This one feels different

Infidel 762

Infidel 762

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Every generation seems to think they're living in the end times. The Romans thought it. The people who lived through the Black Plague thought it. The folks hiding under their desks during the Cold War thought it too.

But I have to admit, this one feels different.

I've lived through 9/11, two decades of war, a pandemic, and now AI. I've never seen so many major changes happening at the same time.

We've got wars breaking out across multiple regions, nuclear powers rattling sabers, governments drowning in debt, and technology advancing so fast most people can't keep up with it. We now have computers teaching themselves things we don't fully understand.

Then you read Revelation and see references to wars, upheaval, economic control, and global events affecting entire populations. For most of history, some of those ideas seemed impossible. Today they don't seem nearly as far-fetched.

Maybe it's recency bias. Maybe every generation thinks their storm is the big one. Or maybe we're watching the opening chapters of something much larger.

I honestly don't know.

Are we just another generation convinced the world is ending, or are we the first generation with the tools to actually see it coming?
 
If the noise stopped tomorrow, what truth about us would finally become impossible to ignore? Are we living like stewards of something fragile, or owners of something endless?

Feels like we’ve confused motion with meaning… and momentum with direction.
 
I was talking with a friend about this the other day. I explained to him that one reason I think "this time" may be different is all the sins/murders, etc against children these days. Especially like mothers killing their children then putting them in the freezer or locking them in a car and driving it into a lake.
 
We get closer to the end every day as I have said. This does seem different, I must agree. I have a relationship with my savior, Jesus Christ, so I am prepared. A person can worry about the unknown and drive themselves crazy. My 17yr old daughter was worrying about the next session of the school, her senior year. I told her to read my favorite verse. Matthew 6:34. If you are not familiar with it, it reads, "Don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
 
Rhett Steele said:
We get closer to the end every day as I have said. This does seem different, I must agree. I have a relationship with my savior, Jesus Christ, so I am prepared. A person can worry about the unknown and drive themselves crazy. My 17yr old daughter was worrying about the next session of the school, her senior year. I told her to read my favorite verse. Matthew 6:34. If you are not familiar with it, it reads, "Don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
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That's one of the biggest lessons I've learned. We spend a lot of time regretting yesterday and fearing tomorrow while completely missing today.

Most of the things I've worried about never happened. The few that did usually weren't anything like I imagined, and somehow I got thru them anyway.

As for death, none of us are getting out of this alive. That isn't a frightening thought anymore. I have faith in what comes next, and until then I've got enough to deal with right here in front of me.

Tomorrow has been trying to kill mankind since the beginning of time. So far, today is batting a thousand.
 
DoubleLungRage said:
I was talking with a friend about this the other day. I explained to him that one reason I think "this time" may be different is all the sins/murders, etc against children these days. Especially like mothers killing their children then putting them in the freezer or locking them in a car and driving it into a lake.
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I don't know if it's demonic possession, mental illness, pure evil, or some combination of all three.

What I do know is that when a mother kills her own child, my brain struggles to process it. Every instinct in nature says a parent is supposed to protect their young, even at the cost of their own life.

Maybe that's why people talk about demons. How else do you explain a person doing the exact opposite of what every fiber of their being should be telling them to do?

Whatever the answer is, monsters are real. The unsettling part is they don't usually have horns, red skin, or glowing eyes.

They look just like the rest of us.
 
Personally, I think you're on to something and the answer just may well be here:
"But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:1-7)".
 
I'm probably drastically oversimplifying it, but my opinion is that technology/social media is the worst thing we've ever encountered. We have access to everything and everyone has a voice, and I'm not convinced that this is a good thing. Honest question, generally speaking, are things really that much worse than say the 80s/90s, or is it similar and we just have access to all of the information? Maybe it's because I was in my teens/20s in those decades and I just wasn't paying as much attention but I just don't remember hearing on a daily basis of what went on with the POTUS, congress, senate, foreign affairs, etc. I remember my dad would watch NBC news every evening. I just don't recall Tom Brokaw reporting what some random senator did/said yesterday and/or what some big tech CEO or Hollywood influencer is claiming. We now have 24/7 access to anything and everything you could imagine. And don't even get me started on trying to decipher what is real/true or not.

Man I miss the simpler times.....
 
Infidel 762 said:
I don't know if it's demonic possession, mental illness, pure evil, or some combination of all three.

What I do know is that when a mother kills her own child, my brain struggles to process it. Every instinct in nature says a parent is supposed to protect their young, even at the cost of their own life.

Maybe that's why people talk about demons. How else do you explain a person doing the exact opposite of what every fiber of their being should be telling them to do?

