Is the world getting better or worse?

[BigMark]

37 minutes ago, Unchained said:

I wonder what the inhabitants of Sodom would have said if we asked them this question? They had great material wealth, a prosperity that was unmatched in their region. It wasn't without reason that Lot and his family sold their livestock and became city dwellers… I'm sure you guys get my point. What we view as progress isn't necessarily an improvement in God's eyes.

Sure, we have been given many blessings that our forefathers didn't have, especially here in the western world we are extremely privileged from a material point of view. But then again, we've paid a price for all of this. I live in a so-called Christian nation, one of the wealthiest nations on Earth, but only 5% of our population goes regularly to Church. We were much poorer 100 years ago, but back then church attendance was nearly universal.

Yes, science has advanced. But we should also keep in mind that the wealth and prosperity in our world are unevenly distributed. Some of us are so well fed that we could afford to lose weight, but there are still hundreds of millions who go hungry to bed every night. Almost 800 million people globally are suffering from chronic malnourishment. This might be a little less than it was a decade ago, but it demonstrates that our conceptions of progress might be somewhat flawed. I have an easier life than my great-grandparents, but many people are less fortunate than myself.

...or the people of Laodicea. 5%? Wow, that number is really dropping. Very sad. 

We really are blessed to live in this nation. Not much we can do. When we donate food, the leaders of the other countries hoard it or sell it to the people for a profit. As a result, the ones who are supposed to get it don't. 

 

Back to David's question, I think that every day the earth spins on it's axis, people get dumber and meaner. To get an idea of many people's intelligence, just watch some of Mark Dice's videos. And the rapid advancement of road rage testifies of the meanness. And look how people hate each other because the other one likes a different candidate. This is more like a WWE match than a presidential campaign. 

[phkrause]

10 hours ago, BigMark said:

And look how people hate each other because the other one likes a different candidate. This is more like a WWE match than a presidential campaign. 

Exactly!!

[Gerr]

Just look at the comments people make on the internet news/articles and see how mean and uncivil people have become.

[Myron]

On 3/11/2016 at 7:13 PM, rudywoofs (Pam) said:

It's really hard to take anything seriously that comes out of "naturalnews.com"...  According to professionals in heatlh and science, "Natural News" is quackery, at best, and outright fraud, at worst, and preys on conspiracy theorists, and those whose scientific knowledge is very narrow and/or limited.

I agree with you here Pam.  There are many such sources who only study and present the data that agrees with their agenda.  These groups fall on both sides of every issue, both at the extremes and everywhere in between, and unfortunately this includes professionals in health and science.  E. Torrey Fuller, in some of his books on the psychiatric profession points out the flaws of American Freudian psychologists who were introduced to Freud's work only after he had repudiated much of, and who did their own "scientific" studies of his ideas and methods. None were double blind, and thus not actually scientific, and this problem persists in the mental "science" fields.  The studies all tended to show be neutral or repudiate the Freudian theories, but the "scientists" conducting them only said, "We don't know why the data does not support our ideas but we know they are true."  You hear this same statement daily from religionists of every variety.

And Mark is right that the government cannot be trusted.  Two agencies, the USDA and the FDA are so nearly wholly owned by the industries they "regulate" that it is almost surprising there are any food recalls at all and that any new drugs are withheld from the market at all, but then you do need to do enough that the sheeple believe you really are working for their good instead of the industry profits.

[Myron]

On 3/11/2016 at 9:34 PM, BigMark said:

...or the people of Laodicea. 5%? Wow, that number is really dropping. Very sad. 

Yes Mark it really is sad, but let's take a look at the example a minute.  Who was Laodicea?  They had a famous medical school specializing in maladies of the eyes, yet God said they were blind (spiritually at least.)  God also described them as being lukewarm so that no one wanted anything to do with them, in other words they had made themselves irrelevant.  We admit to living in the church age of Laodicea.  Many SDAs even claim this denomination is the embodiment of Laodicea.  Aren't these the numbers you would expect to see from a group of people who through their blindness and lack of passion for anything except enriching themselves have made themselves totally irrelevant?

[phkrause]

2 hours ago, Myron said:

Two agencies, the USDA and the FDA are so nearly wholly owned by the industries they "regulate" that it is almost surprising there are any food recalls at all and that any new drugs are withheld from the market at all, but then you do need to do enough that the sheeple believe you really are working for their good instead of the industry profits.

