How will Armageddon ever come?

[stateofequilibrium]

Will superpowers ever face off in large scale battles? Is that even likely, or are the politicians and leaders smarter than that knowing that it could very well likely result in mutual, if not, global destruction?

If not, then will the world remain pretty much status quo outside of the breakup of various regimes due to socio-economic reasons? Then what is the function of the UN in the long run given it's history of partisanship and everyone's self-serving interests?

[MVSpartan117]

Giant praying mantises for sure

http://www.oreillynet.com/oscon2002/graphics/jc4_02.jpg

[Maverick77]

Godzilla

[flickme]

This pretty much explains it all.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/endofworld.html

[flickme]

Or this......
http://www.upstairsmedia.com/images/samples/Giant_Baby.jpg

[Rakki]

Considering how obese the average American is, I wouldn't be surprised if the kids get big enough to be a threat :)

Hang on, they already are...

[Sixgun Symphony]

Armageddon?

Simple, the A-bomb is 1940's technology. Due to the advancement of technology, I fear the day will come that everyone will be able to make these weapons.

Think of all the terrorist groups around the world and then think of what it would be like if they all had atomic bombs.

[basket of soft kittens]

we are all going to die fromViolent angry smiley faces from posts.......................... :-*$ nooooo!! oh god no! its happening!

[Flagg]

I reckon if cold fusion is every discovered/mastered it will only take about 5 minutes before some A-hole weaponizes it and takes us all out......it's our nature

[SOG]

Will superpowers ever face off in large scale battles?

yes, its called world war 1 and 2, there may yet be a 3, who knows, armegedon is a totally different concept and idea that has nothing to do with nations fighting each other.

[angry cow]

Thanks for your insight Prime Minister Chamberlain . . . I too believe that here in 1938 we have discovered peace in our time! :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

if the earth ends, its because of humans... it's in our nature to destroy eachother

[ßå$tĮТHÏ¿ð]

if the earth ends, it will be by our hands. Obviously this planet isnt loving us by the global warming deal. Personally on my 19 years on this planet I've seen the climate I live in "change" slightly, or we could just be stupid and nuke this world into a nuclear ice age.

[Andersson]

if the earth ends, its because of humans... it's in our nature to destroy eachother


What an easy way of explaining the violence: it´s in our nature. Really? I haven´t seen any scientific facts supporting that kind of an opinion. And even if it would be so, humans also have a freedom of choice. When you feel hungry, you don´t eat if you want to get in shape. When you feel tired, you don´t sleep if you want to study for tomorrow´s exam. When you feel angry and violent, you don´t start killing people if you want to save the planet.

It takes more to control yourself, but it is possible. Humans aren´t supposed to be too fatalistic.

It´s in human nature to help each other.

[Elmo]

It is not our nature, Future Marine.

Who do militaries around the world spend so much time in boot camps indoctrinating their recruits in killing other human beings. They are dehumanizing the enemy.

It works by making them shoot at targets which topple after getting hit, chanting something like "what makes the grass grow? Blood blood blood!"
and repeating i.e. a bayonet charge 500 times.

In WWII only about 15 percent of the allied soldiers fired their OWN weapon at the enemy, because it is against human nature to kill a fellow human being and take personal responsibility of it. It was much easier to fire a machine gun, which belonged to the squad.

For references, check out Dave Grossman: On Killing, The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in war and Society

[marktigger]

usually every friday night with a pizza and a load of beer

[Andersson]

Armageddon will never come!!!

Finnish people are going to rule the world with peace and love, eh!

[SOG]

It is not our nature, Future Marine.

Who do militaries around the world spend so much time in boot camps indoctrinating their recruits in killing other human beings. They are dehumanizing the enemy.

It works by making them shoot at targets which topple after getting hit, chanting something like "what makes the grass grow? Blood blood blood!"
and repeating i.e. a bayonet charge 500 times.

In WWII only about 15 percent of the allied soldiers fired their OWN weapon at the enemy, because it is against human nature to kill a fellow human being and take personal responsibility of it. It was much easier to fire a machine gun, which belonged to the squad.

