with the crisis in gaza, the rise of islamist militants in iraq and syria and the international stand-off ongoing in ukraine, it can sometimes feel like the whole world is at war.. but experts believe this is actually almost universally the case, according to a think-tank which produces one of the world's leading measures of "global peacefulness" - and things are only going to get worse.. it may make for bleak reading, but of the 162 countries covered by the institute for economics and peace's (iep's) latest study, just 11 were not involved in conflict of one kind or another.. worse still, the world as a whole has been getting incrementally less peaceful every year since 2007 - sharply bucking a trend that had seen a global move away from conflict since the end of the second world war.. the uk, as an example, is relatively free from internal conflict, making it easy to fall to thinking it exists in a state of peace.. but recent involvement in foreign fighting in the likes of afghanistan, as well as a fairly high state of militarisation, means britain actually scores quite poorly on the 2014 global peace index, coming 47th overall.. .
http://www.byronnews.com.au/news/world-war-just-11-countries-free-conflict/2352977/.
http://economicsandpeace.org/research/iep-indices-data/national-peace-indices
The Global Peace Index ranks 162 nations according to 22 dimensions of peace; the Institute also produces national peace indices giving an in-depth analysis of internal levels of peace
Can anyone see evidence of context? Measurements for comparing whether the world is more or less peacefull than 100, 500, 1,000 years ago?
Feels like a thinktank trying to get government money to create more reports to fill newspapers.
august 23 is the day in the uk.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tivqztq5u6y.
Great fun - Capaldi may well shape to be the best Doctor of the new era.
Didn't like the new version of the theme though.
i have quite a big group of friends who were all in the cong together when we were teens.
about 75% of them stopped going or were df'd right after high school.
it is a varied group; a couple are staunch apostates, some dont care one way or another, and another handfull are fully "worldly", but still believe it is the truth.
I saw an example of this in September 2001.
Suddenly the hall was full. All these people rolling up. But then, 2002 came and slowly things went back to normal.
As Besty like to say, they're an end time cult with out an end time.
Fear of dying at the big A is all they can trade on.
this is something i have wondered about, and our great poster stillin posed the question on another thread .
russell get the idea that jerusalem was destroyed in 606/7 bce?
(he adjusted 606 to 607 when it was pointed out there was no year "0").. as in the main a plagiarist, rather than an original thinker, i guess he got it from someone else ?.
Russell got all this 606(7) clap trap from Nathan Barbour.
It was Barbour we have to thank for all of us being brought up in the crap. If it wasn't for '1914 and all that', I doubt many of us would have been here now.
Thanks Nathan.
august 23 is the day in the uk.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tivqztq5u6y.
The spirit of Malcolm Tucker Lives!
Capaldi will be the best Docter ever!
I think so too.
My wife and I have cinema tickets to see the first episode on the big screen next Saturday:
http://www.doctorwho.tv/watch/cinema/
i haven't come across any arguement that does not involve secular history and external references.
in fact the wt can not get to 607 bce without using external sources as in knowing that they need to get back from 1914 ce to 607 bce, and botching an argument using an external date as reference to create their start point at 537 bce.. i realize that to get the final date we must provide a fixed figure from somewhere which can only be a historical source, but the objective would be to disprove the wt flim flam.
once that is achieve we can use which ever fixed historical point they wish to chose.
Thus the 70 year period ended in 539 BCE, not 537 BCE as the WT claim, so must have started in 609 BCE NOT 607 BCE.
There is no need to prove when Jerusalem fell, it has no significance.
When you lose 607 you lose 1914.
Simple as that.
And that blows the JW theology out of the water.
what was your wake-up call(s) before you left the jw s organization?
.
2 overlapping groups = 1 Generation.
What a crock.
I waited for 3 years then the dam broke. Researched and walked away.
i haven't come across any arguement that does not involve secular history and external references.
in fact the wt can not get to 607 bce without using external sources as in knowing that they need to get back from 1914 ce to 607 bce, and botching an argument using an external date as reference to create their start point at 537 bce.. i realize that to get the final date we must provide a fixed figure from somewhere which can only be a historical source, but the objective would be to disprove the wt flim flam.
once that is achieve we can use which ever fixed historical point they wish to chose.
An easy one to use is Jeremiah 25:12
12 “‘But when 70 years have been fulfilled, I will call to account the king of Babylon and that nation for their error,’ declares Jehovah, ‘and I will make the land of the Chaldeans a desolate wasteland for all time.
JW's believe that the 70 years runs from 607BCE - 537BCE. But according to the above, what happens at the end of the 70 years? God calls to account the king of Babylon and that nation for their error.
How can God call the King of Babylon to account in 537, when the king was overthrown by Cyrus in 539? You can't call someone to account 2 years after they've gone!
this i never understood, the publications say that gods name translated from hebrew is yaweh.
why add a whole bunch of letters and vowels that change the sound of the name completely?
i've often thought surely we would gain greater respect on the ministry if we used a name that is historically and verbally accurate?.
Why not Yehoshua instead of Jesus.
Jesus is not two words joined together at a later time - the consonants of "Yahweh" and pronounced with the vowels of "Adonai".
So it's different.
i stopped attending meetings over one year ago, and i have thoroughly made it clear to all friends & family that i am opposed to the teachings of jehovah's witnesses, and i cannot support a religion that teaches lies.. i have systematically examined each teaching & practice of the jehovah's witnesses.
concluding that many are not scriptural or logical.. after a year i have very unexpectedly arrived at another conclusion.
the jehovah's witnesses do have the truth.
Men love to control one another, and they all teach False Doctrine.
Or you could do this.
Say to your God: "What a bloody mess religion is. Sort it out and I'll worship you. Don't and I won't."
If God cares he'll sort out religion.
If he doesn't he won't (or maybe he doesn't exist...)
