AS I SEE IT: What catastrophe will curb mankind’s expansion?

I would sincerely like to hear what other people think about basic matters of existence.

I do not think that if anybody considers eternity then their minds must be open to the belief there is some godly power beyond what man can imagine. It would therefore seem that religion, in its many forms, might be justifiable.

Religion is a comfort to mankind. If a person cannot absorb the concept of eternity then that person must believe there is something out there beyond our knowledge. Religion and a belief in our various gods offer comfort, However, each man should identify his own god and religion should never be a reason for conflict.

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I have got to an age when I wonder a lot about what our existence is all about. I wonder what will become of mankind. Will humans develop to a stage where they will self-destruct? Will they find a way of limiting the world’s population to self-satisfy man’s basic needs?

In the relatively few years mankind has existed on Earth, the species has grown and is still growing towards a point when some catastrophic event must doublessly occur that will drastically control the over expansion of the species.

This event could be man-made, such as war, the nuclear bomb is a reality of course. Another possibility is famine. As the pressure of mankind bears down on limited resources, mass starvation on a scale that to date has not been envisaged is a real possibility. This in spite of the fact we waste half the food we produce.

The third possibility is pestilence, i.e. disease. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that man’s forays into space and other planets could introduce some infectious matter that mankind will be unable to counter.

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I had at one time thought HIV would be the controlling factor, which may still prove the case.

As these factors become self-evident, no doubt man will continue the search for more habitable space within space itself in an attempt to find an “overflow pool” for life as we know it to carry on. I doubt it. If mankind were to be successful in this search it can be guaranteed that genetic control will be implanted and take over.

Those at the top of the then society will dictate as to those people who would be permitted to inhabit the new world. If it was habitable but relatively poor, then the poor and downtrodden of our world would be shipped out. If, however, it was an “astral Florida”, the top echelon of society would claim it for their own use.

There are three consistent factors I can see will govern our world in the future as in the past. These are:

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Time, the overall factor of existence. Man does not have the brain power or ability to truthfully imagine. Time is eternal. When you consider that life in any known form only came into existence some 560 million years ago, it is beyond the concept of the human brain to even imagine how that momentous occasion developed or what preceded it.

Alongside time there is space. Again eternal and in spite of man’s puny expeditions into the void there is no way the species will master it. Beyond our galaxy is another, and another, ad infinitum. Eternity.

The third factor is nature itself, in that there is only one species of animal that, if it became extinct, would not be missed by any other species of the world. That unimportant species is, of course, mankind. Nature will no doubt survive when mankind ceases to exist. Indeed, the natural world existed many millions of years before man, or indeed animals, existed on earth.

It is said that if all mankind were to be taken out of New York City, it would only take nature 50 years or so to absorb the city. In that time major buildings would collapse and plants would grow everywhere. Animals would take over and kill only for food and their immediate survival. War would be a forgotten past.

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The one final thought I have is that it is said the sun will burn out in some 300,000 million years or so. So you don’t need to worry at this moment. Just make sure that you have a torch handy.

By Antony Haworth