Interesting times

Submitted by Michael S (United States), Apr 27, 2015 at 05:18

Hello again, Waz You said,

So, in terms of what has been - we've got it very, very good. So is it all downhill from here? Those who profess to love death more than the gift of life would like to make it so. But those miscreants are headed for the cosmic scrapheap. Let's make sure they take as few of us out as possible by denying them every opportunity.

If you check out the graph at

https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/world-population-0-to-2011.png,

you must agree that we are living in anything but ordinary times. If that graph were of the pressure in a boiler I were standing next to, I would want to get away from that boiler as quickly as possible. When one considers that the world's population is, in effect, the earth's "boiler pressure", these matters should grab our attention. In the days of the Roman Empire, moreover, the earth was thinly settled by people whose most effective weapon was a short sword. Nowadays, the earth is jam-packed with people brandishing nuclear weapons.

Let me display this nuclear angle in "pressure gauge" format:

Nuclear Weapon States:

1940 0
1945 1
1950 2
1955 3
1960 4
1965 5
1970 5
1975 6
1980 8*
1985 8
1990 8
1995 10
2000 8
2005 8
2010 9
2015 9

*including Israel, suspected of being a nuke power

The decline in nuclear states in the late 1990s was due to former Soviet states Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine scrapping their stockpiles. Since then, Pakistan and North Korea have become nuclear states; and Iran may soon join them. True, the Romans (and all mankind, from Paleolithic times to the 20th Century) may have had an average life expectancy of about 25-30 years -- largely because of a high infant mortality rate -- but once any of the above states attacks another with nuclear weapons, our average life expectancy of 75 years will quickly drop back to the old norm, if not to zero.

The times we are living in, are an aberration; and one doesn't have to be religious to see that a cataclysmic end to the world as we know it is at hand. Even renowned cosmologist Stephen Hawking believes the earth has less than 1000 years left, after millions of years of what he considers our "survival of the fittest". I think it's amazing that this presumably brilliant man, who is supremely confident in the ability for half-man half-apes to adapt to ice ages and all other manner of extreme conditions, has no confidence in our supposedly intelligent race of today to meet the challenge. Perhaps down deep, Dr. Hawking understands that we're not all that we're cracked up to be.

Adam's race came into being after the Neolithic Revolution had already begun; and the spike in world population, along with the environmental damage that has accompanied it, did not begin until the 1800s -- with the Industrial Revolution. If there were ever a time when mankind could safely conclude that "Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." (Ps. 3:4), it was during the millennia before the 1800s; yet those were the times when mankind trusted, by and large, in the Bible and other religious texts. In our modern day and age, however, with an Apocalypse bearing down on us like and oncoming semi, mankind blissfully ignores the Bible prophecies and proclaims that things will always continue as they are. This, to me, is most curious.

Meanwhile, I continue to look into the Bible, to make sense of what is happening in the world. Lately, I've seen an unusual parallel between what has been happening in the Middle East, and the "four horsemen" prophecies in Revelation. I'm a novice at this, but notice this:

1. The white horse, whose rider set out to conquer. That's what the Western Coalition did in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya -- despite protestations of innocence.
2. The red horse, whose rider set out to take peace from the earth. That's what Fatah, Hizbullah, Al Qaeda, ISIL, etc.have been up to. They haven't a snowball's chance in hell of conquering anyghing permanently, but they sure are causing a world-wide commotion.
3. The black horse, bringing famine (in places like Ethiopia) and
4. The green horse, bringing death (disease). That rears up in the aftermath of protracted wars; and the wars in Central Africa (hence, HIV/AIDS), LIberia-Sierra Leone-Guinea (hence, the great Ebola epidemic), and now beginning in Syraqia (necrotizing skin diseases?) are no exception to the rule.

This sequence of events has happened many times over; but today, it is happening all around Israel, while leaving Israel relatively untouched -- much as it did in Egypt, when the Israelites lived in Goshen. Revelation says these things will be accompanied by persecution of the church (over 4,000 Christians were killed for their faith in 2014, including over 1,000 in Nigeria alone).

Once that has begun, the Bible tells us, all manner of cosmic shakings start happening. Once again, the irreligious have attempted to pre-empt the Biblical Apocalyptic teachings. They also claim that great wonders will happen on earth, just as the magicians of Egypt copied many of the signs of Moses and Aaron; only they say that the problem is man-made climate change, and the solution is ever bigger and more intrusive government.

These are interesting times.

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