Do you say the world is BETTER since 1914 or WORSE?

by hamsterbait 44 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Farkel

  In 1900 the average lifespan for a man in the USA was 50. Today it is 78, 28 years more and a 36% increase. Think of it. That is an increase of almost 3 decades of average life in just 100 years. Such an increase in lifespan over 100 years has never happened before. Such an increase in lifespan over 1,000 years has never happened before.

  In a typical field service presentation we would use the verse that said in the last days there would be critical times, hard to deal with.

  Well, since the dawn of man there have been critical times, hard to deal with. Get used to it.

  I would assert that the lack of thinking skills or even MERE OBSERVATION like I stated above by all dubs is critical and definitely hard to deal with.

  Farkel
• 

  carla

  I would assert that the lack of thinking skills by all dubs is critical and definitely hard to deal with. -
• 

  sspo

  Rather be here today than living at any other time in history.

  Here in the US, what we consider low income and poor people ( i deal with them every single day due to my job)

  have 1-2 car in the driveway, 2-4 TVs, 2 baths, refrigerators stacked with food and many other luxuries

  we could have only dreamed of 100 years ago and most that i meet are in their eighties and nineties and going strong.

  Only 2 "little wars" going on and a few being killed in comparison to the past in the history of mankind.

  It's a good time to be alive and the future i believe will get better.

  Witnesses have to justify their faith and be pessimistic.
• 

  Elsewhere

  Profoundly better.
• 

  Cadellin

  Interestingly, the problems the world faces today are absolutely nothing like what the Bible supposedly predicts for the last days. The biggest problems have to do with looming water shortages, rising population, climate change and loss of biodiversity (all extremely serious, by the way). So for Witnesses to use any of those problems as evidence of the last days is dishonest, since the Bible is silent on those things. (Side: Rev. 11:18 which speaks of bringing to ruin those ruining the earth does NOT mean environmentally but ruining the earth with violence, as in Noah's day, which is what the marginal reference points to. Current Witness useage is eisegesis, plain and simple, and thank you again to Leolaia for a great word that sums up Witness biblical interpretation).

  The old problems of apocalyptic scripture are famines, war and pestilence. With respect to famine, consider that the U.N. reports that there are more people obese (1,000,000,000+) right now than malnourished (800,000,000). With respect to war, we live in a time of unprecedented peace, relatively speaking. And the diseases that cut down populations a few hundred years ago are all but silenced today. Sure, swine flu approaches but there'll be a hundred million or more doses of vaccine available in a month or two, and more following. Can you imagine that happening at the first appearance of the Justinian plague? Further, it's also inaccurate to point to heart disease and cancer as a fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy regarding pestilences,since they do not fit the original Greek word used to describe communicable diseases (b/c they're not)

  Last summer, I read Fareed Zakaria's The Post American World, about how the world is actually a much more prosperous place than even a generation ago. In fact, it is the rising prosperity of countries like India and China, where people are eating better, living longer and healthier than ever before, that are causing many of the looming problems like carbon emissions and empty aquifers and ocean degradation.
• 

  ldrnomo

  Cars are better

  food is better

  music is better

  women are prettier

  wars are better (less colaterial damage)

  healthcare is better

  houses are better

  yes the world is better since 1914

  LD
• 

  DaCheech

  how many people took baths before 1914"

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub

  how many inniocent people died in war before 1914?

  how people were vandalized before 1914?

  try living in the wild west in those good old days!

  try living in the dark ages!

  try living in ancient rome, greece, babylon, egypt, mongolia, persia!

  life used to be a chore just to survive!
• 

  villabolo

  I ask this, since if disease famine earthquakes and wars were supposed to be WORSE in the time of the end, why is the average life span longer now than in 1914. Infant mortality rates have gone down (they are included in the statistics) I recall an old law from the era of the American revolution requiring that every male between the ages of 16 to 60 participate in the militia. While that sounds a bit extreme it would make no sense at all if there weren't plenty of able bodied 60 year olds. Why are so many more diseases curable? Acknowledged Why is there more food produced? Because of artificial fertilizer which is made up of natural gas which will peak and then decline along with the population it feeds. If so many more people dying of cancer heart disease and AIDS why is the world population increasing exponentially? You forgot tuberculosis, a major killer in the Third World where the exponential growth is occurring. You can have a de facto life span of 40, an infant mortality rate of 50% and still maintain an exponential growth. Are the WT scare mongering to lend credance to their increasingly doubtful message of doom. They are scare mongering regardless of whether real "doom" is impending or not. The apocalyptic mentality is not so much whether they are in tune with a god or other forces that give them a special revelation. It is about hatred of the world and their fantasizing it's destruction and a new world to replace it. The real menace these false prophet present is that if really bad times do come they will be able to dupe large number of ignorant people. Is the world actually getting better in most ways?? For some people it may be temporarily that is. But the way humanity goes about doing things is unsustainable. There are sustainable ways of doing things and living a life of luxury but society would have to be reinvented from the ground up instead of being "reformed". This is not going to happen, we will have to wait for civilization to crash before a new one is built. So for now the World is, in my opinion, better than in 1914 but it won't stay that way. villabolo
• 

  Farkel

  villalobo,

  :Infant mortality rates have gone down (they are included in the statistics) I recall an old law from the era of the American revolution requiring that every male between the ages of 16 to 60 participate in the militia. While that sounds a bit extreme it would make no sense at all if there weren't plenty of able bodied 60 year olds.

  I've seen studies where infant mortality is factored out, being defined as ages birth to 5 years. People on average still live substantially longer than they did even 100 years ago.

  Farkel
• 

  ninja

  it was the best of times

  it was the worst of times...............