This inquiry of mine has itched me for the longest time since 2019-2020 or during the COVID era, but I do believe since then it’s been an ever-growing phenomenon in the global society and its state of affairs. I began thinking about this very recently when I made my previous thread about a certain word I didn’t like, and added: I believe an old friend of mine told me once, 'False hope is equivalent to a symbolic death. Then I spoke to my colleague and started piecing all sorts of information as I usually do, and I came to the conclusion of Hope, Faith, and God himself at the bottom of all this. This was a brief part of my convo with my colleague, but they spoke of relationships, people being bad and selfish in general, and having trouble finding connections because people didn’t want to put in the work, so that was all them and not me for the record. But I instantly knew what the deal was, and with the state of the world this entire time, and the ever-apparent growing phenomenon.

Much of the world is cold, callous, and heartless, as seen and prophesied in 2 Timothy 3:1-5, and as much as I like to share my own theory on this matter, I think it’s more important that we look towards the hidden elephant in the room. I believe certain people are certain specimens, two-faced, or malicious... whatever, I get it, and so do you. Now I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many people stopped going to church, reading the bible, and believing in God. As believers in Christ, we might think, “Oh, so this is why the world is a terrible place...many people are now lovers of themselves...sin is what’s making this world come to an end, but it’s ok because we believe in God and are spotless.” In spite of that, people were still relatively sinful, don’t think your little old grandmother (or someone older and important in your life) is righteous or innocent by any means, they did stuff too, for sure. Something else has colossally changed within the people of today, including the older generations who now have the same countenance as those same cold, callous, and heartless people.

Now the main proposition isn’t believing in God and becoming righteous, noble, pure unto others, but I believe it’s the first bare necessity principle that is the main factor and the one we should be acknowledging both consciously and subconsciously, which is the essence of faith itself. This is irrefutably the first principle that you must have in order to believe in God, and it is good old faith, which is talked about many times in the bible; however, it’s a word that’s been ever so increasingly absent from people’s vocabularies in tandem with not believing in God, of course. I remember watching a commentary video from a young lady, and it’s barely all just coming back to me now, which I’ll link below. I firmly believe that much of the world is the way it is because many people have lost faith and the will to live by faith. Unfortunately, this also came at the cost of not following God anymore, hence where we are today. (2 Corinthians 5:7 “For we walk by faith, not by sight”) I truly believe we as human beings were always meant to live by faith, because without a semblance of faith, what truly governs us? Some might not believe, and simply by their ideals, values, and standards, but is that really something in the grand scheme of things? Being a good person, loving everyone, not doing unto others what you wouldn’t want done to you, is that really something to write home about? Like, what is this, the 3rd grade, where we’re making up our own rules and governing ourselves? Let me ask you a question, if all those things suddenly disappeared one day, then what would you do? A value, ideal, or standard is simply a condition of being that can be altered at any moment, and they probably only matter to you, sadly enough.

This isn’t to confuse hopeless people lacking faith to do things and be good. A Hope is just a hope, but a faith is not a faith. Hope is an opportunity, inclination, and a moment to seize, but faith is a principle to live by. And the difference here would be, I believe, faith is something to live for; it’s not anything specific or tangible. Hope allows something to happen for us that we’re thinking of, but faith allows something to transpire and manifest beyond human comprehension, even if we’re good at predicting or envisioning the future for its events. This is where I think people undeniably fall short; it’s not enough to live by hope, as most hope that people acquire is often fake, which leads to false hope. When that happens, it’s essentially life support for a relationship, career, sick parent, etc, but regrettably, real hope is as abundant as water is in the desert, and that’s the reality of our lives here on this earth. But I believe that is why many people and I believe in God, because soon there won’t be a day where we need to rely on any amount of hope anymore, because we’ll instead be rewarded with our faithfulness.

In turn, how this relates to the main topic at hand is very obvious. You see, I firmly believe over the last few decades or so we’ve seen a drastic transfer of wealth...well, that too...but also a subtle transfer of faith into independence and self-reliance, ultimately producing a lack of need, desire, and want within our society. And I won’t talk about certain movements or beliefs, and if you know them, then you know them. On paper, it’s not really a bad thing depending on the ideas, but now it’s even being reflected in the very media that we consume and used to enjoy. Maybe I am on some anti-woke rhetoric and wanting back some conservatism, but one cannot deny the disposition that many people possess today, and a lot of that has translated to: “I’ll do it myself” “I don’t need you to do this.” “I’m independent, I’ll decide what I want and how I’ll get it.” Truly, what it boils down to is having inverted faith or a fear, and all the faith that you once had is being pulled inwards, and many people subtly have this countenance, even if they don’t consider themselves political on a daily basis. And since you’re in this state of self-reliance and independence, you’re out on the look for...→Hope←...and as stated before, we know hope is an opportunity, inclination, and a moment to seize, but I don’t believe everyone can be that lucky so that’s why I believe living by Hope is not really a real tangible thing. This is like playing the lottery with your life, in my humble opinion.  So what you see now is a lack of faith in relationships, to believe there’s any good people left, not believing in the good prospects, and settling for less, etc, and has led to people becoming self-centered and vulture-like in some cases.