For references, check out Dave Grossman: On Killing, The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in war and Society

then why since the dawn of time have we been killing eachother? why have peace loving indians never exposed to the white man been attacked by other indian parties and killed, murdered, turned to slaves? they did not have regiments and military doctrines, they were not influenced by outsiders for quite some time yet they developed very similar low scale mentalities the same as the rest of the civilized world.

it is in mans natures to fix something with his fist without being taught or indoctrinated to do so. it doesnt matter what time your in or where you are somebody somewhere is going to recieve a serious asskicking for doing something to someone else. your actually labeling all men across the globe the same biologically so they should all react and act the same and blaming institutions and governments for killing? it is in mans nature to do quite a few things. you point out some troops didnt like killing because it was against there nature? what about the ones that did? it is also human nature to protect loved ones even if that means doing something you are not predisposed to do aka killing to defend them. it is in a womans nature to protect her young including killing though usually she would not mentally have the capacity to do so.

ever watch nature? are we not alike?

what, are you going to tell me next, its not in our nature to be greedy? sure you can adjust your mental mindset and reach different planes to fight off all these natural urges that have always plagued man.

ever here of the three F's, the most base primal instinct of man?

[Maverick77]

Elmo is right...

It is not human instinct to kill another human.

In ww2 only 15% of troops fired their weapon in combat without external pressure put on them(such as a direct threat to their life). They are called fighters, the other 85% are called non fighters. That is basically how humans are broken down when it comes to warfare.

Armies relized this and by Vietnam almost 70% of troops fired their weapon in combat through advanced training.

[Elmo]

Sog,

I refuse to believe that killing other human beings is in our instincts.
As Airborne249 clarified the issue, no matter what civilization, the pawns of war will kill if it's directly to kill or to be killed. Otherwise, it has to be, it comes down to indoctrination.

Grossman's study actually started a new academic branch called killology.
Basically there could be a department of killology in some university...

"Hi, I'm professor of Economics!"

"Nice to meet you! I'm professor of killology!"

[SOG]

Elmo is right...

It is not human instinct to kill another human.

In ww2 only 15% of troops fired their weapon in combat without external pressure put on them(such as a direct threat to their life). They are called fighters, the other 85% are called non fighters. That is basically how humans are broken down when it comes to warfare.

Armies relized this and by Vietnam almost 70% of troops fired their weapon in combat through advanced training.

oh but your wrong sir, that is of course assuming you dont believe in God, but the latter secular opinion of evolution in which thee 3 f's fight flee fornicate our are most primal instincts.


Make Love, Not War
In their attempts to join primate behavior to modern human behavior, scientists have narrowed the studies to two primates: The bonobo and the chimpanzee. There can be no doubts that these two primate species at some timeline in evolution were of the same species due to the similarities in physiology, (both species share over 98 per cent of their genes with their human cousins). But it seems apparent to me that the true emotional ancestors of Homo sapiens falls to the chimpanzee. The reason for rejecting the bonobos at this stage is that the bonobos appear to resolve their emotional and territorial conflicts with ***, whereas the chimpanzees resort to physical violence, or the apparent threat of dominating another group member with violence. Resolutions of conflicts can be obtained, but only if the subordinate chimp gives noticeable gestures of submissiveness to the dominate chimpanzee. The chimpanzee shares 98.6 of its genetic makeup with Homo sapiens and has five times the upper body strength as a human and long canine teeth in which to assist in any hand to hand conflict. These are very useful tools for winning any arguments of domination over any weaker opponents. Now, doesn't that behavior sound more familiar then having humans hopping into the sack to resolve differences and reduce tensions? Perhaps someday humankind will look back upon the bonobos with fond appreciation and reflection and perhaps adapt their behavior to ours. Make love and not war and ye shall multiple.

