How will the world end?

Contemplating this and how the human race can survive is the goal the Cambridge Center for the Study of Existential Risk (cser), a group recently created by Britain’s leading thinkers.

“Many scientists are concerned that developments in human technology may soon pose new, extinction-level risks to our species as a whole,” states cser’s website.

“That’s why some of us in Cambridge, both natural and social scientists, plan, with colleagues at Oxford and elsewhere, to inaugurate a research program to compile a more complete register of these existential risks, and to assess how to enhance resilience against the more credible ones,” Lord Rees of Ludlow, the astronomer royal, past president of the Royal Society and a leader of cser, said.

Here are some of the doomsday scenarios compiled:

A nuclear apocalypse is of course the most obvious outcome. If use of chemical weapons can’t be prevented even when the majority of nations agree they shouldn’t be used, what chance is there that a nation won’t launch nuclear weapons?

It’s such a scary scenario and possibility that in 2007 several prominent American statesmen, including Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, endorsed “setting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and working energetically on the actions required to achieve that goal.”

Not long after, U.S. President Obama said in a 2009 speech in Prague that he was committed “to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

President Obama’s administration followed through on this commitment when it announced a shift in America’s nuclear policy and signed a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (start) with Russia. The policy outlined declared the limits in using U.S. nuclear weapons and the U.S. agreed to reduce its stockpile. After the treaty was signed, President Obama agreed to lower the U.S. arsenal even further to around 1,000 warheads, America’s smallest stockpile since 1953.

And yet all evidence shows this unilateral disarmament will only make the spread of nuclear weapons more likely.

The Sad Reality of Nuclear Proliferation

The U.S. has been reducing its nuclear stockpile since the late 1960s, but this hasn’t stopped other nations pursuing their own nuclear weapons programs. In fact the most important diplomatic effort to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, began in 1968 when U.S. nuclear superiority was at its height.

Nations with nuclear advantages aren’t safer because they believe they can fight and win a nuclear war, they’re safer because leaders play close attention to the nuclear balance of power. Nuclear advantage has often translated to a geopolitical advantage. At least for now.

Matthew Kroenig, an associate professor and international relations field chair in George University, found that nations with greater nuclear weapons superiority were one third less likely to be challenged and 10 times more likely to achieve their political goals in times of crisis when challenged (Foreign Policy, September-October 2013). The advantage kept increasing as the margin of superiority increased, so there’s actually reason to keep expanding arsenals if you’re a nuclear power.

Kroenig writes (ibid):

If the costs of nuclear war are higher for one state than another, then giving in will always look more attractive to leaders in the inferior position—whatever payoff they might get from escalating would always be offset by a higher potential cost. So, on average, we should expect that leaders with fewer nukes at their disposal will be more likely to cave during a crisis. And this is exactly what the data show.

In other words, the more devastating an enemy finds the prospect of nuclear war, the less likely it is to start trouble.

And as the U.S. unilaterally disarms, trouble is growing. Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea are modernizing or expanding their arsenals while Iran is actively pursuing nuclear capability.

“The whole complexion of global power politics is changing because of the reemergence of nuclear weapons as a vital element of statecraft and power politics,” notes Paul Bracken, a political scientist at Yale University (ibid). It can be a frightening scenario to think about.

Nuclear weapons remain the single biggest threat to human existence, and the irony is that reducing their numbers only makes them more dangerous.

History may prove an advantage exists when a nuclear power modernizes and expands its arsenal. But history also shows that mankind will not be able to resist using their most destructive weapons in times of crisis.

The truth is if these great minds studying these threats would read the words of the greatest mind ever, they would already know that not only is a nuclear apocalypse a threat, it will happen.

This Is How the World Will End

“And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved,” Jesus Christ told His disciples when explaining how this world would end (Matthew 24:22).

It’s not a rosy picture of our future, but then again the scientists and philosophers of cser are predicting the same.

The Bible makes it clear this world will get to the point of nearly extinguishing itself. Amos 5 and other scriptures show it will be the result of nuclear war, prophesying the obliteration of entire populations and nuclear winter.

This is the bleak, destructive conclusion of humanity’s time spent ruling over itself—the end of this world. The good news is that this is not the end of humanity. There is hope!

“And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven … and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory,” Christ said (Matthew 24:30).

Just before humanity wipes out its own existence, Jesus Christ will come to usher in a new world.

The Bible shows how this world, this age, will end—with nuclear weapons a primary weapon of its destruction—but mankind will still live on. Jesus Christ will intervene, save humanity and start a new world.

And in that world, cser will be pointless.