We can imagine the grim, final and massive exchange of nuclear fire power and the ensuing world-wide crash in human numbers. We should also add to that the damage done by new epidemics, ones infecting us, our crops and/or our livestock. So, finally, there would indeed be the much-longed-for "End Times" (or "Qiyamah” to Muslims), the one so eagerly awaited for thousands of years by billions of fanatical believers of the world’s old “spirit”-based WV systems. The "missing (Mahdi) leader" or “the Hidden (Shiite) Imam,” the Mayan Quetzalcoatl (and midnight 12/21/2012), the Hindu coming of Kalki or Krishna, the Hopi Blue Star (UFO) Kochina, the Next Buddha (“Maitreya”), the cosmic regeneration and reuniting with Mazda, the Messiah of Judaism, and a returning Christ would all be seen looming through the mists. But it would all be mere illusion. Instead of a vast panorama of awesome specters parading to our rescue, there would be nothing except sulfurous smoke, radiation, and the few surviving members of our now depleted race. Even they would all be divided still by the same old religions, each still claiming to be “the Truth” and “the Light” but in a world that had suddenly and dramatically become darker. The faithful would have all been wrong again. No Anti-Christ would have arisen from the ground "speaking like dragons," and “those who do not love God would not have had their candle sticks torn away from them” (Rev 2:4-5). The stars would not have fallen from the Heavens, the people would not have become more righteous, and there would be no Peace on Earth---just devastation. In short, no “god” would have saved us. All that is if we use only a few of the world's some fifteen thousand nuclear bombs . . (from "Destiny and Civilization," http://atheistic-science.com) charles
I guess people have always spouted this kind of crap, so there's no use trying to beat back the idiots, but it still gets under my skin to hear people talk like this. There will be no nuclear World War. It's not going to happen. In order for it to happen we would require all parties to be willing to sacrifice themselves along with huge swaths of their populations for the "pleasure" of inflicting the same on their enemies. Yes, there are people willing to die for their causes, and people very willing to sacrifice others for it, but you never see the people who actually have their finger button willing to die for anything. bin Laden, for all his talk about Jihad and dying for the Jihad, is hiding in a fucking cave because he doesn't want to die. al-Qaeda leaders hide in civilian's houses so US troops can't find them (they get found anyway). The people in power don't have the balls to start a nuclear war. You may very well have rogue terrorists detonating nuclear devices in crowded cities in the years to come, but you will never have an all-out nuclear war. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Nobody wins in that kind of war, and there is not a leader in possession of a nuke who is willing to die for the right to kill their enemy. Not one.
The next cataclysmic destruction of the ecosphere is most likely going to be the same as the ones in the past: a meteor or comet.
