Last Days? Are you serious ....?
by Aleph 40 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Cadellin
While it is true that the ability to wipe out life via nuclear detonation DOES distinguish our modern times, it is also true that humans have shown admirable (and unusual) restraint in using those nukes. Setting the potential aside, there is no escaping the fact that we are living in the most peaceful and prosperous time in human history. For those in doubt, check out economist Max Roser's wonderful graphic website http://ourworldindata.org/, where you can page through graphs of historical data measuring things like life span and global poverty rates.
Who knows whether humans will wipe themselves out? We can't speculate. But what we do have is comparative data on how the day to day lives of humans has changed for the better. One of my frustrations with WT rhetoric about the last days is that the stats they tossed around were always decontextualized. Okay, so there were 100,000,000 people killed in warfare during the 20th Century. That's a lot! But it also suggests that there were a lot of people AROUND to kill, people that would have died in childhood or early life if they had lived during other times. Numbers always have to be put within context so that you are comparing apples to apples, which is why the Society rarely offers statements as comparative percentages, preferring the shock effect of straight up raw numbers.
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JWdaughter
The fact is that in an earlier time, those bombs would all have been used already. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were tragic indeed, but it stopped. All this technology given to a less advanced society would have been the end for real. Iran having atomic weapons doesn't scare me, but ISIS getting control in Israel, Pakistan, former ussr countries, that terrifies me. As does that N. Korean guy. He's just a whack job. -
myelaine
dear Cadellin...you said, "While it is true that the ability to wipe out life via nuclear detonation DOES distinguish our modern times, it is also true that humans have shown admirable (and unusual) restraint in using those nukes."...This is the first time that the leaders of a country with nuclear arms capability has as it's core religio/political ideology (shia islam) that killing everyone and themselves (martyrdom) is a good thing! .allah will sort out the dead and the mahdi will sort out the rest.The "restraint" shown is not unusual in light of the fact that historically the "other" players in the nuclear drama never did adhere to a death cult agenda. -
myelaine
dear JWdaughter...
ISIS doesn't have to trek from iraq to pakistan to be a threat to nuclear stability. A minority of pakistani muslims are shia and in all likelihood there are some who desire to advance the cause of the radical sunni islamists, ISIS. The security of pakistani nuclear facilities is no doubt an issue on the table in certain circles.
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Finkelstein
Something else to reflect upon is that every particular item that was proclaimed to be
an indication of " The Last Days " actually occurred at the time those words were
written and to a certain extent more so based from the percentage of the population within human history.
Oh well fear mongering charlatans will keep on exploiting the bible for whats it can do from them when it comes to selling their products or literature they publish themselves.
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myelaine
dear Finkelstein...
we are still in "the last days"...ALL things that were written and prophesied in the bible weren't fulfilled. Matthew 23:37-39
xo
p.s. being aware of and disseminating information about current events isn't fear mongering anymore than disregarding the same is being completely oblivious.
Just an observation: people who relinquish critical thinking skills will allow for 'derogitory labels' hurled at opposition to become their measurement of truth. The "label" will be enough "fact" to make a firm decision.
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Tenacious
The Bible does say that there would be chants of "Peace and Security" right before the end came.
Who the heck knows. The best thing I can do for myself, my family, and my fellow man is to follow in the footsteps of the Christ. The New Testament is the best if not the ultimate guide in how to live a peaceful long life.
Everything else will fall into place.
So far so good.
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Finkelstein
When the Hebrews were let go out of bondage captivity from Babylon, they were most likely making chants of peace and security.
Again to reflect upon what I mentioned previously.
Matthew 23:37-39 New International Version (NIV)
37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’[a]”
There has been 2000 years of people who came in the name of the lord and died.
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Dunedain
@ - Bonzai - Its true that we have the technology to nearly wipe out all of the planet, at this time, BUT i guarantee you if we were alive during the BLACK PLAGUE, which was many centuries ago, we would have been thinking THOSE WERE the last days. Almost half the Earths known population DID die from the black plague.