Is life getting better or worse?

for ex-BKs to discuss matters related to experiences in BKWSU & after leaving.
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Mike26

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Re: Is life getting better or worse?

Post18 Jul 2011

Your responses simply encourage me to rest my case. you prove my point. You are a rationalizers dream I'll say that.
I meet people every day recognizing through verification all you deem as idle fantasy and the like. You are a testament to the power of blinkers and selective perception - but hey they have been teaching you this for years.

I really have to smile. Only time will oblige you to think again. There are none so easy to enslave as those who believe they are free already.

I wish you well in your comfortable little sand castle.
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ex-l

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Re: Is life getting better or worse?

Post18 Jul 2011

Better or worse ... Polio. A historically devastating disease that was virtually eliminated from the Western hemisphere in the second half of the 20th century having plagued humans since ancient times. No thanks to the Brahma Kumaris meditating their asses off, nor political revolution.

Mike,

You are not listening. You are just repeating your stock answers, assuming we know nothing and accusing us of being deniers. That is not our position. There are more than two camps; "believer versus denier" ... And to leave on an insult like that is pretty bad manners.

I gave you my answer and opened up some serious questions, here. You avoid answering them. I ask, "so what are you going to do about it? Are you guys just going to "know" the bogeymen out of existence? What *can* you practically achieve and how?"

BTW, are you a member of the Peace Tax Campaign and refusing to pay your taxes ... or are does your lifestyle actually fund the Global Conspiracy?

You say, "look at all the wars" because the smallest war overwhelms most individuals' minds. I say, well, is the amount of conflict disproportionate to the amount of power and wealth that exists now (because there is disproportionately more power and wealth and less land than there was 100 years ago)? Frankly, I think there is amazingly more peace, less wars and more rule of law than ever before ... even despite humanity's worst nature.

The promise big one ... CCCP via America ... is not going to happen (in days of old, the BKWSU had to change the picture of the US and Soviet presidents in their Godly prediction paintings because the world did not end). Now the Global Paranoa-ists have invented another to frighten people with, "The UN versus the US" ... (which, actually, I might join in with on the side of the United Nations, if ever that one ever happens. We need to stop the United States of Obesity from devouring the world) ... or perhaps even, the "Illuminati versus Everyone".

The thing that really depressed me about most political radicals, is that they all buy the same beer and cigarettes, and consume the same consumer products that the right wing global capitalists produce ... thereby financially supporting the very thing they spent all their time raising funds off others to fight against.

The only way we can save the world is by everyone becoming a non-smoking, tree hugging, whale loving, vegan hobbit. The problem is, no one is buying that one.

Mike26

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Re: Is life getting better or worse?

Post19 Jul 2011

Perhaps you missed reading some of my earlier contributions. The ones that talk about the Venus project, transition communities and mass non-participation in the system.

Anyway, remember the life of Brian - the monty python film? That scene is still amusing in which they are all hanging on the crosses at the end and eric idle begins to sing 'Always look on the bright side'. A great scene. Well you know things are not so bad - could be worse - look on the bright side - hysterical.
And the scene that starts 'What have the Romans ever done for us' The list consists of roads, sanitation, law and order etc. Classic. The real point being the Romans built those infrastructures to enable passage of the military and provisions, systems that enabled them to prosecute their empire building and live a comfortable life at the same time. The people of the conquered countries only benefitted by association with that. None of it was for the people. At the end of the day despite the better standard of living they were slaves to the Romans and had their land occupied by conquerors.

I did a survey of 90 people at random this week in my workplace and asked them if they thought life was better now. Most agreed it was not better in many ways it was worse. Superficially some things had improved but the general quality of life, of happiness, had not improved.
All depends on your measure of 'Better' of course and agreeing definitions.

