The World Is Becoming More Evil: Revisited

Conwy, Wales-trekearth

Preface

At work there are corporate internet terminals. I check Facebook to see the 'PC' version as just opposed to the 'Mobile' version. They have some differences as many will know. After I logged in past the regular corporate security I went to Facebook and realized it was someone else's account. I did not alter their account and stayed ethical, but noticed that my most recent posts and status updates on my main page do not appear to a non-friend. The non-friend page does more so place emphasis on 'new friends'.

However, my Facebook blog page seemed up to date.

From

2010 Theodicy and Practical Theology: PhD thesis, the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter

Previous related posts

April 11, 2013

October 17, 2007

Question 46: The world is becoming more evil

With these questions the scale changed, and is now ranging from 1 to 5, 1 being ‘little’ and 5 being ‘much’. 

One hundred and eleven respondents (52.1%) chose ‘4 to 5’ meaning a majority favour the proposition.

Sixty persons (28.2%) chose ‘1 to 2’ and 42 (19.7%) chose ‘3’.

The World Is Becoming More Evil: Revisited

Within my doctoral problem of evil survey results, 52.1% of respondents within Christian churches supported this proposition.

Are individuals and institutions becoming more evil, making the world more evil, and/or are incidents of evil simply being reported in greater numbers due to more television stations and the internet?

In the Western world there are commercially far more television stations available today than in the 1970s.The internet and the worldwide web also provide worldwide coverage of events and therefore the problem of evil on a global scale can be digested by persons in local markets, and evil can appear to be greater in amount than it was thirty to forty years ago.

From a Biblical Christian world-view there has been some negative trends in the world, including within Western society and the Christian Church itself. Those within the Christian Church, which hold to a Biblical world-view, may tend to see the world, the Western world, at least, as becoming more evil as many tend to reject Christian concepts.

Hal N. Ostrander, Chair of the Religion & Philosophy Division at Brewton-Parker College in Washington State, explains that in today’s post-Christian era and society, Christians will face cultural and intellectual challenges to the faith. Ostrander (2004: 1). The Church is in a defensive position where it needs to defend a faith, not accepted by most in Western society. Ostrander (2004: 1)

Harold Lindsell provides the opinion that many Christian institutions have slowly over time moved away from orthodox, Biblical theology and have gone astray. Lindsell (1976: 185). If Biblical theology is rejected within very liberal theology, then what occurs is that Biblical Christianity is replaced by a human made religion. This religion is not of God, but rather represents the attempts of certain religious persons to make God palatable for 21st century consumption.

2015 Comments

I listened to an online pastor the other week that stated the world will continue to become worse and worse in regard to evil until the end of this age, this based on a Biblical worldview of Genesis to Revelation.

Contrast that view with what I heard on a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation news program earlier this week that stated (paraphrased) that Papal views in regard to the decline of Western society over the last five hundred years are an example of an outdated worldview.

The commenter, a business professor, noted that there have been many vast improvements for the typical Canadian example, in just the last few decades, economically and socially.

He then asked (paraphrased) if the Pope would like Western society to go back to the Middle Ages?

The Professor, as he often does on the program, made some good points, although I doubt he holds to a Biblical Christian worldview...

But I am not a supporter of the Papacy and I would definitely not like to live in the Middle Ages or a similar era.

In regard to the survey, I answered that particular question during the PhD research rather cautiously and non-dogmatically.

This was because I can acknowledge both sides.

There have been technological and social improvements in the Western World over the past decades and centuries.

I am in agreement basic with Ostrander and Lindsell, that there is a decline in Christianity in the Western World. I reason there are many spiritual negatives as a results which will occur in all aspects of humanity.

There have been many technological and social improvements made in the Western World. But I do not reason this is because human beings have evolved in nature. The nature remains the same, fallen and sinful (Romans 1-6, Genesis 2-3) and in need of the Gospel for salvation.

Sin and death remain theologically and philosophically unsolved as ultimate human problems, within a secular worldview.

With abortion on demand still taking place in the Western World, for example, it has not as of yet become pragmatic socially and politically to protect the unborn as a class of human beings, although scientifically human at the earliest stages.

Cited

Medicine Net

'Embryo: An organism in the early stages of growth and differentiation, from fertilization to the beginning of the third month of pregnancy (in humans). After that point in time, an embryo is called a fetus.'

This distinguishes the embryo from non-fertilized human genetic material, such as semen.

Some would like to state that they are virtually the same thing in favour of a pro-choice position, but scientifically the first is a fertilized egg, while semen is non-fertilized male reproductive fluid.

This demonstrates as example, that human nature as sinful has not changed. Human lives are still being taken unjustly by Western society.

Circumstances have caused many positive changes over Western history, as opposed to a change in in human nature or the evolution of human nature.

As the Pastor at church recently noted (paraphrased), human beings are just as evil and as capable of barbaric acts as ever. This explains the brutality of ISIS he noted on a world scale, or the disgruntled employee that goes on a killing rampage in the Western World.

Then there is my example of abortion on demand in the Western context, specifically which demonstrates the termination and therefore killing of unborn human beings.

LINDSELL, HAROLD (1976) The Battle for the Bible, Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House.

OSTRANDER, HAL N. (2004) ‘Defending the faith in a post-Christian era’, The Christian Index, Duluth, Georgia, The Christian Index. http://www.christianindex.org/206.article