Humans Will Need Two Earths By 2030 738
An anonymous reader writes "A recent report warns that humans are overusing the resources of the planet and will need two Earths by the year 2030. The Living Planet Report tells that the demands on natural resources have doubled in the past 50 years and are now outstripping what the Earth can provide by more than half."
Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
.. and we've run out of ipv4 addresses "in about a year" for the last decade or so..
and people will probably pay about as much heed to this warning as they do to ipv4 exhaustion.
AND just like ipv4 exhaustion, nothing serious is going to be done about this until stuff actually starts falling apart. And by falling apart I don't mean charts and graphs, I mean "The Day After Tomorrow" falling apart. And even then...
Ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bull (Score:1, Insightful)
But we can always expand our social security address space!
I call BS (Score:1, Insightful)
Back when I was growing up, we had those quaint little videos where the Statue of Liberty's hand was the only thing showing above the ocean. And a grandfather was passing on his wisdom to his grand daughter about what they could have done differently to avoid this coast catastrophe. Which happened in 2020.
Now, I know we're still 10 years out, but I would expect NY to be at least a couple inches under water by now.
Humanity will adapt and survive. That's our strength. Fossil fuels run out? We'll figure something else out..oh, we already have. It's just not cheaper than fossil fuels...yet.
Another low point (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the purpose of this post? What does it even mean? What is the purpose of posting a link to a nebulous summary of a highly suggestive report on an extremely politically charged subject on a site that bills itself "News for Nerds"?
Re:Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
I rather doubt we will have a "day after tomorrow", things don't happen like that. Instead I see a mechanization of our nature. For example, imagine a sort of nature where things are completely recycled? Sound far fetched? Consider how Switzerland is essentially self-sufficient in copper. Does Switzerland have copper mines? Nope not even close. Copper can be easily recycled and hence Switzerland recycles their own copper. This goes towards rare earths, etc, etc.
While many people believe that we waste, waste, waste, there are many pockets of the world that are now becoming adapt at living with little. Classic example is Israel. Israel can grow crops with water amounts that makes everybody else blush with embarrassment. That is the future...
Peak Oil not Oil Running Out (Score:5, Insightful)
Quick, someone say "we're using the resources at a larger rate than the earth can provide" ! before the cornucopians come out of their caves to declare infinite growth through infinite resources.
The bottle maybe big but the spout is killing us.
Misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And the religions of the world.... (Score:3, Insightful)
still refuse to discuss population control.
Not true. There are a few that advocate genocide.
Regulation of births is needed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bull (Score:2, Insightful)
With Ipv4, NAT gave us a reprieve, which is why we have managed up until now.
With the Earth, don't expect any such workaround.
That said, what TFA refers to isn't doomsday by 2030, but that in 2030, we will be using renewable resources twice as fast as they can be renewed. Which means that we are going to run out of lotsastuff one day, but exactly when is hard to estimate.
(And perhaps even foolish to estimate -- any estimate is going to be scrutinized by the reactionary right, who will search for any error, and use it as justification to dismiss the entire research.)
Re:Ridiculous (Score:2, Insightful)
The myths are true, we're just really good at pushing back problems until we absolutely can't no more, at which point things screw up epically.
Re:Another low point (Score:5, Insightful)
Sensationalism. Trolling. Flamebait.
Welcome to the machine.
In other news, (Score:2, Insightful)
The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't count us out quite yet (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Is space on the earth infinite? No. And an individual human's need for space is much greater than zero. Given those two fact there is a limit, just on living space, for how many humans the earth can support. Now, what that limit is exactly isn't known for sure, it's a moving target because technology keeps pushing it higher and higher but there definitely is a limit. Same with water, and food production. You can squeeze more and more efficiency out of the system but eventually you're going to hit a limit, even if it's 100% that still won't allow for growth for ever and ever. People in the past have been wrong about the specific numbers and dates, but the underlying principle is sound.
Re:Bull (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And the religions of the world.... (Score:1, Insightful)
I can agree with the forced genocide but I have one request for those who advocate it. You first.
Consider the source (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And the religions of the world.... (Score:5, Insightful)
still refuse to discuss population control.
