Posts by fulltimestudent

11

A World so different to the one I grew up in.

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

in the early 1950's i changed my life.

i started to study the bible with a jw.

big mistake!

fulltimestudent

scratchme1010 : "I don't lament my JW past, nor do I celebrate it. It just is. Since I left I am in sync with the world and all it changes, the good ones and the bad ones. I hope you can embrace the world. It's not pretty all the time, but it's the only one we have."

Thank you for your advice! I did not have a 'bad time' as a JW either, in fact had some good times (though based on a silly illusion). That is, until the parting of the ways, when, of course, anyone leaving will be denigrated.

My reflections on yesterday's two signs of change were positive - unlike some, I long ago realised that change is part of life, whether its the physical changes we undergo as we age, or the changes in the world as communities age.

eyeuse2badub: "I cannot complain too much because my life has not been racked with too much in the way of extraordinary pain and suffering. However, like so many here, there has been much in the way of unfilled dreams and aspirations that we gave up to be 'good' jw's."

Even those unfulfilled dreams and aspirations can be met. I honestly do not know what kind of life I would have had, if I had never had anything to do with the YHWH/Jesus mob. But sometime soon I will go to my graduation, and get the scrap of paper (a BA with a major in ancient history and a minor in Japanese history) that is my reward for spending 10 years roaming through time and space and countless books to understand Asia's key role in the human past and probable future.

8

The Korean Situation

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

against a background of continued usa leaks threatening a 'surgical strike' on the dprk (north korea), a move that does not have complete support in the south, the north invoked 'charm' as it's next 'weapon.

here's how the republic of korea's (south korea), government owned news agency (arirang news) saw the north's charm offensive:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lif_mkr-ovy.

fulltimestudent

_Morpheus: "Your bullshit propoganda will never change the facts"

I've referenced most points I make. Which point do you claim to be "propaganda.?"

Explain that to me, and I will justify my comments.

11

A World so different to the one I grew up in.

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

in the early 1950's i changed my life.

i started to study the bible with a jw.

big mistake!

fulltimestudent

Wasanelder Once: ith the passing of my father (80) recently, it has become plain to me that we fall like dominoes. One generation after another and along comes another with its quirks and societal idiosyncrasy's. There is nothing unique to any generation, its all variations on a theme. One thing that doesn't change is the older generation becoming the dirt which the next generation grows their vegetables. ...
and
moreconfusedthanever: I was just saying to my husband today that we are just a part of the circle of life. Just like the rest of the Earth's creatures. We live we multiply and we die and that's it.

haha! an acquaintance of mine loves telling people we should all be composted when we die. He's not popular at dinner parties.

11

A World so different to the one I grew up in.

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

in the early 1950's i changed my life.

i started to study the bible with a jw.

big mistake!

fulltimestudent

Sorry - I was just interrupted, so posted my last comments before I'd finished.

The article I quoted from was the Economist of March 30, 2017.

Link: https://www.economist.com/news/international/21719790-going-will-be-much-harder-now-world-has-made-great-progress

It also pointed out that,

"This is impressive and unprecedented. Economic historians reckon that it took Britain about a century, from the 1820s to the 1920s, to cut extreme poverty from more than 40% of its population to below 10%. Japan started later, but moved faster. Beginning in the 1870s, the share of its population who were absolutely poor fell from 80% to almost nothing in a century. Today two large countries, China and Indonesia, are on course to achieve Japanese levels of poverty reduction more than twice as fast as Japan did."

I do not want to claim that the fight against poverty is over. That may never happen as there are many factors involved in poverty. But what we are seeing is something we should feel pleased about.

11

A World so different to the one I grew up in.

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

in the early 1950's i changed my life.

i started to study the bible with a jw.

big mistake!

fulltimestudent

Unimagineable also, is the reduction in extreme poverty. The Wt and Awake kept us asleep to real world efforts to reduce poverty. We were all going to starve to death in the view of the Awake.

But recent figures show the opposite. Not that third world poverty is no longer a problem. But the facts show a reduction in extreme poverty.

This issue of the Economist demonstrates the progress made:

Quote: "Until recently the world’s poorest people could be divided into three big groups: Chinese, Indian and everybody else. In 1987 China is thought to have had 660m poor people, and India 374m. The concentration of destitution in those two countries was in one sense a boon, because in both places better economic policies allowed legions to scramble out of poverty. At the last count (2011 in India; 2013 in China) India had 268m paupers and China just 25m. Both countries are much more populous than they were 30 years ago."