Recent world wide surveys tell us that 90% of the worlds population own less that 1% of the worlds wealth. While just over 1% of the worlds population own 50% of the worlds wealth. it also indicates the worlds wealth is concentrated in a small minority of countries like USA, Europe, Japan and Australia - in mostly Western industiralised countries. 500 years ago a small minority of Aristocrats and and nobles owned most of the wealth while the peasants owned virutally nothing. You really believe things have changed for the better for the majority of people? The statistics from studies would suggest little has changed and the greater part of the world, which consists of countries outside Europe and USA
has a dire standard of living and face a struggle for survival every day.

But hey - always look on the bright side.....whistle whistle

In the last 50 years psychiatric conditions have risen to huge level, along with the administering of psychotropic drugs to treat massive world-wide levels of stress, depression and anxiety. We have the average life expectency of a South african is 36 due to HIV/AIDS, and unprecedented levels of suicide among young people and those in old age.

But hey...always look on the bright side...whistle whistle

Go and have a chat with the Greeks why don't you and tell that they have never had it so good.

As many well informed commentators suggest the system we have developed has become ever more fast paced, psychologically demanding, stressful and time consuming. The striving for more efficient systems of economy and state has result in the system working to oppress and diminish the quality of life for the majority of people. This was a system designed to serve the people originally which now enslaves billions to the clock, the quest for efficiency and GDP. We have woman now working in the higher stratas of the corporate world over the last 50 years due to the greater equality of women and as this trend has increased so has the occurance of stress related illnesses, heat disease and type A lifestyles, including alcohol addiction.

But hey...always look on the bright side...whistel whistle.

In the last 50 years cancer rates have risen massively. This is a dramatic difference to days gone by. Recent statistics show that between 4 and 5 people out of every ten will get cancer at some time in their lives.

But things are not that bad - its mostly better than it was before -- is not it?

We have terrorism, global climate change, wars, famine, resources running out, a world-wide population that the UN tells us we won't be able to feed by 2050, the biggest human trafficking networks ever discovered, the highest levels of child abuse, rampant domestic abuse and drug addiction, the highest abortion rates in Europe and teenage pregnancies.

But hey ....always look on the bright side - its not so bad.

In the pace of polio we have diabetes, ebola, obesity, eating disorders, superbugs and viruses, avian flu, a new range of illnesses caused by the use of prescribed medications, the return of TB, massive bowel and stomach cancer rates, radiation, aluminium in the water etc.

Now we have a world wide system which in many ways effects people over the globe in a way that was not possible before. The conflicts in one area are brought to the living rooms often daily through the media etc. This was not possible in centuries gone by were wars and their effects were often more localized. There is a wealth of literature on how global systems of information exchange regarding wars and traumatic effects increase the levels of stress and effect the quality of life in people living in countries far removed from the conflicts.

When considering the question is life better now that in the past - we need to look at the issue holistically - to look at the quality of peoples emotional and psychological life rather than limiting the issue to having a sanitation or cars. We are often blinkered regarding the suffering of others.
some friends of mine live in southern california. They have every thing that makes them happy. Because of this there answer would be of course life is better. Its great. For them it is. they don't want to acknowledge that they belong to a tiny minority who live that way. Last year they went to Kenya for a holiday. There they witnessed real poverty and struggle for survival and saw hoe this was the common plight of all but a few there. It was so unbearable they cut the holiday short it depressed them so much. There comfortable little delusion was threatened directly and they fled. It is only when you look broadly at the world do we realize how rare and how privelaged our lifestyle is compared to the majority.

still singing...always look on the bright side...whistle

Its great fun on this forum - long may it continue!
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Mr Green

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Re: Is life getting better or worse?

Post19 Jul 2011

your spoiling the forum mike, by trying to engage ex-l in a moody tiff you are being very boring, we've had your kind here before, show off berties, contributing very little except negativity and criticism

reading doesn't make you intelligent, that comes from listening and shutting up for a minute

if you don't like this forum or the long term members then go and start a new one, I am sure you'll get plenty of members that need to be educated by you

good luck
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ex-l

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Argumentum Verbosium or Proof by Intimidation

Post19 Jul 2011

What are you suggesting Mike, a return to a carrying, sharing Communism ... or is this just not more "Argumentum Verbosium" (proof by Intimidation)?

