Bungi Bill

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Posts by Bungi Bill

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  19

  The Worst Year to be Alive? Answer: Most likely to be 536 CE

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was a witness, since the early 1950's, to the relentless claims of the wt society (then synonymous with jws) that this was the worst of times to be alive.

  if i had been more questioning and less accepting, i would never have become a shill for these apologists pf the murderous yhwh and his accomplice jesus,.

  so how interesting to see today an opinion in science journal that:- .

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  Bungi Bill

  Hi FTS,

  I could readily understand the American Civil War being a turning-point in warfare.

  However, World War One was he first time in which modern industrialised countries went to war with one another.

  Although the North had some industry, the USA of 1861 was still largely an agricultural country. (That all changed rapidly during the following decades, of course. For example, by 1890, the USA was producing more steel than anybody else).

  Likewise during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. While Prussian technology largely won the day at the decisive Battle of Sedan, Germany's industrialisation took place after its unification. (e.g. regarding Bismarck's famous "Blut und Eisen" speech, many commentators have remarked that it should have been more accurately rendered "Coal and Iron"!).

  Even during the South African War of 1899-1902, the two Boer republics were agricultural countries, even bordering on frontier societies (albeit financed by the gold mines of the Witwatersrand).

  By 1914, though, at least three of the belligerents - Britain, France and Germany - were industrial countries. To that extent, WWI was the first time industrialised countries fought each other in all out warfare (rather than by selling their weapons to another party to fight on their behalf!)
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  19

  The Worst Year to be Alive? Answer: Most likely to be 536 CE

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was a witness, since the early 1950's, to the relentless claims of the wt society (then synonymous with jws) that this was the worst of times to be alive.

  if i had been more questioning and less accepting, i would never have become a shill for these apologists pf the murderous yhwh and his accomplice jesus,.

  so how interesting to see today an opinion in science journal that:- .

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
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  Bungi Bill

  FTS

  We could get into considerable debate on this one, in which firearms buffs (such as myself) would be in their element!

  Between the American Civil War and the outbreak of WWI, weapons technology took a quantum leap. During the Civil War, the standard weapon on both sides was still the muzzle-loading percussion rifle (although the Confederacy entered the conflict armed with the even older flintlock muskets). Machine guns were not used in the Civil War. Gatling developed his hand-cranked gun during that war, but it never saw service until afterwards. Even then, the world's first truly automatic machine gun was still 20 years away (Hiram Maxim's invention). The problem with the Gatling, Gardner, Nordenfelt, Mitrailluese and other hand cranked weapons was that in the heat of battle, the operator often panicked and started cranking the weapon too quickly. This resulted in its jamming. Another issue was the propellant used in the cartridges - still the charcoal / sulphur / saltpetre blend of gunpowder. That added to the jamming issues, and obscured the battle field in a great fog of gunsmoke. This same problem delayed the world's armies from adopting magazine fed rifles until the 1890s, when smokeless powders were developed.

  Artillery, also, took quantum leaps during the latter part of the 19th Century, thanks to the arms race initiated by the German manufacturer, Krupp.

  Likewise for naval development. Naval warfare was revolutionised in 1906 by the launching of HMS Dreadnought, which rendered all other battle ships obsolete. That set going a massive arms race - principally between Germany and Britain - which was in full swing by 1914.

  Add to the list aircraft (invented 1903), poison gas, submarines, torpedoes and mines (both of which changed the balance of naval warfare), depth charges, sonar, sound-ranging equipment, tanks, armoured cars etc, and you come up with a lot of things never used previously in an all out conflict between major powers. It is true that a number of these weapons (but by no means all) had been experimented with previously in small scale Colonial wars. However, in those days before Satellite TV and the like, it would have been a case of "out of site, out of mind". World War One brought home the horrors of a modern, industrialised war to the heartland of Europe.
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  19

  The Worst Year to be Alive? Answer: Most likely to be 536 CE

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was a witness, since the early 1950's, to the relentless claims of the wt society (then synonymous with jws) that this was the worst of times to be alive.

  if i had been more questioning and less accepting, i would never have become a shill for these apologists pf the murderous yhwh and his accomplice jesus,.

  so how interesting to see today an opinion in science journal that:- .

