Lets Be Real

This is the most peaceful and prosperous time in human history.

I don’t read those things or most of the threads discussing bad news. The Holy Spirit wants me to give my attention to things that edify. Most of those topics are meant to foster fear, strife, and despondency.

Desk trauma said:

This is the most peaceful and prosperous time in human history.

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Hi Desk trauma, I mostly agree with you (especially when our country, and the western world in general, is in view) yet more people in the world still die from starvation every year than from any other cause.

--David

St_Worm2 said:

Hi Desk trauma, I mostly agree with you (especially when our country, and the western world in general, is in view) yet more people in the world still die from starvation every year than from any other cause.

--David

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True, however, I must hasten to point out that starvation is also trending down along with conflict and poverty. It's quote possible that this is best fed our species has ever been.

If I was given the choice of living in any period of history, I would still choose to live in the 21st century.
The world today is not without its problems, but we enjoy so many privileges that are easily taken for granted.

Whilst it is true to say that there is a lot of reported crime, I still feel relatively safe walking the streets at night. I don't think I would have felt the same around 100-200 years ago.

I remember going to the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds where there was a reconstruction of what life was like in a Victorian operating theatre, demonstrating what surgery was like before anaesthesia. Certainly not an exhibition for the faint-hearted! I'm so glad for the modern medicines and procedures that are available today.

I am so grateful that Christians today can come onto a forum like this and discuss topics openly, and even read the Bible in their own language. Whilst people throughout the world are still being persecuted for their faith, only a few hundred years in my country, people were being tried, imprisoned and even burned for stating what they believe.

As little as 20 years ago, we did not have access to the vast pool of information we have on the internet and world wide web, informing us and educating us just about any topic. Today we can have real time conversations with our friends and loved ones wherever they are in the world, and if we were stranded out at sea or stuck on top of a mountain, we can use a mobile phone to call for assistance.

Robert6671 said:

I spend alot of time looking at all the bad in the world. But if you really look its not that bad. We have people saying its the ends etc etc. The only thing different about today and 1k years ago is social media, satellites in the sky that maps every disaster. 1k years ago there were disasters and war and famine...but lets look at the world today. Diseases that for centuries killed millions are curable now. Even most of the serious disease today that are not curable are treatable. We have warning systems that help move people out of the path of natural disasters. We are traveling in space, the average lifespan of a human is almost double than what it was a thousand years ago. Wars are less...the truth is the world is doing better now than it was 1000 years ago. A thousand years ago hitting 40 was on par as hitting 100 today. So despite all the bad the world or at least humanity is actually doing pretty damn fine.

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and ... all that can change in a heartbeat.

Jude 1:18

when they said to you, "In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow after their own ungodly desires."

Certainly a lot of that going on.

eleos1954 said:

and ... all that can change in a heartbeat.

Jude 1:18

when they said to you, "In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow after their own ungodly desires."

Certainly a lot of that going on.

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It's good to see that even in the face of good news and positive outlooks some people still have the courage to be pessimists.

Ophiolite said:

It's good to see that even in the face of good news and positive outlooks some people still have the courage to be pessimists.

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well ... does the Lord teach things are going to get better or worse?

I don't dwell on the evil that goes on in our world, but I don't ignore that's it's there lurking.

eleos1954 said:

well ... does the Lord teach things are going to get better or worse?

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Please note my profile. You can likely work out my view on that notion from the "agnostic" label.

eleos1954 said:

I don't dwell on the evil that goes on in our world, but I don't ignore that's it's there lurking.

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But you did more than that. You implied (strongly implied) that we should expect things to get worse, because that was God's plan. There is a world of difference between recognising bad things then doing ones best to correct them and recognising bad things and being ready to accept them, to a degree, because that's God's will.

Robert6671 said:

I spend alot of time looking at all the bad in the world. But if you really look its not that bad. We have people saying its the ends etc etc. The only thing different about today and 1k years ago is social media, satellites in the sky that maps every disaster. 1k years ago there were disasters and war and famine...but lets look at the world today. Diseases that for centuries killed millions are curable now. Even most of the serious disease today that are not curable are treatable. We have warning systems that help move people out of the path of natural disasters. We are traveling in space, the average lifespan of a human is almost double than what it was a thousand years ago. Wars are less...the truth is the world is doing better now than it was 1000 years ago. A thousand years ago hitting 40 was on par as hitting 100 today. So despite all the bad the world or at least humanity is actually doing pretty damn fine.

