The concept of the rapture has already been made known to the masses. It will occur in the open, and everybody left behind will know someone who was raptured. And there will be evidence all over the world that this event occurred.
Some national leaders will disappear, celebrities in entertainment and professional sports will disappear, entire families will disappear, disbelieving spouses will see their mates vanish, children will disappear.
Bank accounts, homes, cars, businesses and relationships will be left behind. So, although the rapture will shock everybody and will be covered in the media and everybody left will be aware of someone who is gone, the leaders of the world will begin their great deception, trying to convince the population left behind that there was no rapture. How is this going to be accomplished? Well, pretty easily because most of the people left behind are already in a state of deception.
They have been deceived into believing that Jesus is not the Messiah; they have been deceived into believing that the word of God is not true; they have been deceived into living a lifestyle that only brings constant pain and suffering instead of the freedom and paradise that God offers. Those who were raptured will be counted among the dead. After the Rapture Shortly after the rapture, a seven-year period known in the Bible as the Great Tribulation will take place.
It will begin with the signing of a peace agreement between Israel and her enemies and it will end with the physical return of Jesus Christ to set up His kingdom on earth. In between, will be seven years of terror for those on earth. The following events and trends will take place in that seven-year period:. A man will arise who will achieve victory after victory both in politics and in war Rev This man, who should be easily identified by his rapid rise and popularity, is your the anti-christ.
Many people believe that this person must be Jewish. That is, in order for Jews to accept him as Messiah, only a Jew will suffice. This is not necessarily the case. The Bible does not specify that he is a Jew, and it does not specify nationality. Only God-fearing Jews will require a Jewish Messiah. Currently the new nickname for the United States is the Great Satan. This may have some significance. Violence will increase in all parts of the world, both nation against nation ethnic wars and domestically.
Men will indiscriminately slay one another as peace will be removed from the earth Rev These two men will proclaim the gospel and provide hope for those left behind. Their message is for the salvation of the soul. They will have no message as to how you can avoid the hell that life on earth has become, because there is no hope to avoid that tribulation. If you are left on earth, then your destiny is to suffer and more than likely die.
But you still have the hope of salvation. Listen to what these two men are preaching and turn to God. The Bible does not say who these two men are. Many speculate that they are Elijah and Enoch, two ancient prophets of God who never died.
Regardless, they will be responsible for many of the natural catastrophes that will wreak havoc on the property and economy of the earth.
They will turn water into blood and cause all kinds of plagues on earth and, in general, make life miserable for those who are living on earth. Also, they will be invincible, as many will try to kill them only to be killed by their own hands.
Those who attempt to blow them up will themselves be blown up; those who attempt to shoot them will have their guns explode in their hands; those who attempt to poison them will be poisoned by their own efforts. Only the world dictator will be able to kill them and only when God allows it. The purpose of all the misery that these two witnesses inflict on the earth dwellers is to turn people back to God in repentance.
The misery will be so great that when the world dictator does finally kill these two, the world will rejoice in a Christmas-like celebration, giving gifts to one another. He is the anti-christ. The , Jewish Witnesses Shortly after the rapture, God will call His army of , Jewish believers into service to provide a voice of hope for Jews throughout the world. The best friends and most staunch supporters of Jews have always been true, believing Christians. The rapture removed the Christian people from the earth and awakened the , to their purpose.
These , preach to Jews worldwide that Jesus is the Messiah. These , will be spread out worldwide and more than likely go about in pairs, two by two, as Jesus instructed His disciples to do. It will be these , who will oppose Israel signing a peace treaty for protection; it will be the , who will identify the anti-christ for who he is; it will be the , who will warn Israel of the treachery of the anti-christ, and it will be the , who will lead the Jews worldwide to the hiding place prepared for them by God in the Judean desert.
These , Jews are going to be strange people by normal standards: they will be celibate, very bold, fearless, spiritually strong and probably very much like John the Baptist. You can read more about the , witnesses in Revelation MoneyHard currency will become obsolete. This is no surprise, as banks and governments have been working to eliminate currency, coin money and paper transactions for decades.
Currency and coin is expensive to produce, lends itself readily for drug trafficking and, with high tech equipment, is too easily counterfeited. Banks desire to eliminate the teller position as an expense item, and with the elimination of paper checks and currency, all financial transactions can be handled with a computer.
The debit card will become the tool for all personal financial transactions. However, at some point after the rapture, probably right after the two witnesses are killed, everyone will be required to get a mark on their right hand or forehead in order to buy and sell.
