A Better World - Can it be achieved?

by fulltimestudent 16 Replies latest social current

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  fulltimestudent

  The hope of a better world is what attracted me (and likely many of you other loiterers (grin) on this site) into the mental mindtrap of Christian thought. I guess its understandable, re-reading the words that the author of the Matthew gospel that we know as the sermon on the mount, its easy to think, that if Jesus ruled the world, everything would be OK.

  I'm still interested in a better world. So have many other thinkers (and revolutionaries). We, who live in what has came to be known as the first world ( a little bit of conceit in the term, maybe?), have achieved a reasonable standard of living. I used to point out in my PT's that life in the west is likely better than the life of King David. Why so? He may have had a bigger house, but we likely have as many, if not more, luxuries than David. If you doubt, just try to count up yours and his luxuries. But today the great mass of humanity live lives not too far different to one of King David's peasant subjects.

  But, in starting this discussion, I was thinking of two stories I found on the web recently that maybe point the way to a better world.

  The first was a talk about washing machines by Professor Hans Rosling: (I'll post the other later).

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sqnptxlCcw
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  Xanthippe

  What drives me crazy is that yes we have time to read books now because we have labour saving machines but what do the advertising agencies do?

  They tell women they have to have cream coloured carpets and cream sofas that need constant cleaning.

  You cant just have a clean house, it has to be spotless 24/7.

  Your kitchen surfaces cannot just be clean they have to be constantly sprayed with anti-bac for the germs you can't see.

  Now they are advertising anti-bac to put into your washing machine because washing at lower temperatures may not kill those dreaded germs.

  Worry, worry, clean, clean.

  Now our children are developing asthma because of all these chemicals in our home.

  I love this TED talk. He is so right our lives are much better than they have ever been. Just need to stop the advertising agencies making us feel our homes are disgusting and our computers, phones, cars are too old.
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  zebagain

  prof hans Rosling was just brilliant. I will post the u tube adress across my entire email book.
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  mynameislame

  Xanthippe, couln't agree more. Advertising is out of hand and is only designed to scare you into buying some useless product.

  Every day I see ads about medications for diseases that I have never even heard of. Then I went to my doctors office and they tried to get me to fill out a survey about one of those obscure diseases. It’s like they are trying to make everyone a hypochondriac so they can sell more stuff.

  I think the best thing to do is to toss your television in the trash, go outside and have some fun.

  (now I just have to convince my wife)
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  humbled

  Thanks for posting this, fullimestudent.

  Can a better world be achieved if relatively wealthy people do not realize that no human potential should languish for doing laundry (or hours of other tedious chores) while we who use--what?--14 or 22 times the resources?

  Can there be a better world if the wealthy ones in the "Air Line" not see the time, the lives of the poor as being valuable as our own?

  No and no.

  We cannot mine the world's resources, displacing native peoples, exploiting whole nations or groups for the convenience of modern life and think that this can be sustained.

  Yes to the Sermon on the Mount. Yes to anyone who teaches us to be fair and satisfied with more just distribution of the worlds resources.

  ------------------

  This is connected to that thread on inequality of last week, somehow.
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  JustVisting

  That sounds like a WT cover story, sorry.
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  yadda yadda 2

  Depends how you define what it means to make a 'better' world. Michael Jackson sang about making it a 'better' world by eliminating starvation. He was right. The moral obligation of the world to make it better is to first remove the worst kinds of suffering and then work our way up from there. How much 'better' is the world now then, say, 50 years ago when everyone in the western world now has digital phones but half the rest of the planet doesn't have fresh water and babies are still starving to death? This world is still semi-barbaric, only recently out of the dark ages.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkzxL3BWGfw
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  humbled

  Just Visiting--

  Just because the WT baited their "hooks" with valid human concerns should not innoculate us to the need to address those needs now that we are free to do it--- without waiting for Jah's "Big A" to make things right.

  Maeve
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  JustVisting

  humbled, we have the moral obligation to help our fellow man I agree. The uninformed Awake reader of recent years would conclude that WT is in support of the many UN human rights/humanitarian aid efforts.
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  Band on the Run

  It isn't directly related but Betty Friedan addressed a lot of this zealous housecleaning in her book, The Feminine Mystique. Women were recruited into the workforce during WWII. Were it not for women manufacturing ammunition, missiles, and other heavy objects, the men could not fight at the front. When the war ended, women were told they were incapable of work. Jobs had to go to men. She traced articles in Woman's Day and other mags. Woman's Day always bothered me a lot. This was directed from Washington, D.C.

  I felt inept with housework that I purchased a housekeeping book written by a female lawyer and mother. She worked full-time at law, raised children with no help, wrote a thick tome on housekeeping and kept house. The moon is also made of green cheese.

  I used to think women's place just happened. Oh, I also believe the neighborhoods in Manhattan just happened, too, until I took a look at the zoning book.