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Even though that is a way to see it, I have another point of view. God is supposed to be our source of everything including healing. If you take a look at how the world is, it seems to be creating a system without the need of God in it because they are so spiritually dead that they can't recognized what is being alive in the Spirit. The need to pray is less and less needed because the technology and medical advances. When people get a headache they don't consider the source of it, they don't pray and ask God for healing, they just take two pills, but then get liver damage and say "God gave me this sickness". No matter how much technology or how much medical discoveries happen the ONLY one who can fix the root problem of your disconnection is Jesus Christ. Even Jesus asked if there will be faith when He returns.

people nowadays die from stuff like AIDS, cancer, leukemia, diabetes, and drug overdose.

as scripture says, there's nothing new under the sun.

Lots of pretty toys and gizmos. Almost all of which are vulnerable to something like this, which hasn't really hit with this magnitude since we became dependent on them. As every year passes, we become more and more dependent on them.

Solar storm of 1859 - Wikipedia

One of my Grandmother's favorite games to play with me when I was a child was to say:

"Where was Moses when the lights went out?"
And then she would hide her face with her hands and I would say
"In the Dark!"

And we would laugh and laugh and laugh...

I should note that 1000 years ago human civilization did not have an actual hair trigger self-destruct capability like the one we activated during the cold war - which is still somewhat active.

We're actually pretty lucky to have survived that.

I do agree that day-to-day life in "first world" countries is much better than back then.

Robert6671 said:

I believe in god and I believe when I die I will be judged on how I lived my life...

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Then you will be judged by your "works" and not by your faith in Jesus? That's the difference between a servant and a son/daughter of the King. Even though we are to be servants, we are supposed to end up as sons.

My father once told me, "People say they believe in Jesus, but they don't know that believing is not really that simple". Believing requieres action, and that's what I was referring to on my previous comment.

I love science and I love new discoveries. I also love learning and ponder on the universe because... "The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork." (Psalms 19:1) But science and new discoveries, and anything else, are supposed to get you closer to God.

Do you believe in supernatural healing? Do you believe in Jesus? Do you understand we are His ambassadors and if we believe in Jesus the same signs that followed Him should follow us? And that Jesus said greater things we will do? Why are they not happening? Because we lack faith.

I don't deny sicknesses happen and disasters occur, but those are consequences of the earth being separated (sin) from God... "because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." (Romans 8:21) My concern is that we are so spiritually dead that we seek medicine and science to find solutions, instead of getting restored by God. We rely on medicine but we are not looking to live and manifest the glorious liberty of the children of God; our reality.

Listen, I need doctors myself, but the first one I go to is the Lord to seek His guidance, but I am also a woman who prays for people at the supermarket, family gatherings, church, hospitals, etc. I am also the one standing outside my house commanding a storm to calm down because if Jesus did it, so can I. But we have to exercise our faith. James says faith without action is dead.

Todd White and Dan Mohler are great teachers of the supernatural.

As a matter of simple biology, it's absolutely undeniable that human life today is better than ever before. This is proven by a graph of our population over the last 14,000 years:



Homo sapiens has been an astoundingly successful species. There are now about 7.6 billion of us. We inhabit every continent on the planet. And we are the most populous single species of mammal that has ever lived. (We are outnumbered if you total together the populations of all the various mouse, rat, and bat species. But as a single species, we are the top of the mammalian heap.) This is due to a combination of our intelligence, our language ability, our manual dexterity and capacity to make and use tools, and our social instincts. All of which allow us to be the most adaptable large animal. Though we definitely have challenges. We've increased our population so greatly that our use of the planet's energy and resources may be unsustainable in the future. But in the most basic, fundamental biological sense, if modern life was not so favorable for us, there's no way a graph of our population growth would look like that.