And so do the non religious, unfortunately. Worse, they seem intent on subsidizing the fecundity of the stupid at the expense of the responsible.
Re:Regulation of births is needed. (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, when you've still got senior religious leaders saying that contraception is bad, even in areas where STDs are rife, and few countries able to even have discussions about the kind of draconian measures that China enacted with its "One Child" policy without a huge backlash, then that reduction is just not going to happen voluntarily. That just leaves it happening regardless if/when we eventually do run out of resources, and as usual it's the poor who are going to come off the worst.
Still, I'm pretty sure that the ones who are preaching against contraception now are going to be the first to make hefty donations when we have tens of millions of children starving to death.
Re:I call BS (Score:3, Insightful)
you do realize that sometimes adapting and surviving might include the fall of modern society and a return to agrarian, low power, mechanization through brute force life of the 17th century, right? are you able to survive like that? I be 99% of the western culture is not and will die.
Re:Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
With the Earth, don't expect any such workaround.
Yes we can, and are actively working towards them even as I type this.
The workarounds include higher efficiency devices (e.g. iPad/Mac Mini/laptop instead of a massive gaming desktop), lowered consumption (when gasoline hits $5/gal in the US, odds are excellent that we'll all be driving less), and a different way of providing the goods (locally-sourced and produced foods instead of container-ship shipped, etc).
Long-term, this also includes starting colonies off-Earth, or at least having commercial space mining and production (which in turn expands the resource pool for a lot of things, from energy to minerals, to living space when we start looking centuries ahead). We're doing space tourism now (well, not-quite-LEO), and with commercial space industry warming up, it is not impossible (or even improbable) to consider viable commercial space entities making regular trips up and back by 2030. Consider that the first airplane flight happened in 1903, and we had commercial passenger flight by 1930.
This has nothing to do with "left" or "right", and using such designations will only muddy the water (and degenerate the debate). Please refrain from doing so.
Re:Too bad for the "organic food" folks... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are painting with an excessively broad brush here.
You don't need mystical mumbo jumbo to not want pesticides all over your fruits and vegetables.
You don't need mystical mumbo jumbo to not want your chicken and cows raised in factory farming conditions, fed hormones, antibiotics, and the cheapest foodstuff imaginable to fatten them up as quickly as possible.
Why do you need mystical mumbo jumbo to be aware of the major nutritional differences between wild-caught fish and farmed fish, that are principally due to their different feeding habits.
So yeah, some of the stuff labeled "organic" that's basically identical to conventional stuff may be a rip-off, but there is plenty for a purely scientific, rational-minded person to critique in our industrial food system and plenty of reasons to avoid certain food produced by them.
Re:Easier solution (Score:3, Insightful)
an an entire generation that has no aunts, or uncles, no siblings, and a tradition of the children taking care of the parents in old age.
Shameless self promotion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Packing everyone into 8x10 cells, isn't an acceptable solution to me. Any solution that doesn't allow for wide open space of undeveloped land, wilderness, forests, jungles, deserts, is suboptimal. We could cram everyone into skyscrapers that cover the entire earth in one giant planet wide city, but what kind of life would that be? Quality of life and quality of our living space are important things to consider. Humans were not meant to be packed like sardines into crowded cities with no where to escape to. The health effects both known and unknown would be profound.
Re:Bull (Score:1, Insightful)
I find your lack of mentioning nuclear fission conspicuous.
Re:And the religions of the world.... (Score:1, Insightful)
No need. We'll just have a few wars like we always do... and maybe a plague or two. This problem will sort itself out.
Re:Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
What Carter was discussing was resources in the USA, at projected increased rates of consumption. Since we passed peak oil in the continental USA in the 70s, this was not inaccurate. I don't think it ever occurred to him that we were collectively such self-absorbed greedy obtuse little wussies that we would let ourselves become dependent on the Arabs, Russians and Mexicans for the life blood of our economic viability and strategic safety (i.e. Oil).
Surprise!
Re:And the religions of the world.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Affluence = population control. Note how Europe and the US are experiencing all of their population growth now due to immigration? It doesn't require mandatory birth control measures (or enforced abortion laws, etc) to keep the population down.
All you really have to do is provide the masses with a better form of retirement plan than: 'have a shitload of kids so that at least some will live long enough to care for you when you get old'.
