with Jehovah’s Witnesses as wicked because in other Watchtower literature it quite clearly states that only Jehovah’s Witnesses will survive Armageddon:

"Only Jehovah's Witnesses, those of the anointed remnant and the "great crowd," as a united organization under the protection of the Supreme Organizer, have any Scriptural hope of surviving the impending end of this doomed system dominated by Satan the Devil." ( Watchtower 1989 Sep. 1 p.19) "Similarly, Jehovah is using only one organization today to accomplish his will. To receive everlasting life in the earthly Paradisewe must identify that organization and serve God as part of it." ( Watchtower 1983 Feb. 15 p.12) "Is it presumptuous of Jehovah's Witnesses to point out that they alone have God's backing? Actually, no more so than when the Israelites in Egypt claimed to have God's backing in spite of the Egyptians' belief, or when the first-century Christians claimed to have God's backing to the exclusion of Jewish religionists." ( Watchtower 2001 June 1 p.16)

This appears to be current teaching as of 2006:

"During the final period of the ancient world that perished in the Flood, Noah was a faithful preacher of righteousness. (2 Peter 2:5) In these last days of the present system of things, Jehovah’s people are making known God’s righteous standards and are declaring good news about the possibility of surviving into the new world. (2 Peter 3:9-13) Just as Noah and his God-fearing family were preserved in the ark, survival of individuals today depends on their faith and their loyal association with the earthly part of Jehovah’s universal organization." ( Watchtower 2006 May 15 p.22 "Are You Prepared for Survival?" Paragraph 8)

I know you disagreed with me when I made this claim in my email last year:

The Watchtower teaching on this seems fairly unequivocal to me, only Jehovah’s witnesses will survive Armageddon and even the babies of worldly people will perish. Your understanding is different to mine on this matter

(my words in itallics, your words in bold)

But the Watchtower literature speaks for itself. Is your understanding of the Bible different than that of the Watchtower?

So, this leads onto my original question, if only Jehovah’s Witnesses will be saved, how many will be killed?

There are over 7 billion people in the world and only approximately 7 million Jehovah’s Witnesses. Jehovah’s Witness make up only 0.001% of the global population and so, according to watchtower teaching, 99.999% of the population, some 7 billion people, will be killed in Armageddon.

I previously asked you if the children of the ‘wicked’ will also be killed in Amrageddon and you could not give me a straight answer at the time.

The February 2012 Watchtower article you sent me does not address this question however previous publications have:

What will happen to young children at Armageddon? The Bible does not directly answer that question, and we are not the judges. However, the Bible does show that God views the young children of true Christians as "holy." (1 Cor. 7:14) It also reveals that in times past when God destroyed the wicked he likewise destroyed their little ones." ( Reasoning from the Scriptures pp.47-48)

According to a Unicef report in 2005, there are approximately 2.2 billion children in the world so Armageddon will likely involve the slaughter of approximately 2.2 billion children.

Previously you agreed, in principle, that punishing children for their parent’s wrongdoings is wrong:

“If you were found guilty of murder by secular authorities would it be morally justified that not only were you imprisoned for the offence but your children as well? No To extend this analogy further; imagine you lived in a state which exercised capital punishment. Would it be morally justified that, if convicted of murder, your children (even if infants) were executed right before you? No What if the crime punishable by death was not just murder but failing to be a member of a particular group or organisation that most people did not realise they were supposed to a member of”

(my words in itallics, your words in bold)

Leaving God and the Bible aside for a moment, can you honestly justify the killing children for their parent’s wrong doings in any way?

If not, How do you reconcile your own sense of morality with Jehovah’s past and promised future actions? Either you believe it is morally justified to kill children for their parent’s wrongdoings or you believe Jehovah was wrong to murder infants during the flood and will be wrong when he kills billions of children in Armageddon.

Also, going back to my email last year (sorry, I know it is months ago now) I believe you misread one of my comments:

Your justification falls short. I agree that parents are responsible for their children but I do not believe children are responsible for their parents and so your analogy fails. I disagree. If you are referring to conduct, then parents are responsible for their children as children and young adults.

(my words in itallics, your words in bold -this was in response to you explanation that innocent children should be killed in Armageddon because their parents are sinners and parents are responsible for their children)

I agreed that parents were responsible for their children. My point was that children are not responsible for their parents. This is why your justification for the murder of children is wrong - children have no control over who their parents happen to be or what religion they are born into. It is therefore perverse to punish them for circumstances of which they have no say over.

