Collapse

One point with which both creationists and evolutionists will likely agree, albeit for different reasons, is that collapse of this world is inevitable.

The creationist will see this collapse as a part of God's plan and the renewing of the earth which God will accomplish after the total collapse of the existing world. They will see this as a result of sin and believe they will escape the worst of the coming disasters.

(You notice I didn't say mention a specific religion because I think not all religious people are involved in creationist thinking. Not all object to evolution being taught in public schools. Some believe in environmental laws, feeding the poor (shock of shocks) and wouldn't inherently believe there is an Antichrist among us or that the world has to be destroyed to rebuild it. They might think much like an evolutionist practically speaking.

My concern where it comes to American culture is about creationists. I do think it's about more than a religion but a worldview that is destructive to life on this planet, that would bring about its downfall sooner than nature alone would accomplish. While in our country, creationists do claim to be Christians, many of them espouse ideas totally opposed to what Christ taught; so it's not provable that they even know his teachings. They use for some of their evidence the Jewish Torah which they take as historic. This is a little different take on that -- The Political Intent of the Bible).

To believers in creationism, facts or discussions like that book must not get in the way of 'faith' which I guess wouldn't matter except there are some situations where faith can prove detrimental to survival. I think we are in such a time but there have been others in the past where religious views had to be thrust aside for practical scientific wisdom-- like doctors washing their hands between surgeries.)

The evolutionist also would expect collapse at some point based on what has always happened to species before us and then historically to cultures. It is part of life here. No empire lasts forever. No age of anything is forever.

The earth itself is on a change timetable involving the sun if nothing happens before that. NASA says polar shifts have occurred and might again. Climate changes occur and animals on earth must adjust to them if they can in time. In the case of man, that would be whether he had brought it about or just was here when it happened. We know man has made major climate changes in localized regions. Now that may end up being the whole world. If man's culture is too large when big changes come, a lot of people will die and those who remain will readjust or disappear as another earth footnote.

Collapse is part of the earth plan no matter what you believe, but the difference would be how each philosophy of life would respond to it. A creationist would believe pray, be ready for the Rapture, and figure it'll all be to the good as the earth is messed up anyway.

An evolutionist would be trying to devise plans for what they could do to either avoid the disaster or survive it if they couldn't avoid it. Evolutionism is practical. Creationism is idealistic.

Now an evolutionist might have no fear of immediate catastrophe because these changes are often millions of years apart; but then the age of the mammals did begin 60 million years ago; so maybe earth is due for something big. Maybe not. Looking at history can only tell us so much. Creationists though have always thought collapse is imminent and you see that throughout history-- the group who thought they were to be the last ones.

This following is for the evolutionists because creationists wouldn't believe it anyway.

Collapse is a documentary available on Netflix mostly involving an interview with Michael Ruppert where he discusses his belief, using statistics, regarding what is going to happen to our world in the relatively near future due to energy depletion and our own abuse of resources.

Some, mostly right wingers and corporations, making money from the current situation, say that we have plenty of fossil fuels. Our government doesn't want to spook us, but Ruppert makes the case that not only do we not have enough, but we are dependent on them for a lot more of our culture than we tend to think about.

Fossil fuels are at the core of the shipping network that enables us to feed people in areas where food could not be produced in sufficient quantities. It is what we have built our culture on-- not just this one in the United States but the world. When oil is no longer available to maintain those cultures, what will be the result?

His conclusion is chaos is inevitable. He discusses ways as individuals we can prepare for such a time. There are two approaches to seeing collapse is ahead. One is to try to change a large enough group of people's minds about what they must do to prepare.

Remember Aesop's Fable; The Grasshopper and the Ant. The Republicans, of course, have put out a new version to make their point [Right wing interpretation of Democratic policies to help the poor using the old fable with a modern twist]. I would suggest there might yet be a third with the ant having laid up stores that the grasshoppers attacked illustrating a time of possible world catastrophe which turned humans back into animals.

Basically if a lot of people haven't prepared for dire times and not everyone can, it could mean chaos at the least. There is no way one family can lay up enough stores to survive a nuclear winter without a community or government effort which would both protect and divide what they had stored and frankly even that might not be enough in some situations.

Ever seen the movie Ice Age, the first one? One of its funniest bits (it is the most sophisticated of that animated series for the humor) is the dodos when the heroes come into conflict with them over a melon they want for the baby they are protecting. The dodos say, "This is our private stockpile for the Ice Age. Sub arctic temperatures will force us underground for a billion, billion years." Manfred, the mammoth replies with disbelief, "So you got three melons?" The dodos quickly change the subject to 'doom on you' and go into attack mode.

In life, there are things we cannot do anything about and we just will die; but what a practical culture does is prepare for what they can-- recognizing that cannot cover all eventualities. They try to learn from the past and apply the lessons to their current lives.

Jared Diamond wrote another book on what leads to collapse of cultures-- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

Given the situation in our country with such a polarized populace, I don't think our culture can do much as a whole. We can't seem able to agree on anything. While there are a few religious groups that teach stockpiling, that kind of thing takes a lot of management and not many do it effectively.

What the DVD, Collapse, encouraged was forming communities where people will be mutually responsible for each other, especially since some will simply not be able to do the work required to learn basic survival skills, attain trade goods, or be able to store food. [He suggested acquiring gold, but I am not sure I see that it'd have much value in a time of real emergency and food producing tools would probably be more in demand.]

After a disaster is no time to learn survival skills like how to kill, skin, cut up and cook an animal to eat. It's no time to learn how to plant a garden that could be harvested in the future assuming you lived long enough. It's no time to have living seeds on hand that you can plant because a lot of the seeds you are buying today are hybrids and cannot be harvested from the plant to reproduce their own kind. It's no time to figure out a system to protect what you have acquired or develop the strength to recognize you have to do that.

I don't live in a panic just waiting for a collapse. I have found what works for me is doing whatever I can to be prepared for emergencies and then leaving the problem behind for when something actually arises.

I did grow up in a household that had seen the Great Depression and talked of how close we came to a total societal collapse back then. I am also aware of change and the potential of our current network being broken. I have thought of what I would have to do to protect my family if we ended up with such a time leaving us back in a prehistoric mode for how we had to survive.

The ideal thing would be to have a culture as a whole that is doing this kind of thinking for its citizens. I don't think we have such a culture, do you? That means it's up to communities, families and individuals to at least have a general plan in the eventuality we are the ones living when the next collapse comes.

(Ruins in Northern Arizona from an earlier culture, the Sinagua peoples.)