The Chinese government though suggests the real figure for extreme poverty in China may be about 50 million, and is conducting a current campaign to eliminate the last pockets of poverty in the nation.

How different to the early 1950's .- In those years, China had a population of 400 million and 80% (over 300 million) lived in extreme poverty.

11

A World so different to the one I grew up in.

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

in the early 1950's i changed my life.

i started to study the bible with a jw.

big mistake!

fulltimestudent

In the early 1950's I changed my life. I started to study the bible with a JW. Big mistake!

We were, I learned, living in the very last days of the last days of this old world. A New World would soon be here.

"When will the end come?" I asked the father (a 'servant' in the Sydney cong. I attended) of the young brother who studied with me. He replied, "I think it will come very soon," he replied. "Within the next 5 years." he added. Well the years rolled by and he came to the end of his life. I attended his funeral with his family. It should have be a red flag to me. But saturated with bible teachings I made excuses.

Not long ago, I saw his son's pik on FB, He's old now - just like me. And. its quite clear to me, not just that the end of the world is NOT coming, but also, that YHWH and his sidekick Jesus are figments of men's imaginations.

And this world goes on. changing all the time, as it has done for all of time. In the city this morning, there were two things that flagged two of those changes to me.

This is the first. Its Sydney Town Hall:

And the flag is the Gay and Lesbian rainbow flag. Its flying on the Town Hall in recognition of the fact that this is Mardi Gras month (something like Gay Pride in other countries). Who could have thought when I was young that this could ever happen?

But it has! And as Australian's know, in a plebiscite last year 62% of Australians voted to approve same sex marriage. Approved in the face of a nasty struggle by many churches to maintain a ban on same sex marriage.

The other big change was at Circular Quay - a city hub, where the first white settlement was established. Here's what I saw.

As well as Mardi Gras month, its also Chinese New Year Time (or, the Spring Festival, if you prefer). It was inconceivable in the early 1950's that China would ever be, Australia's largest export market, or that more Chinese students would study in Australia, than students from any other country, or that China would have become internationally important.

But that's what one can see at Circular quay this week. Colorful lanterns from China, all around circular quay. to celebrate CNY, along with a big delegation of performers, all from China.

Unimaginable all those years ago.

8

The Korean Situation

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

against a background of continued usa leaks threatening a 'surgical strike' on the dprk (north korea), a move that does not have complete support in the south, the north invoked 'charm' as it's next 'weapon.

here's how the republic of korea's (south korea), government owned news agency (arirang news) saw the north's charm offensive:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lif_mkr-ovy.

fulltimestudent

GRIN !!! You do not read much, do you Morpheus?

But OK, so you want to use a 'light test' to judge the world? Let's look at a larger image of world lighting, while keeping in mind that maps like that must reflect the population in an area.

The image does not change the Korean contrast, but it does show China in much the same 'light' as South Korea and Japan.

The dark patch on the China map is Tibet, with an extremely low population density (compare Russia's Siberia which also has an extremely low population density).

And if you focus down onto a few of China's ten Tier one cities you will see that China is not dark like NK? So how do you explain that China is so lit-up? And please note that one of these top tier cities did not exist (except as a village) when Deng Xiaoping came to power and set China on a more pragmatic courses. These days, Shenzhen is the electronics capital of the world. How do you explain that?

In fact, how do you explain the rise of China, given that post 1950 China suffered greatly from the sort of savage sanctions (trade restrictions) that eventually crushed many nations? And it's those sanctions, more than anything else that makes NK dark on your posted map.

I have not claimed that NK is a paragon of virtue, but the American policy of hostility and sanctions is very much like the similar policies that Christianity has used in the past (and the JW's continue to use).

My claim is that you do not change countries by exclusion. The north Koreans are quite well aware that the USA can obliterate them. They have already experienced that obliteration in the closing months of the Korean war, where many reports state that there was hardly a building left standing. That more than anything else has fed their desperate drive to become a nuclear power, and the current problem that if the US strikes NK, then likely Seoul and some Japanese cities and possibly some American cities may suffer retaliation. Do you really think that is a desirable outcome?

