Do you ever wonder if the end is near?

Question

I've thought about all of the natural disasters like the tsunami, hurricaine Katrina, the massive tornadoes, flooding..etc. Then there's the health issues, economic issues..it all seems overwhelming and scary. I wonder if it's just because I'm young in the world of politics and the media. I don't know if maybe there's been reports of these terrible things for years and I'm just now seeing them or if it's actually worse than ever before? I'm usually a very positive person, and don't get me wrong, I have no political motivation for this question. I'm just curious what your opinions are reguarding the things going on in our world today. Is it worse than before, or do you think it's getting scary too?

Answer 1

nah......they've been thinking the end is near for thousands of years.  If it is, what can you do about it?  Just be happy and help your fellow man and do what you can to enrich your life and others around you.  That's all that can be expected.

Answer 2

Julie S's answer is brilliant, and oh-so-true.

Answer 3

When I was young we use to practice duck and cover in the event of a global thermonuclear war with the Russians but it was still a far more simple time. Your not imagining anything,a lot of people are very worried right now. America, in spite of what you hear is still a very strong country but the people in Washington D.C. now live in  their own little world and simply don't know how to deal with our mounting problems. They cannot agree on anything and continue to make grave mistakes but hopefully after the elections and with a new President we can begin to turn around all of the gloom and doom. Things are in fact pretty bad right now on many levels.I've seen almost all of these things before but never all at once like now. It will take a while- you may even be out of college by then.

Answer 4

the Bible says the end is near...

it says that all of this is going to happen before Christ comes back

so yes, the end is near.

Answer 5

A very interesting question.

Biodiversity science indicates the world's biodiversity has declined by 25% in 35 years. If that's true,  it's a pretty alarming estimate. These scientists claim that  the major reason for this decline is lack of financial and technical resources as biodiversity loss still isn't a political priority, and therefore lacks support.  Biodiversity loss  could have direct impact on our life. Reduced biodiversity means shortage in water and food supply, vulnerability to diseases (with fewer new medicines), and much greater vulnerability to natural disasters and greater effects from global warming.

In order to preserve food, water, medicines, and protection from natural disasters we need to preserve the species that support them, their natural habitats and ecosystems and that's not a priority right now.

Answer 6

Nope, I KNOW it is near!

Answer 7

I've been thinking the very same thoughts lately, but then I started thinking about it more, and I've (hopefully) concluded it's just the natural cycle of nature.  In the "Little House" books, they had blizzards so bad that they were trapped in their houses b/c the snow was up to their roof, and people died b/c the blowing snow was so thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.  In the early to mid 1900's, Grand Island had a "Night of the Twisters" where over 50 tornadoes swept through the town in one night.  I'm sure that there's cases like this all over the world, and when I think about THAT I think, well, we don't have it THAT bad now...the other difference is that the world is so densely populated in areas now that more people are affected, plus we have TV's and internet, and so we know what's happening all over the world, when back in the day, people didn't hear about things like that.  

And yet sometimes, I still have to wonder...when you hear about the horrible things people do you wonder how could we have gotten so bad?  But again, there've always been bad people, most people probably just didn't know about them.  

The Bible does say the end is near, but they said that at the beginning.  It could be any time.

Health issues, economic issues...remember the Black Plague?  It wiped out enough of the population that at one time there were only 600,000 people left alive on EARTH! (so I've been shown in history class)...That's another thing I've been thinking about, I think it's possible these natural disasters and even the diseases are the natural cycle of things; as terrible as that is for people who are lost and their loved ones left behind, I wonder if it's the world's way of, idk, downsizing the population or it's possible we will overrun the planet.  I believe there are 6 billion people on the planet today.  That is WAY more than at the end of the Dark Ages.

I really don't think we have it that bad.  A family doesn't have to grow our own food and live in drab huts.  We don't have to work ourselves to death.  We are more spoiled than we've ever been, we have time for leisure and can spend money on things that have absolutely no purpose but entertainment...my thoughts on the economy is that we're finally paying the price of being such a spoiled society.  And I'm guilty, too.  I hope that if things get worse, that it puts into perspective for people the things that are TRULY important, like God and family and treating people decently.  Money and toys are not significant in the great scheme of things.

Just my thoughts...:-) and this coming from someone who is eternally terrrified of the end of the world. :-P

Answer 8

From a biblical perspective,

we are in the generation of the Fig Tree,

referring to Israel's founding in 1948,

and anyone born after 1948.

The bible declares that this generation

shall not pass, until these things are done -

meaning the anti-christ and return of Christ.