Whatever the answer is, monsters are real. The unsettling part is they don't usually have horns, red skin, or glowing eyes.

They look just like the rest of us.
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Evil does look like the rest of us. i worked in a prison for 33 years and have looked right into the face of Evil. people with black eyes, no color, no real visible pupil, just dark soulless black eyes.

those were the only people that scared me, when you made eye contact, you could see the Evil.
 
There’s a song “Westfall” by the band Okkervil River about a kid that murders a girl. Great song by the way. In the end he is caught and the lyrics are,,,

“Now, with all these cameras that focused on my face
It's like you would think they could see it through my skin
And they're looking for evil, they think that they can trace it, but get this
Evil don't look like anything”
 
wolverines said:
I'm probably drastically oversimplifying it, but my opinion is that technology/social media is the worst thing we've ever encountered. We have access to everything and everyone has a voice, and I'm not convinced that this is a good thing. Honest question, generally speaking, are things really that much worse than say the 80s/90s, or is it similar and we just have access to all of the information? Maybe it's because I was in my teens/20s in those decades and I just wasn't paying as much attention but I just don't remember hearing on a daily basis of what went on with the POTUS, congress, senate, foreign affairs, etc. I remember my dad would watch NBC news every evening. I just don't recall Tom Brokaw reporting what some random senator did/said yesterday and/or what some big tech CEO or Hollywood influencer is claiming. We now have 24/7 access to anything and everything you could imagine. And don't even get me started on trying to decipher what is real/true or not.

Man I miss the simpler times.....
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We're consuming more information in a day than previous generations probably saw in a month.

CNN kicked off the 24-hour news era. Compare their historic Gulf War coverage to today's news cycle. Back then, the news interrupted programming because something important happened. Today, something important has to happen because the programming never stops.

And in the 80s and 90s, the village idiot was limited to the local coffee shop. Now he has a smartphone, a social media account, a podcast, and a global audience.

I miss the old days too. Ironically, a lot of the friends I've managed to stay in touch with over the years are only still in my life because of social media. Many of them turned out to be liberals. I read their opinions and usually keep scrolling out of respect for the friendship we built long before politics became everyone's identity. Yet if it's a stranger online, I'm a lot quicker to throw a stone.

Maybe that's part of the problem. We've never been more connected, yet we've never seemed more divided.

And isn't it ironic they call it "programming"? That's exactly what it feels like sometimes.

The biggest difference isn't what people know—it's how much noise they have to sort through to become confidently misinformed...
 
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Infidel 762 said:
We're consuming more information in a day than previous generations probably saw in a month.

CNN kicked off the 24-hour news era. Compare their historic Gulf War coverage to today's news cycle. Back then, the news interrupted programming because something important happened. Today, something important has to happen because the programming never stops.

And in the 80s and 90s, the village idiot was limited to the local coffee shop. Now he has a smartphone, a social media account, a podcast, and a global audience.

I miss the old days too. Ironically, a lot of the friends I've managed to stay in touch with over the years are only still in my life because of social media. Many of them turned out to be liberals. I read their opinions and usually keep scrolling out of respect for the friendship we built long before politics became everyone's identity. Yet if it's a stranger online, I'm a lot quicker to throw a stone.

Maybe that's part of the problem. We've never been more connected, yet we've never seemed more divided.

And isn't it ironic they call it "programming"? That's exactly what it feels like sometimes.

The biggest difference isn't what people know—it's how much noise they have to sort through to become confidently misinformed...
Click to expand...
Its called programming for a reason. People believe everything they are fed on TV. Like a while back when every station said the exact same thing. Everyone lost their mind over the rona crap and kept spewing what they were fed.

I was once told you shouldn't touch primers because the oil on your fingers can mess them up. I thought WTF, ya no way. That guy probably was fed that by someone else. Most people dont think logically.

Social media has definitely made the news aspect of life worse. Its good to stay up on things but when the narrative is to steer you on the wrong direction people become followers.
 
the problem with 24 hour news is that they have to fill the emptiness with something, anything, from somewhere. even if its made up.

the more twisted it is, the more viewers they get, the better their ratings.
 
The King James version of the Bible describes where we are today:
2 Timothy 3:7 "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

We are a society that is "ever learning", yet some how we have lost the knowledge of the truth of how God wants us to live our lives and have become "side tracked" with all of the other things in life. :unsure: It is so easy to get sucked into the constant bombardment of what is being presented to us. 😵‍💫
 
i am not sure where we are headed as a Nation. but i am pretty sure people thought the end of days was here during WW 1 and 2

scary times are here though
 
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