Time to Think

Humanity is now at a crossroad. Either we continue to live as a species on earth or we die at our own hands from  a combination of greed, ignorance and short-sightedness. This is the conclusion reached by Robert Jones, the author of a book called God, Galileo and Geering: A Faith for the 21st Century,(2005). Lloyd Geering is a New Zealand theologian, a minister of the New Zealand Presbysterian Church, a professor of Old Tesetament and the head of the Knox Halll Theological College there.

 

In chapter 14 of the book, Jones says that humanity is in fact at war with itself. The biblical story of Cain and Abel is now being repeated, but on a global scale. Until roughly 5,000 years ago, most human societies were protected against anti-social behavior by the family, the clan or the tribe.Then at the start of the great agricultural civilisations round about 5,000 years ago, conquerers gathered ethnic tribes into huge multi-cultural societies maintained mainly by a combination of force and political ideologies favourable to the continuation of such civilizations. A measure of overall order and stability could still be maintained for a long time. however, but only because at during the period, there was still room for the violence and aggression of those social groups not happy with the contraints and restraints of conventional social mores to vent such tendencie towards violence in colonial conquests of or adventures to hitherto unexplored parts of the globe e.g. first, other parts of Europe, Asia then at the end of the 15th century in South America and in the 17th century the eastern seaboard of America in late 18th until early 20th century Africa and in late 18th and early 19th century, Australia and New Zealnd. But now, such frontiers are closed. There are no more places for nonconformists to move to. The trend has now reversed: people of different languages and cultures are now being forced to live closer and closer together under the advance of globalization. But it is uncertain that the marks of Cain have been overcome.

 

Besides, Geering thinks that we are becoming a danger to ourselves not only because we are running out of places where the anti-social and disruptive elements of societies may find room for the expression of their aggression and energies, but also because of "our natural capacity to mutliply indefinitely on a finite planet". Scientists estimate that at about the time of Jesus lived, there were about 300 million people on this planet. By 1750, there were about 800 million, the population being kept in check by a high infant mortality rate, diseases and epidemics and wars. Because of improvement in methods of agriculture, better medical and public health control measures like improvements in water supply and sewer systems, the rate of population growth accelerated. By 1800, there were already 1 billion people on earth. This figure took us 500,000 years to achieve. But then the world population doubled to 2 billion in just about 130 years, in 1930! In another 30 years, in 1960, the world population has grown by another billion to 3 billion. In the next 14 years, it increased by another billion to 4 billion, in 1974. By 1990, it was 5 billion and in 1998, it was 6 billion. If the present trend continues, by 2025, we shall have 8 billion people living on this planet! At about 1800, fewer than 3% of the people on earth lived in cities of 20,000 or more. By 1980, the figure has risen to about 40% and by 2000, half the population of the world were living in such cities. Now there are huge megatropolis everywhere, London, Paris, New York, Rio de Janeiro,Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing,  Mombai, Calcutta, New Delhi etc. And they all are served by airlines, trains, mass transit transportation sysems, buses and coaches, hotels, restaurants, telephones and computers and huge housing estates and slums. Harvey Cox, another theologian, said in his book the Secular City (1967),  that urban life makes us anoymous, rootless and restless and leads to all kinds of problems of adjustments. Sam Hutchinson argues in his book The Clash of Civilisation (1996) that globalization is builidng up pressures for eventual disastrous worldwide clashes: the West is declining but Asia and Islam are rising and warned that "Western arrogance, Islamic intolerance and Chinese assertiveness" are potential threats which may lead to global conflicts. China may join with Islam against the West. What is perceived as universalism in the West may look like economic, and cultural and political imperialism in the East. Our best minds cannot agree on where humanity now stands nor even what the most important issues are, let alone their solutions! Instead of helping to unite peoples of different races and cultures, the differrent great world religions appear to be dividing them further. Christianity nowadays is fragmented and som, like the Christian and Islamic fundamentalists, are advocating a return to the kind of values more appropriate to a time when the world was divided by neatly geographical and cultural boundaries . The more progressive religious voices are too scattered and unorganized to be able to come up with a coherent message. In the meantime, the world is hurtling along like a huge jet airliner without any clear destination.  

 

Meanwhile, we are facing another threat to our long term future: the continuing depletion of our natural resources, the destruction of our environment and rising pollution because of the needs to fuel mass  consumption of the rapidly increasing world population which in turn require constant searches for and faster and faster commercial exploitation of our natural resources. The proportion of oxygen to nitrogen and hydrogen and other gases must remain within a fairly limited range to enable us to breathe. The ozone layer protects us from too much radiation from the sun. We must have adequate food and drink for our bodies. We depend on the delicate ecological balances between our atmosphere, the amount of ice at the polar ice caps, the proportion of forest, agricultural land and plant and animal population if we expect to survive in the long run.  In 1988, the writer James Lovelock, called our planet Gaia (the name of mother Earth in Greek mythology) and considered the earth as a living biosphere with the surface of the earth compared to the skin of that cell. Since the advent of agriculture 10,000 years ago, half of the food producing top-soil has now been removed due to urbanization and industrialisation. The amount of carbon dioxide in the air is threatening global warming; the destruction of the ozone layer is causing more and more skin cancer and genetic damage; the destruction of the rain forests is threatening the supply of oxygen and the rapid depletion of fossil fuel is threatening us with lack of sources of energy in the future. The unequal distribution of wealth between the rich and poor nations are creating more and more potentially explosive tensions. Worse, the resistance to environment concerns is built into the capitalist system of economy which has only one aim: more and more profit!

