Is This the Safest Time To Be Alive?

by 00DAD 12 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  00DAD

  Safest time to be alive? (02:27)

  Matthew Chance takes a look at whether or not we live in a safer world today than any other time in history.

  http://www.rr.com/video/2322994712

  Of course this contradicts JW perennial gloom-and-doom prognostications and WT End Times eschatology, but if you even could get one of them to sit down and consider the real facts, they'd probably just say, "See, we're getting closer to the cry of 'Peace and Security!'"

  No matter what happens, they're right! Isn't it amazing?

  00DAD
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  Hortensia

  It's a moot point, actually, since we aren't alive at any other point in history, JWs and their silly prophecies notwithstanding.
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  wasblind

  00DAD, The Jehovah's witnesses brains have been washed so clean

  that they forget there were crimes throughout the world that were once

  not punishable under the law, and diseases that once had no cure

  Yes , Humanity has quite a ways to go , but I think more progress

  will be made by actually doin' somethin' instead of sittin' back

  waitin' on the Kingdom

  .
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  carla

  Check out this author-Steven Pinker

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/1455883115

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  Book Description

  Publication Date: September 25, 2012 We’ve all asked, “What is the world coming to?” But we seldom ask, “How bad was the world in the past?” In this startling new book, the bestselling cognitive scientist Steven Pinker shows that the world of the past was much worse. In fact, we may be living in the most peaceable era yet. Evidence of a bloody history has always been around us: the genocides in the Old Testament and crucifixions in the New; the gory mutilations in Shakespeare and Grimm; the British monarchs who beheaded their relatives and the American founders who dueled with their rivals. Now the decline in these brutal practices can be quantified. Tribal warfare was nine times as deadly as war and genocide in the 20th century. The murder rate in medieval Europe was more than thirty times what it is today. Slavery, sadistic punishments, and frivolous executions were unexceptionable features of life for millennia, then were suddenly abolished. Wars between developed countries have vanished, and even in the developing world, wars kill a fraction of the numbers they did a few decades ago. Rape, hate crimes, deadly riots, child abuse — all substantially down. How could this have happened, if human nature has not changed? Pinker argues that the key to explaining the decline of violence is to understand the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away. Thanks to the spread of government, literacy, trade, and cosmopolitanism, we increasingly control our impulses, empathize with others, debunk toxic ideologies, and deploy our powers of reason to reduce the temptations of violence. Pinker will force you to rethink your deepest beliefs about progress, modernity, and human nature. This gripping book is sure to be among the most debated of the century so far.
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  00DAD

  Hortensia - You're right of course. But when I saw this video I just couldn't resist posting yet another fact debunking JW "theology."

  wasblind: Humanity has quite a ways to go , but I think more progress will be made by actually doin' somethin' instead of sittin' back waitin' on the Kingdom

  Such a good point! I used to wonder WHY don't the WT leaders want their followers to be socially proactive? The answer is now obvious: If individuals were encouraged to go out and do something (other than peddling WTs) then they would be acting independently of the WT/JW program and the leaders would have lost all control. So in the end it's all really just about one thing: Control.

  Listen, Obey and Be Blessed!

  carla - Thanks for the book recommendation. It sounds interesting I'll check it out!
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  cobaltcupcake

  The author makes an interesting point.

  I remember a WT article or book from the early '70s that quoted a pundit of the times saying the world would be uninhabitable by 1975. They used that quote to back up the 1975 teaching. They love to be doomsayers, that's for sure.
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  jgnat

  I was hoodwinked by the oil crisis in '73. I didn't bother to get a driver's license. I figured by the time I was twenty we'd be back to horse and buggy. I underestimated our resiliency in the face of crisis.
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  Cadellin

  I've read Pinker's book and found it fascinating. Your chances of dying a violent death were many times higher in the past than they are today and Pinker does an admirable job of analyzing the convergence of a range of contributing factors, including the influence of the Englightenment and diminishment of religious thinking.

  One question to get someone thinking is--if you could be transported to some other time period to spend the rest of your life, what would you choose? Oh, and by the way, there's a caveat: You'll also be transformed into a woman, a person with a physical disability, someone of a minority ethnicity or someone who's gay. NOW--when would you like to live??? It's easy to forget that for someone in one of those categories, the vast majority of time periods have been horrible. For example, to get a glimpse of what life was like for women, you only have to check mortality rates in medically unserved countries like Afghanistan and Yemen (and probably others) and find that as many as 20% of women die from childbirth-related causes and as many as 50% of children under the age of five die. Up until relatively recently, that was the norm everywhere.
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  cantleave

  Advances in medical and technological achievement, reduction in violent crime and the increase in the quality of life, give us evidence that we are living in the safest times in histroy

  But there are threats to our long term survival, mostly from those who promote greed and ignorance. Politicans who deny climate change. Fundamental religions who would rather the world become a theatre of war than have people who disagree with them, corporates who would rather put profits over sustainability, still threaten our safety.
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  moshe

  Technology keeps most of us alive , well fed and secure. If something ever disrupts that, then 75% of us will be dead soon after, when we have go back to our pastoral roots.