How many of these people, below, would trade places with these people in the past?

Which is better life in Russia today, 50 years ago or 100 years ago ... (and how many 70 year olds would expected to still be able to rock and roll back then?).


As I have said before, I am concerned your technique of argument is still too close to the Brahma Kumaris. It is like you have been possessed by soul of Jagdish Chander, after reading too much Marxism and David Icke.

    Everything is "global" scale doom and gloom ... you pick mentally traumatising examples that are beyond the comprehension of most ordinary people ... you pepper your arguments with fallacies, false facts, and then ... beat our heads with it all until we submit. But I still don't know what the alternative is and how it is going to come about.

"Argumentum Verbosium" or "Proof by Intimidation" ... a fallacious form of argument.

Proof by intimidation or proof by verbosity is an argument that is so complex, so long-winded and so poorly presented by the arguer that listeners are obliged to accept it, simply to avoid being forced to sift through its minute details. It is beloved of pandits the world over.

OK Mike, you have a habit of not answering questions whilst burying the conversation in doom. Let's be constructive about this. As an enlightened person, how free and different are you exactly? I am being serious now.

What life changes have you made?
Mike26 wrote:And the scene that starts 'What have the Romans ever done for us' The list consists of roads, sanitation, law and order etc. Classic.




Actually, Roman principles of Law and, especially, Latin were two great things that the Romans did for the world. Latin united Europe, spread learning across nations and still underpins scientific and medical understanding. Thank you Caesar for knocking the Celts into order and uniting us. Thank you for public knowledge of civil law and judicial procedures, the evolution of law according to precedent and circumstances, and the idea that universal rights of humanity can provide the basis for positive human made laws ... somethings the BKs STILL have not got 2,000 years later!

I think the UN figures you were looking for are that richest 2% of adults in the world own more than 50% of all "household wealth" (not total wealthy) and that the poorer 50% of the world's population own barely 1% of 'global wealth' ... but then you contradict yourself by saying wealth does make us happy (which I agree with). 100 years ago 90% of the world population own NO wealth, so things are getting better. "Money cannot buy you love" but it can buy you a bed, a house and midwife and some dentistry ... even if it is a myth that a money free existence equates to "dire standards of living and daily struggle".

In the last 50 years, 'statistics' of psychiatric illness have risen because,

    a) it is good for the business of the medical companies,
    b) people's life expectations are higher, and
    c) more have been defined and invented.
Again you contradict yourself because prior to the 20th C, everyone was so overwhelmed with "dire standards of living and daily struggle" that they did not have time to consider how mentally ill they were (or were not). Eccentricity or melancholia was just accepted as normal (as was death by syphilis and life expectancy of 25 - 35). I doubt the proportions have changed significantly ... humans are a faulted design.

Most of what you write are just illness of greed, laziness, and overconsumption ... not evil design by the conspiracy. People just have to stop eating too much of what they cannot have.

On the other hand, look at all the free cataract, harelip, and other operations done in the Developing nations that have changed millions of lives which before were hellish.

Look at the fantastic improvements in Maternal Mortality ... down to 20, or even 0 per 100,000, where it was once 100 times that.

Greece ... for most people life goes on just the same as it always has done. Life is still FAR better than it was in the 1960s and 70s when the military junta ruled. If anyone wants to know the reality of the situation, there is a very good article here. (Short version, it would not be in trouble is everyone paid all the taxes they should and they are struggling under 10% illegal immigration).

For Western women, "heart disease, alcohol addiction" etc are not obligatory. They are just illness of increased wealth and greed, not management jobs nor corporations. Ditto, heart disease is due to increase age. Change diet and lifestyle.

