Thursday, November 10, 2011

Earth: Population = 7 Billion



According to the United Nations estimate; on 31st October 2011, the human race reached a population milestone of 7 billion. As cheers and fears greet the symbolic "7th Billion babies" being born across the globe.

It is estimated that the world reached its 1 billion population milestone on 1804 and it took slightly over 200 years for the world to reach 7 billion. What an achievement! Better access to healthcare (lengthen life expectancy and reduced infant mortality and eradication/ prevention of diseases), education (empowerment of human capital, choice and progressive thinking), energy (fuel, gas, mass production of food) and awareness through the information age are among the main contributors to the population growth. It is something that all of us should be proud of.

Nevertheless, war, poverty, hunger, oppression, injustice continue to plague mankind. The earth as created by God can provide a comfortable and sufficient food and resources to feed all mankind, be it 7 billion or even 10 billion! As the saying goes, the world can feed every man on earth but can never feed the greed of mankind.

As it is written in God's word in 1 timothy 6:10 "for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil"

Resources and energy footprints are already leaving strains on the earth's abundance with climate change and excessive depletion of resources in the past several decades, leaving a trail of challenges to produce and provide the most basic requirement for survival : Clean water and food.

At the end of the day, it is the heart of every man that will decide the future of the human race. As the world marked the "7th Billion babies", let us recall the world's first baby being born: the child of Adam and Eve, Cain. Cain is the first infant being born in the world (According to the Bible), and after Cain, there was another child, Abel (Cain's younger brother). As all christians would know the story, Cain being the first person being born of man and woman had also became the world's first murderer.

As God said it in Genesis 8:21 "...every inclination of his [a man] heart is evil from childhood..." . All mankind can only find assurance in a peaceful, abundant and fruitful present and the future through faith in God and His words.

Today, we can be proud of the population milestones, but without God in our hearts, our worries and fear of the future of mankind is trustworthy and true.

Let us rekindle our hope in the coming Christmas season, where the answer lies to the Person's birthday that we all celebrate.

God bless

Joshua

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