I tend to get into the occasional "discussion" about the nature of God, usually with Christians. We both put forth our arguments, but since I am talking about some sort of god being who set in motion if not created the entire Universe without thought to any specific group of humans vs. a Christian God who created the Universe for humans, but mostly for humans who would become believers in Christianity, we are not really arguing about the same thing and it is a wholly useless endeavor and no one's opinion is ever changed, although sometimes offense is taken by one or both sides...sheesh, no fun and pointless.
What really boggles my mind, however, after all the god talk is set aside, is this commonly held belief among even the mildest of Christians ( call them the "church on Easter, Christmas, weddings and funerals only" Christians) that the end of times is only years away and that there is no long term future for humanity. One study I found online stated that fully 22% of Americans believe the end of the world will absolutely happen in their lifetime and ANOTHER 22% are at least pretty sure this is true! Think about it! Nearly half of the folks in this nation believe the world will end in a few short years!This is nothing short of madness. Belief in apocalyptic disaster stories effectively tells our children that we have no hope for their future either, or the future of their children...hell, the entire human race is doomed in these end of the world, godreturnstoearthinblazeofglorytoreardthejustandkilltherest scenarios...hilarious ideas, were they not so frightening and ghastly. To tell ourselves and our children that, despite our imaginative and innovative brains and powerful will to survive, we are all as doomed as cattle in a slaughterhouse is the most irresponsible, uncaring, unloving thing we can do to ourselves and our children. Check out this story by Michael Chabon.
http://media.longnow.org/files/2/Michael_Chabon_-_The_Omega_Glory.pdf
Chabon makes some truly epic points about how we have stopped believing in the future we all looked forward to as children, the world of the Jetson's and Star Trek. Even the darker views of the future, such as the Planet of the Apes movies, still envisioned humans on earth far into the future. We need to regain that belief in the future of humanity, if not for our sake then certainly for the sake of our children. Go ahead, ask any kid in grade school on up through college what the future holds and see how many children believe it will all end badly and sooner rather than later.
An amazing project has been started in the desert of the American southwest, to construct a ten thousand year clock. Give it a Google...truly epic stuff. It is a project intended to restart our imagining of the distant future, a future that may have forgotten even our entire nation, but still includes mankind among its denizens. We live at the beginning of the 21st century and the future of humans, not simply those who follow current religions that preach end of the world stories as fact, but all humanity, is at stake. Unless we begin, as a people, to start imagining a future for our species, a future that stretches long into the lifespan of our planet, then we very likely will engineer the weapons for our own destruction...we will make our pessimistic predictions come true, in other words. But it doesn't have to be that way, people, it just doesn't.
The next time you hear a minister or a believer in whatever religion talk about the end times, look at your child,and then decide...do you want them to believe in imminent destruction of all life as a life to look forward to living, or do you want for them a long life as well as a long lifespan for all of humanity? The choice is ours.
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