the july 2025 watchtower has a paragraph that claims that it was the superior power and wisdom of jehovah that guided the gb into allowing jws to grow beards.. the study article is ‘can you still learn from basic bible teachings?’ under the subheading ‘jehovah is the creator’ paragraph 7 states-.
“ 7. what did rahela do to accept a change in direction?.
your answer.
Wearing beards are just a sign of the laziness and rebelliousness of the people today.
"Laziness", did you say?
In fact, keeping a properly groomed beard (such as depicted in TD's post) requires at least the same amount of effort and attention as does being clean shaven.
I speak here from experience!
i like to take a peek at the kids over on reddit every week or so.. this thread caught my eye:" curious….
do any ex jw or pimo, still believe the world is ending.
i see people who have never been witnesses think that the world will end soon and they say things like “jesus is coming soon”….
It would seem that each generation has had its "The End is nigh" moment (e.g. Barry Maguire's 1965 song Eve of Destruction).
Certainly, this time around the world order of things has reached another crossroad in history. The "old" order of things is now rapidly unravelling itself. It must be remembered, though, that the present order of things only established itself after WWII - following the 30 years of instability which WWI ("The Great War") initiated.
In turn, the order of things prior to WWI had survived for 100 years, following the Battle of Waterloo - a pivotal battle which ended the chaos caused by French Revolution.
And so on it goes, all the way back through history!
If there ever was a time when human beings had justification for thinking the "End of the World" had really arrived, the year 536 AD would have to be a front contender:
The closest that they ever came to offering a written apology first appeared in the 1980 Yearbook of Jehovahs Witnesses.
That yearbook statement referred to something which was said in one of the previous year's District Convention talks. This so-called "apology" was again repeated in the Watchtower of 15th March 1980.
According to Raymond Franz in Crisis of Conscience, this "apology of an apology" was a much watered-down version of the one he pushed to be made. (With at least one Governing Body member all for just saying nothing at all and hoping that people would just quietly forget the whole matter).
oh yeah, this is going to end well.
hold on to your seats, folks, we’re on the front row of history for, as the chinese might say, “interesting times”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rgkkl7v8lo.
it still has the largest military by orders of magnitude with bases round the globe.
That, too, is now being challenged by China.
In terms of manpower, the Chinese armed forces are the largest in the world, with over 2,000,000 active service personnel, plus a reserve force of some 500,000. (In terms of numbers, the USA comes in at third place - behind both India and China).
China has the largest navy in the world, with a current strength of 370 ocean-going ships - plus a coastal defence fleet of almost as many vessels. Furthermore, its ship building capacity is estimated as being some 270 times as great as that of the US. Not surprisingly then, its navy is still rapidly growing in size, with most of its ships having been built since 2010 (versus just 10% of the US Navy's ships). This navy has also demonstrated its growing global capability. Over the last several months, we in Australia have been reminded enough about that; with Chinese warships carrying out exercises (including live firing drills) just outside of Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone. Like the pre-WWI Imperial German Navy, that of China consists of a fleet of very modern warships. About the only edge the US Navy still has is its extensive, worldwide network of bases.
While the USA and Russia still have far more nuclear weapons than anybody else (each with over 5,000 devices at their disposal), the 600 odd nuclear weapons which China has are still enough to pose a serious threat. And just like its navy, China is rapidly building up its nuclear arsenal. The "missile gap" is closing at a rapid rate of knots!
America would now need to be cautious when assuming military superiority over China.
You know the old story about the word "assume"?
To ASSUME has a habit of making an ASS out of U and ME
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
There is no end to this 1500-year-old argument!
usa politicians in charge of the economy for the past 50 years were too stupid to understand how the economy works.
this just proves my theory, that an education on the top tier universities just sucks and means nothing in the real world, unless its in the stem education.
for 50 years usa had zero tariffs on other countries.
The only person who can remove human-led tyrannical governments altogether is God.
He's removing them.
Thank God.
Good luck to you with that one!
Generations of Jehovahs Witnesses have been disappointed (and continue to be disappointed), whilst expecting that event to happen.
usa politicians in charge of the economy for the past 50 years were too stupid to understand how the economy works.
this just proves my theory, that an education on the top tier universities just sucks and means nothing in the real world, unless its in the stem education.
for 50 years usa had zero tariffs on other countries.
