So the only way to save Africa is to destroy it.

Nuke the bitch, then. Fire in the hole.

I can totally picture the Pope going "Nuke that shit already!!"

This is a very short-sighted perspective. Cultures take time and effort to change. It may take decades or more to make Africa as a whole more civilized, but it can be done. Most of it will have to come from the inside - they will have to realize that constant war isn't good for them and that they'd be better off making peace - but the outside world can give them a helping hand along the way. You are saying we should just give up. That doesn't sound very much like "love thy fellow man" to me.

All cultures have to grow and change. We (the developed world) were once in Africa's position. But we got through it. Fortunately for us, we didn't have some arrogant, advanced culture screwing with our growth through colonialism. Africa would probably be a lot further ahead if it hadn't been for centuries of the white man screwing with their societal evolution.

To me, saying Africa needs an apocalypse is sort of like a college student saying all kindergartners should be killed because they don't have as much knowledge. You have to at least give them a chance to get where they're going!

It's a little off-topic, but every part of the world has been conquered and reconquered. There is no single part of the world that has been left to develop entirely without outside influence. The two most well-known examples of conquerers are Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan. Alexander conquered most of Europe and, I believe, parts of Asia and Africa. Genghis Khan conquered most of Asia. What we call the developed world pretty much entirely falls under one or both of these conquerer's territories.

Outside influence isn't all bad, either. It's a satirical example, but if you've ever seen Life of Brian, there's a conversation in there in which the people of Judea angrily ask what the Romans have ever done for them. People gradually start to pipe up with things like medicine, sanitation, education, irrigation, and all sorts of other technological and sociological boons. Colonization isn't inherently evil because it often leaves the colonized country better off. That isn't to say that it has no downsides; in the case of Africa, the countries were arbitrarily divided, leaving bitter enemies living in the same colonies and forced to work together. This heightened the tension and the tribal warfare that goes on in Africa, which certainly leaves Europe with some responsibility for the current mess, but they are not entirely responsible, as the conflicts were pre-existant, and they also helped Africa by providing better medicine and other technologies.

I am quite sure Alexander has at least made it as far as India. I don't think he was able to conquer it though. Early India was pretty badass, what with their interesting weapons and, a real nightmare, war elephants. But, my historical knowledge is limited, so...*shrugs*

Alexander the Great did conquer India, elephants and all; he went as far as the Ganges. He didn't continue because his army said "enough fighting already" and refused to continue.

*goes back to lurkmode*

Before you start complaining about other peoples' issues, look to your own "backyard" first, and get over Eastern Europe's "racial purity" issues. Maybe the nukeing needs to start there first. "OMG! Ewwww! A Serb!" "WTF?! A Bosnian moved in next door! There goes the neighborhood!" "You know about those Slovenians, dirty rotten baby eaters!" Not to mention the whole Eastern Orthodox vs. Roman Catholic issues.

That is true. I was thinking about places like Zimbabwe when I wrote this, though. As a backlash to colonialism, some people (like President Mugabe) have pretty much destroyed their countries. Europeans brought them advances in medicine and education... and now they're turning up their noses at it. (Well, the guys in power are. I'm sure the average Zimbabwean is smarter than that, but there's not much you can do when a dictator is calling the shots.)

@dreforall

Oh he did? Thanks for the correction.

You're welcome!

As for Africa: colonialism certainly didn't help, any more than it helped my country (Brazil). The fact lots of its tribes were also destabilized and destroyed through slavery (sometimes even among themselves) also doesn't help.

I can picture him THINKING that when he is busy on his pro-HIV campaign.

"Let those infidels be punished. HIV is gods punishment for people who CHEAT and for HOMOSEXUALS.....

....but not the pedo priests.. grab ye flesh YOUNG and PURE"

And what's crazy is that a lot of Africans will identify as being Christian. And then there are the little children who get infected because of the rumour that raping a baby will cure AIDS.

So you have little Christian children in Africa getting infected through no fault of their own... who somehow deserve it?

I don't get the Vatican.

Africa had the oldest universities in the world and the most cosmopolitan cities.

It was the Portuguese--who wanted a sea route to the great riches of Africa--who messed with their power and development. (Since the Portuguese conquered the sea route, nobody needed the Trans-Saharan Trade Routes anymore, so the African nations needed new sources of income, so they turned to the slave trade--and the rest is history)

@Vanito, Oaktree, fakepeeps7

I was thinking on Apocalypse that would destroy the whole world, not just Africa.

@kattenijin

"OMG! Ewwww! A prostitute!" "WTF?! Another prostitute moved in next door! There goes your neighborhood!"

Well if the whole world would be destroyed the problem of humanity WOULD be fixed.

@ivan17

My point still stands, however. Your only hope is the destruction of everything. Feh.

Ummm...?? What? I don't get it.

Looks like ivan's trying to justify ethnic cleansing. At least, that's how I took it.

Just because you don't like some group of people doesn't give you the right to kill them all.

