The world has seen better times, mainly before humans were here to mess things up.?

There are daily bombs going off in Iraq, AIDS is killing in Africa, there are the terrible consequences of the Darfur conflict in Sudan, world hunger, poverty to name just a few issues. In the US alone, there are over 46 million uninsured people, with many more not getting proper medical care, the middle class is shrinking, people are working longer hours for less money, global warming is happening before our noses and corruption cases are being exposed at the highest levels of government and church. With so much chaos, hate, prejudice, ignorance, arrogance, selfishness, greed, indifference and suffering, what do you see the next fifty years being like in America and the world?

What will the Middle East be like? Will we still be fighting AIDS; will world hunger still be leaving kids to fend for themselves? What will health care be like in 2056? Will I be on hold on my phone with my HMO to appeal a denial for preauthorization to cure a terminal illness, if such cures exist?

Okay, roseknows, let me fill you in on a few facts...First world countries DO NOT help third world countries...HOW?? By giving them increasing debt, but charging them huge amounts for life saving drugs? Why don't you look at the AIDS situation in Africa? See how much "world resourcing" is help them. Oh that's right it doesn't because they're not a world power are they, so let them die and may I remind you that most of the people dying are young innocent children. As for your historical accounts, yes you're right, but the one thing you left out was that back in the 1800, they didn't have cures to the diseases that you mentioned...They do now. So please don't try to tell me that the world is better, it's not better, it just a different form of corruption. So we no longer have the church telling us what to do and yes we're more educated, but we still treat our fellow human beings like something we find under our shoes. We ALLOW world poverty, we ALLOW small children to die of curable disease, and you know why?? because they are poor.

.before humans messed things up? your greeeeeeeeeeeeeet grandma and greeeeeeeeeeet grandpa did it in the beginning. Adam and Eve. Not Adam and Steve. oh honey ,sin has created all those problems. sin is like a lie you tell or a snowball. Once it get stated, it only gets bigger. God warned us about sin. as choices are made so are the consciences.

The world has NOT seen better times. Although the world seems messed up, prior history is full of bombs going off and diseases killing people, world hunger, poverty and lack of health care.

Excuse me for bringing this up, but when this country was founded, smallpox, diptheria, tetanus, pellagra, beri beri, scurvy, malaria and bubonic plague killed millions of people. There were daily bombs going off in Northern Ireland 20 years ago, and the Palestinian - Israeli conflict has been going on since the Viet Nam war.

Back in the "good old days" oppressive monarchs plundered the poor and exploited the merchant class for taxes. Corruption between the Church and the Monarchs was a double whammy. It was the exploitation of the peasants by the Monarchies and the Church that led Martin Luther to call for reforming the Catholic Church.

Back in those days, there was no middle class. The middle class has always culturally been the merchant class. There was no merchant class in Europe or Asia before Martin Luther's reforms. There was no middle class before Gutenberg invented movable type so that books could be printed.

Global warming has happened before. That is why God sent the floods and Noah had to strike out on the Ark. There have been disasters, tsunamis, epidemics, famines and pandemics in the United States, too. Clearly half of all the people who started out on the Oregon Trail in the early 1800's didn't make it to where they were heading. Smallpox, ague and starvation and dehydration got them first.

The world is getting better. With the world sharing resources to underdeveloped countries, those diseases will be a thing of the past. The United States will take on a more egalitarian position in the world. It is really up to the Middle East to decide if all this religious zealotry is worth it all to them.

There has always been ignorance, chaos, arrogance, selfishness, greed and indifference. We are humans on this planet. There is no magic bullet that is going to make the suffering, arrogance, selfishness or chaos go away. We have to make a committment to get rid of those tyrannies ourselves.

And the world will never be perfect. God is perfect. People are far from perfect. If you want perfect, you're gonna have to wait til you die, because everything on this earth was created in God's image and likeness and everything on this earth has a crack in it. In people it is called the fatal flaw.

Let's all keep on working for solutions. But remember, people are not perfect and there are always going to be problems in the world. There always have been problems in the world and we have gotten this far in some good fashion.

The good old days were not all that good. And tomorrow is going to be even better.