*** This entry was originally posted to LiveJournal April 19, 2010 ***
I'm noticing that a lot of my blog entries, on the rare occasions upon which I have blog entries, are prompted by my scanning radio stations in my car. This one is no exception.
Today when scanning up the dial and running across one of the 43,652 Christian stations in the Indianapolis market (okay, maybe that's a bit of hyperbole--it's probably more like 43,651), I heard a snippet of a typically bombastic sermon on The Book of Revelations. So of course I paused to hear just where this guy was going to go with it.
It was all the usual stuff. The End Times are nigh (he actually used the word "nigh"), the Antichrist may already have been born somewhere in the world, etc., etc., etc. It was all the same stuff such preachers have been saying for two thousand years or so. If any but the tiniest percentage of them has been right, then they have a different concept of "nigh" than I do, and this Antichrist guy must be terribly old by now.
The whole thing would have escaped my notice as the same old same-old, except for one thing. He was talking about war, and about how the current increase in war throughout the world serves to foreshadow the Second Horseman. That's all pretty standard stuff too. However, it was his evidence that caught my attention.
He cited a book that established there have been, on average, two wars per year for every year that humans have kept track of such things. That seems a tad low to me, but that's not my current point. He then went on to say, as evidence that the number of wars is escalating, that 73 of the 168 wars since 1898 have taken place since the end of the Second World War.
Now I'm no mathematician, but clearly neither is he. The Second World War ended 65 years ago. If there have been 73 wars since then, that's an average of about 1.12 wars per year. That's not an escalation from the all-time average; it is, in fact, a reduction. That's especially true when one considers that there are 47 years between 1898 and 1945, and that 168 wars minus the 73 post-WWII wars leaves 95 wars. That makes the pre-1945 20th century average 2.02 wars per year. If that's the case, the average number of wars per year has actually gone down by 44% since 1945.
In fairness, he did say that the figures were not brand new. However, the most recent year in which 73 wars since 1945 would have represented an increase over the two-per-year average would have been 1981 (2.02 wars per year), or nearly thirty years ago. A source that old, if indeed his is, scarcely seems like strong evidence of a currently-ongoing trend. In fact, if his source does date from 1981, the wars-per-year average would have been remarkably stable at 2.02 throughout the 20th century up to that point. So even in that event, the escalation of which he speaks does not exist in the data he cites.
I can't speak to the accuracy of these figures, because I don't know the source (if he mentioned the title and author of the book, I missed it) and I certainly haven't taken the time to count all the wars throughout recorded history myself. The accuracy of these figures, though, isn't my current point. My current point is that the very evidence he cites to support his assertion that the level of war in the world is escalating in advance of the End Times in fact quite emphatically DISproves his assertion.
Nevertheless, he passed off this evidence as conclusive proof that there is more war, murder, and the like in the world than at any other time in human history (if--despite his own evidence--that is indeed true, I would offer an alternate explanation by pointing out that there are also more humans now than at any other time in human history), and that this trend clearly points to the imminent advent of the Antichrist, the start of the Tribulation, and the Second Coming. What he didn't explicitly say, but what I heard nonetheless--maybe that's me--was "So be ye afraid, my flock! You'd better show up to church every Sunday, and be sure not to shirk your duty when that offering plate comes by!"
I imagine he'd be a lot more careful about the math associated with the offering plate.
First, I recommend a bit of historical perspective here. I dare say most human generations have thought that the world is in sad shape and getting worse, and even though one could argue that they've all been right as much as they've also all been wrong, we're still here. The problems humans face are the problems humans face now, in our parents' generation, and two thousand years ago.
Second, I recommend action. Resigning ourselves to the problems of the world as necessary harbingers of a foretold fate does nothing to reverse the at-least-perceived trend that things are getting worse. Recognizing that it's a problem if they are indeed getting worse and then DOING something about that problem does reverse the trend.
Third, I recommend a critical ear and eye to examine the bills of goods that any of various snake oil salesmen posing as political, social, or religious leaders will try to foist upon you. Don't take what anybody tells you, including me, at face value. That's a good practice even--perhaps especially--when the person is telling you something with which you already agree. As the sticker I've posted in my cubicle says, "Exercise the right to think for yourself."
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