Insight on the News

Predicting the Future

“The future certainly isn’t what it used to be!” states an editorial in a recent issue of Compressed Air Magazine. It referred to predictions made from the 1930’s to the 1950’s, when “the thinkers of the period had virtually a blind faith in government and science, and foresaw the creation of a nearly Utopian lifestyle before the year 2000.” The editorial says that “most of these grand visions never come close to reality.” Why not? It was assumed after World War II that “all . . . problems were behind us,” and, admittedly, “astounding technological advances were made.” Yet the years following the war brought “repeated human, political, environmental and financial upheaval.” Now, says the article, “we are wiser, and no longer embrace government and technology as panaceas for all social ills.”

Such “blind faith” in human achievements has been avoided by serious Bible students who have heeded the advice: “Do not put your trust in nobles, nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs.” (Psalm 146:3) Based on the Bible’s unfailing prophecies, these Bible students announced that conditions of this age would worsen, until God stepped in and replaced all human rulerships with his Kingdom.​—Daniel 2:44; Matthew 24:6-8, 14.

Although faced with the same social upheavals around them, servants of God do not have the “uncertain resignation” that the writer mentions. Rather, they follow Jesus’ advice: “Raise yourselves erect and lift your heads up, because your deliverance is getting near.”​—Luke 21:28.

Still Room for More

Earth’s population, recently estimated at 4.5 billion, is expected to increase to 6 billion by the year 2000, and even reach 10.5 billion by the year 2110. “Are 4.5 billion people many? Too many? Are 10 billion unbearable or would the earth be able to support them all?” asks Hans W. Jürgens, professor of anthropology and demography at the University of Kiel, Federal Republic of Germany. Writing in the magazine Geo, he states that the earth has enough “space for many more billions of people,” who could live tolerably well if corresponding changes in living and economic conditions were made. Nationalism, he says, stands in the way. “As long as we permit and even promote national egotism​—and the United Nations organization unintentionally plays a disastrous role in this matter—​we will scarcely be able to utilize our earth to the full capacity that, in principle, is altogether possible.”

One need not wonder, then, if the earth can support the large number of people who, in God’s due time, will be released from mankind’s common grave. (John 5:28, 29; Revelation 20:12, 13) They will be brought back, not to an earth divided by selfish, nationalistic interests, but to one that is righteous, peaceful, and capable of providing abundant food for all.​—Psalm 72:7, 8, 16.

“Religious Wasteland”

People in television dramas face “the same problems and dilemmas that ordinary people walking down the street face each day.” So says novelist Benjamin J. Stein, writing under the above title in The Wall Street Journal. “But one of the major decision-making factors in reality is entirely absent from television: religion.” While some incidence of religion can be found in the movies, Mr. Stein notes, “on prime-time network television, there is virtually no appearance of religion at all. Whenever a problem requiring moral judgment appears​—which is on almost every show—​the response that comes is based upon some intuitive knowledge of what is good and evil, the advice of a friend, a remembered counsel, or, more likely, the invisible hand of circumstance.”

Parents especially ought to be wary of a medium where “no one . . . ever even talks about religion as a guide in his own life,” as Mr. Stein points out. Young minds are impressionable and tend to imitate the actions and views of celebrities that they watch. Certainly it would be the prudent course to monitor carefully what is watched on TV. Even more important, parents do well to train their children to use the Bible as their guide. Children need to be brought up “in the discipline and mental-regulating of Jehovah.”​—Ephesians 6:4; Philippians 4:8.