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Personal from...
The Key
to Human
Survival
I
F
vou and 1were discussing thc matter of what
subjcct 1 should writc about in this month's Personal,
you might say, seriously, ' 'Mr. Armstrong, in view of
thc deadly seriousness and the
urgency
of this time, 1
think you should write on thc most urgent problem in all
our livcs right now-the qucstion of
whether,
and
how,
wc may survive!"
1would agree. The one
RJ(;
QUFSTION in all ou r lives,
right now, is that of human SURVIVA I!
But 1 hasten to add, survival
alone
IS 'OT F.NOUGH!
We must havc survival in PFACF., in happiness. in joy, in
prospcrity and plenty, and in abundant well-being for
ALL!
And that's a pretty big ordcr! lf anyone has the
answer, for the sake of humanity hc'd better speak out! 1
am prcpared to give the A"SWER--and it is going to be
Pl.AI SPEAKI 'G, without pulling any punches! It 's
time
for PI.AIN SPEAKING! You are
hetting yrmr liJe
on
somcone coming up, in time, wilh the right answer!
To get lo lhe crux of lhc problcm immediately, reali ze
first lhat these existing conditions and evi ls are merely
the EFFEC'T! For every effect, thcrc has lo be a CAUSE.
Our problem of immediate urgency is to find the CAUSE,
not only of presenl evil conditions, but also of what is
the not-being-used CAUSE of pcace, happiness, and
abundant well-being!
If we are going to learn that CAUSF. we need first to
ask: What has made MA" as he is? How did humanity
come to 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 tbis
futile search for PEACE goes a long way back- as far as
history goes- or farther. Man's troubles. evils, and wars
cxtcnd back to the beginning-or prior to the
bcginning- of history. To find the right answer, we need
to go back even lo PRE-history! That takes us even to the
question of ORIGINS-of BEGIN
1
Gs! And we shall come
to the right answer quicker by beginning at the
beginning!
Many scientists have devoted their lifetimes to
rescarching and studying this qucstion. Many scholarly
March 1980
books have been written setting forth the results of 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
foil to te// 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
evi ls are fast increasing?
This is no light matter. lgnoring 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!
The fruits of the speculative assertions of science have
not been peace, bappiness, universal prosperity, and
abundant well-being. The world, instead, is SUFFERI G!
It
is very sick!
To come toa knowledge of the RIGHT ANSWER, we
need to understand what is wrong with the scientific
mcthod. WHY have the findings of modero science NOT
produccd peace and universal happiness? What has bccn
wrong with the scientific method?
The world has had science, of a kind, for a very long
time. But what we know as MODERN SCIENCE began its
dramatic rise roughly 170 years ago. Even tben, the new
knowledge in the fields of science and technology
developed very slowly at first.
Until this advent of modero science, the world had
gone along for thousands of years virtually on an even
keel- with no material progress to speak of.
lt
was
primarily an agricultura! world, using primitive farming
methods. The cast-iron plough was not invented until
1797. The disc plough was not invented until 1896, when
1 myself was alive and a growing boy! The first harvester
came in 1836.
·
Abraham Lincoln once explained how mechanical and
industrial progress could not develop until the invention
of printing, about 1450 by Johannes Gutenberg in
Germany. Even so, there was not much development
in printing until the beginning of the 19th