Posts by fulltimestudent

112

Are You Concerned About Inflation?

by Simon in

i saw a statistic the other day that something like 25% of all the debt that the us has incurred since 1776 was created in the last 12 months.

that's because they have printed so much currency and instead of letting that stop them, they are going to continue printing more to go on a spending spree on crazy green-new-deal schemes and union handouts.. does anyone think that this can be anything other than inflationary?

they are effectively stealing the wealth of everyone to then hand money out to people.

fulltimestudent

Thnx for the run-down GabAhouse. I guess there are always pluses and minuses.

Some things are hard to understand, I can't figure out how anyone borrowing to buy a house and pay it off over 20-30 years, doesn't consider that the current (still) low interest rate are not permanent and could increase. But, I don't have that worry, because years ago, (after a divorce and giving everything to my former wife) I put all my efforts into buying an apartment, and paying down the loan in only a few years

I don't have, and don't want a car, so (being old) I can go anywhere, on public transport, in a roughly 100 km radius for a maximum cost of $2.50 (per day). That's just been fixed, by the government, for another year, so I don't have to worry about petrol cost.

That leaves food. So I don't buy stuff that's gone up, and like you I'm lucky enough to have an Aldi store close by. I've notice tinned food hasn't changed a lot, but here, I'm thinking that stuff is based on lasts years crops, so will likely cost much more next year. F & V (fruit and veg.) is way up, but the main growing area close to Sydney has been flooded three times recently and crops completely wiped out. The growers all over Australia have also been hit by covid. During the shut-downs, the migratory, temporary workers were not allowed to enter Australia resulting in less crops being planted.

But that's just me, for others , inflation is a problem, and if it gets out of control, it's going tl be tough.

112

Are You Concerned About Inflation?

by Simon in

i saw a statistic the other day that something like 25% of all the debt that the us has incurred since 1776 was created in the last 12 months.

that's because they have printed so much currency and instead of letting that stop them, they are going to continue printing more to go on a spending spree on crazy green-new-deal schemes and union handouts.. does anyone think that this can be anything other than inflationary?

they are effectively stealing the wealth of everyone to then hand money out to people.

fulltimestudent

Ummm! Australians are feeling the inflationary effect too, inflation is officially supposed to be 5%,

But I noticed (a previous comment) a suggestion that it's around 9% in North America, but a few days ago I read this article by an American citizen name of David Goldman claiming that the real rate is 20% (in the USA). If he's right, you guys have my sympathy, because at the rate of 20% it's hard to stop. And, my mind jumps to the last days of Chiang Kai Shek and his Guo Min Dang (KMT) party government, where you needed (some say) a wheelbarrow full of paper money to buy a loaf of bread.

https://asiatimes.com/2022/07/americans-face-20-inflation-for-essentials/

14

Results of Australia's 2021 Census- More Unbelievers than Believers

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

this abc (a national government owned media group) report states:.

"for the first time, fewer than half of australians identified as christian, though christianity remained the nation's most common religion (declared by 43.9 per cent of the population).. meanwhile, the number of australians who said they had no religion rose to 38.9 per cent (from 30.1 per cent in 2016).".

fulltimestudent

Jeffro, said in part , "unless ‘believers’ means ‘only Christians’?"

The simple counting was easy to spot,. The more interesting aspect is how a national media group chose to interpret this data. Which is why I titled the post the way I did.

interestingly, The Sydney Morning Herald, part of another National Media group, ran a similar headline, I didn't use it because it has a paywall.

And, so Jeffro "unless ‘believers’ means ‘only Christians’" is apparently how some wanted to see this data, which is interesting from a sociological viewpoint.

14

Results of Australia's 2021 Census- More Unbelievers than Believers

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

this abc (a national government owned media group) report states:.

"for the first time, fewer than half of australians identified as christian, though christianity remained the nation's most common religion (declared by 43.9 per cent of the population).. meanwhile, the number of australians who said they had no religion rose to 38.9 per cent (from 30.1 per cent in 2016).".

fulltimestudent

This ABC (A National government owned Media group) report states:

"For the first time, fewer than half of Australians identified as Christian, though Christianity remained the nation's most common religion (declared by 43.9 per cent of the population).

Meanwhile, the number of Australians who said they had no religion rose to 38.9 per cent (from 30.1 per cent in 2016)."

