Does anyone besides religious people say this? Is there any real evidence supporting either side, getting better, betting worse?

I just constantly here people at my work saying the world is going to hell, they of course are religious fanatics.

I used to believe this...and it was depressing. Most news stories are negative, and every one of them confirmed to me that the world was ending...the second coming could happen any day. I have TBM family with opposing views...some that argue there has never been more good in the world and the future is bright, and others that only see evil and the imminent end.

Bad things happen in the world every single day, but it's been that way for a long, long time. You could argue that people in general are more cold, dishonest, etc... I chose to not dwell on it, and I'm so much happier because of it.

I'd rather be alive now than 180 years ago.

We live in one of the safest times ever. Crime rates are lower and continue to fall. There is more charity and attempts to help growing nations. More nations are gaining freedoms, and while that's often a difficult change, it is happening.

It's one of the reasons why tragedies are so shocking, because normal life is getting better.

Healthcare (while there are still problems being worked on) is better than ever, with more and more medical research helping more and more people live better lives.

I hate it when I hear the whole 'world going to hell' bit, because it's such a fatalistic view of the world around them. It's a refusal to see the positives in the world.

More often than not, it is religious people who are frustrated that they simply don't control everything going on around them that state this fatalism. They often cite television shows as reasons for believing this, which is simply entertainment and has no bearing on how the world around us really is.

I agree- I think things are getting better when it comes to science, technology, equality, human understanding, crime rates, and many others. Unfortunately, all these things are enemies to religion- which is why religionists always tell a different story.

Yes I agree the only evidence I usually heard in church was 'look at what's on TV these days!' Or 'all you have to do is turn on the TV and you can see how the world is getting more wicked.'

I HATE the arguement that the world is wicked because of what's seen on TV. If TV is so offensive, why the hell are these people watching it? How can they be such experts on the wickedness on TV if they themselves aren't glued in front of it for hours on end?

Personally, I'm not much of a TV watcher. I'd rather read a book. What is it about TV that makes people feel like they're required to watch everything on it??? It has a damn OFF switch, people!!!

This mentality that "the world is wicked, just look what's on TV" was created by the religious fanatics here in the states.

They shudder when they see any amount of skin on TV when the same images on TV in South America and Europe wouldn't be given a second thought.

Not entirely true. Crime rates have actually risen in some parts in the world. While some parts of the world are receiving charity generously, others could really use more aid. While some nations have indeed gained more freedoms, others have lost freedoms.

That doesn't mean all is bad in the world. Technology has advanced, and healthcare has improved in certain areas. But it's important to have a realistic view of the world and to see what is not so great about it as well as what is positive within it.

Over the past few months I had been reading various nonfiction histories. not too long ago, the world used to be a violent, deadly, vicious, corrupt place. As Hobbes said, life was nasty, brutish and short.

I think people like your coworkers expected life to be a blissful fairytale. Oh, boo-hoo, life isn't perfect. And their memories of the past are of their own carefree, ignorant childhoods.

And, of course, their religions need to keep harping on a world gone to hell. They can't get much mileage out of, "Life is a LOT better than in your grandparents' time. So relax."

I see two problems with how we're presented with what's going on in the world.

First, it began when CNN came on-line and we saw the beginning of the 24-hour-per-day news channel. They have to find something to talk about for 24 hours, so they go on and on and on about the bad stuff until it really begins to affect you and you have to just turn it off.

We also hear of terrible things happening all over the world, at any given time, instead of just our local news, except for the really huge stuff, like when I was a kid.

Secondly, the news presents a skewed version of the world. I think that a huge majority of the people are good people. We're all just going to work, or taking care of our kids, or whatever we do, just trying to get through each day the best we can. And most of us smile at people when we walk past them, hold doors open for one another and are kind.

On the news, you mostly only hear about the small percentage of trouble-makers and troubled people, which gives you the idea that it's a terribly dangerous jungle out there, everywhere we go. I think it puts you into constant survival mode, which is stressful.

The old newspaper adage: "if it bleeds, it leads," doubly applies to CNN and all the rest!

