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The Key to Human Survival!
1
F
vou
and I were discussing the matter of
what subject
I should write about in this
month's " Personal," and you should say,
seriously, "Mr. Armstrong, in view of the
deadly seriousness and the
urgency o[
this
time,
J
think you shou ld write on
the most
urgent problem in al/ our lives
right
now- the question of
whether,
and
how,
we
may survive!"
1 would agree. The one
BIG
QUESTION
in all our
lives, right now, is that of human
SURVIVAL!
But I basten to add, survivaJ
alone
IS NOT ENOUGH!
We must have survival in PEACE, in happiness, in joy,
in prosperity and in abundant well-being for ALL!
And that's a pretty big a rder!
If
anyone has the
answer, for the sake of humanity he'd better speak out!
1 am prepared to give the ANSWER- and it is going to
be PLAIN SPEAKING, without pulling any punches! It's
time
for PLAIN SPEAKING! You are
belting your lije
on
someone coming up, in time, with the right answer!
To get to the crux of the problem immediately,
realize first that these existing conditions and evils are
merely the EFFECT! For every effect, there has to be a
CAUSE. Our problem of immediate urgency is to find
the CAUSE, not only of present evil conditions, but also
of what is the not-being-used CAUSE of peace, happiness
and abundant well-being!
lf we are going to learn that CAUSE, we need first to
ask: What has made MANas he is? How did humanity
cometo be on this earth? Or, going back even further,
how did the earth, itself, come to
be?
That may seem like going a long way back. But this
futiJe search for PEACE goes a long way back-as far as
history goes--or further. Man's troubles, evi ls and wars
extend back to the beginning--or prior to the
beginning--of history. To find the right answer, we
need to go back even to PRE-history! That takes us even
to the question of ORIG INS--of BEGINNINGS!
Many scientists have devoted their lifetimes to
researching and studying this question. Many scholarly
books have been written, setting forth the results of
May 1983
these lifetime studies, purporting to tell the story of the
origin of the earth and of mankind upon it. Yet is it not
significant that their studies, theories and hypotheses
fail to te/1 us
WHY man is as he is, or HOW he got that
way, WHY man seems always to be befuddled with
unsolvable problems, WHY he is always in trouble, WHY
humanity is harassed with so many evils and WHY these
evils are fast increasing?
This is no light matter. Ignoring humanity's present
dilemma will not cause it to go away. Human SURVIVAL
hangs in the balance! We need the
right
answer- and
we need it NOW!
And
we can know!
Science to Solve Man 's Pr oblems?
With the emergence of modern science around the
beginning of the 19th century, scientists assured the
world that man had progressed to the point where he
then could dispense with the superst itious crutch of
religion and belief in God. Now humanity could rely on
the
new
messiah- modern science.
"Given sufficient knowledge," said the scientists,
"we shall salve all humanity's problems and cure all the
world's ills."
To replace religion and belief in God, scientists and
educators had substituted the doctrine of evolution.
The tools modern science used in the production of this
new KNOWLEDGE were a stepped-up use of tbose man
had employed since tbe dawn of history-rej ect ion of
revelation as a source of knowledge and the use of
observation, experimentation and human reason.
So the production of KNOWLEDGE increased ata
constantly accelerating pace. The world's total fund of
knowledge virtually
doubled
in the l960s!
But, paradoxicaJly, as knowledge has increased,
so
have humanity's
problems, troubles and evils, at almost
an equaJ rate of acceleration!
What's wrong with the dictum that knowledge is
the sote need for solutions? We are face to face
with the stern FACT that increasing evils have
escalated alongside increasing knowledge! That is
not to say that the increased knowledge
caused
the
growing evils.
It
does mean that the knowledge