15

Homeopathy and Jehovah's Witnesses.

by jojorabbit in

years ago, the jws did not like modern medicine.

vaccines and other things were all deemed bad.

this gave rise to a lot of jws getting into alternative medicines.

fulltimestudent

Thanks ga1998 for clarifying some details about A. Vogel. Since my previous post I recalled a memory of Vogel from my disordered ,memory bank.

It occurred at some National assembly in Sydney (but my memory fails as to what year), I was looking after something to do with visitors to the assembly, and Vogel turned up at my post requiring transport to his accommodation. Everyone else working in that section had finished and I had to get him to wait until I could leave the assembly site, and drove him to his accommodation myself.

The weekend after I was scheduled to give the PT at Engadine congregation on the south side of Sydney and Vogel turned up (apparently because of the name 'Engadine.').

Nothing startling, but as ga1998 has already made clear, Vogel was certainly a JW, and I agree his products were oriented more to naturopathy than to homeopathy. Many Jws in Australia (including myself) had and used his book ,'The Nature Doctor.' And, I think I still had one of his 'Bioforce' products in my medicine cabinet until a few years ago. Cant even recall now, what it was and what it was supposed to 'cure.'

Again, I make the point, that when Samuel Hahnemann conceived his ideas (in the 1790s), what we now call 'medical science' did not exist in any useful form. However, the work of his followers (Homeopaths) in 'proving' (testing) remedies, likely led to a greater knowledge of what health benefits may exist in some plant products.

15

Homeopathy and Jehovah's Witnesses.

by jojorabbit in

years ago, the jws did not like modern medicine.

vaccines and other things were all deemed bad.

this gave rise to a lot of jws getting into alternative medicines.

fulltimestudent

Vogel was certainly a witness. He once spent several weeks staying with a JW family I knew in Tahiti. He used to walk around the island (so they told me) picking leaves off trees and telling them what it was good for. It is my understanding (that apart from his bread, once well-known in Australia) his products were a mix of homepathic medicines and herbal medicines. They were, as SBF remarked, extremely popular in Germany, as this Bloomberg news item discusses.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-12/homeopathy-doesn-t-work-so-why-do-so-many-germans-believe-in-it#:~:text=Roughly%20half%20of%20Germany's%20population,re%20satisfied%20with%20the%20treatment.

The above article also points out that homeopathy is also popular in India, where it is seen as akin to traditional ayurvedic medicine.

To understand the popularity of homeopathy we need to appreciate that it came into use in a time when orthodox medicine was not very advanced either.

But I do appreciate that its popularity in the JW org, is just a minor bit of evidence that the HS did not tell the the FDS that it was going to be superseded by evidence-based scientific medicine.

And as for Alfie Vogel, he did, I understand, finish his life disfellowshipped

32

Who are the 144,000? Considering the immediate context of Revelation chapter 7

by raymond frantz in

who are the 144,000?

a critical examination of the teaching of the 144,000 from the perspective of an ex jx considering context and other references .this is from a series of videos called new light where i scrutinise all the major teachings of the watchtower.. https://youtu.be/aaseuzr-sxs.

fulltimestudent

How do your make sense out of religious people's fantasies?

21

Was 536 the Worst year in history

by pistolpete in

jws believe that today, the time we live in is the worst time ever in history.

i know cause i just had a jw tell me yesterday this was the case.

he pointed to covid, the russian-ukraine war, the high gas prices and the food shortage happening.

fulltimestudent

vienne: "But it may be that she was once convinced and does not want to face the possibility of error."

I agree with your assessment. The woman I spoke of, had become a JW after a study with another older woman, and that likely was the first intellectual effort in her life. I doubt that school would have provided her with any skills, outside of reading and writing. She was a similar age to my own parents, and my own parents had had only 5/6 years of school. My father learned (himsself) basic surveying skills which he needed in his govt. job, my mother became a seamstress and both had productive lives. I'm sure that the Jw woman I posted about also had a productive life, but (like my parents) her education would not have prepared her for analysing arguments.

So having met some other nice jw ladies, and perhaps finding a social circle for the first time in her life, she became disturbed when challenged to 'prove' something.

