Chapter Six – Why Humanity Could Never Solve Its Problems

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The world is filled with problems—disease, pollution, poverty, ignorance, religious confusion, war, terrorism, crime, violence, hunger, immorality, slavery, oppression, political upheaval, and much more. Why? With the passing of time come more problems, not fewer. Why? Also, existing problems grow collectively worse instead of better. Why? Why, at every turn, has man bungled and botched all efforts to solve his truly great problems?

At the same time, individually, people have never seemed more incapable of addressing and overcoming their personal problems. As with the world in general, the passing of time finds individuals and families drowning under an ever-greater sea of decadence and seemingly insurmountable difficulties. More and more seem completely incapable of managing their lives. Yes, why?

Men have created many amazing technological inventions, but they cannot create solutions to their problems. Mankind has harnessed the power of computers to help process vast amounts of information, but human beings cannot correctly process their personal problems. Scientists have discovered much about the size, magnificence, and precision of the universe, but they cannot discover the way to peace. Astronomers can find majestic, beautiful new galaxies throughout the universe, but they cannot find a way to preserve the beauty and majesty of Earth. Scientists have also unleashed the power of the atom, but they are powerless to unleash answers to life’s greatest questions. Educators have taught millions how to earn a living, but not how to live.

The well-known presidential historian and columnist Peggy Noonan summarized the complex, jumbled course that has been man’s history: “In the long ribbon of history, life has been one long stained and tangled mess, full of famine, horror, war and disease. We must have thought we had it better because man had improved. But man doesn’t really ‘improve,’ does he? Man is man. Human nature is human nature; the impulse to destroy coexists with the desire to build and create and make better.”

Who could disagree?

State of the Present—and Future

Consider some of the terrible conditions on Earth today. Should events remain unchecked, they are predicted to grow far worse by the year 2050—if mankind survives for that long! The following statistics come from the United Nation’s “The State of World Population” report, years 2001 and 2007. These are thorough reports that make for sobering reading.

The world population (6.7 billion) has more than tripled in the last seventy years. It has more than doubled since 1960 and is predicted to reach 9.34 billion by 2050. The forty-nine poorest, least-developed nations will actually triple to a population of nearly two billion. This worldwide population growth will bring staggering problems.

Just 2.5 percent of the earth’s water is fresh. Only 20 percent of this (or 0.5 percent) is accessible ground or surface water. The current population consumes 54 percent of this available water. By 2025, water use is expected to rise by 50 percent in developing countries, and 18 percent in other areas. As the earth grows by 75 million additional people per year it requires an amount of water equivalent to the mighty Rhine River. Also, developing countries dump 90 to 95 percent of their untreated sewage and 70 percent of their untreated industrial waste into surface waters. Population growth insures that this problem will only grow worse. In addition, acid rain and chemical runoff from fertilizers and pesticides sufficiently ruin water quality, making it largely unusable.

Population growth continues to outpace food production. There are 850 million people who are chronically malnourished, and 2 billion who lack “food security.” Only fifteen crop species provide 90 percent of the world’s food, yet it is estimated that sixty thousand different plant species could reach extinction by just 2025! By that year, the projected 8 billion inhabitants of Earth (estimated numbers vary) will likely require twice today’s food needs, coupled with greatly improved distribution, to completely eradicate hunger. But few experts see this as remotely possible.

Each day, 160,000 people move from rural areas to cities. This is happening fastest in under-developed countries. Enormous problems result from this: sanitation, overcrowding, access to modern health services, and the ability of schools to absorb the increase of students. Over half of all disease on Earth is sanitation-related. Each year, air pollution kills nearly 3 million people in developing countries alone, with poor sanitation killing another 12 million. Various forms of indoor air pollution (soot, dung, coal for cooking and heating, etc.) affect 2.5 billion people a year and kill 2.4 million. Changes in climate are altering the zones of risk for insect-borne diseases. New and more virulent diseases are appearing or reappearing. And many bacteria are proving to be drug-resistant because of the ongoing over-prescribing of antibiotics.

Some of the problems predicted for the near future include: limited and diminishing arable land, deforestation, urbanization, shrinking size of family farms, degradation of the land, shortages and degradation of water, irrigation problems, waste, the extinction of certain types of crops, the greater intensity and frequency of severe weather, which causes flooding and seasonal loss of crops, and greenhouse gases, and changes of climate. At the same time, according to The Nature Conservancy’s website, more than 1.3 acres of rainforest—often called “the lungs of the world” because it produces so much oxygen—are disappearing every second through logging!

Together, these problems spell untold calamity, and even catastrophe, for a mankind unprepared to solve these and many other problems. While the world is suffering from “information overload,” none of this knowledge increase is truly addressing mankind’s growing number of complex, insoluble problems. With all of man’s creative ingenuity and intelligence, he cannot solve the most important problems—those that threaten his very existence on an Earth he is systematically destroying.

Educators have duped generations into believing the evolutionary lie. This has caused countless millions to believe that mankind is continually evolving into a better and higher order of existence. Look around and you will see the fruits of this great deception. Man is not evolving upward—he is degenerating downward, into ever new lows of indulgence, decadence, and immorality. WHY?

The Two Trees

How did civilization get into the state of confusion, division, war, competition, and disagreement that exists all over the earth today? God’s original command to Adam was, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17).

In the next chapter (Gen. 3:6), Eve, with Adam following, rebelled and ate of this wrong tree. Notice that this tree represented knowledge that was both “good and evil.” In other words, the tree was not entirely evil—it contained a mixture of true and false knowledge! It is the same with the churches of this world. Some do have small amounts of true (“good”) doctrinal “knowledge,” mixed with much false (“evil”) doctrinal “knowledge.” But God has always told His true servants to avoid mixing truth with error. He warned Adam that eating of the wrong tree would result in death. It did.

The warning is the same for us today!

When I was first learning the truth in 1966, the man who taught me used an analogy that I had never considered before—but have never forgotten since: Think of a delicious cake laced with arsenic, cyanide, ricin, or strychnine, while otherwise containing nothing but good and healthy ingredients. Eating the cake would always result in death!

The good ingredients would not be sufficient to overcome the poison hidden in the cake. Likewise, God’s Church does not and cannot mix truth with error. As with the cake, the result for those who do is deadly!

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