In 1918, with a large part of the world's powers still fighting WWI, a flu pandemic swept the globe. Unlike most flu strains, this flu preferentially killed the young and strong. It swept through the barracks killing soldiers before they ever went to war. An estimated 100 million people died from the flu worldwide - about 5% of the world's population.

Sounds like the apocalypse to me. But instead of the end of the world, things kept going. No end of the world. Things got better. Then worse, with WWII. Then better again. I imagine that's how it will continue. Hopefully more better than worse, but that's up to us, right? :)

And there's always the "Black Plague" which is estimated to have killed up to half of Europe's population in a short, four-year period during the Middle Ages. (That wouldn't have been a very fun time to live in.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death#Death_toll



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WW1 in 1914, then WWII in 1939.

But WWIII hasn't happened yet and is not on the horizon.

We seem to have learned a lesson.

Things have gone better.

The world has gotten better.

The Mormons haven't massacred 120 or so immigrants for over a
century and a half.

"The Great Influenza" by John M. Barry deal with the 1918 flu pandemic. Countries that where fighting in the war kept the full impact of the flu out of the papers. It's often called the Spanish flu for this reason. Spain was neutral in WWI and freely reported deaths from the flu.

The military didn't follow their own guidelines for reducing infection. There was over crowding in troop barracks, and many men died before they ever saw a battle field.

When people say the world is more wicked today, I can only assume they don't know much about history.

If we are to believe Scripture, the world was much more wicked during the Old Testament days. After all, when is the last time God sent a massive flood or gave an entire city the Sodom & Gomorrah treatment?

Well, the 2004 tsunami was pretty awful, and had it happened in bible times there'd probably be a story about how sinful those folks had been to bring god's wrath. Same thing with Haiti, and there were plenty of religious kooks who blamed the earthquake on voodoo.

The trick is to raise the bar for wickedness to ridiculous proportions, then if you are judging the world according to the number of earrings worn, shoulders bared, and coffee drunk, then the world is exceedingly wicked.

However, if you are looking at a world that is increasingly less tolerant of oppression and hunger, and is increasingly more strident in the march toward human rights, then this is the best time ever to be alive--and goodness, if not overly plentiful, is definitely on the rise.

This is unfortunate if you are a religious nut who needs everyone to focus on wickedness, because increasingly, the only place left to look is in the mirror if you are the Big 15 running a cult.

I often wonder if members see it this way because the church continues to put out meaningless things that are classified as sins. Wearing more then two earings is a sin, baring your shoulders is a sin, asking for the priesthood is a sin, working outside of the home is a sin, no going on dates is a sin, not paying tithing is a sin.

When you increase the amount of things that are sins the world is going to be an awfully scary place. I'm surprised my TBM relatives aren't afraid to go outside at times. They might see someone sagging and feel the spirit disappear.

As a woman who never wanted children, marriage and all that, I am so damn relieved that I was born when I was and where I was. I can vote, drive, have sex for pleasure only and without getting hitched, own property, have access to contraception and healthcare, have a business, be independent, travel, go to a pub without an escort, be a serial monogamist, go to university, be a doctor/cop/prime minister/whatever, have sex with women or men or both or none, hire a naked chef, nude butler and nekkid chauffeur... ok getting silly.

But my point is: I feel that I have much more personal freedom than even my mother did. Her life was good (still is) but it was still very decided for her based on her sex and that's no longer the case for most women (in the West). This is a colossal shift in a positive direction. For women in the West, in general terms, the world is improving all the time.

The same can not be said for all place though.

Sadly, there are people who will point to those freedoms as examples of what's wrong with the modern world.

Yeah, you're right about that, unfortunately.

If you check statistics for violent crime and murder in the world the figures have mostly been dropping pretty steadily the last 500 years or so (when such estimates have been possible to deduce from historical records). Except from ww1 and ww2, people killed in warfare have also dropped. The major players of Europe haven't been at war with each other for soon to be 70 years, which is the longest peace this part of the world have ever seen.

Alot of things are going in the right direction all over the globe. Food, clean water, healthcare and education is getting accessible to more and more people.

* The Bible tacitly endorses slavery, but that has come to an end.