The February 2012 Watchtower article attempts to answer some of these ethical questions:

Why would God, whom the Bible describes as “merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness,” cause the death of so many humans? (Nehemiah 9:17) To understand God’s actions, we need to answer three questions: (1) Who starts the war? (2) Why does God become involved? (3) What lasting effect will this confrontation have on the earth and its inhabitants? (Watchtower February 2012)

To question (1), the Watchtower states that ‘Armageddon is not an act of aggression by God. Instead God will defend good people from those who would crush them’. ‘Good people’ refers to, of course, Jehovah’s Witnesses. So Watchtower’s answer to the question why would God kill so many people is that he will kill most people but he will defend one small group – not much consolation to those killed.

To question (2), Watchtower states that God will become involved and kill billions of people because he promi sed he would and so if he fails to do so he will be made a liar.

‘If God did not step in to save his people, they would be wiped out. Therefore, Jehovah

God’s name, or reputation, will be at stake. If the aggressors managed to do away with His people, it would make Jehovah appear to be unloving, unjust, or helpless’ (Watchtower February 2012)

So, billions will die for the sake of God’s pride and keeping up appearances. Bizarrely, the Watchtower doesn’t consider that God killing billions of innocent children would also make him appear to be unloving or unjust.

To question (3), Watchtower essentially argues that the murder of billions of children is justified because the survivors will live on a paradise earth.

None of these questions, to my mind, justify the murder of billions. It is for this reason that even if you could convince me intellectually about ‘The Truth’ I would never accept it on a moral level.

Any God that demands worship and serfdom is unworthy of worship and any God that would threaten my family with death because of my personal beliefs is a tyrant.

97

Elder father sent me an email about Feb 2012 WT - my resposne

by TheStumbler in

i'm not sure if any of you will remember but i posted on here six months ago about a correspondence i was having with my dad, an elder, about who would die in armageddon.

i was asking some tough questions about children being killed in armageddon and i could tell he uncomfortable with the answers he was giving.. i drafted an email in resposne to his email but in the end i decided not to send it in the interest of maintaining friendly relations.. .

last week, out of the blue, my dad sent an email link to the february 2012 watchtower article about armageddon and said it would answer some of my questions.. here is my response which is a critique of the feb 2012 wt article and some of the broader ethics concerning 'armageddon'.

TheStumbler

I'm not sure if any of you will remember but I posted on here six months ago about a correspondence I was having with my dad, an elder, about who would die in Armageddon. I was asking some tough questions about children being killed in Armageddon and I could tell he uncomfortable with the answers he was giving.

I drafted an email in resposne to his email but in the end I decided not to send it in the interest of maintaining friendly relations.

Last week, out of the blue, my dad sent an email link to the February 2012 Watchtower article about Armageddon and said it would answer some of my questions.

Here is my response which is a critique of the Feb 2012 WT article and some of the broader ethics concerning 'Armageddon'. Like before, I'd appreciate any feedback and constructive criticism

16

Calling Spade out of phylogenetics

by bohm in

jw
friends

spade wrote on this thread: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/206699/3/the-gentile-times-reconsidered.

although phylogenetic trees produced on the basis of sequenced genes or genomic data in different species can provide evolutionary insight, they have important limitations.

they do not necessarily accurately represent the species evolutionary history.the data on which they are based is noisy; the analysis can be confounded by horizontal gene transfer, hybridisation between species that were not nearest neighbors on the tree before hybridisation takes place, convergent evolution, and conserved sequences.. i would characterize myself as someone with more than a working knowledge in this field, given i have developed my own algorithm for doing something similar.

TheStumbler

That's gonna take me a while to get my hand around

16

Calling Spade out of phylogenetics

by bohm in

jw
friends

spade wrote on this thread: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/206699/3/the-gentile-times-reconsidered.

although phylogenetic trees produced on the basis of sequenced genes or genomic data in different species can provide evolutionary insight, they have important limitations.

they do not necessarily accurately represent the species evolutionary history.the data on which they are based is noisy; the analysis can be confounded by horizontal gene transfer, hybridisation between species that were not nearest neighbors on the tree before hybridisation takes place, convergent evolution, and conserved sequences.. i would characterize myself as someone with more than a working knowledge in this field, given i have developed my own algorithm for doing something similar.

TheStumbler

The problem with the common designer argument, as I'm sure you are aware, is that any conceivable reality is consistent with design so the idea is not testable.

I heard the analogy that ERVs are like plagarism. It is possible, although unlikely, that two writers produce remarkably similar pieces of work independant of each other. However, if both pieces of work contain the same typos, formatting errors and spelling mistakes then this strong evidence that both pieces of work share a common origin - plagarism. It is unlikely that a designer would repeat the same mistakes in exactly the same places when creating different kinds. I suppose, you could argue that like how a car manufacter uses common components in diferent models of cars a designer might use common DNA segments and so mistakes are duplicated across different kinds.