My Way Or the Highway
Having established the chimpanzee as our emotional ancestor adds credence to my final argument as to how we Homo sapiens parted ways with our primate cousins. If, as a species, our ancestors could not have the conceptual ability to understand the big, satellite picture that their world was crumbling around them and that if they did not plan in advance and change their ways to accommodate the change, they would perish. With their small brains they could not have had the ability to know that they had better head north in search of other sources of protein. They lacked the brain capacity to form groups by democratic, or other means to select leaders that were willing and capable to lead the weak into a new land of milk and honey. What brain capacity they did have, rested on the primal pillar of violence and the ability to take what they needed. Then, as today, the "losers," the loners, the misfits, the injured, the old, the very young, and the handicapped were most likely pushed away from the remaining rain forest and forced to scavenge for whatever food they could find. You want empirical evidence? Take an hard, honest look around your society today. Those that have resources, tend to keep those resources and push those who are weak or disenfranchised as far away as possible from their territories. The élites may disguise their shunning behaviors by blaming those at the lower end of the socioeconomic levels for their lack of determination to lift themselves up, but the other side of the coin is that the dominants fail to proudly announce their exclusionary selection processes through obvious or subtle discrimination behaviors.

so yes, while killing is not the most dominant human instinct it is intertwined in us as human beings according to evolution if you believe in that. while society has raised us a certain way in that we are seperated from death and literally see death as almost a entirely negative thing, there are other societies more closely related to the primal nature of man even today. just because we have used our intelligence to build a world which hides negatives does not mean we have ditched our genetic building.

again, this argument is soley for the athiest. thank you.

[SOG]

Sog,

I refuse to believe that killing other human beings is in our instincts.
As Airborne249 clarified the issue, no matter what civilization, the pawns of war will kill if it's directly to kill or to be killed. Otherwise, it has to be, it comes down to indoctrination.

Grossman's study actually started a new academic branch called killology.
Basically there could be a department of killology in some university...

"Hi, I'm professor of Economics!"

"Nice to meet you! I'm professor of killology!"

the problem is your equating todays civilized military fighting and killing and the way you were brought up against your very dna and evolutiionary instincts. you are aghast at killing because you were brought up that way. yet if someone is brought up another way death is but a normal function and the killing of animals humans could be but a routine nature.

your basically saying, because i feel this way and society is this way, this is who we truly are. not true. the next society could regard killing as something as simple as waking and they would feel the same way, that human nature is to kill violently non stop, and love making is something purely needed for carrying on power and right and wealth, not that it is base human nature.

spartans threw thier unfit babies with deforities or females that would not add rank and file to thier warriors off cliffs. this sickens us today but back then it was a socially acceptable practice! again your equating what your feeling and what you are taught unto what is human instinct. most of us were brought up in a society where killing is frowned upon. you liken killers as to being indoctrinated to kill yet you youself have been the subject of the same teachings throughout all of society saying it is wrong to kill because of current beliefs.

[Maverick77]

What does beliving in god or not have to do with understanding the fact that 85% of modern humans will not engage in violence in which they can be killed or hurt without a very strong reason.



I believe this too..... I can see it in people

[SOG]

What does beliving in god or not have to do with understanding the fact that 85% of modern humans will not engage in violence in which they can be killed or hurt without a very strong reason.

I believe this too..... I can see it in people

but earlier you stated it was human nature NOT TO KILL. i never said it was every humans nature. but it is human nature to kill according to evolution. so saying its not is wholly untrue going against the most popular non religious scientific belief of who we are.

for people who believe in GOD this argument is entirely different because all evolutionary "discoveries" are bull**** so human nature breaks down into good vs evil thought patterns and how strong of a human you are and rooted in your beliefs. the bible sets certain parameters. i am merely stating a argument based on the most popular non religous ideal.

it doesnt matter if 99.9% of modern humans will not engage in violence for a very strong reason. you and your pals brought two misconcept words into the argument which i clearly dispute. "instincts" and "nature" in which using those two terms have nothing to do with how you were raised but your predisposed genetic makeup which PROVES the opposite.

again, we arent genetic killing machines but saying the instinct and nature is not there when IT CLEARLY IS according to a strong scientific belief proves otherwise. if your knocking the institution and the way current civilization is running etc i can understand that but trying to say we are not killers period, it isnt in our makeup, is total BS from a evolution standpoint.

religious wise, judeo christian what not, hell yeah murder is hella wrong and a strong temptation of the devil.

