Should Catholics believe that the world is getting better

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oliver109

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Despite all the problems one hears about on the news, wars in the middle east, poverty in Africa, Racism and Trump in America i genuinely believe that the world is better now than it has ever been. Not only do we live longer, more people are being lifted out of poverty every day, look at China, look at eastern Europe, look at India for instance. There is less homophobia, less racism than 50 years ago despite many claiming that the middle of the 20th century was a golden era. There are more Christians in the world now than at any time in history and that number is growing rapidly. Conflict and violence in society has decreased considerably since the middle ages when violence was a much bigger feature in daily life. The Catechism also indicates that the world has been constantly in a state of improvement “the universe was created in a state of journeying towards an ultimate perfection yet to be attained”
 
I hope that you are right. The prophecies of the Bible make some negative predictions that have not yet been fulfilled. Isaiah 66:15-16, Jeremiah 25:32-33, Luke 12:49 for example.
 
I think this is true. Strides have been made in social justice and civil rights areas as well; it’s almost as if the light and the darkness are being increasingly divided from each other. Even though many third world countries are still lagging.

But at the same time rights are being denied to the un-born on a greater scale than ever. And mass genocide has been grossly rampant in recent history. So don’t think that the darkness potential in the human soul will go away. Because I tend to think we’ll still see very extreme expressions of it in the future, even as the light spreads more broadly at the same time.
 
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Thank you for that reminder. I was just getting bogged down today, hearing about new injustices and rumours of more. Gotta pick myself up and carry on, doing my part to advance God’s kingdom, without getting discouraged.
 
What do the Scriptures say? “The Gospel will be preached to all nations,” and also, “The love of many will wax cold.” I do not say that the world is getting better or worse in general, but that the extremes of good and evil are both manifest, so that we see both the worst apostasy and the greatest revival in all of history.
 
I’m studying for Bachelor’s degrees in Political a Science and Religious Studies, so naturally I read and analyze the news quite a bit as well as write and research on it. Depressing stuff, really gets to you. Politics seems interesting and exciting, then when you study it extensively for a few years, it really gets to you. I can’t stand to read or watch the news on my free time ever. I spend my free time time reading up on religious stuff or sports
 
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oliver109 said:
There are more Christians in the world now than at any time in history
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Not as a percentage of the world population. 20% Christian nowadays. But I agree with you there is overall more peace, less poverty, all information is at one’s fingertips.
 
Trial, Tribulation & Triumph: Before, During, and After Antichrist Amazon.com

From what I’ve read and observed, it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Each generation has its triumphs and failures. Every Period will have struggles and problems.

It’s Not Over Until It’s Over
 
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oliver109 said:
Despite all the problems one hears about on the news, wars in the middle east, poverty in Africa, Racism and Trump in America i genuinely believe that the world is better now than it has ever been.
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I’m in basic agreement with you, it’s always easy to lose track of this when you fail to take a step back.

Unfortunately I think some of the things that we are struggling with most come from not appreciating where you came from. To me the most depressing stuff is where people are allowing authoritarianism and populism to squelch their freedoms. They are allowing either recently gained democratic governments or even well established ones to be taken over in the name of “patriotism”, stability, and “values”. This is what we need to guard against.
 
The family unit of a man and woman married and having children, has been devastated, pulled apart from every angle. This is the building block of civilization. God’s plan for singleness and married life have been trashed to a large extent. If civilization is not built on this rock, how long do you think it will stand?
 
If one is talking about the physical conditions,yes,there is lot of improvement.But in Godly matters world is definitely going down each day.Churches becoming empty,youngesters becoming disinterested,most heinous crimes (same sex etc ) made legal,seeking of worldly pleasures including sexual becoming main aim,cloning to give birth of offsrings with desirable qualities, general absence of compassion…The signs are unmistakable.

But this is almost in line with our Bible also which don’t give any rosy or optimistic picture of the future times.Infact the Revelation which specifically deals with the matter gives a very horrible picture of things to come till the second coming of Jesus…So don’t be under any false impression that things are turning good…
 
sin is increasing day by day so does God’s mercy and Grace Romans 5:20 But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

2 Corinthians 4:16 So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.
 
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GospelOfMatthew said:
I’m studying for Bachelor’s degrees in Political a Science and Religious Studies, so naturally I read and analyze the news quite a bit as well as write and research on it. Depressing stuff,
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You might find the Christian ministry of Street Pastors an interesting area of study. They came about after a friend of a church minister; was shot and killed by a gang of youths in Jamaica. After the funeral the minister and a few parishioners prayed for the youths, and said, what can we do to help them. They then went out and engaged with gangs of youths living in poverty; with guns and on drugs. Over time they started to make a difference.

