Evidence for God from Science

New York — Despite the daily horrors in Iraq and seemingly regular spasms of terrorist-sponsored violence, the world is a much more peaceful place than it was a little more than a decade ago, a new study says.

Since the end of the Cold War, the number of armed conflicts has declined by more than 40 per cent, while the number of the deadliest conflicts -- those involving more than 1,000 battle-related deaths -- has dropped by 80 per cent, said the Human Security Report, which was released here yesterday.

"Over the past dozen years, the global security climate has changed in dramatic, positive and largely unheralded ways," the report states.

"Civil wars, genocides and international crises have all declined sharply. International wars, now only a small minority of all conflicts, have been in steady decline for a much longer period, as have military coups and the average number of people killed per conflict per year."

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The one dark spot, not surprisingly, is international terrorism, which has been on the rise since the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, though the death toll from such attacks is only a tiny fraction of war casualties.

The report was produced by the University of British Columbia's Liu Institute on Global Affairs, and was funded by several Western governments, including Canada.

It represents the first comprehensive effort to track the number of wars, both interstate and civil, raging around the globe, as well as the human toll from armed conflicts, terrorism and genocide.

Andrew Mack, a UBC professor who led the study, said yesterday it is time to put to rest some common myths, including the overarching view that the world is spiralling downward into violence.

"As is often the case with criminal violence, there is a huge disjuncture between what people believe is the case and what is actually the case," Prof. Mack said.

"What is actually the case is that we've seen this extraordinary improvement across the board in nearly all forms of political violence, except international terrorism, which doesn't kill a lot of people. And yet most people believe things are getting worse."

The report lays out what it calls "myths and misunderstandings," including: The number of genocides is increasing; wars are becoming more deadly and claimed the lives of five million people in the 1990s, and 90 per cent of those killed in today's wars are civilians, mainly women and children.

"None of these claims are based on reliable data. All are suspect; some are demonstrably false," the report said.

The report's authors calculated that civil and external wars killed about 700,000 combatants and civilians in 1950 but that figure dropped to about 100,000 in 1992 and 20,000 in 2002.

Prof. Mack acknowledged that his data end in 2003, but insisted the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have been raging for the past two years have not dramatically increased the death toll or reversed the long-term trend.

In 2004, there were just 25 armed secessionist conflicts under way in the world, the lowest number since 1976.

In addition to the Middle East, Africa remained mired in armed conflict. At the turn of the 21st century, more people were killed in wars in sub-Saharan Africa than in the rest of the world combined.

Prof. Mack, a former adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, cited a number of reasons for the decline in armed conflicts around the world: the end of the post-colonial era and wars of independence; the end of the Cold War and ideologically driven engagements by superpowers and their proxies; the expansion of democratic government through much of the developing world; and the success of UN peacemaking and conflict resolution.

"There is absolutely no doubt that the UN has been a critical actor, albeit an imperfect one, in bringing the numbers down," he said.

Despite its failures in places such as Bosnia and Rwanda, the UN has frequently succeeded in preventing armed conflict or in maintaining peace once a conflict has ended.

Prof. Mack insisted the report is not offering a rose-coloured view of the world.

He noted there are about 60 wars being fought and a continuing threat of international terrorism, perhaps even of a terrorist group gaining access to weapons of mass destruction.

"We're not Pollyannaish on this. We don't necessarily think there is going to be an upsurge in new violence but we think it is quite possible," he said.

"But we also think that if the international community gets its act together, it could actually make a real reduction in the risk."

War waning across the planet

Wars between countries are more rare than in previous eras. The number of armed conflicts has declined by more that 40% since 1992. The deadliest conflicts, those with 1,000 or more battle deaths dropped by 80 per cent, and the number of international crises, often harbingers of war, fell by more than 70 per cent between 1981 and 2001.

Countries at war most between 1946 and 2003

Countries involved in the highest number of international armed conflicts

U.K. 21

France 19

U.S. 16

Russia 9

Australia 7

Holland 7

Israel 6

Egypt 6

China 6

Thailand 6

N. Vietnam 5

Turkey 5

Jordan 5

Portugal 5

Canada 5

Chad 4

Libya 4

Spain 4

Syria 4

Italy 4

Iran 4

Ethiopia 4

Iraq 4

N. Zealand 4

S. Vietnam 4

kateliz wrote:I voted "yes", but don't really care to get into it now. So many different reasons. It's obvious when you know what to look for.

Exactly how soon I'm not sure. There's a verse in Hosea though that people say limits the Church Age to 2,000 years, which is coming up, and would mean that the Rapture is just that close. Let's see, if Christ was born in 3 or 4 BC, He was thirty-three when He was died, then the Church, which began on Pentecost around 30 AD, would hit it's Rapture deadline on Pentecost in 2030 or so. And, what was it? forty(?) days before that the dead, saved will rise from their graves just like how it happened the day Christ died, as prophesised somewhere in the OT.

But aside from that, world events scream it, and previous generations just didn't know how obvious it would get.

Believer wrote:

kateliz wrote:I voted "yes", but don't really care to get into it now. So many different reasons. It's obvious when you know what to look for.

Exactly how soon I'm not sure. There's a verse in Hosea though that people say limits the Church Age to 2,000 years, which is coming up, and would mean that the Rapture is just that close. Let's see, if Christ was born in 3 or 4 BC, He was thirty-three when He was died, then the Church, which began on Pentecost around 30 AD, would hit it's Rapture deadline on Pentecost in 2030 or so. And, what was it? forty(?) days before that the dead, saved will rise from their graves just like how it happened the day Christ died, as prophesised somewhere in the OT.

But aside from that, world events scream it, and previous generations just didn't know how obvious it would get.