Re:Bull (Score:1, Insightful)
What Carter was discussing was resources in the USA
[citation needed]
Since we passed peak oil in the continental USA in the 70s
You did? Funny, I could have sworn that the US still has the worlds largest supply of oil shale. Plus oil sand. Plus coal. Plus plenty of offshore oil, and oil in Alaska. I guess "peak oil" to you just means "we have less than we used to"?
Re:Bull (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It may happen one day... (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair, the radical (on either side of a debate) always have a knack for exaggeration. This shouldn't deter us from taking at least some measures towards better efficiency and at the same time expanding resources available.
Re:Regulation of births is needed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Regulate them by increasing affluence. Worked for Europe and the US (and various other first-world regions of the world...)
Re:Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, I could have sworn that the US still has the worlds largest supply of oil shale. Plus oil sand. Plus coal. Plus plenty of offshore oil, and oil in Alaska. I guess "peak oil" to you just means "we have less than we used to"?
To most people, "peak oil" is the point at which production is at a peak. After this point, a country (or the world) is _producing_ less then they used to. Unless the oil shales have reversed the trend in the US, it does seem like that point has been reached.
A relevant graph from wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
Re:Bull (Score:4, Insightful)
OMG ur right - teh author is an idiot who failed first year logic!
Actually, no - he means that demand is outstripping what the Earth can sustainably provide. Ie, humanity grows a fair amount of food, but only at the cost of chopping down huge swathes of forest every year. And in fact, 1 billion+ people are starving or malnourished.
Re:Bull (Score:3, Insightful)
lol. Well, yeah, that's true. In that case, the US also reached peak-nuclear a few decades ago. However, if that's your definition, it's just as useless as the one I suggested.
Re:Sigh, These TreeHuggers must need more $$ (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh oh, another "non-profit" group must need money to supplement their jet's and expensive dinners.
That is a stupid argument. Imagine you see someone disemabarking from a private jet, wearing a suit that costs more than the salaries of you and I combined, just so that they can attend an expensive dinner in another city. Which is more likely?
Which side of this argument has the most financial interest in arguing either for or against limiting our use of Earth's resources? Let's face it, you don't get super rich by becoming a climate scientist.
It reminds me of when the three CEOs [go.com] of the car industry all took private planes to lobby Washington for a taxpayer handout. But no, I am sure that you are right that it is the tree-huggers who are the ones trying to greedily screw us all for money.
Re:Too bad for the "organic food" folks... (Score:3, Insightful)
They are sustainable. They could easily feed the planet. And they are based in real science (artificial hormones are still present in the meat when cooked, even if there isn't proof that they affect humans). You are arguing that increasing pesticide use is good for people. That's not true. Reduced pesticides, reduced hormones, and reduced water usage will improve the food and the areas where the food is grown/raised. The USA could supply just as much meat as it does now if all the cattle were banned from hormones, required a disease to be given antibiotics (rather than using them as preventative medicine), and were no longer fed grains they aren't built to eat. The issue is that it would be more expensive. And there's real science that supports the idea that our current regular practices are unhealthy (or higher risk) for the cattle and the humans consuming them. No mumbo jumbo required.
"Club of Rome" type-hysteria (Score:1, Insightful)
look up (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm. I'm a little confused by your assumption that everyone has their own personal definition of what "peak oil" means. I'm fairly certain that there is only one accepted meaning for the term, however useful or useless. I mean, I'm all for refining the usage of words and technical terminology - but not to the point of having individual relationships with words.
I don't find myself discussing peak oil very often, but if I wanted a term that meant "the point at which production starts to decline" then I think it would come in pretty useful....
Re:Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Consider the source (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the Zoological Society of London [zsl.org] and the World Wildlife Fund [wwf.org] are a bunch of hardcore animal-loving animal enablers giving aid and comfort to our animal enemies. It's like, whose side are they on anyway?
Re:Demographics will tell the tale (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, I live in Cairo, Egypt at the moment. It's a city of 20M people and growing bigger every day. This is the future for most of the world, where most of the growth is happening.