Answer 9

Since George W Bush and his power Drunk Friends were forced and placed into our Head of Government positions and offices, our Country has declined. Mexico has invaded us , set up homesteads, stole our economy and blue collar jobs and all without firing a shot. The Bush administration ignored repeated warnings from Bill Clinton that an attack on 911was imminent and Bush brushed it off as yeah right, "there's a new Sheriff in America" THE END HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.

Answer 10

I'm worried about the state of the world as it is right now, the world has pretty much reached peak oil and gas prices have no were to go but up, this by itself could cause the farmers to lose there livelihood, sure i hear about hybrid cars & green vehicles but i haven't heard anything about hybrid farm machinery, this would mean farmers would have to keep paying high gas prices to run there farm equipment and with prices still on the rise, farmers will end up going into debt and have to start selling there land to get out of debt, this means food prices are going to rise as gas prices rise, 10-20 years from now when the environment is shot and every country is at each others throats over the last of the planets resources, more people will have been born and the population will be around 7 to 8 billion from the 6 billion it is at now, as the population grows it puts more strain on the economy meaning more mouths to feed when there isn't enough food to go around because farms don't produce enough food as they should because gas prices will have made them lose there livelihood, most people don't realize it but farmers are the backbone of society, everyone thinks food comes from a grocery store and they don't bother to think about where the companies who make there products get there food from, so when farmers lose out everyone loses out.

Answer 11

I agree with shorty.

Answer 12

lol everyday. Before 9/11 I never had a care in the world. I too am new to the world of politics. Never took much notice until I got a computer. Now it seems it consumes my life. Can't get away from it. Gotta know exactly what's happening next or trying to predict future events. It's very annoying. I can't imagine what religious people must be thinking.

Duck and cover? lol that wouldn't work in a thermonuclear war unless you where at least 11 miles away from the blast centre even then it depends on the size of the nuke and whether the nuke hits the Earth causing fallout. No they were pointless little exercises. The truth of it was if there had been a nuclear war between the USSR and the USA in the eighties at least 30 bombs would have hit each city and you may as well have walked outside and greeted them. You wouldn't have survived unless you were in an underground shelter with it's own food and fresh water and air supply. Even if you had managed to survive and left the shelter two weeks later everything you had ever known would have been destroyed.

Duck and cover was a pointless exercise and it was pretty pointless to bring it up other than to let us all know how old you are thc 451 and your post seemed quite condescending to me.

Answer 13

In every century since we started counting you can find the same phenomena we see today. That is why the end has been predicted more times than than there are cars on the roadway.

Answer 14

keep the faith, the world has shrunk with the electronic age and disasters have been here forever the same things happen everyday ,just to different people. dont let some self ordained idiot tell you different.

Answer 15

There are several factors that contribute to the situation. One is that the population has grown, and people live in more places than they ever did, and so when bad weather arrives, it is more likely to hit areas where people are, when in the past the damage would have been confined to uninhabited areas. Serious droughts, earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, etc. have always been present.

On the economic situation, the news has more to do with it than anything else. If you take the time to compare economic figures of today with those in the past, you will find that most indicators are actually relatively strong when placed within the context of the past. For instance, since you mentioned that you are young, you didn't experience unemployment rates that were double the current levels, interest rates that were three times current ones, and gasoline shortages that were so severe that people waiting in line for blocks to get gas was the norm. The mortgage 'crisis' is another area that must be placed in perspective. Over sixty percent of current residents in the United States are homeowners, whereas as two decades ago only twenty percent were. When you take that into consideration, the sub-prime failures actually aren't affecting as many people in proportion as one would first believe.

Be cautious of relying exclusively on what is broadcast as news, for those who control the airwaves have personal bias that saturates which stories are covered and how. Don't be scared. Rather, work hard to prepare yourself for a secure career. At the turn of the century everyone panicked when tractors and improved farming techniques reduced the labor force in agriculture (which was over 80% at the time), and yet more jobs were created in industrial manufacturing than were lost. A similar trend is happening right now as we shift from a manufacturing base to a technological one. Train in high tech so that you will benefit from this shift rather than chewing your nails. It isn't as bad as it sometimes seems.

Answer 16

Despite many hopes and predictions to the contrary, the world has not ended.

On the other hand, this world ends for us when we die, so each person faces the end of the world.

However, since we do ot want to imagine everything just rolling along without us we hope for the end of the world so that, as we die, we don't have to imagine that a rival will get to outlive us.