I watched a fascinating documentary tonight called "The Corporation". It exposed the development of big business in modern day and their greed and corruption of the world. Many of the scholars and experts conceded that by the year 2025, we truly would not have any water left to drink and they discussed the ruination of the rainforests and other important resources as well. They left one to believe that all religious predictions aside, we truly were living in the last days in which mankind can sustain himself off of his natural resources. Do you agree with this? I find a lot of intellectual people on this board who can pick apart the doomsday prophesying of the bible, but what about the reality of what resources are left for us to live off of in the next 50 years. I know many of you will say, who cares, live each day one at a time, but surely you must consider the facts. Im not saying I believe one way or another, because I am undecided. I would like to see what facts others may present or opinions that you hold on this matter. I know mankind has always believed his generation to be the last, but our earth has not always been so polluted and overrun by greedy corporations that are stripping us of all the natural resources left. Surely some of you who spent years and decades prophesying the end must have had reasons for believing that to be true. JW teachings aside, have you too, noticed that things are getting worse, or do they seem the same? As I am in my early twenties, I dont have the history to have witnessed these things and would be interested in your comments. I know for many of you it was the sadness you saw in the state of the world that brought you into the truth. What is different for you now to think these days are not the last, or are? Thanks for your help........
The END is NIGH??
by Samdownunder 20 Replies latest watchtower bible
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A Paduan
Do you agree with this? No
what about the reality of what resources are left for us to live off of in the next 50 years When the going gets tough, the tough get going
have you too, noticed that things are getting worse That's a subjective view - many would say "better" - it's a perspective thing
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ESTEE
If a person chooses to focus on yucky stuff ... of course that is what they will see ...
Depressing IMHO ...
There are lots of great people and wonderful things happening in our beautiful world. I choose to focus on the positives!
Love,
ESTEE
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JH
We are advancing towards change rather than the end.
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metatron
Doomsday personalities can be non-religious as well!
Industrialization INCREASES the amount of untilled land that returns to nature. Upstate New England is loaded with unused
land that is no longer farmed due to increased productivity of agriculture.
Anybody remember the bet that was made between Paul Ehrlich ( eco-pessimist) and Julian Simon ( tech optimist)?
They had a list of stats to predict about prices, productivity, and the environment. Simon won the bet.
Pollution? Remember Silent Spring? How all the birds would be gone? It didn't happen.
If the Hydrogen economy appears, you can forget about pollution, period ( even though anti-pollution laws have been
a great success in the US).
metatron
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Leolaia
Like predicting the weather, there are too many variables involved to know really how bad or good things are going to turn out in the long term. There are some reasons to be optimistic. Population growth has slowed and begun to stabilize. We will likely develop and turn to alternative sources of energy and water production before the resources are depleted (because the traditional methods will become prohibitively uneconomic for some time before the actual resources run out). Because of nuclear proliferation, I think nuclear war will be much more likely -- but not the civilization-killing kind of nuclear war dreaded during the Cold War but more limited uses of weapons in local skirmishes (e.g. North Korea and South Korea, Pakistan and India) and terroristic attacks (e.g. in Tel Aviv or Washington DC). Very horrific, but not the end of civilization. We could expect a population crash from natural disease or biological warfare, but despite the decimation it would have a silver lining of reducing resource consumption. I am skeptical that the "end" is really so near, tho some scientists fear such esoteric things as the accidental creation of a black hole or antimatter in a particle accelerator, or nanotechnology creating self-replicating micro-robots that turn all organic matter to sludge. Who knows, but I think this species has a few more generations left in it.
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Elsewhere
People have been trying "we are almost out of [Insert Natural Resource Name Here] and when we run out terrible things will happen". If what they said about oil in the 70's was true we would have run out of oil a long time ago.
Someone always invents a better way to do something without a resource in short supply or they find a way to better use the resource. Something better always comes along or humans just adapt.
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Terry
When I am presented with information about something I ask myself a question. How has this been filtered?
