The American Lie

I was in my Sociology class the other day...strangely I enjoy that class...

Anyways, lots of times in our class we get off topic with all the talking about world issues, elections, and even things here in Memphis. After all, Sociology does cover a broad spectrum of things.

But on this particular day, a fellow student made a statement that, unfortunately, so many people in America have bought into today.
That statement was this:

"I mean, the world is primarily full of good people, making it a good place. Yea, there are some problems in it, but most people around the world make a good living and are happy."

...
I kept my mouth shut, mostly because I wanted to laugh at the person for their naivety, and their stupidity.
It is sad to think that most Americans, including Christians, believe that the world is a good place where occasionally bad things happen.

Just to support my point, and my point is that the world isn't as good as many people think it is, here are a few reasons:

The 20th century has been one of the most devastating centuries for humanity, an estimated 4,000,000,000 individual human beings died from war, genocide, malnutrition, famine, disease...and other reasons besides old age. For you people that suck at math, that number is FOUR BILLION.

The number of wars, and the devastation that follows them, increased nearly threefold in the 20 century. In fact, between the years of 1950 to 1990, there were over 150 bloody conflicts around the world.

The number of genocides worldwide increased to 45 before the end of the century...meaning that the number of those killed in genocide reaches into the tens of millions.

According to the United Nations, disease, famine, and starvation affect 1 out of every 6 people on Earth, that's over 1,000,000,000 people...

Even in the wealthiest nations, it is getting harder and harder to find cures for new diseases and viruses, such as the bird flu, which seem to appear every few years now.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, and during the chaos that followed in Eastern Europe, over $30,000,000,000 in small arms was illegally sold, illegally exported, or downright stolen out of Eastern Europe alone. This is perhaps the greatest heist in human history. Many of these small arms have resurfaced in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and South America, where violence, wars, and genocide are most prevalent today...

The world's five largest arms dealers to third-world countries, where violence is the worst, are the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France. They are also the five permanent members on the United Nations Security Council...how scary is that...

And my personal favorite...Darfur....

In short, I think I can make a case for the world being a not-so-good place. And there are plenty more facts than that...

Maybe I should have said something, heck, maybe I should've laughed at the person. I don't know what held me back. Maybe I didn't want to ruin their ignorance; after all, ignorance is bliss.

The fact that this person said that the world is a predominantly good place when babies are being picked up by their legs and swung headfirst like baseball bats against trees in Darfur.... well, I fail to see the overall goodness of humanity.
And yes, there are reports out of Darfur that babies are being beaten against trees until they die. How someone could do that...man, I can't even comprehend that kind of hate.

The American Lie is easily proven as what it really is: a LIE.

So what is the reality?
In a nutshell, worldwide, people are being shot, starved, murdered, robbed, falling to illnesses, victims of genocide...and we have all fallen to a spiritual genocide, thanks to sin...

In fact, the world is so bad that the very Son of God had to die just so that we would have a way out...maybe that helps to put our plight into perspective better than anything else.

My opinion, stop believing the lies. It just isn't true! Yes, I wish that humanity was perfect, and I wish so many things, that we as Americans and Christians choose to ignore, didn't happen; but they do happen. And we aren't on this Earth just so we can ignore the consequences of others and ours sins.
We can help to fix it.
We just choose not too...

If you don't want to help, I feel sorry for you...and I hope God can forgive you for doing nothing to help stop defenseless babies from being beaten to a bloody pulp against the sides of trees.
For those of you that choose to stick with your ignorance, enjoy the ignorance while you can, because God most likely won't be happy when you stand before Him whenever the appointed time is.

You don't have to go to Darfur, the Middle East, or South America to confront the fallout of sin...because it’s everywhere. If you aren't called to help with Darfur like I am, find your calling. It could be working at an urban ministry, it could be going oversees, and it could just be telling the people around you of everyone's universal need for Christ.

The world can't afford much more ignorance; it is costing us too much...

In Christ,
Hackett