religious views on wickedness of modern world

[In the Nick of Time]

As many of you probably know, many religious leaders today feel that we are living in the end times. One of the reasons that they give is that wickedness and immorality are more widespread now than at any other time in history. What I am interested in hearing other people's opinions about is this: are the so called "wicked and immoral" aspects of the modern world, such as crime, gangs, rape, child sexual abuse, sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, abortion, etc. really so unique to our time, or were there times and places in the past where those things were even more common than today. For example, when I was very young I remember reading a very small article in a newspaper that the murder rate during the Wild West period of time was much higher than even the worst American cities today. That shocked me at the time because it is exactly the opposite of what most people would assume. That also led me to wonder about gangs that existed in the past and if any of them were actually worse and more destructive than the gangs that exist today. Some gangs today, such as the ones in Mexico, are extremely ruthless and cruel, but maybe there were criminal gangs in the past that were even worse. I heard that the Thugs of India were very bad. I also heard that the Barbary Coast of San Francisco was worse than any city in America today. So, to sum up, I would like to know if anyone else agrees with the theory that I have proposed in this thread, and if so, do you know of any other specific examples of time periods, societies, gangs, brtutal dictatorships, etc. that engaged in the wicked activities warned against by modern religious leaders, but in a worse form and to an even greater extent than anything that exists today, thereby proving that there is no reason to assume that we are in the end times. I would appreciate any links to articles, books, websites, etc. that discuss this topic as well. Sorry if anything in my post is incoherent but I'm in a hurry to finish, since I have something to do. Anyway, thanks in advance for sharing your opinions on this topic .

[Mr.A]

Interesting post, I like it :bigok:

I think the "religious leaders" when they were mentioning that is they are simply following common prophicies. Rather, prophicies that are usually agreed upon by a large group of people. To me, what perspective they should be looking at it from is the one that today it seems lawlessness, things that you mentioned and all around evil is generally more accepted in todays societies. Accepted meaning that it is agreeable without consequence. No regard to the existance of a superior being that may once we die, or maybe while we live, may bring down its supernatural fist on us. Accepted meaning more like embraced. It seems easier to embrace these negative things in the modern world. I also think thought that none of us human beings actually have a right to judge whomever or whatever we please, how can we? We are not perfect. Hypocrites no doubt.

Homosexuality as an answer to your question was generally more accepted by many personal people in recorded ancient times than it is today.

This is all my strictly my honest opinion. You seem nice, nice to meet you, and welcome to Rorta! Shower rooms down the hall :bad:

[redjoker]

Well rofl my mao we have a doubter here. I've read many a history book and remember very a little. What I do remember though is that religious leaders have always been claiming the end is near. The world wars, the stock market crash, the bubonic plague, year 1666, etc have all been the end. The thugs of India you mentioned were actually the Thuggee cult. They believed that their ritual strangling of travelers would keep Kali from coming to earth for 10k years or something like that with every sacrifice. The most popular religions use fear to convert people and keep their flock in line. They answer people's questions about reality with fairy tells and tell them they'll burn in hell for all eternity if they don't follow their religion. Since no one knows for sure what our reality is or what our known universe really is there is no possible way to determine if we are going to be snuffed out in the next 5 years by some cosmic event we can't control. You might have an aneurysm in the next five minutes and die. You can never tell these things for sure. In the words of FDR, "Only thing we have to fear is fear itself." The end times for these ancient religions is really near though. People are starting to figure out that most of it is bullshit. You might want to check into technological singularity. Life as we know it always going to change, with or without us. At least now it is changing really fucking fast and it is probably going to be a really fun ride.

[odin_dax]

Well, no one knows when the "end times" will be. In Christianity, the Bible says that specifically.

Every generation claims that the world is going to hell and that society is getting worse and worse. I think it's because the realities of their childhood are different. And it's not because women could vote or go to work, or that homosexuality is talked about, it's the little things. My father never used to lock his doors at night. TV is just full of trash. The kids eat it up and Europeans form opinions of us based on MTV (since I live in Europe at the moment, I know). The truth is that it's not worse or better than times before, just different. It's a nice thought to think everyone was polite like in the old movies, but that's simply not true.

[redjoker]

You said it. My grandmother has shot two people for next to nothing. In fact, most of my older relatives are/were like pissed off rattlesnakes.