[ POLL ] Your opinion on why the worlds falling apart (CLOSED)

I wrote three separate essays in high school about why obliterating that entire region with nuclear weapons and turning it into a sheet of glass would be doing the rest of the world a favor.

My opinions have tempered considerably since then, but I still believe quite firmly that humanity would be better off without its silly devotion to religious doctrine.

EDIT: apologies for double-post, discussion moving quite swiftly.

There have been rumors of wars much worse in the past than there are now. As another religious person, I say that there is no use trying to predict the end of the world and I am pretty sure there is a quote from the Bible where Jesus says just that. Only God knows and we should just let the topic be. Rumors are just rumors and have been going on since the beginning of time. Israel crumbling is definitely a bad thing, but isn't so much of a threat right now. They are under stress but they aren't on the verge of collapse. They have actually been doing a bit of persecuting themselves (although many have been) and do sit pretty well militarily.

I agree with most of what everyone else is saying. The world isn't falling apart any more than it has been.

Obviously, there are numerous conflicts and lots of tension, but I don't think you can pin it down to just one thing. It's so much more complex than just being caused be religion, or politics or economics. Much of the conflict in the middle east is because the politics of the region has been corrupted by religious and economic issues.

Except, taking land doesn't require even a hundredth of the skill and the work required to get a nuclear weapon. I think the people in charge of ISIS would be smart enough to know that they can't get a nuclear bomb and could probably do just as much without one.

This is my biggest issue with religion. I could easily interpret that as saying that the end of all wars, not the world is coming. Because "the end" is never defined. What is it the end of. The end of war? The end of the world? The end of Putin's time as President of Russia?

there is no singular statistic today that has not been worse in the past per the amount of people present in the world. so no it aint so bad, turn off the sensationalist news.

I'll participate in this conversation later, but for now, I'm simply going to punch that "Watch Thread" button and watch the chaos erupt.

In my opinion, the world isn't falling apart. My parents have always told me "Never argue these three very controversial topics because it's mostly about what one believes. Politics, Religion, and sex." Recently, irl and on Empire I've seen people argue all three of these things. People jam their beliefs down your throat. These topics create arguments and disputes that will only anger one another and possibly end relationships / friendships. Nothing good ever materializes. I believe that all parents and every parent should explain this to their kids (when the time is right of course). Everyone has their own belief regarding these topics but it's typically better to keep it to yourself or to express it on a voting ballot.

That's the only thing that I believe that could break people up.

Two words that prove the world is falling apart:
The internet.

BUMP

Thats honestly what the world wants to do, except for me and a few others, because they think by destroying religion, they bring peace. But lets be honest here, everyday or so you make your self look big and bad ( i do it to ), thats an act of "Humanism" a belief that humans are gods, which makes it a religion, there will always be religion whether we want it or not.

As stated, humanism will always be here, Atheism will always be here, all of it, unless the Christians or other beliefs are right which I believe the Christians are right about our future as of the most recent events lately. Double posting is ok to.

When theirs not a good leader, everything crumbles. During the Roman Empire they ( the Romans ) did not have the best leaders who found joy in murder and gluttony ( the act of inhaling food constantly till you vomit and still continue eating ). In todays age, we don't have that many good leaders also, people say Obama but he's messed up a lot, some say Hillary but lets be honest, she's a terrible leader and will doom America ( my opinion ). So as of the Roman Empire-> Current Age, we have not had a strong leader, and w/out a strong leader all things fall.

I suggest reading the book of either Daniel or Revelations to get a deeper inspect of what Jesus meant when He said "end", but when He said "end" He meant the end of this here world, theres more than just rumors of wars tho that will indicate the End of Days, and most have already happened, so since I made this thread to see what everyone else thought on this, I know why the worlds ending and thats because of what Jesus and prophets prophesied happening. Thats my belief, not smashing anyone less belief in what I just said.

First, most of the world does not want to destroy the middle east. If you polled a bunch of people on if launching our nukes and wiping out the region is a good idea, almost everyone you ask will say no. Sure, you will find pockets of people who might think otherwise, but the vast majority doesn't want to level the place and kill innocent people. Most people don't have a problem with religion. They have a problem with extremists that take religion and use it as a way to gain power and riches while pulling in other, usually struggling people, in with them. Approximately 16% of the world is considered unaffiliated. Even then, I doubt they all want to remove all religion from the world.

