The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists publishes a "Doomsday Clock" each year. The Doomsday Clock is a symbol that was created at the beginning of the Cold War in 1947 to represent the threat of nuclear weapons, which, the Bulletin says have the potential to destroy civilization as we know it. Midnight on the clock represents Doomsday.

The Bulletin recently started to factor in climate change, harmful chemical or biological agents and emerging technologies when determining how much the clock has moved. The Bulletin’s Science and Security Board (SASB), a group comprised of about 13 international experts in fields that focus on the climate, nuclear weapons and technology, meets every year to assess global risks and "set" the clock for another year.

From 2015 to 2018, the clock has advanced from 3 minutes to 2 minutes. With two 30-second increments being registered respectively within the past two years. Realize, this is the assessment of scientific experts of how close the world is in 2018 to doomsday, and how quickly the danger is increasing.

Of course, we do not need the Doomsday Clock to understand that technology has a dark side, so dark that it has the potential to destroy us all. We see evidence of this in the news everyday. This morning, as I took a look at the news, I was wondering if ordinary people are connecting modern world events with a concern that all of the chaos may actually be signaling the impending end of the world. Google it, right?

So I googled "anxiety about the world ending" and turned up 43,500,000 results in 0.41 seconds. I'll take that as a "yes" - people are worried about the end of the world. Since I'm not an AI, just one of those pesky humans, I only had time to scan through the results on the first couple of pages. The main sense I got from the links was what I would call the "cute puppy" or "don't worry everything will be all right" response. My favorite was from Psychology Today, asking the question: "Why does the end of the world as we know it have to be a bad thing?"

I'm thinking, that approach is not really going to be very helpful.

I wonder if the growing sense of impending doom is a factor in churning up much of the animosity we see between opposing political and social groups today? After all, if people are really afraid that one wrong move could destroy the world, then a great deal more importance is attached to every move. Problem is, people do not agree on which is the right direction to take, and what move to take next. What looks like a solution to some appears to be disastrous to others. This growing tension between factions is creating a tinderbox effect wherein the slightest spark could be catastrophic.

In other words, instead of awareness helping the problem, as we may have been led to expect, widespread awareness of the perceived dangers may actually be adding to the negative atmosphere that could contribute toward global disaster. In this regard technology is not really helping, and may be exacerbating the problem.

For example, just this week major platforms on the internet, including YouTube, FaceBook and others took dramatic steps to silence conservative voices on their platforms, on the very premise that those voices are "hate speech" and so should be silenced or at least significantly muffled. Somehow this denial of free speech is being sold as something good for society. Especially in America, this is startling, more than a little shocking, since freedom of speech is a founding principle in this country that everyone is supposed to live by. Apparently, panic is at work here. All of this is evidence of a growing civil war, even if not a shooting war, just yet.

Who can save us from ourselves? Certainly, we can't do it. We never have been able to do it, and it is only getting worse. Modern technology, while useful in many ways, is turning out to be a force multiplier against us, not the savior of humanity that many technology buffs have long trumpeted. Indeed, atomic war, genetically engineered hazards, the destructive potential of AI, and so many other doomsday scenarios now threatening the world, only exist BECAUSE OF technology! It has been said that technology has the power to magnify human potential. We like to think of human potential as all that is good in humanity, and technology can have a role magnifying that. However, now as always, the human potential for evil seems to overpower everything else. It is human evil that limits us, and threatens us, and even kills us. Technology is most advanced for those with the most money to acquire it - and those super-wealthy people tend to be the evil megalomaniacal elite who think the world is their own private plaything. Do you think those people are using technology for the good of mankind - or to advance their own private agenda? Why do you think those same elite are building luxury bunkers under every building they own around the world? They know what they are doing could destroy the world, and they also know they are not going to stop!

Despite all of that evil in the world, there are righteous people in the world too. People who observe all of this going on and mourn the evil they see. People who know that, while they can help a relative few people here and there, they cannot save the world from itself. People who cry out to the One who can save the righteous from the doom that is eating out the very foundations of the world as I write. Yes, the Savior of the World has come!

"[Elohim] has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David..!"  Luke 1:69

A "horn of salvation" - that is, someone with the power, the character, and the will to save us, came into the world for that very purpose. Of course, this can be none other than Y'shua the Messiah, our Savior. We can rely on Him to show the way through these crazy times, to get us through to safety. Nothing could be more relevant right now, two minutes before midnight on the Doomsday Clock.