I find it amazing that some people still don't get that in 2010.

I don't think I'll ever understand the desire that so many Christians have to see the world end. What's so wrong with our current world? Sure, it's got it's problems, but it's better than it used to be and it can continue to improve. And why does no feel good about the accomplishments of our species in getting this far? What's so appealing about some omnipotent power being mommy and making everything "all better"?

I still say these Apocalypse-loving peoples make up a death cult. Seriously; it's creepy.

the promise of a lack of personal responsibility is a strong allure.

one that western religions preach until they're blue in the face.
GOD did it!
its not YOUR fault, GOD made you that way!
...and probably more but ive blocked them out by now.

*First post on the forums, pardon any grammatical errors I may make; I'm rusty from non-use!*

There's a fun way of looking at Christianity, at least from my USA, Bay Area, California upbringing and love of biology and evolution.

I always think back to what life might have been like before medicine and modern science. Crappy, death relatively early and few children living. Hard work mostly. No time for web browsing at all. Sicknesses up the wazoo. We (as in those of us in "modern countries/areas) have eliminated the dangers of many things they had to worry about. We know how to treat these things usually when something nasty does slip past the vangaurd that is modern day regulation.

Like that funny part against eating pork products many Jewish still follow today. Why was that in there anyway? Well, if you take a look at pigs back before our niffty science allowed us all to be super clean, the little buggers were common carriers of nasty parasites! And when you live in smaller communities which may or may not have access to ways to supplement food (farming for instance) and labor pool, having parasites is a BAD thing. They take your energy, and then you become useless to an already small stock of laborers. And being busy laborers, maybe they don't have the time or habits of observation to link pork with the sick-making.

So what is the community to do? How can you tell people to just not eat these large, tasty animals without them just laughing you out of town? Wouldn't it be nice if there was an all powerful being who would reward people for listening to your smart ideas? Maybe you could get that neighboring village to quit stealing your stuff too, if they realized how much better things would be if you could all work together?

I always find it rather marvelous how a fearful, intimidating God would be able to force smaller groups of primitive persons together. Intimidation works better on smaller scales, as there is less of a chance of someone standing up and demanding proof or noticing your proverbial strings on the puppet during your "miracle working".

And then when the groups got larger and the bad stuff got more sneaky, how changing the emphasis from a fearful to a more loving God might shift the population to spreading the happy love vibes so that at least while it tried to destroy itself it was also still spreading influence.

The purpose of genes and DNA are simply to perpetuate themselves in favor of other flavors of genes. Religion helped unify people, allowing for cooperation and growth, and thus more baby making, gene spreading goodness. Now we're at a large enough size that the variants of these types of religions can be more of a destabilizing factor than a help.

Funny, most of the places religion does still seem to hold strong are smaller communities with little diversity. Makes sense in that light.

Just my little perspective.

Well, at least you can plan ahead--

http://www.wecanknow.com/

It's all been calculated here for you.



Right on. You can see this if you study Jesus in early Christian art. Though he started out as a sweet kid, then got more vengeful, then got more mature and nicer, then went sweet again.

As a Christian myself, I have to admit I've run into a lot of discrepancies.
Number one, I hate that everyone puts so much emphasis on religion, when God is (supposed to be) the only one that matters. There are tooo many denominations (not that I have a problem with any of them or dislike any of them; it's just ridiculous IMO). Sure, we have the bible for "guidance" on what's good and what's not, but why must there be sooooooo many rules (based on what denomination one is a part of). "well, we don't drink alcohol, but..." "you have to dress up for church! casual attire is an insult to the Lord!" "being gay in this church is unacceptable..." "you can't date until you're fourteen!" *explodes*
If we're all supposed to love God, why can't we all just do it the way we want to, instead of having to join THIS one if you're THIS, or THAT one if you believe THAT, but don't believe in THAT.
Number two, everyone thinks that Christians have to be perfect and shxt because they answer to a higher power and what not. Christians are no different than any other human being on the planet. They're not the only ones going to heaven, they're not the only ones going to hell.
Number three, I hate that sometimes we're told "you can't do this or this, but OOOOOH, if you do THIS then you'll be on the first class ticket to HELL."
and THEN you hear "no matter what you do, God will always forgive you."
I can imagine how someone who isn't a believer could be put off by either of these, because, again, EVERYONE believes something different about Christianity.
My thing? Just go your own way. If God is supposed to love everyone, he should love you no matter how you decide to show him you love him back.
I could get into my view on homosexuality here, but I think I might go too far, and plus there's a topic on that already.... so I'll keep it simple.

Number four, blindly following religion. You're supposed to do everything God tells you to do or refrain from doing something God forbids (based from the Bible), yet you can't question it. Plus, many situations no longer have validity in our society, due to the time difference. There are some things I just don't understand the reasoning behind (I feel quite like Vanito right now, lol), like having to save yourself for marriage, or not being able to live with someone without marrying that person first.
I think I'll stop there for now...