Do not, do not, do not under any circumstances participate by receiving this mark. By taking this mark you are swearing allegiance to the anti-christ. You may as well attempt to enjoy life as best you can because eternity for you will be hell. Those who have taken the mark will persecute those without the mark. God will render judgment on those with the mark by inflicting them with a disgusting looking and very painful ulcer covering their bodies.
So how can a person without the mark survive and still buy and sell? Therefore, save up for yourself gold; gold has always had value as money and always will, even in a cashless society. Identify one of these profiteers and seek to purchase food and living supplies from him.
As such, lack of overall food availability per se plays a less prominent role in causing famine today than it did historically. Better integrated food markets have on the whole helped to ease acute localized food price volatility due to bad harvests. Food shortages that lead to higher prices create an incentive for traders to increase the supply of food, thereby preventing shortages developing into outright food crises. Thus the absence of markets, or presence of badly functioning markets, can be a key part of why people are not able to obtain enough food.
Where means of transport is lacking, trade between surplus and deficit regions can be hampered, as well as making the distribution of food aid much harder during crises. Comparable climatic conditions that sparked two famines in northern China, in the s and s respectively, brought about million deaths in the first case and half a million in the latter.
One important difference that can explain this moderated impact is the availability of greatly improved transport infrastructure that was constructed in the interim which allowed for prompt relief efforts to take place. The more limited development of transport infrastructure in parts of Africa has played a contributory role in a number of recent famines on the continent. Where traders have some monopoly power over local markets, hoarding can be a way of increasing profits by making prices rise.
Even without monopoly power, where traders collectively expect prices to increase, for whatever reason, it can make sense for them not to sell storable food to final consumers immediately, but rather wait for the higher prices, thereby restricting the current overall supply to consumers.
Again, this is part of the normal functioning of a market which encourages food to be transferred from periods of relative plenty to those of relative scarcity. Such self-fulfilling expectations of price increases can occur simply where people have mutually reinforcing, but nonetheless mistaken beliefs about future supply. According to Ravaillion , such a dynamic was indeed at play during the Bangladesh famine, in which food prices soared despite there being no significant drop in food production or in overall food availability per person.
For instance, where a weather event such as the severe flooding that occurred during the Bangladesh famine of makes people think there will be shortages, resulting panic buying and price speculation can itself then produce scarcity artificially.
It also shows a sharp increase in the differences in food prices between different regions in Bangladesh as measured by the standard deviation. This is evidence that, during the famine, markets became more spatially segregated — i. The absence of properly functioning markets thus contributed to the localized scarcities. International aid continues to play a large role in addressing food security, both in emergency situations and to help relieve more persistent periods of food insufficiency the World Food Program collects data on the quantity and value of international food aid and is available here.
The development of better monitoring systems, such as the Famine Early Warning System , has given the international relief community more advanced notice of developing food crises, although such early warnings by no means guarantee a sufficient aid response, nor that secure access to affected areas will be granted.
Thus, whilst drought or flood-caused crop failure might naturally seem to be high up on a list of causes of famine, this was far truer of famines in the past. Nowadays, crop failure is better understood as an important contributing factor rather than a sufficient cause of famine: food crises due simply to localized drops in production do not tend to develop into full-blown famines with high excess mortality unless exacerbated through more overtly human influences.
As Amartya Sen argued, the fact that there may be enough food available in aggregate within a given area does not necessarily mean that everyone will be able to afford it. Food crises are often precipitated by spikes in the price of food relative to wages, or the collapse in the price of assets owned.
The latter commonly accompanies famines due to many people all at once trying to sell their assets for instance their livestock in order to be able to buy more food. Wealthy countries have very few people living in such extreme absolute poverty , both because of higher incomes before tax and benefits, but also due higher government expenditures and transfers.
It is therefore unsurprising that those countries in which famines occur do tend to be very poor. Here we show the inflation-adjusted income per capita of each country at the time they experienced a famine, with some reference points on the vertical axis.
As you can see, most countries in which a famine took place had, at the time, average incomes less than half of that of the UK at the outset of its industrial revolution. You can see that average incomes in India — a country that historically suffered very heavily from famine — has grown rapidly in recent decades, and at the same time has been famine free.
African countries, conversely, have on the whole has remained very poor and make up the majority of recent famines. As well as proxying for the presence of extreme poverty, this relationship also reflects the fact that poorer countries also tend have less adequate facilities like transport infrastructure, sanitation and systems of healthcare that play a key role in preventing or moderating the impacts of food shortages.