Are you judging or do you actually have proof????? My brother works for the FDA and according to him they do there jobs just as you do yours, or did yours!!!!! Depending on if your still working or not anymore. So don't make claims unless you can really back it up with proof!!!!!

[Myron]

David,

Those making a claim for a mixed bag do have a valid point but they are not looking at a big enough picture.  Of course it is rather easy to see that in terms of technology we are improving greatly with very little of the "two steps forward and one step back" thing occurring where people can see it. But I get the impression you intended that we address our spiritual an moral condition.  

If we look at the historical trend since God first brought the nation/church out of Egypt is greatly improved.  Naturally, when you look at a scale that large you will see a lot of large ups and downs over considerable lengths of time that seem to defy the general trend if you only look at the last 20 or 100 years.  Few people can actually even see that last 100 years with any real accuracy.

Prophetically this is easy to see if you have any understanding at all of the doctrine of sonship, Most Christians, Adventists included, have no understanding of the doctrine of sonship.  This doctrine is found by comparing the doctrine of the feast days, Israel's journey from Egypt to the Promised Land and a number of other rituals that prophesy of the same things from different perspectives.  This comparison gives us an amazingly clear perspective of the doctrine which both Jesus and Paul reference from time to time.

Simply put our spiritual journey begins when we are "born again."  The actual terminology is begotten from above and so more accurately shows conception, not birth, and some of the other types make more sense if we view them as being the journey from conception to birth rather than from birth to adoption as a fully mature son of God.  Yet because none of these types and shadows fully illustrate the matter on their own God provides us with multiple types which we must overly one on top of the other to understand the matter more completely.  We are still only playing with children's toys and cannot see any of this clearly (1 Corinthians 13:8-12).  At some point we must put away the toys and begin to use the real spiritual concepts.

With Passover we have the feast that represents being born again, or conceived from above.  This is righteousness by faith, or the baptism of John which is a baptism of water for repentance.  This is accepting the word of God as true (smearing the blood on the doorposts, leaving Egypt on the first day of Unleavened Bread (studying only the pure word of God) and entering the wilderness, journeying to the Red Sea and being baptized on the third day as the wave sheaf offering (resurrection), moving on to the eight day with circumcision, about the 30th day receiving the manna and quail (Exodus 16) and with the the Sabbath revelation.  Each of these things represents a journey to a certain level of spiritual maturity, and a rite of passage that comes on the 50th day after the Red Sea (resurrection) experience.  I won't continue this list of types with the other feasts but I do it here to show the level of detailed study necessary if you wish to understand these things.

Here we have the rite of passage that is called the Bar Mitzvah (son of the law) ceremony.  Unlike the circumcision and adoption ceremonies which are directly referenced in scripture, this one is not directly referenced, but we are told that after this passage all the males were required to travel to the tabernacle (later the temple) to keep the three primary feasts in the presence of God.   And we see an example of this rite in the ceremony at Sinai where God came down to the mountain and spoke directly to the people.  We see this as a marriage ceremony.  We see it as the Feast of Weeks which is also called the firstfruits of the wheat harvest or simply wheat harvest, Pentecost (50th).  We see it as the baptism of fire and spirit.  We see it as the first of two feasts Israel refused to fulfill in their day because of lack of faith.  

Because they refused to hear God's voice for themselves they did not receive the Holy Spirit and when they finally did go into the Promised Land had to conquer it by the use of the physical sword instead of the use of the sword of the spirit (the word of God.)  They could only bring a physical death instead of the second death which is the lake of fire and is shown in John's baptism as repentance, Justification and full surrender to God.  Because they refused to hear God's voice the fulfillment of this feast had to wait for another time nearly 1500 years later.  

Because verifiable history during these 1500 years and even the time before them is scant at best it can be hard to gauge just how much effect this new work of God had in the world.  In 33 AD when the spirit came down first on 120 people at 9:00 AM when the priest waved the barley sheaf before the veil in the temple the great wind attracted many people to the house where the 120 were worshiping.  They went out into the street and prophesied among the people, converting 3000 of them that day and thousands more over the next days weeks and months  So the church began changing for the better immediately, but in the old order portion of it the corrupt priesthood remained in charge and things very quickly went bad for the church of Pentecost because of the persecution by the priests..  