And if these cultures don't straighten out their act, they'll also be the places where most of the population die-off occurs. Further, population growth doesn't equal economic growth. Most of the places with negative population growth still have positive economic growth.
Well, of course. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course. Human civilizations are about 3000 years old, but industrial civilization is only 200 years old. Only in the past 100 years has large-scale resource extraction, large enough to make a big dent in potential supply, been feasible. The really rich ores, like veins of copper with over 1% metal, are long gone. Over the next century, lots of stuff is going to run out. Oil production peaked in 2005. [doe.gov] There hasn't been a major new energy source in the last half century; just improvements on previous ones.
The "free market will solve all problems" crowd was insisting that peak oil would never happen. But it did. The price of oil has tripled without an increase in supply.
Re:Bull (Score:1, Insightful)
Second law of thermodynamics; Learn it, Live it, Love it.
When you drop an egg on the ground, the raw materials that constituted the egg are not destroyed, but the egg is no longer useful. It would require a considerable amount of energy to reconstruct the egg into a useful condition. This is called ENTROPY.
Nature stores and makes use of energy in various forms, including fossil fuels, but also in the form of minerals etc-- Using these resources improperly destroys the resource faster than it is produced.
EG, it takes nature X years to produce a large tree; Cutting it down takes only a few minutes. Once the tree is used, you don't magically get a new tree from the resources after they have been processed. Those resources have to be broken down (requires energy), recirculated in the environment (requires energy), and reconstituted as a new tree by another seedling (requires lots of energy and time.)
In the meantime, humans are greedily hunting for energy sources to exploit. the exploitation of these energy sources causes another problem; The earth can only eliminate thermal waste (biproduct of entropy) at a maximum theoretical rate- (the rate it can radiate that heat into space as IR radiation)
Right now, "Global Warming" is a 2 factor beast-- the consumption of energy resources produces a biproduct that is energy intensive to recycle by mother nature, which also has the added effect of reducing the rate at which the earth expels waste heat into space. This has the net effect of causing the earth to heat up.
Now, if we couple this with some of the proposed solutions to the energy crisis (Space based solar power, Fusion energy, etc--) we end up creating NEW problems:
Space based power: We increase the amount of energy reaching the planet, and consequently increase the baseline thermal energy production of the planet. This will cause global warming faster than you can imagine. The earth's current temperature (sans global warming effects) is the result of an equilibrium of energy in VS energy out. Fucking with that causes the equilibrium to shift, so dont do it.
Fusion energy: Requires "light" atomic nuclei. This is most commonly extracted from seawater right now in the form of exotic deuterium, but widespread use of fusion would mean use of ordinary hydrogen; the most widely available source being water. Water is already a limited resource on this planet. You just trade fossil fuels for water, and unlike CO2, mother nature cannot turn heavy atoms into lighter ones on anything close to a human timetable.
Really, the ONLY viable option is to stick with being inside the energy equilibrium budget our planet affords us-- Sorry Apple hipsters; that means no iPhones for you unless you can create, power, and recycle the device using NOTHING but solar energy, and without releasing any effluents.
Any technological solution to the power problem will only create additional problems. The Mathusian catastrophe WILL happen.
Technology is NOT magic; it obeys the fundamental laws of nature, namely the thermodynamic ones. Technology will NOT save you, unless you intend to LEAVE the earth to support your population growth. If that's the case, I strongly suggest that you spend more money on space programs, since by current propulsion strategies it would take several thousand years to reach the closest earth-like planet in the Gliese star system.
In short-- Your argument falls flat on it's face; Venus has all the raw materials for a good earth, but the devil is in the details. It cannot support life, because of the kinds of problems I just cited above. (It absorbs more energy than it can easily radiate back into space, causing runaway greenhouse effects, and making the planet WAAAAAAY too hot.)
The earth simply cannot sustain the human civilization as it currently exists. Own up to it. Science screams it at us from every corner, but we refuse to listen, and in the end, we will destroy everything with our hubris.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Packing everyone into 8x10 cells, isn't an acceptable solution to me. Any solution that doesn't allow for wide open space of undeveloped land, wilderness, forests, jungles, deserts, is suboptimal.
Plug everyone into some kind of Second Life (or Matrix or 13th Floor or whatever) and you could do both.