Whilst poverty certainly increases the vulnerability of a country, we should be careful not to think of it as the single, or even the most important, cause of famine, given the typically political nature of most outbreaks of famine.
He suggested that democratic authorities are incentivized by elections to be more responsive to food crises and that the presence of a free press can quickly draw attention to the event and hold government to account.
According to the definitions we have adopted, three famines since took place in democracies. The St. Lawrence Island famine of is listed as occurring in the USA. However, it took place on a very remote Alaskan island populated by the indigenous Yupik people, that had relatively little interaction with mainland USA. In the case of Sudan, according to its Polity IV score, there was a brief spell of democracy, following elections held in But it is somewhat misleading to consider the famine occurring in southern Sudan in as happening under conditions of a functioning democracy.
According to Wikipedia , in the majority of seats in the southern regions voting was in fact suspended for the election.
In the third case, that of Maharashtra in India in , whilst there is no ambiguity as to the political regime type, there has been some disagreement as to whether excess mortality in fact occurred.
This is discussed further in the Data Quality and Definition section below. In any case, whilst in absolute terms it is certain that the drought caused enormous suffering, whatever excess mortality that did occur in Maharashtra was very much lower than the major famines occurring under totalitarian regimes in roughly the same period. It is important to note, however, that the question of how often famines have occurred within democracies crucially depends upon the definition of famine being used.
In particular, what, if any, excess mortality lower-bound is being used yields different answers. This leaves only the three democracy famine events discussed above. Regardless of the threshold though, the main point remains the same: famines tend not to occur in democracies, and none of the catastrophic life-taking famines documented in history have occurred in the context of functioning democratic institutions. Many of the major famine events in our table occurred as the consequence of international or civil war.
For some of these, famine was used as an intentional part of political or military strategy. Despite the plan only being partially executed, over 4. In terms of more recent events, from the second half of the 20th century onwards, famines in Africa have become increasingly associated with civil war, and include a number of crises in places that were not previously prone to famines at all, such as Mozambique and Biafra in Nigeria.
In addition to the direct casualties, conflict can also generate disruption to production and trade and can encourage the spread of disease epidemics, particularly through forced migration. It is mainly in the context of conflict that major death-dealing famines can be expected today.
It is important to note that, as opposed to dying from literal starvation, the vast majority of people that die during famines actually succumb to infectious disease or other illnesses, with some diseases being more directly linked to diet than others. Famines brought on by drought often go hand-in-hand with a scarcity of clean drinking water that increases the threat of cholera and other diseases.
Increased migration and the disruption of personal hygiene and sanitation routines and healthcare systems also increases the risk of outbreaks of infections diseases, all in the context of a population already weakened through malnourishment. This is particularly true in places where such diseases are already endemic.
Thus, in sub-Saharan Africa where vaccination rates for measles have been relatively low , the disease has been a big killer during modern famines in the region alongside other infectious and parasitic diseases common in non-crisis times. In each case, it can be seen that communicable diseases were the ultimate cause of death in the majority of cases.
Note that, for India and Moscow, the excess mortality attributable to starvation is not available separately. This is in contrast to some famines that occurred in industrialised countries during WWII, in a context of overall healthier populations and systems of sanitation that were maintained to some degree despite the crisis. In these instances disease played far less of a role, with deaths from starvation correspondingly higher.
In February , parts of South Sudan were officially declared by the UN as being in famine — the first such declaration since By May the famine had apparently receded, thanks to an effective aid response that averted large-scale loss of life. And yet, the crisis was far from over. Here we look in more detail into the famine declaration in South Sudan, in order to understand better how famine is defined today and how this fits in with our understanding of famines in the past.
The IPC lays out thresholds across three dimensions of outcomes, all of which must be evidenced in order for a famine to be declared in a certain area:.
A few things are worth noting about this definition. Firstly, these thresholds represent only the most severe rank of the IPC food insecurity classification. The system ranges from Phase 1 to Phase 5, with 5 corresponding to a famine situation.
Lower phases of food insecurity are categorized by lower thresholds in each of the three dimensions above. Secondly, it is important to see that such thresholds are a measure of intensity rather than magnitude. Thus different assessments of food security trends will often be made depending on the geographic level of analysis. An amelioration at a very local level is perfectly compatible with an overall deterioration of the food security status of a country as whole.