You are say all of our leaders are weak. That is because they aren't supposed to be omnipotent rulers of all. The American government is specifically set up to weaken them and make them more of a proxy for the American people. They can all do as much as the parties they represent are willing to do. Our presidents can't really do anything without the support of congress. This is actually a good thing. With so much stuff standing in the way, it makes sure that anything that passes represents the will of the people. Also, the power of our leaders still doesn't answer what Bitemenow said.

I would recommend not having a big discussion about the merits of religion when the topic at hand is whether the world is better or worse than it was before. The problems caused by religion have been around since the earliest religions and won't go away anytime soon.

I just wanted to say that your definition of humanism is wrong according to Google, stated here "Humanism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism, empiricism) over established doctrine or faith (fideism)." This actually promotes the opposite thinking of science over religion. Also, how do you think the Roman Empire ever got to its massive size with bad leaders? Sure, it eventually fell from bad leaders like every empire with enough time, but I think you underestimate the size of managing something of that size, and then making it grow and be stable. Also, who is WE from the current age to the Roman one, because America surely wasn't around then. Speaking of America, don't you think Washington was a good leader? What about some of the English monarchs? Winston Churchill who you could easily argue kept Britain from surrendering during WW2?

I don't know if you've ever seen South Park but there was an episode making fun of those TV Fortune tellers by stating all of what they say is so general it will be right for someone in the audience. Another view in global warming is that Earth has gone through many mass extinctions before(Dinosaurs come to mind) and they happen when one species rises to the top, overpopulates and destroys the planet. We are speeding up this mass extinction through use of fossil fuels and the like, but really it is inevitable.

The world isn't falling apart. It's just as dysfunctional as it ever was.

However, I do think it would be a perfectly fair statement to say that Western civilization as roughly defined by Europe and the Anglosphere which includes the United States is in a state of relative decline. Most of the nations included are saddled with massive structural debt and deficits along with hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of unfunded liabilities. Add to that rapidly aging and even shrinking populations and a shift away from the traditionally binding cultural commonality which was Christendom and you've got a perfect recipe for socioeconomic difficulties for many years to come.

As western influence on world affairs continues to wane other powers will rise to take its place, most likely China and India. Sheer numbers of inhabitants alone dictates important seats at most diplomatic tables for those two nations.

Selfishness.

When Washington was president of the United States, America was very prosperous, it was around after WW2 when people where going astray from the history of America, many textbooks leave out America's true history like what America was settled on, I mean they took out the National Anthem just because of our history in it "one nation under God", I mean thats ridiculous. And I believe that the Empire grew stronger because of some powerful leaders, ones we want, and what happened later on? It fell due to some not so smart rulers. Your correct about America not being around, but can't you see the Roman Empire returning? Roman Coliseums, people dressed in funny costumes, they worshiped the winners of a sport, they want to constantly go. Look at us now, People are dressing in funny costumes at football games, they worship the winner of the World Cup, they constantly go to baseball games, no matter what people say, its coming back and Im pretty sure its soon. And you just stated what I said about humanism .

This isn't tv, this is life, and I honestly don't care if people make fun of me, Im then the center of their world so I don't care. I didn't predict this, people 2500-3000 years ago did, and about 63% of everything they've said has already happened and the other 36% is currently in progress, there just leaves 1% left, and I think its gonna happen.

I'm not in this discussion to try and tear down your religious beliefs - what you choose to think is your business, and no one else's.
You started this discussion with the claim that, because of certain specific incidents and conflicts, the world is headed for the End Times, and that's simply not the case. Whatever claims you make regarding biblical passages are open to an extreme amount of flexibility and interpretation, a fact many leaders (religious and otherwise) have twisted for their own ends throughout history.

If you decide to believe the world is ending, that's you're call. Just don't insist that people agree with you because your holy book says so, alright?

I put religion due to disagreements between science and religion and the terrorism in the middle east. This isn't making the world worse though: only 200 years ago families took picnics to executions in England. Also, the Bible saying things like you can have slaves and you shouldn't be gays/be homophobic doesn't really help.

Sometimes I think the end of the world has already happened and I'm just stuck in some level of purgatory, where I have to endure endless debates of misguided opinions based on misunderstood statics.

ISIS are in a power decline, reached their height months ago, and the Middle East is starting to fight back more aggressively against them. On top of that, the UK (don't know about other countries) is now training Middle Eastern soldiers to fight - they are being taught by our SAS, who are one of, if not the, best in the world. They won't be a problem in a few year's time.

Once I get my new keyboard hooked up, big post coming your way via Royal SoulPunisher Mail.