TD
The days of standing at a machine all day are gone,
That was the point, namely, that those expecting the return of manufacturing to bring with it a return of the same number of jobs as previously are going to be disappointed. Furthermore, whatever the rights and wrongs of this situation, attempts to reverse it (Ref. AnnaNana) are going to be no more successful than those of the Luddites.
usa politicians in charge of the economy for the past 50 years were too stupid to understand how the economy works.
this just proves my theory, that an education on the top tier universities just sucks and means nothing in the real world, unless its in the stem education.
for 50 years usa had zero tariffs on other countries.
The first thing that popped into my head was manufacturing, but production can include a lot of things
It also includes primary industries - such as mining, farming and forestry. These, too, have in many ways been transformed by automation.
For example:
If everybody just worked their own land without kings or rulers, there'd be no need for taxes or tariffs.
The trouble with that idea is that it only takes one bad season, and you would have famine. This was very much the case during 16th Century Europe. On average in those times, one summer out of three was a poor one, the harvest failed, and people then starved.
The same thing still happens today, in those places where people still rely on subsistence farming. (Sorry - but I myself have observed this firsthand). Then, if famine relief measures do reach the people so affected, it is often provided by governments of developed countries.
usa politicians in charge of the economy for the past 50 years were too stupid to understand how the economy works.
this just proves my theory, that an education on the top tier universities just sucks and means nothing in the real world, unless its in the stem education.
for 50 years usa had zero tariffs on other countries.
The word "progress" is a relative term,
I have always understood that term to mean technological advancement - and that is what I was referring to.
The Luddites of the 18th Century failed in their time to halt the advance of technology, as likewise would any attempts to do the same in this third decade of the 21st Century.
Things weren't exactly utopian before the industrial revolution, either. While the living conditions of the early Victorian era would appear to us as grim (certainly when viewed from a 21st Century developed nation's perspective), these actually represented a marked improvement over the living conditions of just a few decades earlier.
People working their own land might sound like a wonderful idea - until one has actually seen the reality. I have lived in a Third World country (Papua New Guinea) where 85% of the population exists by subsistence farming (i.e. "working their own land") and that, also, is far from utopian! For those poor wretches, famine is always a very real threat, and never far away. All it takes is a natural disaster - such as drought, flood, cyclone, fire or some agricultural pest (which can be as simple as the pigs getting through the fence and destroying the food garden!) - and people starve. Furthermore, their primitive methods of agriculture are in no way sustainable. Usually described as the "slash and burn" approach, it is extremely destructive to the environment.
It seems to be human nature to keep hankering after "the good old days"; while ignoring the fact that those "old days" were often not as good as people imagine them to have been.
usa politicians in charge of the economy for the past 50 years were too stupid to understand how the economy works.
this just proves my theory, that an education on the top tier universities just sucks and means nothing in the real world, unless its in the stem education.
for 50 years usa had zero tariffs on other countries.
He has a better way, and it is coming.
Well that, of course, takes the discussion off in an entirely different direction - and is a dialogue which I would prefer not to engage in! (Not right now, anyway).
Certainly, mechanisation of industry has always brought with it certain social dislocations. However, in the past, these have been more than offset by its benefits.
For example, when mechanisation of the textile industry began in the 18th century, traditional crafts such as hand-weaving became obsolete. Persons who previously worked in those now obsolete hand crafts, though, could quickly be retrained as factory workers. The result was a much greater output of textiles, which made clothing much more affordable.
Another case is the mechanisation of civil engineering activities, which took place between the two world wars. The question was back then raised "You have introduced one bulldozer, which does the work of at least 100 men. What now happens to the other 99 workers?" The answer was "We obtain another 99 bulldozers". Most former labourers could easily be retrained to operate such earthmoving plant as a bulldozer, and the result was a spectacular increase in output. This made possible such activities as the open cut mining of very low-grade mineral deposits. (One example of that being some of the world's largest gold mines, where the ore yields just 0.3 grams of gold per ton. To recover just one ounce of gold, they have to process some 16 tons of ore. A person using hand tools would be there a long, long time trying to win their single ounce of gold!)
It would have to be admitted, though, that the social problems resulting from the present level of industrial automation are a much harder nut to crack. Not every redundant factory hand has the makings of an IT specialist!
That being said, you will never, ever stem the tide of progress:
Progress will never be halted, but the present unresolved social issues that have resulted could easily leave a person hoping for that man on a white horse to step in and rescue us all!