And this is exactly what happened in South Sudan over the course of It was the intensity of the food security situation in Unity State in January shown in dark red colors , which brought about the famine declaration later in February, with IPC Phase 5 thresholds being confirmed in some parts.
By May the situation in Unity State had somewhat abated due to humanitarian relief efforts, but the food security situation of most other parts of the country had deteriorated significantly. Just as different parts of a country can have different food security statuses, different households can, and typically do, experience different levels of food insecurity within any given geographic area.
Rather than looking at geographical subdivisions, one way of getting a sense of how different people are faring in a food emergency is to look at the numbers of individual households experiencing different levels of food insecurity. Since nutritional status and mortality data are typically collected for whole populations in a given area, only the food consumption and livelihood change dimension is used to categorize food security at the household level — though signs of malnutrition or excess mortality within the household are used to confirm the presence of extreme food gaps at the higher insecurity rankings.
So whilst the household-level classification considers fewer outcomes only food deficits, as opposed to nutritional or mortality outcomes , it does allow for an assessment of the magnitude of a food emergency in terms of the absolute number of people being affected at different levels of severity. Looking at the household data for South Sudan over offers another angle on the evolution of the crisis.
The two tables shown give the number of people estimated to be at a given level of insecurity across the different States in January first table and May second table. With such a disaggregation we can see that the humanitarian provision, targeted to the most in need in Unity State, did indeed bring down the number of people experiencing the very worst food insecurity.
However, if we look at the number of individuals in Phase 3 Crisis or worse food insecurity, we see not only a deterioration in the country as a whole The Household Group IPC classification can be used to get a sense of the scale of the food emergencies currently underway.
The numbers estimated to be in need of emergency assistance in , as defined by FEWS, did represent a peak in recent times 45 — and humanitarian needs remained high in This, however, does not imply an expectation that famine mortality would rise to the levels seen in the midth Century.
The IPC system is fundamentally geared towards preventing famines, rather than assessing their severity after the event. As stated in the IPC Manual, Rather, in order to inform real-time decision-making, the IPC thresholds for famine… are set to signify the beginning of famine stages. It is important to bear this in mind when trying to compare such assessments with famine trends over time.
In reference to the discussion above, this can be thought of as a measure of magnitude only along one dimension: mortality. Official famine declarations based on the IPC Area classification, like that made for South Sudan in , do not straightforwardly map on to such an analysis. For instance, given the larger population being affected, it is quite possible that more people have died due to food consumption deficits since early in Yemen than in South Sudan, despite the intensity of the former crisis not having brought about a famine declaration in any part of the country so far.
Sorry to be neo-Malthusian about it, but continuing population growth in this region makes periodic famine unavoidable … Many of the children saved by the money raised over the next few weeks will inevitably be back again in similar feeding centres with their own children in a few years time. It is not uncommon to see arguments along the lines of this quote from Sir Jonathan Porritt, claiming that famines are ultimately caused by overpopulation. From such a perspective, the provision of humanitarian aid to famine-afflicted countries, however well intended, represents only a temporary fix.
In this view it fails to address the fundamental issue: there simply being too many mouths to feed. As mentioned in the quote, this suggestion is commonly associated with the name of Thomas Robert Malthus, the English political economist writing at the turn of the nineteenth century. But does the evidence support this idea?
Here we look into the relationship between population growth and famine, as well as that between population growth and hunger more generally. This chart compares the number of famine deaths per decade — based on our famine dataset — with the world population over the same period. We might naturally think that the explanation for this trend lies in increasing agricultural production. Indeed, food supply per person has consistently increased in recent decades, as we can see in the interactive line chart shown.
The large increase in global population being met with an even greater increase in food supply largely due to increases in yields per hectare. However, looking at the issue in this way is too simple. As we discuss in our entry on Famines , insufficient aggregate food supply per person is just one factor that can bring about famine mortality. Contemporary famine scholarship tends to suggest that insufficient aggregate food supply is less important than one might think, and instead emphasises the role of public policy and violence: in most famines of the 20th and 21st centuries, conflict, political oppression, corruption, or gross economic mismanagement on the part of dictatorships or colonial regimes played a key role.
The same also applies for the most acutely food-insecure countries today. It is also true of the famine in Somalia referred to above, in which food aid was greatly restricted, and in some cases diverted, by militant Islamist group al Shabaab and other armed opposition groups in the country. Thus, all in all, the recent history of famine mortality does not fit the Malthusian narrative particularly well.