Re:Bull (Score:3, Insightful)
The workarounds include higher efficiency devices (e.g. iPad/Mac Mini/laptop instead of a massive gaming desktop)
The iPad is a mobile device - the user is on the move.
The mobile gadget or mini HTPC doesn't replace the more capable full size laptop or desktop. It is your second or third, fourth, fifth or sixth purchase of an Internet enabled appliance - which include all your e-book readers, smartphones, video game consoles, HDTVs and so on.
The infrastructure needed to suppport all this is not trivial.
The gamer's desktop doesn't have to be winterized. It doesn't have to survive the four foot drop to the pavement. It can be enjoyed off-line.
Just be honest and admit (Score:2, Insightful)
that "the fall of modern society and a return to agrarian, low power" lifestyles couldn't make you happier.
--
O RLY? (Score:2, Insightful)
"According to the Living Planet Report, human demands on natural resources have doubled in under 50 years and are now outstripping what the Earth can provide by more than half"
Then how are we getting the resources? If I can provide 2 apples and the customer takes three where does the third one come from?
"The report said that wildlife in tropical countries is also under huge pressure, with populations of species falling by 60 per cent in three decades, the'Daily Mail reported."
60 percent? O' RLY? I don't think even the National Enquirer would buy that.
"And the report, from the WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, said that British people are still consuming far more than the Earth can cope with."
Then how is the Earth coping?
Re:I call BS (Score:3, Insightful)
The most likely of scenarios, certainly.
OR...and I'm just throwing this out there...OR we exploit sustainable power technology we have already developed, but at this time is too expensive when viewed against fossil fuels.
But hey, I dig that we all like doom and gloom around here, so don't let my logic and rational discourse dissuade you from that.
Re:Bull (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bull (Score:3, Insightful)
The point of my post wasn't that the technological workarounds that have held off ipv4 exhaustion directly translate into resource depletion.
Although it really does apply. As a resource becomes more scarce (water, gas, ipv4 address space) there becomes more incentive to find workarounds.
In other words.. recycling might become the NAT of earths resources. But no one is even going to think about it until we actually start running out of something (even if you've got a pile of evidence saying we _will_ run out soon).
Re:Bull (Score:4, Insightful)
In the absence of the regulation, the pollution is a negative externality that affects the people not interested in the widgets. The widget producer has imposed an external cost on people not interested in widgets. If those people push back (ie. require the widget producer himself to absorb the cost through regulation or other means) so that the cost of cleaning up the pollution is included in the cost of the widget, then that cost is internalized.
Using your example: If you start and end with clean air and clean water, there's no transaction with a cost to externalize to the widget producer. If you achieve that goal by regulating the widget producer, you've merely prevented the widget producer from externalizing a cost. You haven't externalized one of your costs onto him. You didn't have a cost to externalize. "Keeping the air clean" is not a transaction.
Therefore, calling the regulation an external cost to the widget producer in this case is incorrect. An externality is something that doesn't show up in the final price of the good or service. Forcing an externalized cost back into the price internalizes the cost. The force itself isn't not an externality.
A very good point also.
Re:Shameless self promotion (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well, of course. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course. Human civilizations are about 3000 years old, but industrial civilization is only 200 years old. Only in the past 100 years has large-scale resource extraction, large enough to make a big dent in potential supply, been feasible. The really rich ores, like veins of copper with over 1% metal, are long gone. Over the next century, lots of stuff is going to run out. Oil production peaked in 2005. There hasn't been a major new energy source in the last half century; just improvements on previous ones.
So what? Recycling alone handles virtually all of that hypothetical supply problem. And no new energy source in the last half century? Let me break it to you, there hasn't been a new energy source in the past 4.6 or so billion years yet we have yet to need another source of energy.
The "free market will solve all problems" crowd was insisting that peak oil would never happen. But it did. The price of oil has tripled without an increase in supply.
The first sentence isn't true. Peak oil is quite consistent with free market theory. And the "tripling" in price of oil is the price signal that will encourage people to seek alternatives to oil.
Re:I call BS (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, I'm not in to the whole "chicken little" thing. You want to run around panicking about the sky falling, knock yourself out.
Me? I prefer common sense and intelligence.
