Marie like most women wanted to start a family however Marie is not like most women in the work force. The military delayed her ability to have children and start her family but this obstacle will soon be crossed. She survived two tours in Iraq and is now this Army veteran is going to hang up her military boots. But the one thing she has been waiting to do might be stopped by something that is much bigger than a bullet or IED. Marie Exley believes that she can’t start her family because we are in the “End Time”s and that the world started its demise on May 11, 2011. Marie is a part of a Christian group that believes the world is coming to an end and that she must spread the word that “Judgment Day Is Almost Here” to people across the United States and the world. So instead of taking time to start her family she is going to drive around the US and tell people to get ready for “Judgment Day”.
Should we all be afraid that we are close to the end of time? Is America and the world falling apart? Is this world we live in getting worse? Are there signs out there that we all are living in the “End Times”? According to FEMA the number of Major Disasters Declarations, Emergency Declarations, and Fire Management Assistance Declarations have been on the rise since 1953. The 2004 Tsunami took the lives of over 300,000 people in Indonesia and in 2008 cyclones took the lives of over 138,000 people in Myanmar. Birth rates in the US are declining, continuing a 12 year trend according to the CDC. Since 1981, AIDS has claimed the lives of more than 25.2 million people and that number continues to rise. According to CNN Money, the poverty rate has been increasing since 2000 reaching 15.1% in 2011, which is close to the high in 1983 when it was 15.2%. Clearly these statistics are good enough to prove that we are living in bad times, right?
If one is going to look at the documented reports of natural disasters one must think of how technology has improved the accuracy of such reporting. I think the number of disasters reported on FEMA’s website does not accurately reflect the correct number of disasters that happened in the past. In the past, I bet that states and counties may not have known what qualified as a reportable disaster, who to report it to, and how to accurately keep record of the disaster. With the improvements of technology it’s become much easier to report and disseminate disaster information than it was in the 50s or 60s.
Also just looking at the number of people killed in major natural disasters one will see something strange considering that the number of people in the world is increasing. Although the number of people killed in the Indonesia Tsunami and Myanmar cyclones was in the hundreds of thousands the China flood of 1931 took the lives of over 400,000 people and the China earthquake of 1976 took the lives of 700,000 people. So currently the world is more populated but the number of people killed in major disasters are smaller than the people killed in those major disasters that have happened in the past.
Well what about birth rates, death rates, and diseases? According to the CDC teen pregnancy rates are dropping and in 2010 the teen birth rates for all races saw a decrease, so we have less young women giving birth than in the past. The increase in the US population did more than just add more men and women to the streets of the US. This increase in women also increased the population of women that are not at child-bearing age, giving us more women that can’t have children yet. So we have more women that biologically can’t have children yet and a reduction of teen girls having children, thus slowing down the birth rate in the US.
There has been a decrease in diseases that cause death tolls to amass in millions in a short period of time. The last time that we saw a major epidemic that took the lives of at least 1 million people in a short period of time was the Asian Flu where 4 million lives were lost in two years, 1956-1958. As far as life expectancy people are living longer with a life expectancy of 78.5 years.
According to the FBI all crimes have been decreasing and continue to decrease over time. If our world is getting worse with time then why has crime been on the decline? According to the US Census, the United States population has continued to grow since the 1950’s. According to the US census bureau from 2000 to 2010 the United States experienced a 9.7% increase in overall citizen population. So, there are more people in the United States that are available to commit crimes but we are seeing crime decrease. One can’t argue that technology is affecting documentable crimes because technology has allowed us to better track crimes. Also because of technology more crimes should be able to be committed and caught by authorities. In 1984 approximately 8% of the population had one or more personal computers and in 2003 an estimated 62% of households had one or more computers. So now we have more people with an increased ability to commit crimes such as fraud but we still see a decrease in these types of crimes.
So, you make the determination, is this world as bad as we try to make it out to be? If you think that the world is getting worse please comment and provide evidence.
Sources
http://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/
http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm
http://www.fema.gov/news/disaster_totals_annual.fema
http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/13/news/economy/poverty_rate_income/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_death_toll
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40885541/ns/us_news-life/t/end-days-may-believers-enter-final-stretch/
therodneysmith 