That concerns me because I do have faith as small as a mustard seed and I am unsure of my salvation and I fear God and all that stuff . I know it's ALL true, *skeptics beware*, but I just don't know. I tried many times to get away from God, but didn't work, I am attached. Is there a year we can round around that this stuff would happen, because we have to take the Bible in whole?

kateliz wrote:There's a verse in Hosea though that people say limits the Church Age to 2,000 years, which is coming up, and would mean that the Rapture is just that close.

"New projections suggest that the warming climate could melt the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets much sooner than previously thought, leading to a global sea level rise of at least 20 feet..."

23 March 2006
Increasing Soil Erosion Threatens World's Food Supply
While climate change hogs the headlines, a more insidious threat that is largely ignored is steadily destroying great swathes of the world's croplands...

A study by the Committee for Economic Development says that a bird flu outbreak ranks alongside terrorism and social unrest in China as one of the biggest threats to the international economy.

A panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos named bird flu as the number one global threat. Even a study by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office spells out the possibility that a new pandemic can develop that could kill 2,5 per cent of the 30 per cent of the U.S. population that would be likely to catch the flu. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist in December 2005 warned that this could cost the [US] economy 700 billion dollars and an economic loss of 5 per cent of the U.S. GNP, ”brought on by fear and confusion”.

The fourth horseman (on the pale, or sickly horse, which may be the source of the notion of "pestilence" as a separate horseman) is explicitly named Death. The pale [green]ish color of the fourth horse means fear, sickness, decay, and death. The imagery of the horses and riders is similar to a passage in Zechariah.

The most serious known health threat the world is facing today—avian influenza [bird flu]. The timing cannot be predicted, but rapid international spread is certain once the susceptible virus appears. This is a grave danger for all people in all countries.” —Dr. Lee Jong-wook, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO)

Most infectious disease experts [now] believe that the world stands on the verge of an influenza [bird flu] pandemic.” — Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies

If an influenza [bird flu] pandemic occurs before adequate preparations have been made, this could result in a public health emergency of unprecedented scale and economic crisis due to excess morbidity [illness] and mortality [death] in adults of working age, social disruption, and panic.” —Influenza Vaccine Supply (IVS) International Task Force

Australian-based Lowy Institute Think Tank indicated...Global economic losses could reach $4.4 trillion.

According to population experts, it took almost 1,900 years for the world to slowly rise from an estimated 250 million at the time of Christ to a billion and a half at the beginning of the 20th century. Then, in the 20th century alone, the earth's population has exploded as it quadrupled in size. It has reached the staggering mark of six billion people. In spite of advances in birth control, the world population still rapidly climbs.

A glimpse at the trend shows why many are concerned. According to the United Nations Population Division, it took 123 years to move from one billion to two billion population. Yet it took only 33 years to reach the three billion mark and 14 years to arrive at the four billion level. Next it took only 13 years to reach five billion, and now, just 11 years later, we have crossed the six billion mark.

From now on, it is estimated, one billion people will be added every 10 years. Provided this rate of growth—adding some 80 million new people per year—continues, the planet's population will double again in 50 years.

What does this all mean? Is the earth able to sustain this level of population growth without bringing on dire consequences?

Signs of global environmental fatigue

Already the earth is showing serious consequences from this rapid population increase combined with the excessive consumption of the earth's resources. In 1989 the fishing industry reported a dwindling of fish catches in oceans, and the decline has continued. Diminishing reserves of metals, fossil fuels, forests, arable lands, freshwater and wildlife are facts of life.

Pollution has reached a global scale, with hardly any part of the earth free from contaminated air, water and soil. This is not an extremist view, but what world organizations such as the UN and the Red Cross are regularly reporting.

Perhaps in the United States, Europe and Japan, where funds are available to curb the most damaging effects of the rise in population, there is not so much concern. But these nations comprise only a sixth, or a billion, of the world's inhabitants. The rest of the world is in a far worse condition.

As the population grows, it strains the relations within cities and among nations. More crime, violence and disease will invariably appear as people are increasingly forced to live in cramped and unhealthy quarters.

How is this related to prophecy? First, according to the end-time scenario described in the book of Revelation, a massive army from east of the Euphrates will cross the river and bring a disastrous world war. "And I heard a voice . . . saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, 'Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.' So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind. Now the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred million" (Revelation 9:13-16).

For this prophecy to come to pass, billions of people must exist on the planet for this region of Asia to field 200 million able-bodied soldiers. Until the latter part of the 20th century, Chinese and other Asian people could not muster even half that number. But now, for the first time in history, they can provide such a massive military force.

Also, as world population multiplied in the 20th century, so did the explosion of knowledge, made possible by improved communications, travel and technology. We can easily see the fulfilment of the prophecy God gave to Daniel: "But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase" (Daniel 12:4).

The third horseman, riding the black horse, is popularly called Famine. The black color of the third horse could be a symbol of death and famine. Its rider was holding a scale, which means scarcity of food, higher prices, and famine.

Babelfish: Real-Time Machine Translation on the Internet

Speech recognition software
Speech recognition software recognizes what you said and pronounces the translation in the selected target language.

Gen 11:6-7
The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

Matthew 24:14 "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come.

EARTHQUAKES

Matthew 24:7 "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes."

The number and intensity of earthquakes this century is at a level higher than any other time in history. A staggering number of seismic events occur around the world daily. The earthquake seismic monitor IRIS shows all major earthquakes for the last year. Indicated by yellow and red circles, the seismic events of the last 15 days provides strong evidence of the fulfillment of Matthew 24:7 in our day. By contrast, in the years from 1890 to 1900 there was only one major earthquake in the world.