[Andersson]

for people who believe in GOD this argument is entirely different because all evolutionary "discoveries" are bull**** so human nature breaks down into good vs evil thought patterns and how strong of a human you are and rooted in your beliefs. the bible sets certain parameters. i am merely stating a argument based on the most popular non religous ideal.

it doesnt matter if 99.9% of modern humans will not engage in violence for a very strong reason. you and your pals brought two misconcept words into the argument which i clearly dispute. "instincts" and "nature" in which using those two terms have nothing to do with how you were raised but your predisposed genetic makeup which PROVES the opposite.



"Instincts" and "human nature" have never actually included violence as it is. Surviving is the key word. To garantee the survival of your tribe you have to eat and copulate. You also have to protect yuor tribe against possible threaths.

In the beginning eating has demanded some gathering, after that hunting (first steps in using weapons) and then agriculture. As we can notice, nowadays we wouldn't even have to kill animals in the name of eating.

Protecting your tribe has in the beginning meant mostly running away. After the discovery of tools men started to use them against each other in order to violate. But only to protect themselves and their tribe. Back then those ancectors of ours couldn't understand (didn't have the same knowledge as we do) that the best solution for everyone is to share the recources equally. So, what ever seemed to be a threath, had to be eliminated. Nowadays, as our ways of thinking have improved, and we can and must see the hole global community, not just our own tribe, violence shouldn't be needed anymore. It's against the main thought of survival.

The basic thing is: violence and killing other people (not in human nature) aren't the same thing as survival (in human nature).

When it comes to religion, it's not so black and white. You can believe in good (and bad) very well without believing in some wice old man sitting on the edge of a cloud. You can also have very precise moral guidelines totally without The Bible. And every religious human being doesn't think that evolutionary discoveries are bull****.

[SOG]

"Instincts" and "human nature" have never actually included violence as it is. Surviving is the key word. To garantee the survival of your tribe you have to eat and copulate. You also have to protect yuor tribe against possible threaths.

if your talking creation i agree. if your talking evolution you are wrong.


Protecting your tribe has in the beginning meant mostly running away. After the discovery of tools men started to use them against each other in order to violate. But only to protect themselves and their tribe. Back then those ancectors of ours couldn't understand (didn't have the same knowledge as we do) that the best solution for everyone is to share the recources equally. So, what ever seemed to be a threath, had to be eliminated. Nowadays, as our ways of thinking have improved, and we can and must see the hole global community, not just our own tribe, violence shouldn't be needed anymore. It's against the main thought of survival.

again i agree, violence should not be nessecary although there are people from anywhere and everywhere that will always explode and do wrong things and commit violent acts because it is impossible to wholly tame the world. but killing which is not "murder" is embedded in us genetically according to evolution. why do you dispute on a evoltuion level instincts to kill when evolutionists themselves state it is there? are you running on a freak variant theory of evolution or what you would like to believe?


The basic thing is: violence and killing other people (not in human nature) aren't the same thing as survival (in human nature).

under a evolutionary basis we are closely related to chimpanzees. chimpanzees are murderous, vicious, ******-molesting monkeys! i was shocked to see them on the discovery channel having *** with thier own young and in some cases trying to eat other chimps young from the same tribe and food was not a issue! in the show they ate plenty of fruit but as we know chimpanzees also have a taste for meat just like thier peacefull cousin the gorilla. this was hardly a issue of survival but a murderous taste for meat.

chimpanzees constantly fight and murder each other like many animals over available space, mates, and overall position, just like us! that does not rather sound very survival like but instead very human like which was passed form them to us! another discovery show, outlining predator animals had the chimps ambushing another monkey, flushing him one way then trapping him and rending him apart. intelligent hunting. survival? possibly, although there was plenty of fruit around..... just like humans.

if we evolved from this species, why would there behavior not be embeded in our dna? what proof do you otherwise offer according to evolution that we evolved instinct wise different from chimps, when we have always displayed our "ancestors" instincts!? im sorry but those acts are not SURVIVAL in which you seem to think that is the only natural evolutionary trait in which we as humans should kill?