I can assure you that those subjected to this persecution in no way considered the world to be better because of their experience.  Yet because of the persecution they were driven from Jerusalem and the new philosophy peace spread.  Although it took time through the influence of Christianity in Europe we can see a general improvement in the way people treated each other.  There is a story in the writings of Herodotus that show similar improvement occurred in some places with the scattering of the House of Israel many years earlier which also caused the law of God to gain a limited influence in some areas.  Of course the church being overrun by fleshly leadership meant many of the gains were lost for a period of over 1000 years, but the general trend has been upward and now we are on the edge of the fulfillment of the Autumn Feast Days which prophesy of the resurrection and the second coming.

There is one more thing to be aware of.  All of God's time cycles are probationary periods, sometimes between a complaint being made and a conviction, and sometimes between a conviction and the execution of a sentence.  These are grace periods during which a sinner, whether individual or nation, can repent or refuse to repent.  If they repent God will either turn aside the punishment or set a lower level of punishment.  If they refuse to repent God assesses the full punishment against them.  During this time he sends tests to reveal their heart condition.

Ezekiel and Jeremiah were contemporaries, each prophesying right before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.  In Ezekiel 8 God showed Ezekiel the detestable sins the people were committing in the temple.  In symbol Ezekiel saw them as being done in hidden and darkened rooms, showing that these sins were done in secret.  Through Jeremiah God sent the people many tests to reveal their sins and show whether they would repent or not.  

When my probationary period is coming to a close God sends tests to bring my sins into the open.  To the casual observer it will definitely appear like I have become worse but those evils were already there, and many times I knew of them.  Sometimes due to my own lack of honesty even with myself I had no idea those sins existed.  Either way, they were already there and always have been there to be seen by any who really care to take a close look.  Most of the time our hidden sins are not all that hidden, it is just that everyone else is willing to be fooled by the facade we raise up to hide them.  With the facade removed our nakedness shows and only the most gullible and unwilling to see will fail to recognize the evil within us.  Judah fit this description of being the most gullible and unwilling to see, both in 589 BC and in AD 70.  The church is doing a fairly good job of that now, having no difficulty seeing the sins of the world, but absolutely refusing to see their own, yet those sins within the church are becoming extremely obvious to the world.  Thus it does seem as though things are worse now than they were just a few years ago.

 

[Outta Here]

Addressing the original question, I'd submit that the world is neither better nor worse than in ages past. It's just different. It's what it is. Our lives are what we make of them--no more, no less. To quote my 92 year-old crass grandmother (who says this on a daily basis), it's "the same old [censored], piled higher and deeper. And it's getting pretty deep in some spots." To quote my husband's (now deceased) 98 year-old grandmother, it's "the same old 76." Which is to say, it's pretty much the same as always.

 

[Myron]

6 hours ago, phkrause said:

Are you judging or do you actually have proof????? My brother works for the FDA and according to him they do there jobs just as you do yours, or did yours!!!!! Depending on if your still working or not anymore. So don't make claims unless you can really back it up with proof!!!!!

I am judging, and yes, I do have proof.  Let's correct your terminology first because Christians have placed extremely negative connotations on that word and overly limit its meaning to condemn.  Judgment is any decision making process, not just condemnation as most Christians use the term and God's laws of judgment all apply.  Even discernment is a judgment process, and unlike condemnation (with or without proof) it is seriously lacking among Christians.  God's law requires two or three witnesses to establish any fact.  I have spent the last 15 years in detailed study of God's law and learning righteous judgment.  I am not perfect in the application of the law, but I do not make such statements lightly.  

As for the proof, it is all over the news media and hardly a month goes by without finding some new story about the corporate control of one or both of these agencies and how it is the corporations regulating the regulators, not the other way around.  Yes I recognize the apparent absurdity of pointing out that very little of the media is actually trustworthy as I did in the post you are questioning and then pointing to that same media as my source.  That is life in an imperfect and sinful world.  Deal with it.  

I had become aware of problems long before, but the first real evidence I had regarding problems at the FDA came with the pulling of certain NSAID medications about 10 or 12 years ago, beginning first with one brand that was the direct cause of the deaths of a number of patients, then later the temporary removal of all NSAID medications except aspirin from the markets after it was revealed that the FDA had been aware all along of specific dangers of this class of medication and had helped the industry suppress the evidence.  Eventually most of the NSAIDS were returned to the market with additional label warnings.  The first of these drugs never did return to the market because the drug company had serious problems in the initial testing which the company had suppressed.  It was unclear as to whether the FDA had been aware of these dangers before approval of the drug, but serious problems in FDA procedures were revealed as a result of this and many have only gotten worse, not better.

