Are we doomed as a species? What will be our downfall?

Question

First, we have religon, several books, all claimed to be written by the "Creator of the Universe" yet still contain barbaric principles, and laws, and no reconciliation.

We now approch a time of 21st century technology, and 15th century ideology. Can we as a species possibly survive this?

Should we escape doom, what is the future for humanity? I don't think any religon has a proper prediction for that. But, my true question is,

What will emerge that will prevent us from destroying ourselves?

By gods hand? Whose god? Yours? Theirs? Mine? Someone elses?

To properly "interpret" gods will, we can only go through scripture? Whose Scripture? Christians? Muslims? Jews? Buddists?

How can we possibly claim we KNOW "Gods Will"

I feel that is what will be our ultimate destruction...

Answer 1

Our best asset is our brain. Our worst asset is our brain. Our brains keep us smart and adaptable. Our brains also lead us down the path of destruction sometimes.

Answer 2

I do not think we are doomed as as species. We always have the choice to act. That said, proper action assumes an awareness of reality and sound judgment. In groups, it also assumes proper coordination.

I see myself as wiser that I was ten years ago, and I am not alone. I keep growing and learning, so do most people. So long as most people keep learning, the three conditions will be met.

What may kill the species is not much. One, drastic change in the environment, a new disease for example. Those things are preventable to a degree. Also, we may run out of natural resources. A philosopher would say that the earth is inexhaustible, that so long as there is human inventive there will always be replacements. Finally, we may kill ourselves thru conflicts or stupidity. I believe that so long as significant amounts of people keep learning, this will not happen. All this does not mean it is going to be easy, only that it is possible.

Answer 3

This could save us.

A long time ago I thought that love was something that you reserved for some special set of people that you had judged worthy of it.

After a while I got to thinking about what Jesus had said about turning the other cheek and loving our neighbor I put the two together and realized that he had made no exceptions in these statements. It became obvious to me that he intended that we exclude no one from the love that we are supposed to be giving. I started thinking about my idea of love and suddenly realized that I had not been loving anyone at all. I had simply been judging everyone and every thing.

Judging someone worthy of love is not love, it is only judgment. I actually started to cry when I realized this. I saw just how much of my life I had wasted being judgmental, thinking of myself as a Christian, when I was actually doing just the opposite of what Jesus had asked us to do.

I thought about the verse judge not lest ye be judged, and I understood it for the first time.

I realized that I have a lot of catching up to do. So many opportunities were wasted. I now try to apply the love that I have for the world in a universal way like Jesus asks us to do.

If I start to feel afraid and think that I see someone that I should not love because of something I have thought or heard I try to catch my mistake as soon as possible. I tell myself that I have forgot the truth and have fallen for the same old trick that had cost me so many opportunities to be loving in the past. The horror of this realization is often all that is necessary to bring me back to my senses and make me drop the judgmental nonsense I was thinking.

I still have a lot to learn about love, but at least I’m making progress.

Love and blessings

Your brother
don

Answer 4

Well if you get a lot of answers to this, many will be religious in nature. I don't see how I can believe people claiming to see things no one else sees, hear voices no one else hears, and things of that nature when today those people would be taken to a mental health center. Yet 2000 years ago, people like that were called prophets. Humans as a species are becoming more like a virus infecting the planet with the rate of reproduction so high. Our only natural predator has become our self. We need to find a way to stop ourselves or well will destroy ourselves and the planet with us.

Answer 5

Failure to adapt and improve upon our weaknesses. The same for all species. Hopefully we will evolve, hopefully evolution is occurring. It is no longer really about a physical improvement, but an evolution in our society itself. Most likely we need some large scale conflict or make some important scientific breakthroughs to perhaps shake the foundations enough for us to initiate enough change.

The problem is our species current obsession with materiality. We have been given a lot of intelligence and have the ability to manipulate our environment. Its like a teenager that just got his car license and is so excited about it that he goes on a speeding rampage thinking that he would not crash. We need to have a "near miss" with that metaphorical semi-trailer in order to improve our ways.

I do not think we have matured as a species, we are still a young species. We have to learn that we must adapt to our environment, and realise that conquering it is useless. All we really have done so far is change the environment, but we haven't actually adapted to the new environment which we have created for ourselves!

Answer 6

No.

Wars are awful, but naturally self limiting. The more destructive they are the less willing and capable people are to continue them in the near future.

We'll have all kinds of vicious and dangerous wars, but even with nuclear weapons we lack the ability to completely wipe ourselves out. The Plague remains better at killing humans than just about anything else in history, and now the average person has barely heard of it, much less worries about dying from it.

Answer 7

Simply put, the destruction of ourselves will prevent us from destroying ourselves. In other words, there will come a time where no ammount of technology will save us from ourselves. All technology will fall and only those who are smart enough to survive without it will flourish. Those people will create a new society, which will inevitably build istelf up over thousands of years and destroy it self, and so on and so on and so on. It is the perpetual cycle of human nature to create, refine, create, refine, create, fight over creations, and destroy what we've created.

Answer 8

Ever see the "Matrix" where Agent Smith describes it perfectly. He equated humans to virii. We consume evrything around us until there's nothing left, then we migrate to another area, suck it dry until its dead too, and keep populating/migrating new areas just to kill everything that was there to suit our needs until those resources too have been used up.

Keep going until the earth is 100% blackened and void of things for us to destroy in our attempt to preserve our own lives. Once its all used up, we die.
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Answer 9

I have looked into the mirror and seen the face of evil. It is not by God's hand that the end will come, but by our leaders and technophiles so crazed for power and control, that they will control not simply our lives and actions but our genetics and body chemistry as well.

Answer 10

Do you think you are doomed?

If you think so, then we will figure out something for ourselves, don't worry.