Global Futurism. A discussion of impending issues

I was watching a show on CNN called Planet In Peril which states, among other things, that by 2050, there will be 50% more people on earth than there now are and that the environmental impacts will be pronounced. They traveled to 13 countries and saw that species are disappearing at 1000 times the average. The show is obvious in its truthful reporting. The issues are complex.In this topic, I want to examine this and other aspects of dealing with the future on Earth for humanity.Our discussion can be quite broad.

what is the impact of religious fundamentalism on human awareness of the future on earth?

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Is Global warming preventable? How will the relocation of coastal populations be able to be accomplished given the diminishing resources globally? Will humans be able to put aside our selfish and survivalist nature and cooperate, or will there be wars as a result of these massive changes?

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Can humanity maintain the standards of living that we in the United States now take for granted?

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What IF? What if there are other natural disasters...such as Yellowstone or a Pacific Coast Tsunami and/or Earthquake? Could we survive? If so, would it be worth it?

Totally irrelevant. We all know that the apocolypse is just right around the corner. Then, all those who believe in Christ will be taken to heaven during the rapture. Those who get left behind will live through 7 years of hell on Earth before final judgement day. Why worry about species going extinct if the end is near? What future? The end is near! None of that matter. The end is near! Who cares. The end is near! Any/every natural disaster that will occur will be a sign of the nearing apocolypse. The end is near!

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Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!

Taz....... Your humorous sarcasm quite amply demonstrates the actual way that a religious fundamentalist would think. However......
It appears that the End is not near. All this time, we have been waiting on GOD and as it turns out, He is waiting on us! Perhaps we have not passed our mission on earth yet. Perhaps we as a planet need to find a way to get along.I am no longer an End times believer. The way I see it, everyone dies anyway....so dealing with our individual mortality (or collective) is irrelevant. We need to do the best that we can do on a daily basis. Even IF Jesus is coming back, I think that it is our duty to try and get along with everyone on the planet first.I am what many would call a "typical selfish (and spoiled) American". I am used to a certain standard of living, and I consider it my right to have this standard until the day that I die. In order to do my best with the life I have, however, I need to learn to humble myself and realize that the only alternative to global war is going to involve a lot of compromise.It is harder for those of us who grew up with a lot to have to learn to live with less, but apparently that is the only solution that will work.

To quote myself from the another thread, present day species extinction rates haven't been demonstrated. In the 1970s, Norman Meyers predicted a million species would be extinct by the year 2000. Paul Ehrlich predicted that fifty percent of all species would be extinct by the year 2000. But those were just opinions. --Discussion in Lomborg p. 252Opinion in the absence of evidence is prejudice. Do you know how many species are on the planet? No? Neither does anybody else. Estimates range from 3 million to 100 million. Quite a range. So its pretty hard to determine how many species become extinct if you don't know how many there are in the first place. How could you tell if you were robbed if you didn't know how much money you had in your pocket to begin with? There is no known rate of species extinction. Oh yes, obviously truthful. /sarcasm off This one I do believe because I can see historical data that indicates the population curve will hit around this mark.It is interesting to note that the world hit the 6 billion mark around 2000. We hit 5 billion around 1987, 4 billion around 1975, 3 billion around 1960, 2 billion around 1920, 1 billion about 1820, and at the year 0 (when Christ was born) there were about 200 million people on earth.Source World population - WikipediaAnd here's a graph: I love the way it happens to flatten out starting 6,000 years ago to "prehistoric" times. This statement is presuming that man made global warming is proven, which it has not been despite what Gore says. But that is another thread altogether.As a bible believing christian, I see the future happening just the way the bible says it will happen. During the Great Tribulation after the 3 and half years of peace between Israel and Antichrist, you'll have the 7 seals:1 - Rider on White Horse
2 - War
3 - Famine
4 - DeathThose are the so called 4 horseman of the apocalypse. These are pretty vague and it could be argued that they are happening now. The 5th Seal is the martyrs crying out for vengence. But at the 6th Seal it gets interesting.6 - Terror Global earthquake. Woot. This one should be pretty obvious when it happens.Next comes 4 angels that hold back ALL the wind on the earth.Then we kick off with the Trumpets:1 - Revelations 6:7 The first sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.1/3 of the vegetation on earth burned up. I'm sure this would make news.2 - Revelations 6:8The second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood, 9and a third of the creatures which were in the sea and had life, died; and a third of the ships were destroyed.Alrighty. Something like a mountain in the sea...1/3 of sea creatures and 1/3 of all ships destroyed. That should make spectacular headlines as well.3 - Revelations 6:10The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters. 11The name of the star is called Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter.1/3 of the drinking water turned bad.4 - Revelations 6:12The fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun and a third of the moon and a third of the stars were struck, so that a third of them would be darkened and the day would not shine for athird of it, and the night in the same way.1/3 of illumation gone. That won't make sun bathers happy.And now for one of my favorites, the 5th trumpet - Bottomless Pit Huge, armored, flying, banshee looking things with scorpion tails that will only strike at men (but not christains), causing pain for 5 months.Trumpet 6, Army from the East. The 4 angels from the river Euphrates will kill 1/3 of men. So if there are 6 billion people alive at this time, there will be 2 billion killed. I'm sure that might make the morning news. There's a nice description of them if you'd like to read, but being spiritual beings I don't think you'll be able to see them anyway.Trumpet 7 is Christ's reign forseen. Not much to do with the nightly news as far as I can tell.Then we come to the bowls:Bowl 1 - Boils upon those with the mark of the beast
Bowl 2 - Sea becomes blood, everything in the sea dies
Bowl 3 - Rivers and Springs become blood
Bowl 4 - Sun scorches men.
Bowl 5 - Pain
Bowl 6 - Euphrates River dries up
Bowl 7 - Greatest Earthquake of all time, causing all islands and mountains to disappear.Now you might be able to rationalize the 4 horsemen as already being here. You could even chalk up some of the trumpets to global warming if you still wanted to have blinders. But after that it is going to be apparent that God is giving you what you've always wanted: signs that He is God.All this stuff will happen so that you can see that this is the coming of the final battle between God and Satan. At some point it will become obvious and you will have to chose a side. You can call me crazy for believing in all of this and that is fine. But in the end, Christ will come back and set up His 1,000 year reign. The earth will be restored to the way it was in the garden of Eden. The earth is presently in trouble. It is following the 2d law of thermodynamics, just as it always has been. It is correct that something must be done soon or humans won't be able to survive on the earth in the next few hundred years (EMF decay). It is pretty vain for us to think as humans that we can control a part of the environment, much less the whole thing. The earth is in trouble, but there's only one person who can do anything about it, and He will soon enough. But you should know that there is another fundamentalist view of the end of the world:President Ahmadinejad's (President of Iran) final comments in a speech at the UN General Assembly: Anyone want to guess who he is talking about? Edited by Tal, : Add some commentsEdited by Tal, : No reason given.Edited by Tal, : grammer