Activist groups use propaganda (filtered information) to get people excited and afraid. A false dichotomy is often presented. Black vs White thinking is a sign of this.
Left-wing groups and right-wing groups, when they become radical, often create a fear based agenda.
Examine the information for telltale adjectives that paint people and organizations in a negative light.
"GREEDY CORPORATIONS" is an example of this.
A corporation exists to make a profit (*unless they are non-profit).
How much of a profit you are willing to allow in a free market is a subjective call on your part. As long as arms are not twisted, nobody is forced to buy anything. If a product or service is overpriced the consumer has personal responsibility to avoid doing business with any company that indulges.
Throughout history life on earth is a lungful of air away from extinction. Always and ever is this the case. In fact, 99% of all living things that have ever existed are now extinct.
So?
So, we need to put information that is negative in the context that best illustrates a course of action motivated by common sense.
If you want a perfect example of how propaganda is used to push an initiative forward read the Watchtower publication from 1968: THE TRUTH THAT LEADS TO ETERNAL LIFE. It is filled with scare tactics. All good information is filtered out and only the shocking predictions remain.
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Thomas Malthus 1766-1834
Malthus's observation that in nature plants and animals produce far more offspring than can survive, and that Man too is capable of overproducing if left unchecked. Malthus concluded that unless family size was regulated, man's misery of famine would become globally epidemic and eventually consume Man. Malthus' view that poverty and famine were natural outcomes of population growth and food supply was not popular among social reformers who believed that with proper social structures, all ills of man could be eradicated.
Although Malthus thought famine and poverty natural outcomes, the ultimate reason for those outcomes was divine institution. He believed that such natural outcomes were God's way of preventing man from being lazy. Both Darwin and Wallace independantly arrived at similar theories of Natural Selection after reading Malthus. Unlike Malthus, they framed his principle in purely natural terms both in outcome and in ultimate reason. By so doing, they extended Malthus' logic further than Malthus himself could ever take it. They realized that producing more offspring than can survive establishes a competitive environment among siblings, and that the variation among siblings would produce some individuals with a slightly greater chance of survival.
Malthus was a political economist who was concerned about, what he saw as, the decline of living conditions in nineteenth century England. He blamed this decline on three elements: The overproduction of young; the inability of resources to keep up with the rising human population; and the irresponsibility of the lower classes. To combat this, Malthus suggested the family size of the lower class ought to be regulated such that poor families do not produce more children than they can support. Does this sound familiar? China has implemented a policy of one child per family (though this applies to all families, not just those of the lower class).
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ezekiel3
From a purely phyiscal human standpoint, life is cheap and futile. Because of our insecurities, we are prone to worry about our personal woes and then collectively amplify that to a global scale. But the history of the world as we know it shows a pattern of survival and adaptation.
I recently had a conversation with a JW about the state of world, sparked by that favorite subject about "how bad things are getting." I asked him what was actually so bad. He mentioned immorality and violence in entertainment, comparing our day with the 1950-60s when he was a kid. It struck me that he had proved the degradation of society by comparing events in his lifetime only. Most JWs do this.
But if you zoom out and look at the last 3,000 years of history you will see as socially acceptable: Slavery, live violence as sport, women treated as property, dictatorial control over mind and body, ethnic cleansing.
Of course all of the above is still present today. But the majority of the world do not consider them acceptable.
If you ask me what period of time I would like to live in if I had the choice, it would be now. Come what may, we live in a world of knowledge and free thought. The living standard, on average, is higher then ever before. We are the most enabled people of all time. Just the fact that I can type these words and know they will be published worldwide, in an instant, is incredible.
What I just wrote will go out the window the next time a major catastrophe happens, man-made or natural. The lost will go in droves to JWs and every other cult that offers all the answers. But that doesn't change the fact that, collectively, this is a great time to be alive.
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Valis
Surely some of you who spent years and decades prophesying the end must have had reasons for believing that to be true.
ya its called being a stupid head...
Sincerely,
District Overbeer