Why Your Life Sucks, Sometimes (Awake April 2007)

by metatron 8 Replies latest jw friends

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  metatron

  In regard to the "world is worse and worse" mindset, I recently considered the distress of some of my aging relatives. There are two facts

  that quietly influence our opinions:

  1) lots of folks would be long dead by now ( and you wouldn't hear them complain, thereby)

  and

  2) humans see life in relative terms and can come to accept nearly anything as normal ( which is why your daughter threatens to kill herself

  if you forbid her from seeing her subhuman boyfriend despite the fact that her ancestors would be happy if they had a regular supply of food)

  Complaining about life and failing to discern improvement in the world can be OK - as it can put a lash to our backs to write that software,

  find that disease cure or fund that pension. What isn't right is when this discontent causes a sterile "let's wait 'til after Armageddon"

  frame of mind!

  I sometimes pass by a colonial era cemetery and gaze in wonder at what I see.: a man might have several young wives buried after

  childbirth and many children who never saw three years. Tell me, how can we talk about a "moral breakdown" in out own time

  ( Awake April fools issue 2007) with such a contrast! If such people were 'more moral', why don't we lavishly praise the churches

  of Christendom for what they managed to accomplish, in the midst of such incredible misery?

  Moral breakdown? Do we still lynch black people? Do we NOW have laws against beating women? Do we still call gay people

  "faggots" because we burn them in bundles, like firewood? Hello? I see movements against "bullies" in school and opposition to

  every kind of intolerance imaginable emerging. And this isn't progress?.

  I marvel at seeing "sex stars" like Marge Helgenberger on CSI: Las Vegas - and others who are w-a-y past 40. In ancient Roman,

  she might be dead ten years already ( on average). Even Joan Rivers looks pretty good ( on the Oscars, as long as her face doesn't break)

  The world isn't getting worse - and I'm fed up with hearing otherwise. The next time a joint hurts, I will duly note , "Yeah, well my ancestors

  would be long dead by now!". I could say a lot more but this is enough for now.

  metatron
• 

  metatron

  OK, here's more:

  So, the world is full of "scams", "fraud" and "audacity", right ( Awake pg. 3 Ap 07) Fraud, you say? You mean like a religion that

  has taken people's money while making bogus promises - for more than 120 years? Would that be fraud, Brother? 120 years?

  Wouldn't that be worse than anything on Wall Street?

  And "India is sinking into 'Western debauchery'"??? I'll have to remember that next time I watch a 'Bollywood' film that doesn't show any

  kissing!

  Another quote: " It seems everyone is taking their clothes off and using sex as a sales tool." Really? Since this 'trend' has been

  going on for decades - and items of wearable garb are limited - why aren't we all naked by now?

  And what date triggered these changes? Why 1914, 1914, 1914, 1914 ( nine times mentioned, by my count) Folks, don't expect

  any changes from these idiots anytime in the foreseable future. It ain't gonna happen! They aren't changing anything

  except what the lawyers or accounting dept tell them!

  metatron
• 

  under_believer

  What I love about 1914 is the misapprehension that most Witnesses have, that the WHOLE WORLD knows about 1914 and how it was the start of everything bad. They think it's common knowledge and universally recognized by Witnesses as well as non-Witnesses. Why do they think that? Because the Society has told them that.
  
  Just last week at the Watchtower study an elder raised his hand and said "there is very little or no argument at all that all these things are so much worse after 1914. Everyone knows it. What not everyone knows is why 1914 was so important."
• 

  SirNose586

  Such is the style of propaganda. A few examples suddenly indicate an ubiquitous problem. A quote from one priest suddenly becomes the opinion of an entire relgion. Generalization and exaggeration replace careful study and critical analysis.
• 

  moshe

  I have often thought that we are living in a relative paradise compared to the lives of the common man during the time the Bible was written.
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  nvrgnbk

  True, so true. I debate this point often with my Dad whose still in the org. Just tonight the conversation turned towards this. I guess he had been reading the new Awake! Thanks metatron for reminding us how much things have improved. And 1914? Have you guys heard the bastardized logic that WW1 started in the summer of 1914 as opposed to October as Witness chronology would require because Satan wanted something big to distract the nations prior to Jesus' invisible enthronement. You couldn't make this stuff up.
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  jaguarbass

  Metatron, thats a good attitude keep it on the good foot.
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  JWdaughter

  After a rough week medically for our family-including a near death athsma experience and a diagnosis of a chronic and painful condition, I appreciate the perspective you have offered Metatron. Some days feel a little hard, but I am reminded of the fact that I have outlived 3 of my grandparents already and I have a pretty good outlook on the future comparitively. My children are all living and relatively healthy, beautiful and smart. My mom is still alive, and I don't have to raise my siblings or their kids-because all of my siblings are healthy. Life is damn good! And getting better.
• 

  wozadummy

  And "India is sinking into 'Western debauchery'"??? I'll have to remember that next time I watch a 'Bollywood' film that doesn't show any

  kissing!

  That made me laugh ,it's amazing to me that the WTS can look down their long noses at another country and yet they don't seem to remember that they actually rule their little kingdom of subjects from America ,the very source of the worlds present so called "Western debauchery".

  It does'nt worry them that the American nation actually provides them with the freedom they need to exercise their silly little hypocritical lives ,if the debauchery is so bad why would they want to rule from such a debauched Sodom-like country?

  Perhaps a move to India would be good for them to share the apparent innocent nature of the Indian people who are so pure and undefiled and under pressure from the wicked westerners to conform to evil. It is so evil in America that it is amazing the brothers can actually bear up with this load of having to put up with it!