Everything is governed by faith in life, which is given to us by God himself, and where we inevitably learn about this. Fishermen know there’s cod in the lake, but they aren’t hoping to catch game; they’re placing faith in the waters being bountiful and coming back with a cooler full of fish. A carpenter doesn’t hope he can build a house; he’s praying that the house doesn’t fall apart later on. Even soldiers of the army don’t just hope they can defeat their enemies and win, but they have an innate faith that the war will end, they will win, and they will be able to return home. If our soldiers relied on hope, that would be a major yikes, as it’s not as plentiful as one would like to think or feel it is.

On a side tangent, this has also affected Christians and believers in Christ, and it’s not in my opinion but in actuality to proclaim the rapture. In this instance, I truly believe that some who are alive will also be added onto the army of Jesus for his second coming, and that in itself is not far-fetched to believe. From people, it’s a general lack of faith in believing the promises of the messiah, and believers find themselves in the clutches of no rapture and endure to the end (even though all it was saying was endure to the end of the age, and end means something along the lines of fulfillment). Believers and other people alike are buying emergency food and water, holding onto gold, and building in remote locations, but that constitutes a lack of faith in God and nowhere does it say in the bible to do that for the end times instead we’re simply giving a promised hope of escape 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 "And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words". 1 Thessalonians 5:2 “for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night”. But the same saying can be applied here, it’s believers who say: “Endure to the very end.” “Become self-sufficient to survive what’s coming.” and “Whatever you do, don’t take the mark and persevere”. It’s basically Christians puffing out their chests, but that is the mindset of the world now, though.

I believe it was all done by design, but I don’t have much of anything to discuss on this theme. But I don’t think there’s any saving this world anymore; it has to be demolished from the bottom up in order to be restructured. As I said, many people were sinful in the olden days, but they were still good enough human beings to other people. There’s no beating the holy bible into people because they really have no use for faith and thus a faith in God. I think people like living by hope because I think people are generally lazy as it is and the hope of a new man/woman, product, or fictional game/book/movie is more worthwhile than being faithful for a very long while and in order to have faith in what God promises you need to have faith in the first place over an inclination or desire/want.

Believe it or not, even Lucifer of the holy bible had faith in God once, so he wasn’t always evil or rebellious by nature. He just stopped believing in God, even though he came to know God very closely and personally, being the highest angel and all. He didn’t have faith in the man himself anymore because of his fear of being usurped by mere humans that were created in God’s image and would one day be the ultimate creation in the new heaven and new earth. People fear their lover cheating on them, not having a home, not having a job, not having everything they want to be happy, missing out on life, and fear and doubt that God might not be real at all. It becomes enough of a motivation to become self-reliant, self-made, and self-sufficient without the aid or coverage by someone that is not you, and that’s a greater shame to have than something embarrassing that happened to you in the past, and no one wants to admit this about themselves, nor talk about it. It’s exactly why the bible says to come humbly and bend a knee, but you fear being vulnerable and not being in control of your circumstances, and real mental health experts would notice the signs at hand and give an assessment about you, though they might not know what’s really at stake. The feelings and sentiments are valid to have, but you cannot live by hope forever because eventually you will need to take that leap of faith, and likewise, when we perish (or are alive), we have faith that we’ll be caught up by a very wonderful and generous man by the name of Jesus.

Deuteronomy 31:6 “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4sc2B43yhQ

In closing I’m aware of the state of the world and why there seems to be now an ever growing sense of general fear via the usurpation of AI, possibility of war breaking out, and a potential economic collapse, but these things aren’t fully here yet nor did people behave any differently in fear of these things and may not fear at all (yet). It was all by design to change the way people think into a mindset of being hopeful rather than faithful, but when all hope is lost and people don’t have any faith in anyone or anything...that is a recipe for chaos. I would say humanity as a whole is burning through its last ounces of hope before it all goes awry, and we know what happens when fear stops being fear and transforms into the unmistakable state of anger, and that’ll happen when there is no more hope, like many people who have been conditioned to have for decades now. Hope is short-term, but faith is long-term.