I want to start with an apology. I'm sorry the earth you inhabit has been damaged. I'm sorry that you have to try and rebuild with what you have left. On behalf of the humans living at my point in your past, I'm sorry that my species has brought this upon you.
We should have seen this planet as precious. We should have seen every life on it as special. The conditions needed for life to begin are so rare in the universe that this is the only planet we know of in which this amazing process started. It may be the case this planet is the only source of life.
Billions of species have come into existence, and 99% of them have gone extinct. Modern humans arrived very recently. Only 100,000 years ago, in fact. While that may seem a long time, in the grand scheme of things it's really not, as can be shown by the following illustration. Imagine the entire history of our universe condensed to a single year. The Big Bang happened just as January 1st started. The Earth formed sometime in September. Life on Earth started sometime in October. And humans evolved in December. But not the beginning of December; neither was it the middle, the 28th, the 29th or the 30th... It was at one second to midnight on the 31st of December. Yet with this striking piece of information, most humans have some strange ideas about their place in the universe.
For all intents and purposes, they believe the universe was made primarily with them in mind. It doesn't matter that the dinosaurs were around approximately 1,600 times longer than modern humans. It doesn't matter that disease and natural disasters kill countless humans each year. It doesn't even matter that the human body has so many flaws in it. My fellow humans are adamant that there is a creator who has a plan for them.
This 'creator' figure has changed over time. Humans used to believe in gods that controlled the sun, the weather, volcanoes, tsunamis and a whole list of things we can now explain scientifically without the need for celestial beings. Gods have been worshipped by people simply because they were born in particular locations on this planet, who otherwise would have never even heard of the god they believed in. The names and details of nearly 3,000 of these creators has been compiled from looking back at our history, and the real number could be even higher.
I live at a point in history in which the two most popular gods are Allah and Yahweh. Indoctrination, wars, false hope, oppression and the technological emergence of the printing press has allowed belief in these two gods to spread more than any other god belief. Most people think one of these gods is real, cares about them personally and is going to provide them with an eternal afterlife in which they can see their dead loved ones.
Any human is lucky to be alive. The chances of any of us existing is miniscule. As mentioned earlier, this is the only planet we know of that supports life. There had to be a precise family line, specific ancestors, to make each of us 'us'. Billions of sperm do not make it to an egg. Most eggs leave the females' bodies without having been fertilised. Then there are the barriers of being miscarried and stillborn to overcome. Just coming into being is beating the odds. You would have better luck winning the lottery.
Our species has a longer lifespan than most animals. We get approximately eighty rotations around our sun. But even knowing all this, so many people want more. They may even feel cheated if there isn't more to come. The existence they were lucky enough to have isn't enough for them, and while they might feel the universe owes them, it is actually us who owe the universe.
Does anyone have proof that one of these gods is real? No. Could anyone provide just one good reason for believing in any god, never mind their chosen one? No. In most cases, these humans are relying on faith. That is, believing in something when you have absolutely no good reason for doing so. It's an idea that is so ridiculous, it even sounds that way to those who profess to have it. If a Christian was asked or told to have faith in Allah, Thor, Ra or any other god, they wouldn't entertain the idea for more than a few seconds. They would need good reasons for believing in those gods. But when the god they were raised from birth to believe in or is the most popular in their society is put under the spotlight, all of a sudden the rules change, and faith becomes a virtue that shouldn't be questioned.
While one danger of these beliefs is that they obviously give people a completely wrong worldview and take them out of reality to a great degree, one of the more serious dangers comes from specific things written about in the books people believe these gods inspired.
There are people following the Koran who believe that a saviour will arrive and turn the world into a Muslims-only planet. There are people following the Bible who believe a saviour will arrive and turn the world into a Christians-only planet. Both groups believe there has to be a period of terrible calamity on Earth before their saviour returns, possibly even a great war.
These people are not in the minority. They stretch right up into the powers controlling nations. This means people who believe that these books come from the creator of the universe are also in control of weapons of immense destructive capabilities. The combustive ingredients are all there, what's to stop them reacting with each other?
Some would say God. Casual Christians and Muslims who go to church more for friendship and a sense of belonging than to have a better understanding of their chosen creator very often say that a) those people must be misreading the books and b) even if they aren't and a war is needed, God would never allow things to get too bad. He'll be there to rescue us.
This applies to other concerns such as climate change. If someone honestly believed in a creator, it would be preposterous to believe he went to all the trouble of making the universe, this planet and humans he would come to care for, just to allow the ozone layer to become damged beyond repair and seriously affect all life on Earth.
For the rest of us, we see our planet as fragile, humans even moreso, and no celestial being out there to save us from our own stupidity. We have to take responsibility for our own actions. Nuclear war is a very real possibility and the threat from climate change may already be too late to avert.
So before you think of us all as the fools behind the destruction you have survived, know that some of us tried to make a difference. We tried communicating with other humans and getting them to see sense. We tried showing them how shocking it would be if nuclear power had arrived earlier on the scene and been used in the name of Osiris, Hel or Jupiter. We showed them there was just as much reason to believe in those gods as there was to believe in Yahweh or Allah. But it was all too late. We had the problem of attempting to deprogram people, and we also had the problem of getting past the vast number of people who thought we were making a mountain out of a molehill and who were frighteningly happy enough to let their fellow humans live in a bubble of delusion, simply because it made them happy to think there was another life to come.
The bombs had to drop and the water had to rise before humans saw what they had allowed to happen, and regretted it. But by then it was too late. So if people in your time still hold to beliefs such as the ones I have described, don't feel embarrased or ashamed to be critical of them. It's not wrong to call a bad idea a bad idea. It's wrong to ignore it and hope it goes away.
Thank you for reading, and for those of you who do act in a responsible manner with the precious life you have, I wish you luck.