When I was a kid the marketing was that the FDA did, or at least oversaw, independent testing of all drugs before they were approved and the approval process took between 10 and 20 years.  I have no idea if that was actually true.  These days many drugs are fast tracked for no good reason and the only studies the FDA uses for approval in many cases is the drug company's studies.  Many of these companies are reputable but many are also well known to doctor the results of their studies, and in some cases their "whistleblowers" have claimed that the FDA not only was complicit in this doctoring, but in some cases actually told the companies what information to change or omit from the applications.

Since I don't deal with the FDA and only know what gets reported in the mainstream media I will use two other examples to further explain the problems your brother faces and what is wrong with your statement that they "do there jobs just as you do yours."  By the way, I seem to remember many people making similar statements at the Nuremberg trials and no one accepted that excuse there either.  One example comes from my education and career, and the other comes from this week's headlines.  

Even when I was in teacher's college when they taught us how to assess new textbooks and decide what books we wanted to use in our classes we were beginning to hear complaints about the dumbing down of textbooks and the problems that was causing in education.  Actually this was not the first I had heard of this.  When I was in 8th grade Don Schegel started his first year as the science teacher at College View Academy.  He was the best science teacher I have ever known, and I have known some very good ones.  He wrote his own curriculum for our 8th Grade general science course because, as he said, he had never seen a junior high school science textbook that was worth anything.  Fortunately for me I was a music teacher, so in most of my organized classes textbooks were not a necessity, but when I had to teach general music I mostly went off the reservation as well and wrote my own curriculum, so I can speak very well about the difficulties of doing this work.  I did not do it as effectively as Mr. Schlegel had done for us.  Most teachers, especially at the elementary level, do not have adequate knowledge of their subject matter to write their own curriculum for all their classes, and even where they do have such knowledge it is an extremely time consuming process and thus is not very practical.

When I was teaching every time a school I was at began talking about replacing textbooks the matter of the dumbing down of the curriculum came up again.  Sometimes this was the specific reason for considering a textbook change, and we always found that it was useless to try to solve the problem with the purchase of new textbooks, yet no one ever suggested writing our own curriculum.  This discussion occurs at all levels in every school district or private school I have ever been involved with, from the classroom teacher all the way up to the board.  Everyone wants something done about it, and nobody does anything about it.  Back in the day publishing a text book was a difficult and costly thing, but Don Schlegel proved it was not absolutely necessary and even though it is a hardship a teacher alone can provide quality instructional materials.  The textbook publishers had a lock on the curriculum at that time only because it is easier and a teacher's job description does not include creating a curriculum because we want as much standardization as possible.  It's simpler this way so this is how we do it and cannot even allow ourselves to consider doing it any other way. 

Now to the example from this week's headlines -- there has been a congressional hearing going on concerning the water supply in Flint, Michigan.  In case you have been living under a rock I will explain that a couple of years ago the State of Michigan took over control of the municipal water system in Flint, and shortly thereafter turned to the still polluted Flint River instead of piping it in from Lake Huron in order to save money.  You can purify water from any source for drinking if you are willing to spend enough money to do so.  All surface source water requires some level of treatment before being put into the pipes and regardless any public project like this requires major studies to be done before the project can be undertaken.  Weren't these studies done?  Some time after I first questioned this it was reported that they were and the state opted to go ahead with this change without adequate treatment of the water.  Apparently the corrosive agent in the water that has since caused the problem was not considered a danger to human health and further studies to determine its effect on the pipes themselves was not even considered.

I don't know if the coating on the inside of the pipes that was simply hard water deposits that are normal on pipes this old or if it was some special coating over the lead to keep the lead from leaching into the drinking water passing through them.  At the time this water system was built heavy metal poisoning was not well known (or maybe not at all known) and it had been common to use lead water pipes both in houses and in underground utilities.  Most cities replaced these pipes long, long ago so the city of Flint cannot be absolved of guilt in this matter.  Still the state studies should have revealed this as well.

Last year this problem was first revealed when pediatricians started reporting epidemic numbers of lead poisoning cases in children in the Flint area.  Later it was reported that the residents had been complaining of reduced water quality for months.  Still later it was revealed that the state had known of the problem six months before the pediatricians began reporting the lead poisoning found in those children, but had chosen to do nothing and definitely not to make the matter public.  Around that same time it was also revealed that the requisite studies had been done before the state made this change and that at the very least they contained adequate information to reveal the potential for problems of this sort in the water system.  The information was ignored.  At one point it was also stated that the governor had been kept informed at every step of the process.