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We never seem to acknowledge that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead, each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds-and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own. --Michael Crichton

quote:

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Opinion in the absence of evidence is prejudice.

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So is ignoring what experts in the field think in favor of your own preferred, ignorant belief.

Good come back. I cited references. Where are yours?

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We never seem to acknowledge that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead, each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds-and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own. --Michael Crichton

Tal Well vagueness is what prophecies are good at.Edited by sidelined, : No reason given.

Well yes, but the rest are going to be blatantly obvious. Huge, armored, flying, banshee looking horse things with scorpion tails won't be easy to miss or misinterpret."Yep Fred, there goes those newly evolved flying horse stinger dudes. I think they mutated because of global warming."

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We never seem to acknowledge that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead, each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds-and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own. --Michael Crichton

Tal But that says nothing about the validity of the claim to prophecy.Perhaps you would be so good as to point out an item of warfare that is huge,armoured,flying,banshee looking{ever seen a banshee?} with scorpion tales{nasty} whose primary capability is to simply cause pain for 5 months?That sounds like weaponry developed by a liberal.

I realize that this is a coffee house and not a faith/belief thread per se, but I do feel that I need to address some of these issues. OK....but how do you know that your interpretation of Revelation is the only possible way that Revelation can be interpreted?I say this, Tal...because ironically, the seeming solution needed for the problems that are found globally is cooperation among nations rather than conflict. I say ironically because of your veiled reference to the Antichrist.

Whose fault is it that 1/3 of the water becomes bitter? (Assuming that is foreseeable?

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Whose fault is it that 1/3 of the vegetation gets trashed?

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Lets assume, for a moment, that world population does increase and that competition for resources becomes of global concern. You, being a soldier of the United States are forced to choose between national allegiance and surrender to God. Which will you choose?

The real threat to humanity are religious believers in End Time Prophecy whether they are Christian End Time believers or Muslim End Time believers.

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Immigration has been a problem Since 1607!

Perhaps you could tell us how many species there are based on how many animal Noah could hold on his ark?

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Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!

Actually it sounds more like what a fundie would design. Who else believes in mythological creatures?

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other

So what is society to do? There have been extremists all throughout recorded history.I think that these types of issues need to be politically embraced and discussed by candidates. Global Warming is a bigger issue than social security only because if nothing is done to plan for the future, there will be no social security anyway.

The answer is transparency, education and wisdom.We need to discuss why End Time Believers are a threat and figure out ways to keep them from being in positions of authority.

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Immigration has been a problem Since 1607!