I have been a Street Pastor since 2008, I don’t know how many time I have stood in the middle of drunken angry fights at 3 am on a Saturday morning. I am always amazed at the ladies who come out with us, many of them are in their sixties and seventies.

On one occasion, we encountered about a dozen people, there was a fight between a couple of them. A seventy year old lady in our team grabbed the shirt of one of the bigger lad, and tried to pull him away from his smaller opponent. The fight eventually stopped and we stayed with them for a while, until the big lad came over to us and said, go away; you are intimidating us.

It appears that we had intimidated them, all the onlookers who had been trying to get involved had drifted away. We had done little more than just stand around. In the end the two lads shook hands and made up; then walked off in separate directions.

We go out week after week; and year after year; people know we are volunteers. Pretty much every time we go out people thank us and say they respect what we do. None of us have been hurt; and there are times that I should be feeling afraid and worried; but instead I experience a profound sense of peace that is beyond my understanding. We go out in our weakness and find strength in our Lord.
If you are interested here are links for a couple of ten minute videos.

Torbay -
Les Isaacs -
 

The world, statistically, getting better every day. Less children die early, same applies to mothers in childbirth, more people can read, express their religion freely, and pursue an education.

The media lives for bad news. Not without cause, by highlighting government failures and issues, we can hold the government and elected officials accountable for it. This should lead to continually improvement.

Humanity has, through much toil, helped each other and will continue to do so, God willing!

🌼
 
GospelOfMatthew said:
I’m studying for Bachelor’s degrees in Political a Science and Religious Studies, so naturally I read and analyze the news quite a bit as well as write and research on it. Depressing stuff, really gets to you. Politics seems interesting and exciting, then when you study it extensively for a few years, it really gets to you. I can’t stand to read or watch the news on my free time ever. I spend my free time time reading up on religious stuff or sports
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Maybe that program is not for you.

Hey, the world needs more chefs, cordon bleu. Makes people healthy, and tastes good!😋

(Women love a man who cooks.)
 
Eh, as others have said some things are better, some are worse. Some see progress as natural over time, some decay. Decay is probably the one most people actually have a tendency toward (“Kids these days…”). I think it’s always a mix of both.
oliver109 said:
The Catechism also indicates that the world has been constantly in a state of improvement “the universe was created in a state of journeying towards an ultimate perfection yet to be attained”
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The Catechism also states:
677…The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.
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Things get worse before the end. What you’re missing from the passage you cite is the perfection that creation is destined to is not an earthly utopia, but the Kingdom of God after the Last Judgment. Both the willing of good and God’s toleration of evil work toward this end. More or less evil in the world at a particular moment may be found along the way–it is not always evil lessening and good increasing. Again from the Catechism:
314 We firmly believe that God is master of the world and of its history. But the ways of his providence are often unknown to us. Only at the end, when our partial knowledge ceases, when we see God “face to face”,184 will we fully know the ways by which - even through the dramas of evil and sin - God has guided his creation to that definitive sabbath rest185 for which he created heaven and earth.
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In some ways we are less violent today, and more tolerant (in the good sense). Tolerance is an iffy word, but there is at least some good from it. We no longer kill Protestants because they are Protestants, and Protestants no longer kill Catholics because they are Catholics. Etc,
 
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Dan_Defender said:
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oliver109:
There are more Christians in the world now than at any time in history
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Not as a percentage of the world population. 20% Christian nowadays. But I agree with you there is overall more peace, less poverty, all information is at one’s fingertips.
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I do not agree there is more peace. There is more violence than every before if you include the hidden violence inside the womb.
We simply do violence with a veneer of civil rights and respectability.
 
PennyinCanada said:
The family unit of a man and woman married and having children, has been devastated, pulled apart from every angle. This is the building block of civilization. God’s plan for singleness and married life have been trashed to a large extent. If civilization is not built on this rock, how long do you think it will stand?
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And this is a real thing. The numbers indicate a demographic winter for much of the western world. Material prosperity ain’t everything.
 
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