Firstly, contrary to what Malthus predicted for rapidly increasing populations, food supply per person has — in all regions — increased as populations have grown. Secondly, famines have not become more, but less frequent. Thirdly, in the modern era the occurrence of major famine mortality, and its prevention, is something for which politics and policy seem the more salient triggers. Given the typically political nature of outbreaks of such famine crises, it may make more sense to look for an effect of population growth on the longer-term trends of hunger and malnutrition.
But again, at the global level, we know that population growth has been accompanied by a downward trend in hunger. As we discuss in our entry on Hunger and Undernourishment , in recent decades the proportion of undernourished people in the world has fallen , and, although more muted, this fall is also seen in the absolute number.
The number of people dying globally due to insufficient calorie or protein intake has also fallen, from almost half a million in the s to roughly , in the most recent data, as shown in the visualisation. We can also look at the experiences of individual countries, rather than just at the global level. Do those countries with particularly high population growth rates find it harder to adequately feed its population?
GHI is a composite measure, out of , that combines four indicators: undernourishment , child wasting , child stunting , and child mortality. The first scoring was conducted in , and was then repeated every eight years with the most recent being in carried out in The score is based on data collected in the years leading up to the scoring year, and as such reflect the hunger levels in this period rather than solely capturing conditions in the year itself.
All the countries for which there was GHI data available between and are shown in the three charts. Of the countries for which we do have GHI data, it is clear that those with higher levels of hunger have also tended to have had higher population growth over the last 25 years first chart. It is important to see though that among the countries for which we have GHI scores in both and , the level of hunger went down in all but one — Iraq second chart.
Over the same period population went up in almost every case. Moreover, those countries that experienced higher levels of population growth in fact saw a bigger drop in their GHI score over this period. The countries that saw high population growth over this period started with higher levels of hunger in So what we are seeing here is that countries are converging towards lower levels of hunger: it fell quickest in countries with the highest levels of hunger third chart.
So whilst countries that experience hunger do tend to have high levels of population growth, the idea that population growth necessarily leads to increased hunger is clearly mistaken: many countries with high population growth have recently managed to decrease levels of hunger substantially.
Environmental degradation, including climate change, does pose a threat to food security , and the growth of human populations has undoubtedly exacerbated many environmental pressures. This has been the case since the religion's inception in the 's, triggered by each prominent war, recession, earthquake, famine or epidemic. COVID is no exception. The global response to Covid has meant that the death rate from this virus is significantly less than similar pandemics in the past. This is an incredible advancement, yet Watchtower draws on control through fear by presenting Covid as proof pestilence is greater than ever before, and the Last Days are at their end.
To believe such shows tragic historical ignorance. Disease takes a lower toll on human life than any other time in history, proven by the global life expectancy having doubled over the last century. Are these the Last Days? JWFacts is delighted to promote www. Watchtower is coming under increasing scrutiny for how they have dealt with pedophiles by the media and courts. This article explains Watchtower policy regarding child abuse, and how these policies have provided protection for known pedophiles to continue offending within congregations.
This article discusses the history of bearded brothers, quotes Watchtower advice on the matter, and shows how it is enforced by social identification pressure. Continue reading If you are studying with one of Jehovah's Witnesses, click the image for a pamphlet explaining fundamental Watchtower concepts and practices you should be aware of, but will not be told up front.
Jehovah's Witnesses disfellowship those that are deemed unrepentant wrongdoers, for practices such as disagreeing with Watchtower doctrine, smoking or fornication. A disfellowshipped person is to be shunned by family and friends, usually for the remainder of their life, so go through tremendous emotional suffering. Although there is Scriptural precedence to avoid people practicing wrongdoing, the Watchtower application of disfellowshipping seriously deviates from Bible guidelines in multiple ways.
Many Witnesses based their life choices on the generation doctrine that Armageddon would arrive before all those born prior to had died. Can an organization that makes ongoing critical doctrinal errors rightfully claim to be directed by God? Follow the remarkable history of this doctrine through over years of Watchtower quotes, and see how the Governing Body continued to adjust the teaching in order to make Jehovah's Witnesses think the end would take place within a few years. Jehovah's Witnesses are to refuse blood transfusions on the belief that the Bible forbids use of blood under any circumstance.
The Watchtower stance is not only dangerous, but unscriptural and plagued with logical inconsistencies. The teaching that the Last Days started in is fundamental to the existence of the Watchtower Society, based on Jerusalem being destroyed in B.
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