Terminator 2: Judgement Day

I read an article in a recent issue of Time that, by the year 2050, we might achieve environmental equilibrium by leveling out the population's growth rate and banning all fossil fuels.

This made me wonder whether we might ever achieve social equilibrium, or relational harmony with our neighbors. In regards to material wealth especially, it is hard to imagine humanity ever achieving a fair balance. We can't help plotting and scheming to accumulate as much as we can get away with.

At one point in the movie Terminator 2, the young John Connor turns to the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and says, "We're not gonna make it, are we?" Terminator answers, "It's in your nature to destroy yourselves." He should know -- he and his man-inspired counterparts were invented for the sole purpose of destroying humanity.

Terminator 2 depicts a realistically bleak outcome for humanity. This war-saturated doomsday is the logical conclusion of our present, destructive habits.

It's easy for us to compare ourselves to notorious dictators or serial-killers and say, "Well I'm not as violent as them!" But the sad truth is that we all have the capacity to be violent than than the most ruthless men we have ever heard of.

We all possess a similarly destructive, spiritual crookedness. A brief, hateful thought unbridled snowballs into mass destruction and genocide.

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment."
--Jesus, Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:21-22)