After the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay on board the USS Missouri, World War ii had ended. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was there to sign the document. It ended the worst war ever experienced on Earth. But there was something horrendously different about the end of that war. A new age had been introduced. Atomic bombs had been dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Man’s number-one problem now became that of human survival. Scientists said that this bomb would completely revolutionize both peacetime and warfare upon this planet. We had entered into the atomic and nuclear age with horrifying new weapons. The magnitude of their destructive power defied imagination.

After signing the Japanese surrender, General MacArthur wanted to speak to America and the world about peace, but with a strong warning. He said:

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. … Military alliances, balances of powers, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blots out this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, our Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence, an improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural developments of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.

General MacArthur said we needed to see an improvement of human character to keep pace with our matchless advances in science. In recent U.S. presidential campaigns, character could not even be raised as a critical issue. In campaigns 20 to 50 years ago, character was often the most important issue. So, to most Americans today, character is becoming far less important as we make spectacular advances in science.

That is generally true in other nations as well. As we rapidly advance in science, we are degenerating in character. That is a deadly combination. That is the opposite of what General MacArthur said we needed in order to survive!

This problem could hardly be more serious to a thinking individual. So what should we do?

The organization behind this website also sponsors a small liberal arts college. The top priority at Herbert W. Armstrong College is building character. We believe our school is the college of the future. Character must be improved for human beings to ever survive.

As General MacArthur said, our problem is “theological,” or spiritual. He said that confronting this problem is the only way we can save humanity alive! But the problem has become even more complicated.

We all know that religion causes most wars. Radical Islam is the driving force behind state-sponsored terrorism today.

The real problem is that God and the Bible are mysteries to mankind. However, those mysteries have been solved. (Request our free book Mystery of the Ages.) You must prove this to yourself. The problem is, most people don’t even want to do so. People are deceived in religion and education because of blind faith. We need faith based on proof.

Our only hope, MacArthur correctly said, is to build “human character”—to change man’s evil human nature into righteous character. That is the heart of the New Testament message, but almost nobody really believes and practices what it teaches. Even most religious people fail to do that. They too are a part of the problem. Even those people who are usually considered good are still selfish and into a getting way of life—not the giving way. We must change human nature if we are to save the flesh. How can that be done? It is explained in our fee booklet, Human Nature—What Is It

Did you know that human nature is a mystery to educators today? They don’t know what it is! That is why they have no solution to the problem of human survival.

Herbert W. Armstrong spoke on his radio program, The World Tomorrow, at the end of World War ii (Nov. 4, 1945, broadcast, “The Threat to World Peace in the Atomic Age”) about the problem of human survival:

Before the end of the war in Europe we heard a lot of talk about this being the last war. At San Francisco, I heard the United Nations conference warned time and time again by speakers for different nations that the United Nations Organization there being drawn up was the world’s only and last hope of peace. A little later we began to hear the top generals, admirals, statesmen and news commentators speaking about ‘if’ there is another war. But now it is no longer ‘if’—but those same men, in position to know, speak today only of ‘when,’ and ‘how.’

Think about that for a moment. The United Nations was spoken of as being the “world’s only and last hope of peace.” Today it is obvious that the UN is filled with bigots, racists, hate mongers and individual nations that want desperately to rule the world their way. Does any serious-minded person today believe the UN is the world’s only and last hope for peace? To achieve that goal, the UN would have to be a loving, giving organization—not a body of emotional children who will give dictator Hugo Chavez a standing ovation after a speech in which he called the U.S. president a devil!

Is that the spirit of peace or war? Is this the “world’s only and last hope for peace”? Then there is no hope for peace! The UN has proven to be filled with corrupt officials. Looking to that organization to give us peace is vain.

Mr. Armstrong continued:

We might as well face the stark, ugly, horrifying truth, my friends. The world leaders know within themselves that there is no hope, so far as human effort and international agreement or organization is concerned, of preventing another war—and all know now that even this greatest of all wars will have been but child’s play by comparison. We have engines of destruction now that can annihilate humanity from this Earth—stamp out all human life! Too horrible to contemplate? Well, we must contemplate it! We must face it, for we are the generation destined to live into and through it! So, where are we headed? How can such an unthinkable catastrophe be prevented? Certainly not by dodging it, or playing the ostrich!Let’s look once again, then, to the real causes of war! Are you willing to hear the truth? Do you want to know how war can be abolished—permanently—and how we can achieve a real, and a lasting peace …? You can’t cure any sickness without finding the cause and removing that. Let’s dare to boldly look, then, to the real cause.It has to do with the system that grips this world, holding it, in the modern complex structure of this machine age, bound so tightly we are unable to free ourselves. To really have a clear understanding, we’ll need to stand off from this entire world for a while, in our minds—and view this world as a whole—to take a quick bird’s-eye view of the world from its beginning up to now. There is a plan being worked out here below, and a higher power, above, is doing that working out.

We have enough nuclear power today to destroy humanity many times over. It’s just as Jesus Christ, the greatest news forecaster who ever lived, said it would be: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved [alive—Moffatt translation]: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matthew 24:21-22). These verses are about nuclear weapons, their destructive power and how they are going to be abolished forever. I don’t hear Christian leaders discussing this prophecy. Why not? How can we not listen to our Creator’s amazingly accurate prophecies about these terrifying times? We are going to be saved from nuclear weapons in spite of ourselves!

General MacArthur was right—“we have had our last chance”! And we have refused to deal with the cause. The indescribable nightmare is about to explode! Whether we listen or not, God’s purpose is being worked out. Those who heed God’s Word are promised protection from a nuclear holocaust.

The worst thing we can do is hide from reality. We really do live in a world where human survival is our number-one problem.