When it comes to religion, it's not so black and white. You can believe in good (and bad) very well without believing in some wice old man sitting on the edge of a cloud. You can also have very precise moral guidelines totally without The Bible. And every religious human being doesn't think that evolutionary discoveries are bull****.

that is correct but i brought up God and judeo christian values, not "religion" as a whole since that can literally encompass any fruitcake belief. if you believe in God in that certain set of beliefs then yes, evolution is bull****. many people have tried to combine the two. tried is the key word.

basically what i feel you are arguing is that we carried over our biology from evolutionary ancestors and not our physiology. so we miraculously sloughed off our physiology upon entering caveman status? also how is it that we retain 90 some odd percent of our biological characteristics to apes but almost nill of our physiology? its a similar conveinent way of saying we were not made to eat meat. we do not have to but we can and were made in a way in which supports that.

[Echo5Hotel]

Simple fact, humans are a flawed creature and suffer from such things as greed, lust, insanity, cruelty, etc, etc. As long as these flaws continue to be inherent in humans then there will ALWAYS be conflict. There will always be wars and there will always be man killing man unless some other kind of common threat comes along to bind us together. Even then, after the common threat is dealt with we will once again turn on each other. There will ALWAYS be those who want what someone else has and are willing to do whatever it takes to get it. Those with it will ALWAYS have someone willing to do whatever it takes to keep it.

I have to agree with SOG. It is in our nature to kill each other. Killing is an instinct. An instinct that has been suppressed by society (for obviously good reasons of course) throughout the ages of "civilization".

This instinct is recognized by society, even if they don't want to admit it. If it wasn't our instinct to kill then we would not need written laws to keep it from occuring more often. I'm not saying that there is not a varying degree of this instinct in each individual. It takes a lot more to push one person to violence than another but everyone has their breaking point.

Soldiers are not trained to kill, they are simply trained to kill more efficiently and with less emotional trauma to themselves as a result of the conflict between instinct and accepted norms of society. This is why many people fear combat veterans. Because they have been there and done that and have somewhat less of a barrier keeping them from stepping across that invisible line of normal society if needed.

I have been there and done that. I have had to take life. I regret having to be in the situation making it necessary but I do not regret doing it nor do I offer any apologies for it. Did it affect me? Yes. It was simple, him or me. He was trying to take mine and/or my friends lives. I reached my breaking point and the instinct over-rode the society norm. Did I feel guilt? Yes, for a long time. Not because I did something wrong, I was merely protecting and defending our lives, but because society norms caused a conflict between instinct and the accepted. Again, I am by no means saying that the society norms are wrong. I am simply stating that mans instinct is to kill but his society, ethics and morals will normally over ride the instinct. You can choose to face that fact or not.

You can tame a wolf from birth but his wild instincts will eventually come through, especially if released back into the wild. Let society disappear and see what the world devolves into. Society is what keeps mankind "civilized". Without society there would be killing occuring to levels as of yet undreamed of. If you think otherwise then you live a fantasy. Mankind as a whole is cruel and no group of like-thinking, peace- loving individuals will ever change the nature of human kind, though I applaud their efforts and agree it is a noble cause. Perhaps we will one day evolve but I don't think it will be anytime soon.

One final note about the original thread. Armageddon as it is mentioned in the Bible, never states that it is the end of the world. It only statesthat it will be agreat battle that will herald a changing world/society what have you. It basically says things are going to suck for a while. Hell, they suck right now for much of the world.

Ok, thats my $2.02 worth, sorry so long.

[Elmo]

Highly interesting thread. You guys are right, society is the key but I still need clarification...

I'm not sure where I disagree and agree anymore but bare with me!

Animals genetically close to humans do not treat their surroundings as cultural objects and create institutionalized behaviour. Chimpanzees might have some behavioral patterns but they lack language which would create a society in which homo sapiens sapiens inevitably lives in. Only humans as subjects create cultural objects which mold into institutions and these institutions set the norms of human behaviour. This would be the society which prohibits humans from killing each other.