Now this week the governor of Michigan and the head of the EPA were sitting in congressional hearings seeking to assign blame for the problem.  Since the officials of Flint's water system were not there to answer why, in the last 60+ years when all the other municipal water systems in this country with lead pipe were replacing those pipes they had chosen not to do so we can certainly call these proceedings a mere circus intended to make it look like congress cares.  I did not actually watch any of these proceedings, but did see short reports on the news.  The congressmen conducting the questioning were very harsh on these two officials and regularly called them liars.  If the news reports I referenced above are anywhere near the truth I have no problem with the governor being treated in this manner.  With a straight face he claimed no previous knowledge of anything that happened, and that he did all he could as soon as he was informed.  Really?  Was that an actor hired by the news media as a stand-in when he was shown on the news stonewalling about all this for the first two months after it became public?

I have great sympathy for the head of the EPA and consider the congressmen to be disingenuous at best.  This woman did not claim she had no knowledge of this, she claimed she did all she could, and I have little doubt of this, at least as far as the legal limitations placed on her agency.  Over the last 15 to 20 years the republicans have never refused an opportunity to hamstring this agency and for the last few years have been vowing to defund or eliminate it.  Furthermore, its regulatory authority never has extended to forcing the removal of lead pipes from water systems nor to providing any form of relief once problems of this nature are found.  The policy on these things, regardless of the regulatory agency, comes from much higher than the pay grade of your brother, and if he is just doing his job the question we must ask is precisely what is that job?

Because of the actions of congress over the years the publicly stated duties of these agencies and their actual duties are not the same.  Neither party really does anything to make them truly do their jobs because this would interfere too much with profits of the companies they regulate.  The republicans are the greatest guardians of company profits, but both parties are at fault.  Further, very often non-disclosure agreements are involved, even between regulatory agencies, their employees and these companies, just as the company employees themselves must sign.  Such contractual obligations usually supersede statutory law, so the widely publicized whistle blower laws are not much protection.  

Just as teachers are well aware of the problem of dumbing down of textbooks and for the most part have skills and abilities to do something about it for some of their classes, especially today when self-publishing is so easy where there are many computers, and so many school systems and charities are making sure every child in a large percentage of our nation's schools have computers there is no excuse for allowing the textbook industry and whoever controls them to set our curriculum for us, yet it still happens because teachers are content to just do their jobs and curriculum development is not part of that job.  It may be a bit harder for employees of the FDA to work for the people than for the corporations; I don't know because I don't have a hobby of reading congressional bills, US law codes and agency rules and regulations.  Still the evidence is abundant, the evidence is out there relatively easy to find at least when something goes as wrong as prescription drugs killing people who are using them properly, or the government giving its people heavy metal poisoning as a matter of course just to save a little money.  Only the willfully blind have trouble seeing these things and the excuse that we are doing our jobs covers a multitude of sins when people don't bother checking to see what our job really is.

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35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”

37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”

38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”

41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains."  John 9

We are all blind in part, and will none of us be able to see fully until Tabernacles is fulfilled (See 1 Corinthians 13:8-12.  Still some see better than others.  Because the church has refused to see and understand the positive aspects of judgment and learn God's laws of judgment the church also nearly completely lacks the power of discernment.  Mystery Babylon is busy falling all around us.  We won't believe that because we blinded  ourselves with very specific beliefs about how God MUST fulfill this prophecy.  Mystery means hidden.  The 4th king of the north operated by intrigue, not as an open ruler.  Our interpretation of prophecy in no way accounts for this, but it is what has happened.  The SDA interpretation is that the US is the beast from the earth (it is the primary figurehead through whom this beast rules) but we insist that everything the US does is perfect?  We question anyone who acknowledges evidence that shows us going the wrong direction while still claim that this beast will become the great evil Revelation says it will be?  Do you really think that there is not a process of turning evil that has already been going on for a considerably long time?  Do you really believe that this so-called Sunday law (which is the only possibility you can see because SDAs refuse to acknowledge the higher levels of the Sabbath that are so clearly stated in many of prophecies we use to limit our interpretation to the seventh-day Sabbath) will come out of the blue without any cause over time?  We have already lived for 20 years under laws in this country that openly counter the Sabbath laws.

