Category: philosophy/religion topics
Many religious leaders do a lot of talking about how bad a place the world is these days, as if there was a time, usually unspecified, when everything was better and everyone was nicer. Are things really so much worse and so much more frightening right here and now than they ever were in human history, or do you think humans just have a tendancy to view their own time, whenever it was, as some horrible place to be and we all fell away from some great golden age. As an agnostic I do not think the golden age ever actually existed. I think because bad news sells advertising that this is why the news, which is where most people get their idea of how things are in the world these days, concentrates so much on crime and war and man's overall cruelty to man. I have no idea if science was ever involved in deciding good news didn't sell, but there yo ugo. So the media want to give you a scary view of life to make you buy things. Least that's how I see it and I could be wrong.
Well, I think you're right in many ways but also I think we're facing "interesting times" .. which isn't often a good idea:
Firstly the world is no longer a big place, wars in Asia, flu in Africa, all of this affects us more than it used to and much more quickly, we're relying on oil imports, perceptions of stability affect prices of our every day goods, the media has to sell stories so they travel the globe looking for interesting ones, sadly that most often means dramatic and sad stories, becausse they just sell.
Secondly we live in an information society. It's harder to hush things up, to hide them, people's attitudes (at least in the west) have changed and now it is cool to be different, to be open about one's sexual orientation or habits, religion etc, and that has nevr gone down well with religious leaders who, by definition, are somewhat conservative. Today's society is also a lot mroe liberal I think, treating religion as some sort of a hobby, not as a burning conviction. A true religion is, of course, such a conviction, if people truly believe that unless their neighbour accepts Christ or Allah they will be forever condamned, they would be even more determined to convert you, for your own good, the way religion is treated probably does not go down well with "true believers".
Thirdly the population has sored, we have a much larger strain on the planet, on our resources and "way of life" if you will, weapons are much more advanced and the capabilities to fitht and impose fear on the "enemy" as well as the incentive to do so, to protect one's way of life is much greater.
All of this, I think, adds up to new challenges, a possibly dark and difficult future (though not necessarily) and gives people plenty of reasons to talk about bad times and that we're headed for disaster. Not to mention the good old n nostalgia, everyone believes things used to be so much better, it's part ofhuman nature practically.
cheers
-B
Very well said, wb, I also think the notion that times were better is something that goes through history. Even the end of the world which is a different topic is something that goes along way back.
But I wonder if every generation viewed their version of modern times as being just as, well, interesting as people do nowadays. People talk as if man's inhumanity to man is something new and back when they were kids there were no terrorists or rapists or criminals. Of course there weren't to your minds because you were kids and you didn't want to take in the news. Besides, the nostalgic part of the mind tends to edit out all the nasty bits
I just wanted to comment on the last paragraph on the last post. I was thinking that maybe some people feel like their younger days were better because of different values in general? I mean of course there was never a time when things were perfect, but like for example when people say how back in their day kids were not allowed to disrespect their parents or other older people. That's likely what they saw going on for the most part (as well as TV shows illistrating that kind of behavior), where as now you have lots of families and shows where kids and parents act more like near-aged friends by arguing and things like that. This isn't to say that there was none of that going on back then or that there aren't any respectful children or authoritarian parents today, but that was/is what seem to be generally going on during those/this time. Just my opinion on this. *smile*
And this could of course apply to other things besides how parents/children relate to each other.
Te bible says that in the last days people will be worse, not caring about God's message and all, so yeah. But of course evil stuff has been in the world since Adam and Eve. At least this is how I see it
Here's the problem. Every generation thinks they are in the last days. It's like that old story about the boy who cried "wolf."
I believe that in many ways things are worse. Globalization is taking a toll on our planet, and children seem to be losing their innocence at a younger age. These are just two examples of how the world seems to be worse off than in past times. However, as a Christian, I have a lot of hope. In many ways religious freedom is flourishing and technology has made life easier in many ways. Also as a Christian, I have hope no matter what situation the world is in. Optimism is part of my faith.