Cancer rates have risen because we live longer. 50 years we were all dead by 65. Now we live to 80, and die by cancer. We need to die somehow and our current diet says cancer or heart attack, it is written into our DNA.

Life expectancy in South Africa is 51 years, not 35, and 70 if you are white. If South Africa is so bad, why have the number of UK citizens living there doubled in the last 5 years? I am sure you will agree, life is far better than it was under Apartheid.

The problem with some Blacks in Africa, just like many Homosexuals in the West, is that the men just will not control their trouser snakes. In Africa, it is all bound up with primitive male attitudes towards sex and superstitions. Should we really be that surprised if nature finds its own ways of re-balancing imbalances and teaching us harsh lessons? In the 19th C it was Syphilis, in the 20 th C it was AIDs. It is simple to cure, stay faithful to your wife and keep you zipper up (oh, I am sorry I forgot ... AIDs was a conspiracy designed by the Jewish-American Elite to kill off all the Africans so they could steal their lands, was it?).

Yes, we have still child abuse ... but we don't have child weddings any more. Nor the levels of child prostitution we had in the Victorian Period and before. I'd could easily tear apart your "biggest ever" claim ... in the 16th Century, history claims the Christians shipped anything up to 500,000 sex slaves out of Japan alone.

What was previously considered "normal" is now considered wrong ... and we have "high levels" because now we are enlightened enough to pay for systems to record, criminalise and police it, where before we did not.

Now we have a world wide system with which people can witness disasters half the world away and respond instantly with concern and vast generosity, as we have seen with the recent tsunamis ... human being grow when challenged.

Life has always been unequal and unfair ... a lottery of birth. Life does not owe us, sadly, but it is full of miracles.

Even if it is not "better", it is certainly getting longer ... (see below, World Life Expectancy 1950 to 2005).
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bkti-pit

Independent, free thinking BK

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Re: Is life getting better or worse?

Post17 Mar 2013

In some ways it might be getting worse but in some others it is definitely getting better:

because.parmeshwar

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Re: Is life getting better or worse?

Post17 Mar 2013

clearernow wrote:Hope you are doing fine. Just wanted to see how things are and what's new. How is your job going.

I am fine my dear Golden Age deity

i am excellent rather ... enjoying my life given by GOD..

Perhaps you are interested to know how I am living life after BK and want to tally it with your Baba’s teachings about what happens to soul who leave Baba.

My Job is also going fantastic ...

You changed your name...? i am not surprised.. after all it is BK teaching .. "MOULD (change) YOURSELF" according to time...

No self respect ... No Self esteem ... No Ego ... it is all Maya ...
I tell you, i never go to the place from where i got even the sign of unwelcome.

I believe strongly on tulsidas's saying,
AAVAT HI HARSHE NAHI NAINAN NAHI SANEH
TULSI TAHAN NA JAIYE CHAHE KANCHAN BARSE MEH

but all these saints are also dirty Shudra according to BK.. isnt it???

bp
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ex-l

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Re: Is life getting better or worse?

Post04 Nov 2013

In 'Nonkilling Global Political Science', Glenn D. Paige of the Center for Global Nonkilling estimated that less than 0.5 percent of all humans that ever existed actually killed another human being.

I am not sure if that is high or low but it looks like the other 95.5% don't have anything to worry about ... unless, of course, you're planning terrorist attack on the BKs at some point.

Please don't. They'll only get excited and think it is proof that everything their god spirit says is true and it *really must* be Destruction and the end of the world.

When you really become upset and angry, and feel strongly about how they wasted your life, please write a letter all about them complaining to the United Nations etc for giving them credibility instead and send a copy to the BKWSU too.

Feeling such angry thoughts is quite natural. It's even healthy. It's just your minds way of dealing with loss, driving you in a different direction ... but it does not mean you have to do it.

I say, feel angry, and then get even in a cool, calm and collected constructive manner. Don't bottle it in like they taught you - disempowered you - in the BKWSU. Expose them for what they truly are.
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