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
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  Bungi Bill

  One thing W. Schnell probably got right in his infamous 30 Years a Watchtower Slave was the opinion that Rutherford & Co took advantage of the upheaval in Europe that followed WWI.

  That allowed them to get away with making a big issue of 1914. Persons who had just lived through the first industrialised war in history, and seen the collapse of no fewer than four great empires, were easy enough to convince that the year 1914 was indeed something special.
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  19

  The Worst Year to be Alive? Answer: Most likely to be 536 CE

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was a witness, since the early 1950's, to the relentless claims of the wt society (then synonymous with jws) that this was the worst of times to be alive.

  if i had been more questioning and less accepting, i would never have become a shill for these apologists pf the murderous yhwh and his accomplice jesus,.

  so how interesting to see today an opinion in science journal that:- .

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
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  Bungi Bill

  Very interesting - thanks for posting.
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  26

  Brexit Rollercoaster Grinding to a Halt

  by The Fall Guy in

  1. social
  2. current

  uk prime minister could be out of her job within hours.

  .

  regardless, another referendum on stay/leave looks very likely - now that people can see what the real consequences of a divorce from the eu would be..

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  Bungi Bill

  Coming from a country that was adversely affected by Britain's entry into the European Community, I find this whole matter more than a little ironic. I well recall Britain's decade-long battle to gain entry - contrasted now with the stampede to separate itself from Europe.

  Yeh, orright, I know it used to be called the EEC, whereas it is now the EU. But still, I cannot but comment on the bloody irony of it all!
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  102

  The Biggest Issue Is Not Guns—It Is Mental Health!

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  crazy people shoot up places and kill people.

  take away guns and they will find knives, poison, bombs , etc.. seriously, there are a lot of mentally unhealthy people!

  they need professional long term help..

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  Bungi Bill

  I read somewhere that people who suffer from mental health problems are statistically more likely to be the victims of violent crime than the perpetrators.

  When it comes to mass shootings, I am not so sure. In nearly all the ones I am familiar with (which are all too many, sad to say!), the perpetrator did have serious mental health issues. Allow somebody with mental health problems easy access to firearms and you are asking for trouble.
  
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  68

  The paranormal.

  by Lost in the fog in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i know that a lot of the people on here have turned their backs on the idea of a deity deciding that god does not exist.

  but what about the unseen spirit world generally such as poltergeists, jinns, voodoo, etc.

  if you have become agnostic, atheist, or just don't care since leaving, do you think that there are spirits out there or have you decided that is also hokum?

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  Bungi Bill

  If you include in the "paranormal" such things as Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), Ball Lightning and the Min-Min lights of Outback Australia, then perhaps the paranormal is not necessarily "magic".

  Similarly, the fact that such phenomena defy the currently understood laws of physics does not necessarily prove that these are bull$h#t, either.

  Several years ago, while attending a seminar on lightning protection, I had opportunity to ask a university lecturer what exactly ball lightning was. His answer, an "unexplained phenomenon that has been puzzling researchers for centuries." Furthermore, until about 100 years ago, all reportings of ball lightning were treated as mere bull$h#t. Then, however, somebody managed to capture ball lightning on a movie camera. After that, researchers had to treat this phenomenon seriously. Some characteristics of ball lightning are uncanny. For example, its ability to come through a closed door without causing any damage has been observed repeatedly (although the one and only example of ball lightning that I observed caused widespread destruction in an adjacent electricity substation, after missing our house by less than 100 metres).