Dont retroviral insertions effectively act as random mutations though, as far as evolutionary selection is concerned, so the fact that some serve a function is really just further evidence for evolution...

I was just wondering if there were any strong creationists arguments against ERVs.

16

Calling Spade out of phylogenetics

by bohm in

jw
friends

spade wrote on this thread: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/206699/3/the-gentile-times-reconsidered.

although phylogenetic trees produced on the basis of sequenced genes or genomic data in different species can provide evolutionary insight, they have important limitations.

they do not necessarily accurately represent the species evolutionary history.the data on which they are based is noisy; the analysis can be confounded by horizontal gene transfer, hybridisation between species that were not nearest neighbors on the tree before hybridisation takes place, convergent evolution, and conserved sequences.. i would characterize myself as someone with more than a working knowledge in this field, given i have developed my own algorithm for doing something similar.

TheStumbler

In fact, is there any Creationist rebutal of these lines of evidence?

16

Calling Spade out of phylogenetics

by bohm in

jw
friends

spade wrote on this thread: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/206699/3/the-gentile-times-reconsidered.

although phylogenetic trees produced on the basis of sequenced genes or genomic data in different species can provide evolutionary insight, they have important limitations.

they do not necessarily accurately represent the species evolutionary history.the data on which they are based is noisy; the analysis can be confounded by horizontal gene transfer, hybridisation between species that were not nearest neighbors on the tree before hybridisation takes place, convergent evolution, and conserved sequences.. i would characterize myself as someone with more than a working knowledge in this field, given i have developed my own algorithm for doing something similar.

TheStumbler

Have any WT publications addressed ERVs and phylogenetic evidence for evolution?

'Does your hope rest in science or the Bible and other false dichotomies' Talk Outline

by TheStumbler in

this one is a bit similar to my previous thread about armagheddon.. i plan to send this email to a jw (elder) close family member and would like to get it screened by the jwn hivemind before hand for corrections and suggestions.. the background to this is that in dec 2010 i asked two jw family members to find out for me if the 7,000 creative day doctrine was still the orgs official position, and if it was dropped why.

i provided references to how since the 1980's the org only refers to the creative days as being 'thousands' of years long which is consistent with 7,000 years and no official retraction or new light on the matter was made.. last week i emailed them to see if they had looked into it and, going by the response, i think they probably just sat on it.. i emailed and asked them that if i wrote a letter to the organisation, would they send it on my behalf, as a letter sent by an elder would more likely to get a response.

so, here's my reply:.

TheStumbler

Hello all,

This one is a bit similar to my previous thread about Armagheddon.

I plan to send this email to a JW (Elder) close family member and would like to get it screened by the JWN hivemind before hand for corrections and suggestions.

The background to this is that in Dec 2010 I asked two JW family members to find out for me if the 7,000 creative day doctrine was still the orgs official position, and if it was dropped why. I provided references to how since the 1980's the org only refers to the creative days as being 'thousands' of years long which is consistent with 7,000 years and no official retraction or new light on the matter was made.

Last week I emailed them to see if they had looked into it and, going by the response, I think they probably just sat on it.

I emailed and asked them that if I wrote a letter to the organisation, would they send it on my behalf, as a letter sent by an Elder would more likely to get a response. So, here's my reply:

I have read the info you left me re 7,000 years and personality I do not have a problem understanding the Bible, although I would have at one time. The answer is the day referred to in the Genesis account can represent millenniums, it is a simple as that. I hope that answers it for you.

Do the creative days in Genesis refer to ‘milleniums’ specifically or just an indeterminable length of time? If the former, what scriptural support is there for this interpretation, if the latter then why does the Watchtower constantly refer to the creative days as being merely ‘thousands’ of years in length and never millions or billions of years in length?

I agree that the creative days in Genesis were probably not intended to mean literal 24-hour days. My question is regarding how the Watchtower interprets the creative ‘days’ in Genesis. The watchtower’s position on this matter appears to have changed but it’s not completely clear when or why this change occurred. Is the explicit 7,000 teaching only omitted these days or has it officially been dropped? That is what I am unable to find out.

It’s a sincere question and I’m not trying to trip you up. It really has very little significance. It’s to do with my research into the 1985 Blue creation book. I haven’t actually written anything on it for a few months now because I’ve been too busy. I do intend to go back to it at some point and this is one of the questions I could never get to the bottom of. Just what is the Watchtower’s official understanding on the matter? ‘millenniums’ is an extremely vague answer.