Perhaps killing is instictive among chimpanzees. However humans are not chimpanzees but a species which can be characterized by its social nature. Humans are social animals. Therefor humans are able to treat other humans as similar subjects as themselfs and feel solidarity.
This is why humans feel aversion if they are forced to kill another human being even though it might have been necessary in order to survive.

This is why in any culture of the world today, taking life causes aversion.
If we delete society, we must delete language. In that case we don't have humans any more. We have a creature genetically similar to us but that creature doesn't have the characteristics of a social animal which define us humans. That creature might kill when under threat of perishing as well as social animals might do.

This all killing stuff got off when Future Marine stated that it is our nature to destroy each other. As if there is an urge to kill. So my punchline once again would be: it is not human nature to kill other humans because humans as species are social beings and therefor set their norms which cause aversion to kill. There is an instict to survive which sometimes over rides the barrier prohibiting from killing but the aversion is apparently still there quite soon.

lol that ebaumsworld video is so funny....

"****ing kangaroos" haha rofl rofl rofl

[Sixgun Symphony]

Sog,

"Hi, I'm professor of Economics!"

"Nice to meet you! I'm professor of killology!"


rofl


I think that your numbers are about right. Only a few cold killers, most people need to become very angry before they could kill. So that is why they would need the conditioning. To dehumanize or to develop some hate which will do it.

[Sixgun Symphony]

What about the men wiht the extra Y chomosome? They make up much of the criminal population in any country.

[Echo5Hotel]

I am not saying that it is human nature to kill every other human around them because it is correct that humans are a social creature. But it is in their/our nature to kill other humans. We have been killing each other off for varied reasons since we picked up the first stick or rock and smacked another human down with it.

Because we are social we will gather with others of like-mindedness, creating a society. The instinct to kill would of course be much less likely to surface within this society as these people are our "friends and family". Another group or society however, would be a different situation.

Elmo, you state that if you losesociety in the situation I put forth then you would also have to lose language...you are absolutely correct but do you not have that very same situation when two very different cultures meet and there is a language barrier. The different cultures and/or the language barrier create a fear. As humans, we fear what we do not understand. As humans, we tend to destroy what we do not understand before trying to understand it.

When I say that it is mans nature to kill each other I am not saying that every human has an instinct to kill every other human without reason or provocation. If I gave that impression I apologize. What I am saying is that the instinct is there and with different individuals, takes varying levels of provocation to surface and the society's norms play a big part in where that threshold is with many.

There are way too many examples through out history of man killing man to say that it is not in our nature, for if it wasn't it would not happen as often as it does. Every human has their breaking point where than can be pushed to kill. Case in point, my wife is one of the sweetest, caring people I know with hardly a violent bone in her body. We discussed this last night and she strongly disagreed with me that killing is not in our nature. She told me that she could never kill anyone. So I posed to her the scenario where our childrens lives were being threatened. Initially she said she would give her life...then I added that giving her life would only be futile and would not prevent the other person from killing one of our children. She at that point had to admit that she would kill. She has a much deeper threshold than I. I would kill someone for just breaking into my home in a heartbeat. Another's threshold might be because he likes the shoes you have and wants them, you on the other hand do not want to give up the shoes that you worked to pay for and so he kills you to take them. Who hasn't heard of this scenario? Yet killing each other is not in our nature? This is my point, killing is an instinct for us, it is just a matter of our individual thresholds for making it surface. These thresholds are in turn affected by environment, society, probably genetics to an extent, mental health, physical health, and many other variables.

I can't remember who else made the comment about its a matter of choice just like a diet or what not. This is true to an extent. We are the most intelligent creatures on the planet and have eveolved to a point where we can make decisions to suppress our instincts. The dieter can decide to reduce his eating habits or change what he eats but first he must recognize that he has a desire to over eat. Just because we have an instinct to kill does not mean we must totally give in to it. When most humans are angered it is in our nature to lash out. Geeze, if I did that everytime I got angry there would be a whole lot of hurting going on, let alone if everyone did. Recognizing that the instinct to kill is there is the first step toward being able to understand the instinct better and to be better able to control it. Mankind is unique on this planet, I think, as we are the only creatures that have the capacity to control our instincts...to a point.