God's law of judgment requires that all witnesses be judged before the accused is judged and that any found to be malicious receive the same punishment they were seeking to be imposed on the accused (Deuteronomy 19:16-21).  This is why Jesus said,   

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“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.  Matthew 7

 

This has nothing at all to do with not judging as you and most of Christianity seem to believe; it has everything to do with protecting the unrighteous judge, accusers and witnesses from facing the penalty for their hypocrisy when they stand before God in any matter, including their daily prayers.  I take this very seriously.  Because I am human I am not always a righteous witness or judge, but I am much more deeply aware than most the penalties I might face for acting rashly.  I consider my words carefully most of the time, and I do not discourage being questioned because it has led to necessary correction.

However, because the evidence is already so plentiful and you have opted to turn a blind eye, and because in our past exchanges you have demonstrated a remarkable inability to read and understand anything I am of the opinion my time would be wasted.  When you want to speak on a subject and be taken seriously don't post someone else's work, whether Doug Bachelor's or E. J. Waggoner, claim it is precisely what you believe and then prove unable to answer the simplest questions regarding what those men said, and insist that we question them instead of you.  All you prove by doing so is that you have no understanding of the material and probably little knowledge as well and have nothing to add to the discussion.

Deuteronomy 13 is a law regarding false prophets, and is a chapter SDAs never include in their teachings on prophecy because it directly counters SDA teaching regarding Ellen White.  Regardless of the signs and wonders that accompany a prophet and prove that God sent that prophet the message of that prophet could be false because God is testing us to make sure we really love him.  The direct command of God in this chapter is that everything the prophet (and by implication a teacher) says must be checked against the revealed word of God.  Ellen White herself says over and over that she is never to be used as the test of our faith, only the Bible is.  

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Don't you quote Sister White. I don't want you ever to quote Sister White until you get your vantage ground where you know where you are. Quote the Bible. Talk the Bible. It is full of meat, full of fatness. Carry it right out in your life, and you will know more Bible than you know now. (Spaulding-Magan Collection, p. 174). 

The testimonies of Sister White should not be carried to the front. God's Word is the unerring standard. The Testimonies are not to take the place of the Word.... Let all prove the positions from the Scriptures and substantiate every point they claim as truth from the revealed Word of God. (Evangelism, p. 256) 

The Bible is our rule of faith and doctrine. (Gospel Workers, p. 249

If you can't discuss it from scripture, from your own knowledge it isn't your place to be discussing it at all.  If you prove this inept in these more important matters how can you expect anyone to take you seriously when you question something else for which the evidence is so ample?  

Acts 17:11 says, 

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Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

The Thessalonians were merely persuaded of what Paul said, but the Bereans were more noble because the did the due diligence required by Deuteronomy 13 and searched the scriptures for themselves to determine whether what Paul said was actually true or not.  This is the only way to make certain that your ears are not being tickled and that you are not simply being blown around by winds of doctrine.  This is the ONLY way to internalize what you are told, gain a personal understanding of it and truly be able to claim, this is what I believe. 

[Aliensanctuary]

All of the science and technology that ever has, and ever will, exist cannot change the heart of man, and neither can all of the wars that have come and gone. While the antediluvians were all but wiped out for their extreme evil, we can expect that same level of transgression to engulf this dying world before the return of the Son of Man. As we endure the ebb and flow of the dark hearts of selfish men, we can only hope for the next life where the selfishness of evil will no longer exist. When Self ceases to exist, only then can we enjoy a life of peace and joy. 

Only when all of humanity practices the teachings of Christ can this world rise above sorrow and death and journey into a life forever without tears. To make this a better world, then, we, too, should take his teachings to heart and dedicate ourselves to serving others as he did. We can see the stark contrast between the followers of the religion of death and the followers of the Son of Man. While the followers of Satan's religion of death delight in murdering others and destroying innocent lives, the followers of Christ find fulfillment in serving others to make their lives a little bit brighter amid the darkness of a dark world.

As Satan's armies turn the world into a bloody battlefield, the followers of Christ must die for their faith by sword, guns, and bombs, knowing that all memories of this world will be wiped away and forgotten if their lives are taken away by men controlled by demons. A life in the Kingdom of God is like an extremely valuable gemstone, worth sacrificing everything to obtain. We needn't worry ourselves about our possessions because, soon enough, they will all be incinerated in a fiery inferno that sweeps the whole world. Our unselfish acts towards others, even the ones who harm us, is like gold deposited in the bank. 

As the world's civilizations around us descend into depravity, bloodbaths, and anarchy, and they will, we must focus on the stars from which our help will come.