* The Bible endorses a strong patriarchial society where women are to remain silent, but that has come to an end.

* The Bible endorses genocide, which does still happens from time to time.

* The Bible condemns homosexuality, but this wicked generation seems to care more about human dignity than God's will.


1 out of 4 or .250 is marginal for batting averages, but terrible when measuring righteousness where perfection is the goal, so it does appear that the world is getting more wicked.

Generally when people say this, what they really mean is that more people are having more fun sex.

As H. L. Mencken said, religious fundamentalism is “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time.”

Let's see. Racism is fading, women are respected more than in previous times. So are gays.

No.

The LDS Church's definition of wicked is based solely on how much and what kind of sex people are having.

I think my TV has been on a handful of times over the past year. I don't even watch it anymore.

But for those glued to the TV, like my Dad, the world can look pretty bleak. Luckily he doesn't sit on the news shows though. He just likes to watch golf.

But those who are glued to the TV news programs are often those who are looking for it to be bad, so that they can feel comforted that we really are in the last days.

Anthropologists originally invented the 'noble savage' concept. They now admit that the leading cause of death of men in tribal settings is and always was murder.

It takes about 2 minutes on google to find stats showing that war and starvation are declining worldwide. Fanatics think that is cancelled out by kids showing more skin. Really?

Evil, yes...wicked..I'm not sure. "Wicked" is, to me, a religious based term. I'm sure the way I live my life is viewed as wicked buy TBM's, but I am not evil nor have I done evil things. People being attacked by punk gangsters (of any race) based on what they drive or wear or the color of their skin, or what religion they practice or what sexual orientation they claim is pure evil.

Ron Burr

The world is getting better! I read a book, "The better Angels of Our Nature," by Steven Pinker. It's fairly obvious that things are better on average, even though terrible things still happen every day.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/24/opinion/kristof-are-we-getting-nicer.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1381889784-kUCokpPwh6vT/M42HtXAiw


And; If "Is the world getting more wicked?" were interpreted as "The world is getting less religious," That's not a correct thing. The world gets better by becoming less religious.



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The world is getting better. If you went back and tried to live 10000 years ago, you'd understand. Even 1000 years ago, or 100.

People have a short-term memory. They don't tend to remember anything over 100 years ago, and they tend to glorify the past. Reality is a whole lot different.

It also doesn't help if you're a pessimist, considering there are far more people to see the bad in today than any time in the history of the Earth, and an incredible telecommunications network to help you learn about them that eclipses anything this world has ever seen.

Honestly, there is no time in the history of the world that I'd rather live in that's better than right exactly now.

"The world is getting more wicked" is code for "religion is losing it's vice grip on the culture".

Good.

Let's see, Boyd K Pecker said that the three biggest enemies of the church are intellectuals, feminists, and homosexuals.

So, education is on the rise, women are have more opportunities than ever, and tolerance/acceptance for LGBT persons is increasing.

I guess according to crazy out of touch old geezers like B KKK Pecker then absolutely the world is getting worse.

To religious folks, "The world is getting more wicked" just means sexuality is a little more in publicly acceptable.

In addition, technological advances in media has made it so much easier for people to see "all the bad" instantly in their living room 24 hours a day.

I'm a history buff and I can certainly tell you the world is FAR, FAR, FAR a better place than it was in the past. All the same bad stuff was happening in the past, you just didn't get it broadcast to you everyday by the media. If the world was "more wicked" its NOT today.

Is the world getting more wicked?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2YyY3IQXQk

Generally, perhaps the world is getting better. But competition for resources is tough, and the minority are hoarding a great deal. Some places life has become much more difficult in the last hundred years. Try walking through the slums of Manilla, Jakarta, Lagos, etc. There are tens of millions of people that will never visit anywhere outside of their ghetto.

Typical for demolition chaos in Manilla, sending riot police and laborers to rip apart shanty towns by hand for commercial developments, and entire blocks being burnt down. Thousands displaced.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQSkC9sXx-8



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2013 04:39AM by homoerectus.

“Fear is good; change is bad.” -- Grug Crood