I saw a similar situation when pioneering. In this small country town in NSW to which the Branch (with divine wisdom) assigned me, there was a small congregation. One sister had had a tragedy in her life. Some years after her husband had left her and their only son, the boy had an accident and required a blood transfusion. Others supported her in refusing the transfusion (as no doubt I would've done had I been there in her crisis). The boy died and this woman lapsed into depression, eventually choosing to end her life. A very sad story, and I should say that no-one in that small congregation was equipped to help her. In talking to her, I realised that she had no thinking skills, and had made her decision to refuse the transfusion simply on 'faith.' And, I guess her eventual suicide was also predictable. I was about 22 y.o and had no training that may have helped, nor, I venture to say, would any person in J's 'amazing' organisation have the training necessary to return that woman to mental health.

21

Was 536 the Worst year in history

by pistolpete in

jws believe that today, the time we live in is the worst time ever in history.

i know cause i just had a jw tell me yesterday this was the case.

he pointed to covid, the russian-ukraine war, the high gas prices and the food shortage happening.

fulltimestudent

TonusOH commented: "I don't think most JWs could explain what makes these the worst times"

How true, many of the older JWs had little education, and as a result had a shortfall in thinking ability. I recall one unbelieving husband complaining to me, every time I ask my wife why she believed something, she gets hysterical.

I felt sorry for him, but also for his wife, faced with trying to explain complicated issues, just could not explain JW beliefs.

Maybe that's why (according to what I read here) few young people, who presumably have a better education, stick to what they are told, 'is the truth!'

21

Was 536 the Worst year in history

by pistolpete in

jws believe that today, the time we live in is the worst time ever in history.

i know cause i just had a jw tell me yesterday this was the case.

he pointed to covid, the russian-ukraine war, the high gas prices and the food shortage happening.

fulltimestudent

To declare any year as 'the worst year in history.' we need to look beyond a Eurocentric view, and beyond West Asia.

I havn't the background knowledge to check what was happening in North and South America, or Southern Africa or the Australian continent. Although I imagine that the Icelandic volcanic eruption would certainly affect all the northern hemisphere, But I can comment reasonably on Eastern Asia especially China. This area too was affected by both climate and political events. The authors of this article suggest that the political events in that year (and that time period) around China were related to climate events.

See, "Natural Disasters in the History of the Eastern Turk Empire,"

Link: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-00728-7_8#Sec9

The article Abstract reads, "This article analyzes the effect of climate extremes on the historical processes that took place (AD 536, 581, 601, 626 and 679) in the Eastern Turk Empire (AD 534–745) in Inner Asia. Climate extremes are sharp, strong and sometimes protracted periods of cooling and drought caused by volcanic eruptions that in this case resulted in a negative effect on the economy of a nomadic society and were often accompanied by famine and illness. In fact, many of these natural catastrophes coincided with the Black Death pandemics among the Eastern Turks and the Chinese living in the north of China. The Turk Empire can be split into several chronological periods during which significant events that led to changes in the course of history of the nomadic state took place: AD 534–545—the rise of the Turk Empire; AD 581–583—the division of the Turk Empire into the Western and the Eastern Empires; AD 601–603—the rise of Qimin Qaghan; AD 627–630—the Eastern Turks are conquered by China; AD 679–687—the second rise of the Eastern Turk Empire. The research shows that there is clearly-discernable interplay between important historical events and climate extremes in the history of the Turk Empire. This interplay has led us to the conclusion that the climatic factor did have an impact on the historical processes that took place in the eastern part of Inner Asia, especially on the territories with a nomadic economy."

And the article's authors conclude: "Though much discussion is going on at present among researchers concerning the problem of the influence of climate changes on nomadic society, we hold to the opinion that the historical events that took place in the Turk Empire in AD 534–551 and in AD 679–687 developed in a line parallel to the unfavorable changes in climate which may be considered as an additional factor that led to changes in the regional situation. Historical sources show that in the year AD 534 the Turks had already become stronger—a fact that happened prior to the climate extremes, but the discontent of the Turks with Emperor Gaozong’s (AD 650–683) policy grew during the whole period of his reign and it is this that led to the rebellion of AD 679. Nevertheless, the sharp changes in the economic and political situation in the Turk Empire in AD 581–583, in AD 599–603 and in AD 627–630 totally coincide with the extreme changes in climate in these periods, a fact that may be looked upon as indirect proof of the interplay of historical processes in the region with climate dynamics."

For anyone that is interested in examining this issue further there's a need to establish what was happening in the Southern hemisphere, and I suggest in India.