I think I may have actually found part of my answer. A short while ago I looked up the talk outline for the ‘Does your hope rest in science or the bible’ public talk because you had mention it to me a couple of times. This talk actually touches, indirectly, on the length of the creative week:

“The earth has been in existence for approximately 4,600 million years [4.6 billion years]. If we assume that each 100 million years is the equivalent to 1 human year then we are able to grasp what man has done to his environment”

[The talk then includes this table (I assume this is used as a visual aid in the actual talk)]

Real time Time From now Event

4.6 to 3.9 billion years 46yr -39yr Not much is known

3.9 to 400 billion years 39yr – 4yr Just a very small amount is know

400 to 100 million years 4yr – 1yr The earth began to flower

52 million to 28 million yrs 52wks – 28wks Dinosaurs roaming

2,000 years 10min Jesus came onto this planet

200 years 1min Industrial revolution occured

(Does your hope rest on science or the Bible)

I inserted the ‘real time’ column on the left by calculating 1 year x 100 million years.

The third row of the table states that 400-100 million years ago 'the earth began to flower' and 50-28 million years ago the 'dinosaurs....roamed'. According to this timeline presented in the table, life has existed for hundreds of millions of years and so the creative days in Genesis must have been much longer than 7,000 years. This talk outline seems to answer my question whether the 7,000 year teaching was dropped.. The watchtower, here, explicitly teaches that the creative days must have been millions of years long. I am still left wondering the reasons why it was dropped.

Also, it has to point out that ‘Millenniums’ is not an appropriate unit of measure to describe periods of time many millions of years long. It is like describing an elderly person’s life as many seconds long, although technically correct it is misleading because it suggests the person lived for only a few seconds and not many years. It is only that we are aware of the context (we know an elderly person must have lived for many years), that alerts us to the inappropriateness of describing their life in terms of ‘seconds’. Does such context exist in the mind of the average Jehovah ’s Witness regarding the timescale involved in geological ages?

Curiously, the timeline in the talk outline does not correspond with known geological timelines. The descriptions for 4.6 billion to 3.9 billion and 3.9 billion to 400 million ages are confusing. What is the difference between ‘not much is known’ and a ‘very small amount is known’. Do these descriptions not say more or less the same thing?

The Watchtower, here, is tacitly acknowledging that some facts are known about our planet billions of years ago but it does not mention what these facts are. So, what do we know about the Earth billions of years ago? If one accepts that rocks can be reliably dated to be billions of years old (which the Watchtower presumably does because it accepts the scientific conclusion that the earth is 4.6 billion years old which based on the radiometric dating of rocks and the geologic column), then one must accept that the fossilized life-forms found in those ancient rocks must have lived billions of years ago. Rocks containing fossilized prokaryotes (simple single cellular life-forms) have been found and dated to be 3.9 billion years old. This means life on earth is at least 3.9 billion years old and so the creative week in Genesis must have started over 3.9 billion years ago. Considering this context is it really accurate to describe billions of years of creation as ‘millenniums’? Could this mislead someone not aware of geological time-scales?

Around 2 billion years ago complex cellular life (eukaryotes) emerge in the fossil record however the table claims that not until 400-100million years ago the 'earth began to flower'. It is unclear what exactly this ‘flowering’ is referring to – flowering land plants perhaps? Land plants emerge in the fossil record around 400 million years ago however complex life-forms such as simple animals, arthropods (ancestors of insects and crustaceans), fish and proto-amphibians all appear in the fossil record long before this. Is ‘flower’ literally referring to flowering plants or is it a more metaphorical description of when life in general began to flower? It is unclear.

One wonders why the Watchtower talk outline omits these known details about the primitive earth. Is it because the fossil record does not support the order of creation in Genesis?

It is totally inconsistent to accept the age of the earth and the radiometric dating of rocks but then deny the age of fossils found in those same rocks and the order that they appear in the fossil record. Both conclusions are based on the same lines of evidence. To accept the age of the earth but reject the order found in the fossil record is contradictory and selective.

Omission and obfuscation are not the only problems with this table. The table also claims that Dinosaurs roamed 52-28 million years ago. This is incorrect, dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago and emerge in the fossil record around 300 million years ago.

The Bible is silent on the matter of geological ages and science disagrees with the dates used in the table. This begs the question – where do the dates used in this table come from? I was unable to find any references with my copy of the talk outline – are references included with the copy you have?

I think this is no more significant than poor research and quality control with the Watchtower writing department. No great conspiracy. However, it is ambiguities and mistakes such as these which make me question the 2011 year book article ‘Trace all things with accuracy’. This is why I intend to write a letter to the Watchtower organization on the matter.

Would you be willing to send this letter to the Watchtower on my behalf? I think it might more likely get a response if it came from you.

I can’t make the talk on 10 April that’s my wedding day but I am not against the idea on principle. What talk/subject is due to be delivered 10 th April? I can get most of the talk outlines online.

Comments appreciated. Still waiting on a response from my other email