It's Not the End of the World

Recently I read that the Black Plague has made a bit of a comeback, and there are outbreaks in Africa. This is horrible, and what's even more tragic is that even though we have the antibiotics to cure it, the plague is breaking out in places with poor healthcare. This is no doubt a serious health problem, but here's what's really bothering me: people are commenting on this, saying it's the end of the world and we must change our ways because God is punishing us.

Punishing us for what, exactly? Seriously, let's go back to a time when most people were God-fearing Catholics, non-Christians were tortured and killed, people were trying to spread Christianity and convert everyone, women were property of their husbands, they were forced to wear chastity belts, everyone believed God created the world and mankind, everyone also believed the Earth was flat, there was no legal abortion, there was no real awareness let alone acceptance of homosexuality, there was no birth control or condoms, girls were getting married as young as 12 and popping out babies and not working outside the home. It was a better time, a simpler time, and PEOPLE WERE DYING OF THE PLAGUE!

If people think this is the work of God, what exactly do they think He wants from us? To go back to the way things were back then? Yeah, that stuff didn't work. When the Plague broke out in medieval Europe, everyone thought the world was coming to an end. Did it? No!

Look, bad shit has been happening for thousands of years. For all we know, the cavemen suffered a huge hurricane and the cavemen leader insisted "me no know it be this bad, no Grog's fault!" while one caveman insisted "Grog no care about black cavemen!" I'll bet if we went back in time to talk to the cavemen, they would tell us about Hurricane BLAARGH that wiped out a lot of cavemen.

But seriously, every time some huge disaster happens, people insist the world is going to end. Um, yeah, if we went by that logic, we'd all be dead by now.

That reminds me, who here reads Harry Potter? Remember how Professor Trelawny was always "predicting" doom? Harry pointed out that if all her predictions came true, he would have died a while ago. Same thing here, maybe Trelawny is some kind of metaphor for all the armageddon nutjobs who take everything as a sign of the end of the world.

All we can do is preserve the Earth we have, and that includes preserving mankind. Sure, if nuclear war breaks out, most of us will die and the rest of us will develop genetic mutations that we'll pass on to our offspring. The result: a significant change in the evolution of mankind, and all living beings on this Earth for that matter.

Life on Earth has always prevailed. Yes, occasionally a species dies out. The dinosaurs did. But even when we had those ice ages, some form of life had to have survived, because life doesn't come from non-life. Life comes from pre-existing life, and if the ice ages had wiped out all life, there'd be no life today.

Does that mean the human race is immune to extinction? Not necessarily, but we have the technology and intelligence to keep ourselves alive. There's no way to know for sure the future of mankind, but just because we might one day die out doesn't mean we should give up now.