  While many UFO sightings have been either inconclusive or disproven , you do have instances such as the Kaikoura sightings in New Zealand during the time period December 1978 - February 1979. Night after night, the Air New Zealand Wellington - Christchurch cargo flight observed these unidentified objects. Then a TV crew from Australia's Channel 10 accompanied one Wellington to Christchurch flight. Not only did both the TV crew (including veteran TV reporter Quentin Fogarty) and the aircraft's flight crew see this UFO following their aircraft, but it was also recorded on 16 mm movie film . Further, while that was going on, this object (described by Quentin Fogarty as "looking like a flying saucer") was being simultaneously sighted on no less than three different sets of radar: that on board the Argosy aircraft itself, plus the Air Traffic Control radar at both Wellington and Christchurch airports.

  In cases like this, those who would have you believe that two different groups of eye witnesses were hallucinating at the same time while the movie camera was having a hissy fit, and three different sets of radar just happened to be choosing this same moment to throw a wobbly are themselves stretching credibility to the limit!

  It would be rash to categorize all unexplainable phenomena as "magic." It would be just as wrong to write it all off as "bull$h#t, too.
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  68

  The paranormal.

  by Lost in the fog in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i know that a lot of the people on here have turned their backs on the idea of a deity deciding that god does not exist.

  but what about the unseen spirit world generally such as poltergeists, jinns, voodoo, etc.

  if you have become agnostic, atheist, or just don't care since leaving, do you think that there are spirits out there or have you decided that is also hokum?

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  Bungi Bill

  Just because you cannot explain it and instead leap to "it must be magic" doesn't mean it's magic.

  That might be a valid point - except at no stage did I make any claims about it being "magic".

  I would sure like to know what it was, though!
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  68

  The paranormal.

  by Lost in the fog in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i know that a lot of the people on here have turned their backs on the idea of a deity deciding that god does not exist.

  but what about the unseen spirit world generally such as poltergeists, jinns, voodoo, etc.

  if you have become agnostic, atheist, or just don't care since leaving, do you think that there are spirits out there or have you decided that is also hokum?

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  Bungi Bill

  While living in Papua New Guinea, I did observe a number of happenings that cannot be explained by science. These weren't anything to do with poltergeists, witches, ghosts etc - but rather come under the heading of what might be termed "Extra-Sensory Perception" (ESP).

  In particular, the easy ability of so many of its people to locate missing objects was rather awe-inspiring.

  I could go on at length, but one example stood out amongst many others. That happened one Friday afternoon, when I arrived home from carrying out an inspection of the two hydro-electric plants, and discovered that my keys were missing. (I used to carry my key-ring on a Karabiner clip attached to my belt).

  The obvious place to look for missing keys is under, around or on top of the car seat - but a thorough search of those places revealed nothing. So I then retraced my steps of where I had been that afternoon, beginning with the lower power station. When that proved unsuccessful, the station staff alerted the upper power station over the VHF Radio Network that I was on my way up to them.

  On arrival at the top hydro plant, its security guard went straight for my vehicle (a double cab Toyota Hilux 4WD), opened the rear right hand door, reached behind the rear seat, and produced my keys. (Just in case you are wondering, I was the vehicle's only occupant throughout that afternoon, and had never even sat in the rear seat!) The road between the two hydro stations had a very steep section, which could only be negotiated using Four Wheel Drive, and its surface was extremely rough (rough enough to "shake the fillings loose from your teeth!"). What had happened was that after the clip broke from my belt, the key ring hit the floor and was then shaken, bounced and tumbled both backwards and upwards until it lodged itself behind the rear seat.

  The most uncanny thing of all about this was that the security guard said he knew immediately where the key ring was, as soon as he overheard the radio call.

  I am open to suggestions, bu this and similar events in PNG have left me seriously wondering about Extra Sensory Perception!
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  43

  A Cult Tactic: Removing Guilt By Dehumanising Others

  by pale.emperor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in the real world, very few parents would disown their own children simply because they read a magazine that told them to do it.

  very few people would forever completely ignore their own parents because an elder got up on a platform one day and announced that they no longer follow the same religion as you.. in the real world it just doesn't happen.

  and yet, for 8 million jehovah's witnesses it's very a normal part of their world to treat "other people" differently than they'd treat each other.

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  Bungi Bill

  Diogenesister,

  Very well summed up!