2014-02-13

Can we still hope?

To me, its quite obvious that the world's going to hell in a hand basket. This isn't just my youthful pessimism. As I pointed out just a couple of blogs ago, we may have already passed the Point of No Return environmentally. The climate-change deniers will tell you it's all a load of nonsense, the tree-huggers will tell you it's a done deal, but serious science tells us we're damn close to the precipice. You can believe what you want, but I'm going with science. At the moment, it's the most reasonable. Let's face it, primarily because of the deniers and the neo-liberal growth addicts, we're destroying the world faster than the rest of us can keep up. I think it is not unreasonable at all to start thinking about The End.

I mean, who's going to save us? (And this is assuming that we're worth saving at all.) The End means different things to different groups, of course. So-called Christians (especially the born-agains and evangelicals) have one idea about it, and materialists (especially the militant-atheist types, like Dawkins) have quite another. Personally, I think they're both in for a surprise.

There are a number of possible “saviors”: science, technology, politicians, Jesus, or God, just to name the most often mentioned and obvious ones. Maybe the right people in these various areas or the right miracles at the right moment could make the ultimate difference. Maybe ... perhaps ... I don't know for sure. It's something worth thinking about though, so I think that's precisely what I'll do.

In the next couple of posts, then, we'll take a look at the various possibilities, one by one.

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