 

What does Geering foresee as the most likely kind of world we may see in the 21st century? He envisages 10 possibilities, 9 of which do not bode well for the future of humanity as a whole:

1. Thermonuclear Holocaust: At present, the global nuclear stockpile is sufficient to destroy this world many times over.  There is always the risk of our political leaders taking a short term point of view and come to rash decisions.

2 World War III. The frictions between the rich and poor nations, the scramble for scarce resources and energy, border disputes, cultural clashes all risk global military crisis from time to time which may turn into another world war. 

3. Rise of Dictatorship. Rising rifts between the rich and poor, between the town and the countryside, racial violence may all disrupt social order. In the 20th century, Russia, Germany, Italy, Chna all experienced dictatorships and now a number of countries in Asia and Africa, Latin America are also ruled this way. In many places, the choice is between disorder or dictatorship.

4. Mass Starvation. Of the 8 to 9 billion people inhabiting this planet, 6.5 billion of them will be  living in regions of poverty. It is estimated that between 500 Million to 1 Billion people are undernourished. As the population continues to grow without increasing arable land, more and more will starve unless the distribution side of our economic system undergoes radical changes. 

5. Pandemic. The black death wiped off about 1/3 the population in many areas of Europe. Today, we are battling all kinds of bird flus, AIDs and other new strains of viruses. In 1981, the AIDs was first diagnosed. By 1996, the number of identified AIDs cases has risen to 8 million and 6 million of them died. Coupled with environmental pollution of our water, our air,widespread malnutrition, breakdown of sanitation in urban slums and the abuse of anti-biotics, new viruses are appearing daily. No one knows when another uncontrollable epidemic may occur.

6. Destruction of Ecological Balance. The UN has repeated warned that if we continue to denude our forest, pollute our air, water and land, and allow the destruction of many plant and animal species, do nothing to slow global warming, we will have to face the prospects of economic decline such as the world has never seen. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen 25% since mid-19th century. A small increase in the earth's average temperature may cause our polar ice-cap to melt, raise the sea level, cause dramatic changes in the earth-climate and bring catastrophic floods to Holland, the Nile Delta and many Pacific Islands, and many of the coastal cities of the world. If we do not take active steps to manage our environment, it will be too late.

7. Collapse of the Global Economy. Not only have the sizes and complexity of the world economy render it susceptible to repeated financial crises from time to time, many people will be forced to compete relentlessly for the bare means of subsistence. Even in wealthy nations, education, medical services, public housing and children's services are underfunded. George Soros has predicted that sooner or later we shall enter into a global depression likely to be much worse than the Great Depressionof the 1930s. The dominant capitalist system fails to feed the hungry,clothes the the poor and provide the able-bodied with sufficient employment and will lead to disaster sooner or later.

8. The global spread of terrorism. When frustration turn into desperation, people are likely to

want to resort to violence whether or not the victms are or are not innocent. There will be

random violence and  massacres. We have already seen the collapse of the World Trade

Towers in 911.When will be there be another such attacks will be uncertain. And becasuse

the media is bound to want to report such violence, this may in fact induce terrrorists to want to

engage more and more such violent tactics to get media attention to the kind of issues close to

their hearts. Their motive may be political or religious or partly both.

9. Sliding into Chaos. Less dramatic than terrorism, the trend towards relativism, the questioning

of authority in general may blur the lines of what is right and what is wrong and many of the

under-privileged may resort to more and more violence to resolve their grievances, justified or

not and there may be a gradual slide toward the break down of social order . 

10 Conscious Attempt at saving ourselves and our Planet. We now know the causes of many

physical processes and diseases: they are not the work of evil gods or devils or an angry God.

Humanity may continue to devise ingenious technical methods of dealing with their problems    through advances in technology, continuing liberation of women, renaissance of the arts etc and

actively work towards global co-operation and promotion of world peace and protection

of our environment. We may even develop a new universal or world  religion based on

knowledge and humanity.

 

What shall our future be? It is anybody's guess. But no matter what it may be, one thing is certain: we can all contribute towards a better future by working with what we have from where we are; starting with the renewal of ourselves, through knowledge, patience and a respect for ourselves, other people and of Nature. Each of us may consider ourselves a tiny candle and shed whatever light and warmth we are capable of emitting so that this world may become that much brighter and we may bring into this world before we leave it forever, such joy and reduce such suffering as are within our own powers to contribute, each according to our own unique personality, our talents, our education and our experience  That we can certainly do. To me, we owe it to ourselve to do so, if we wish to claim the dignity of being a "human" being and not a mere beast.