This will be an eventful century, we have just seen the start. The pieces that will destroy the fabric of our civilization have begun to come together. The negative effects of our excesses have started to occur. They will pile up untill we can no longer control them and chaos takes hold.

The first of the things to happen was the economy, after the technology bubble popped, and the corporate corruption came out. Now there are millions out of work, pissed off because the government is allowing their former employer to use slave labor in the phillipines. The major financiers have taken their money out of the dollar and put in foreign currency. The US is losing its grip on economic superpowership.

The second of the things is the United States' joyriding as the last superpower. Its reckless actions and blatant display of power garnered hatred from the citizens of the world. As a result, guerrilla terrorist movements have grown up, born of religous fervor and hatred for the United States' decadence and position over them. They saw the way that America treated the rest of the world and decided to fight back in a way never anticipated. America could handle fighting another country, but it was too big to control these tiny movements with the power of mass death at their fingertips.

Then there were the bacteriae, and viruses that had grown tolerances to our vaccines and medicines. Our medicine manufacturers have gotten complacent, manufacturing luxury drugs, rather than what we really need. Now our defences are at their weakest, and a plague stands ready to devastate our world.

The fourth catastrophe is the continual dumbing down of the American citizenry. All they care about is their favorite celebrities. They know little of the outside world, and care little about politics or their freedoms. They have little clue that their beloved luxuries are about to be ripped from them.

There is a crisis of religion happening all across the world. Every day brings more of a case against a nonexistant god. People are becoming atheists or fundamentalists. There is a momentuous war about to happen, solely between those religous and non-religous people. It will split humanity into fragments, as the question of a god becomes deadly.

There are so many problems and disasters waiting to happen at the moment that the slightest trouble could set them all off. We are going to have a very problematic few decades, but most of us should survive it. When we return to relative order, society will have changed. We will be more wise than ever before, having seen the results of our excesses and luxuries. We will be compassionate and peaceful. After the mass murder of the twentieth and early twenty first century, we will want to rest and recupperate. It will be a time of love and peace.

XAOS

That does describe the state of the world today. The only way to change it all is to have a shift in values world-wide. I know something like that won't happen.

The world will to have to experience chaos in this case, to truly move toward the light of peace.

I agree, society in itself will never learn until it experiences it. Our world is in a constant downfall and the dark ages are getting closer. Our country's arrogance keeps shooting itself in the foot. I do not think that our world will ever achieve world peace though. It's inevitable that our world will always have rebels that want to be different, and our species own ignorance is keeping us from peace.

If there was world peace, there wouldn't be so many lessons to learn as there are with conflict and violence. The peace would probably last only as long as the generation that "remembers" the great conflict is still alive. The new generations who are oblivious to the troubles of greed and deception will fall prey to these illusions once again, and the cycle of destruction and chaos will repeat. This is the whole point, to provide lessons for those who want to learn and then get out of here! Don't try to change the world, that means assuming that there is something "wrong" with it and that it needs changing in the first place, based on your personal understanding of what the "correct" version of the world should rightfully be. Better to seek truth and accept things as they are, and of course learn from them as you see what leads to darkness and what leads to light and then CHOOSING which path you'd prefer. There is no "right" path, there is only choice and no one will judge you for your decision, but you will be responsible for it because what you choose is what you will get. If you don't like it, you can always take the different path. There are no "final" decisions on who you ultimately are, that's the wonder of our universe - it's ever changing.

one must go through times of trouble, pain and anguish inorder to bloom into something greater. think of us, the caterpillar, finally in the stages of it breaking from it's cocoon (i bet that would #ing hurt!). the only question is, will it bloom into a butterfly, or whither and die, not prepared for it's new environment?

There is no such thing as permanent peace. Even if humans learn to live with one annother in peace then there is always the prospect of attack from someone out there.

Peace will only come from strength and agreement on the basic principles.

There is still too much disagreement among humans to create the basis for peace.

That does describe the state of the world today. The only way to change it all is to have a shift in values world-wide. I know something like that won't happen.

It's inevitable that our world will always have rebels that want to be different, and our species own ignorance is keeping us from peace.

There is no such thing as permanent peace. Even if humans learn to live with one annother in peace then there is always the prospect of attack from someone out there.

These are words of hopelessness and despair. We have become disillusioned by a century of the most brutal and prolific death that humans have ever seen. We have no trust in our fellow humans, and believe that War is inevitable. Suffering has become a way of life for us, we have grown accustomed to it.

We cannot allow ourselves as a people to become jaded. Suffering may be a fact of life, but there are times when it can be relieved. War and conflict are not inevitable, we can rise above it in every case. We can live in peace with one another, it is possible.

Religion has always been a tool to control the masses and it will be utilized as such after the chaos. The people of the world will be torn from their beliefs and set astray, the third revelation at Fatima alludes to such. We will seek to find a new rock to cling to and as always we will find it. Our Religion will make us docile, it will make sure that we never make the same mistakes as before. We will have learned from our mistakes and will be repentant. The mistakes we made will come again, but not after a long peace.

XAOS

Originally posted by THENEO
(...)There is still too much disagreement among humans to create the basis for peace.

Humans? :0

This disagreement is coming out of governments, religions, corporations. Who really wants war? Not majority of world citizens. War was always artificially made generating hate and fear before.

Originally posted by xaos
(...)The fourth catastrophe is the continual dumbing down of the American citizenry. All they care about is their favorite celebrities. They know little of the outside world, and care little about politics or their freedoms. They have little clue that their beloved luxuries are about to be ripped from them.(...)

Why only American? Just say MacDonald and Coca-Cola consumers. Just say western, falling society. All they know is taken out of mass-media outlets.

Great post xaos

Originally posted by Kronos

Originally posted by THENEO
(...)There is still too much disagreement among humans to create the basis for peace.

Humans? :0

This disagreement is coming out of governments, religions, corporations. Who really wants war? Not majority of world citizens. War was always artificially made generating hate and fear before.

That is simplistic at best and at worse ignoring reality. There are differences between people, real differences.

There are people in the world that make money like J. LO does and spends it too and never questions why they even have it?

There are people in the world like the Rockefellers that have not known poverty or hardship for hundreds of years.

There are people that think that selling Heroin is a good way to get ahead in life.

There are people that like sex and think that being a porn star is a decent way to make a living.

the list goes on and on... did the government or your church or a school or anyone tell these people to think the way they do?

I am not a socialist nor will I ever embrace their ideals but they do have some good ideas. On the other hand people all want DIFFERENT things from this existance and THAT is the PROBLEM in itself I think.

Yes, Neo you are right in some respects. People are different in many ways. But everyone is the same in one way: no one likes suffering. Period. You may say that masochists enjoy pain inflicted on them, that they do like suffering. Physical pain of the sort enjoyed by these people is only one small facet of the suffering one can endure.

Do you think that these same masochists would enjoy experiencing their families ripped from them and put to death? Would they enjoy watching the city they live in bombed into a fine dust? Would they enjoy knowing that their entire race is being wiped out because of what they look like?

No. No one wants suffering, and that is what ties us together as a whole. We do not want to be subjected to suffering. People may "want DIFFERENT things from this existance," and this may be a "PROBLEM in itself," but no one wants suffering, no one wants to be hurt in that way.

xaos

even JRR Tolkien though of men as a warmongering race. soon after a great time of trouble (the War of the Ring.) men would once again become restless in the peace and contentment they come to know. humans define their reality by suffering. theneo probably remembers smith delivering that line. its true, there will never be peace.

Armageddon outa here !!! - Spike Milligan