Stop being disingenuous and condecending (Score:3, Insightful)
Give me a break. the issue that the "organic food" folk are concerning about is farm animals being pumped full of antibiotics because they're crammed into confined places in which their walking on, breathing in, and ingesting fecal matter and the remains of other dead animals. This has nothing to do with "vibrations", "auras", or any such bull that you pulled out of your ass, and the fact that you have to lie about the viewpoint that you oppose speaks volumes.
Re:Bull (Score:4, Insightful)
Oil shales and oil sands are a disaster to the environment. Nothing could be more destructive to the environment than the massive strip mining it would take to recover that kind of oil.
Coal is so nasty that all use of coal should be illegal and reason to kill off any nation allowing its use. If you burn coal you will saturate the soil with mercury among other things.
And you fail to take into account such issues as running out of drinking water. Frankly water could get so expensive that the price of food will exceed your ability to purchase it.
There is simply no way to keep going without some deeply radical changes even if they ruin your expectations in life.
Re:Bull (Score:1, Insightful)
Third world countries in many parts of the world are in fact starving already. Have been for a while, if you hadn't heard. That starving will spread over time as water runs short and arable land becomes more scarce due to climate change and human depletion.
But don't worry, for a long time it will just be poor brown and black people that you don't have to see living in places you'll never go to. You'll be safe in your first world bubble until the end. Keep up that denial.
Re:Bull (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh don't be such an utter tool. I'm sorry, this one just gets to me when people are just repeating a big lie without even bothering to check their sources. The one you're repeating is the one that was making the rounds when the Deepwater Horizon was making the news and various talking heads were desperately spinning things to make it the fault of the greenies who forced the poor old oil companies into such deep waters. Please, please just take a look online for a map of the gulf of Mexico and the nearly 4,000 oil wells there. Note that, yes, there is an area right offshore where, for the most part, there are no wells due to legislation, but otherwise, it should be obvious that the problem forcing drilling out into deep water isn't legislation, it's saturation. If you can seriously show me a law that forces drilling really far out rather than just not right offshore I will be very impressed. Otherwise I'll thank you to stop spewing that right-wing, we're so persecuted by the evil lefties masturbatory fantasy.
Re:Bull (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's not a good analogy. We can ramp up nuclear any time we choose.
And we can ramp up oil any time we choose. If you're going to ignore the fiscal and political implications of ramping up nuclear plant construction, I can just as easily ignore the fiscal implications of ramping up oil production.
Re:Bull (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing is, "economically extracted" is subjective term that changes as technology advances and we discover new cheap ways for extracting previously inaccessible oil. This is a process that has been going on for decades and will continue for decades more to come. Particularly since we haven't even yet exhausted all the sources of EASY to access oil yet. Most of the USA's oil is locked up in federal lands that the Eco-morons won't let us get at. Hopefully that will change over the next couple years, we shall see.
Complex hydrocarbons are one of the most abundant resources in the universe. Switching away from them now, before we even have a viable replacement would be foolish. Especially if we do it as a response to hysteria and FUD.
Re:Bull (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Noo! (Score:2, Insightful)
And I DO know a couple Christians who actively don't care about the environment because Jesus will return, and usher in the end of the world and a bunch of random torment for vast swaths of the population who aren't in their church, within their life time. Their church also sends money to the Israeli settlement movement, because it will bring on the end faster.
I find this more than a bit creepy. If Christianity didn't have an edict against suicide, there would be no Christians left. There is something very odd trying to actively bring about the end of the world, so a whole bunch of people can go burn in hell, while you and your little family get to sit in heaven and stare at Jesus' navel. There is something to be said for that school of Buddhism (I forgot what its called at the moment) where someone reaches enlightenment, and instead of leaving the cycle of reincarnation to be in whatever Buddhist "heaven" is, they stick around and try to get everyone else saved instead. Seems more noble than the Evangelical route, where you usher in the end of the world just so you can get to heaven, the rest of the world be (literally) damned. To me the desire, by their own mythology, to bring suffering on innumerable others would outweigh the whole personal salvation thing.
But then again I don't think there are many Christians in the world who Jesus would actually recognize as followers.
Re:Bull (Score:3, Insightful)