A far better policy (in my very humble opinion) is to be inclusive. Everyone wants a better life. Feed that desire and change will inevitably follow. In spite of all the extreme measures used by the NK government to exclude knowledge of the outside world, that sort of information is gradually seeping into NK. If you looked at the South Korean videos I posted in this thread, you will have seen some 300 women (the cheer squad) likely all to have been from the elite classes, touring to various south Korean sights, Do you think they are not going to compare NK with SK? Yes, their ability to influence the leadership may be limited, but on the other, they may make remarks to families and close friends that will gradually change NK.

That's a whole lot better than blowing the shit out of people.

So take a look at that other place you hate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSgdUVxNrbM

And, take some time to search Youtube or the internet for piks of pre-1949 China.

8

The Korean Situation

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

against a background of continued usa leaks threatening a 'surgical strike' on the dprk (north korea), a move that does not have complete support in the south, the north invoked 'charm' as it's next 'weapon.

here's how the republic of korea's (south korea), government owned news agency (arirang news) saw the north's charm offensive:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lif_mkr-ovy.

fulltimestudent

As you would likely suspect, not everyone agrees with my assessment (which is an optimistic view, but still a possibility)

Australia's own government owned ABC, takes a more negative line in this review:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-15/stan-grant-north-korea-pyeonchang-pyongyang-games-olympics/9449346

All the claims may well be true, but that's not quite the point. What would be most desirable, would be for the political tensions to be toned down, and some kind of rapport emerge that would allow a slow improvement in the lives of the NK population.

I cant see that re-unification is on the political horizon. Many in South Korea are against it, and why would North Korea's regime want it, just as they have come to feel more secure behind their nuclear wall?

8

The Korean Situation

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

against a background of continued usa leaks threatening a 'surgical strike' on the dprk (north korea), a move that does not have complete support in the south, the north invoked 'charm' as it's next 'weapon.

here's how the republic of korea's (south korea), government owned news agency (arirang news) saw the north's charm offensive:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lif_mkr-ovy.

fulltimestudent

Against a background of continued USA leaks threatening a 'surgical strike' on the DPRK (North Korea), a move that does not have complete support in the South, the North invoked 'charm' as it's next 'weapon.'

Here's how the Republic of Korea's (South Korea), government owned News Agency (Arirang News) saw the North's charm offensive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIf_mkr-ovY

And the Hongkong based South China Morning Post's view:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwxO5skDbzY

Why the sudden change in Kim Jong-un's methodology?

My interpretation is that now the North has the world's attention with the view that the North has a nuclear capability, they likely feel they can relax the tension. That view is based on the oft discussed view (by Korea watchers) that the North's worst fear was some sort of 'regime-change effort by the USA. Feeling safer behind their nuclear wall, they used the winter Olympics to influence public opinion in South Korea. Time will tell whether this is the way it will work out.

Of course, it may be that the sanctions are hurting more than may be apparent. But, even though China has, from all reports, severely cut official trade across border with NK, there are almost no reports that Russia has cut its trade with NK. A train line from Russia to NK is apparently working normally, and of course Vladivostok, Russia's major centre in East Siberia, is less than 500 km away.

Will it last?

Maybe! Kim Jong-un's sister hand delivered an invitation to the South's President Moon to visit North Korea for talks.

Arirang News speculates on that topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbj9hZY_OX0

11

Another Aspect from which to View Prostitution

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

if we put on our western cultural (you know, the ones that say jesus made the world) eye-glasses we will 'see' prostitution as something bad.. the 'christian' influenced view is that prostitution is a criminal racket run by gangsters, and the women (and sometimes men) have either been bullied by their pimps, or drugged until they become addicts and forced to work in brothels.**.

some of that is likely true (at times), but is it always 'truth'?.

australia's government owned abc media network, has an article that invites us to take off our western cultural eye-glasses and see the world as it really is.

fulltimestudent

Australia's government owned ABC, offers another story on prostitution:

Quote: "Sex work was one of the major ways poor women could earn a reasonable income in the 19th century. Especially unmarried women with babies."

Respectable people frowned on single mothers, who likely had no access to child care etc or welfare. So sex work may have been their only alternative.

Read the full story at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-14/sex-work-in-19th-century-melbourne-what-rubbish-can-tell-us/9430592