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Originally Posted by ghostee
Why can't human civilization just not die until the sun destroys us millions of years from now? I know that there are individual humans or animals who are born, live, and die in the world, but as a collective, why must this earth and human civilization as we know it have to eventually perish?
I have had fears about Armageddon occurring since I was a teenager in high school. The world supposed to have ended on Dec. 21, 2012. I felt calmer for a couple years and then the fear started coming back. In the latest months, it's been almost as strong as it was when I started having this fear about 2012. I am not really religious but I do believe there is God. It makes me wonder why people always have to exclusively associate these doomsday fears with religion.
And I was raised Catholic, and when I was younger, the Bible said that nobody knew when the world we all know will end. I don't know exactly what gets Christians so excited about the world right now coming to an end. Also, why does it seem that one day they'll get their prophecies right? I'd prefer to spend eternity in oblivion a little more than I prefer the concept of the afterlives, but usually the Christian versions.
There is also the issue that ignores man-made doomsdays like nuclear warfare or a power-grid/modern infrastructure collapse (electro-magnetic pulse). Why can't the one or few people who want to kill tens or hundreds of millions just be zapped away from this world?
It seems that almost all Christians have been programmed to just accept that Jesus was returning without any critical thinking or curiosity. It really bothered me since I was a younger teen.
I honestly don't know what part this belongs in-the Religion & spirituality or Philosophy forum
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Extinction of all life on the planet by the expansion of the Sun is not something that will happen in a few millions of years from now. It's more likely to occur a half a billion years from now when the Sun begins to swell to become a red giant star. It will shed its atmosphere in layers, kind of like layers of an onion, one layer at a time. That could take anywhere from 4.5 to perhaps 7 billion years. Once it reaches its final stage it will shrink down to become a white dwarf star at which point the Sun itself will be a dead solid core. As a white dwarf star, it could live on for perhaps hundreds of billions of years as it cools and radiates away the rest of its heat. At that point it will be a dark solid husk of iron. The time before the Sun becomes a problem is far off in the future and nothing for us to worry about.
One of two things for human life could happen. We will either become extinct long before the Sun vaporizes the Earth, or our descendants will have developed the technology to leave the Earth. In the far distant future, humans as we know it now, will likely not exist, but rather will have evolved into a very different form of hominid anyway.
The biggest risks to humanity in the nearer future that could potentially wipe out not only humans, but most life on Earth, are from catastrophes like a collision by a large asteroid or comet. If a global nuclear war broke out, the population of the Earth could be greatly reduced, but I don't think it would result in total extinction. The same would hold true for a super-pandemic of disease. There would probably be survivors and survival would be a major struggle for them. There are other potential problems that could occur, such as a series of super-volcanoes exploding with ash covering the atmosphere for decades or longer causing the planet to cool like a major ice age.
The biblical Armageddon scenario has been predicted for at least the last 2000 years with the early predictions expected during the Roman Empire. None of the predictions have come about and we're still here.
Some of the people you mentioned that should be zapped from the world, have been "zapped" and their treachery curbed because most people do not want to live under such conditions.
I think rather than worrying about the end of the world and the end of life as we know it, it's better to take a positive and proactive view to try to make a small part of the world a better place that can benefit other people as well as yourself. Individually, we might not be able to change the world, but we can help improve things for a few other people. Many of the greatest impacts that are beneficial to large numbers of people began with one person. You never know what kind of impact your own contributions may lead to in the future.
That said, there are still events that could happen that we have no control over. But that doesn't mean at some point in time that a solution can never be achieved. We've come a long way in a relatively short period time from very primitive living to where we are now. Imagine where humanity could be in a hundred years from now, or a thousand years, or 100 thousand years.
So which is better? Worrying about a danger that might occur in the future that hasn't happened yet? Or take action to improve things for yourself and other people? There's only one person that can make that choice. That decision is yours.
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