" However, it does say that "great earthquakes" would occur..."
Notice the addition of italics for the word "great," the insinuation being that it's not the actual number of quakes that marks the sign but the magnitude of them. Notice, too, that they give not one drop of evidence that the earthquakes have, in fact, grown larger. Why? Because there is none-not one drop. Still, that doesn't stop the sly beggars from implying that they've become bigger.
This article, which is available at www.jw.org as a .pdf, mp3, etc., is really fairly sad, supporting the truth that a weak defense is worse than none. The logic is fallacious, particularly in the section on disease, and the whole thing is a mishmash of selective facts removed from any kind of context that would lend credibility or proportion to their claims. For instance, supplying raw numbers without the backdrop of what percentage of humanity those numbers represent--particularly in comparison with other time periods-- is misleading.
When they do supply numbers in proportion (for instance, 1 out of 7 people is malnourished), they fail to give any historical context, which is necessary to establish that things are, in fact, worsening--i.e., conditions can only be considered as "worsening" when compared to another time in history. When I was pioneering in the 1980's the percentage of people malnourished was 1 in 4. With that bit of info, the answer to "Are food shortages worsening?" becomes clear.
Ironically, in the section on disease, they do admit that the population is much greater than at any other time, but, oddly, they use that as part of their reasoning that the aggregate effect of disease is getting worse. The objection presented is that sure, there might be more people suffering from disease than at any other time, but that's because there's more people around to get sick. The WT response is that, at the same time the population has increased, humans have made great strides in medical care--and people are still dying in great numbers. However, is any evidence provided to prove this claim? Nope. The only way that this claim would support the idea that the Last Days are here is if it could be shown that mortality rates from communicable disease have climbed over the last century and are now higher than at other times in human history. Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of history knows that is untrue.
In fact, as I said in another thread, the fact that human population has exploded over the last century is evidence that famine, disease, earthquakes and warfare are NOT having the dire effects that they have historically had.
It's funny (I mean funny in a pathetic way, not in a humorous way. Okay, kind of in a humorous way) that they include the "ruining the earth" canard as part of the evidence of the Last Days. The only scrip to mention that is in Rev. and it's clearly echoing the sentiment from Genesis pre-Noachian flood where the earth was being ruined by violence. Any implication of ecological ruination is pure eisigesis, to use a cool word I picked up from the amazing Leo. Moreover, if any JW would reflect on the nature of the environmental devestation being wrought on our planet, it's virtually all linked to increased industrialization which what has caused the great elevation in human standards of living across the planet. Its BECAUSE Indians and Chinese and other groups are now able and desiring to live like Americans that the planet is being degraded, NOT because everyone's starving and dying of malaria. Widespread disease and starvation suppresses innovation and technological advancements, not enhances it!!!
