Sodom And Gomorah? The Days Before The Flood?

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So what's the difference today?

Difference? Well...not fundamentally any difference regarding Sodom. Sodom and Gomorrah were illustrations of what happens when human beings collectively give in completely to depravity. They were examples of civilizations in which there were no redeeming qualities. You cannot save children in that context because the immorality of such a place is so ingrained into society that simply getting rid of it would cause societal collapse and further damage that would extend beyond that society itself. Children will not understand why they lost their parents and all you can expect from them is rebellion and resentment. I think most of us tend to be super sensitive to the idea of hurting children, so it's difficult to understand Sodom and Gomorrah even in context, but regardless children can at least have the mercy of a quick death. The main point to remember is that any time children in the Bible are killed, it's never as punishment specific to anything innocent children themselves have done, but rather it's the parents who are being punished when their children are taken. For them, the children, it's an act of mercy--else they are condemned to a life of slavery, abuse, hunger, or turning to crime.

The difference between Sodom and the world today is that, at least in Western society, everyone lives according to Old Testament principles in obedience to God. The instruction that "children will live long in the land" was related to obedience of Moses' teachings, so bringing honor to parents was important not because of some magical properties that would make them live longer, but because of the practical benefits of bringing honor to parents. Not all parents are honorable people, so often doing things that bring honor to dishonorable parents meant that children succeeded sometimes in SPITE of their upbringing and not because of it. Nowhere do "honor your parents" and other instructions to love and obey God ever say anyone has to actually believe God exists. Earthly success will depend on your consistency with those ancient commandments and has nothing to do with whether you believe in God or the state of your soul.

Take atheism and the 10 Commandments for example: Atheists cannot violate "no other gods" and "no graven images." If you don't believe in God, it's not likely you'll misuse The Name--nor likely anyone will since no one is completely sure how to even say The Name. Most businesses give employees one day off a week. I don't think most atheists wish to act dishonorably towards their parents. Most people don't kill. MOST people honor their marriage commitments (notice that it's adultery that is forbidden, not strictly speaking fornication). Most people do not steal or lie in court (relatively few people ever actually have to appear in court, only criminals, juries, lawyers, witnesses, and judges). I think covetousness might be the biggest problem we have in society, yes, but you don't have rampant crime over it. Many atheists by an ancient Biblical standard might possibly be the most moral people in modern Western society, perhaps more so than many Christians. As a Christian myself, I don't say that lightly. So if there's ever a question of why it seems unbelievers do better than believers, well...who acts more Godly given scriptural descriptions of holiness?

What about other religions? Hinduism and Buddhism are mostly peaceful religions and have a mostly compatible moral and ethical code. Sikhism, Bahai, Jainism, and even the Religion of Religions itself: Zoroastrianism...they all tend towards an approximately similar moral code that likely stems from a common tradition. Islam brings with it a robust approach to discipline. When I consider how we Christians tend to accept that "justice comes from the Lord" while we don't make the effort to bring justice ourselves, it never surprises me that Islamic extremists commit terrorist acts that cost the lives of thousands of Americans at a time. The ongoing situation between Israel and Palestine is not a surprise. And it's not a surprise because, when you read the Bible, every time people who have been chosen by God to be God's justice on earth refuse to punish those who do evil, evil people ALWAYS come in and impose justice of their own. When we refuse to be the moral backbone of society, someone weaker and less compassionate will always do it for us at our own expense. We are not so far gone that God is going to completely give us over to the consequences of complete and total depravity as was the case in Sodom and Gomorrah. But the less we consciously turn towards God and we allow ourselves to be God's justice on earth, the closer we will get to something like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Regarding the flood, I'll only agree to the extent that evil is pervasive in the world. The difference, though, is the interplay between supernatural beings and humans. In the case of Sodom, human beings were actively seeking out these relationships in ways beyond what God intended as natural for people to do, hence why certain things have been referred to as "sodomy." The problem before the flood wasn't so much that, as the Bible says, the sons of God were mating with daughters of men. The problem was that men preferred giving their daughters to angels or possibly demons. It's not that the resulting children were necessarily destined to be bad people. I'm sure plenty of them were more your Hercules types who did good things, but it could also be that there were those who suffered mentally from incompatibility or they were products of poor upbringing. At any rate, the world was dominated by violent people and giants as a result, and the pervasiveness of it was such that humanity as it was then known was no longer fit to exist on earth.

This is not a problem we will EVER have between now and doomsday because we already know the earth will not be destroyed again by water as it was on at least one and possibly two occasions. I do think that there are some clear parallels between the world as we experience it today and Sodom. There are a few parallels, I think, with the pre-flood world, but the end of the world will likely in many ways be indistinguishable from the days before the flood. As far as Armageddon-level destruction (in the popular sense, not the Biblical sense) goes, I think that end of the world as WE know it will more likely be a problem for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We've only passed the 100-year mark since the Great War. We're still a few years out from the centennial of the conclusion of WWII. In my lifetime since 1978, there have been relatively few threats to world peace. There have been no wars on that scale in my lifetime, and we've seen an unprecedented period of peace throughout the world since the 1940s and since Korea. A politically managed Great Recession, a couple of Gulf Wars, and the Biden Flu have been about as bad as I think anything can get for us right now. In other words, it's not that terribly bad considering humanity has endured so much worse. The majority of us are doing SOMETHING right.

But what IS cause for concern is that so many people HAVE turned away from God. I think were are a few short generations away from saying "I don't believe in God" and "I don't need God" to making a more conscious effort at outright disobedience. That's when 9/11 WILL look more like a birthing pain compared to what my grand- and great grandchildren will face...and I don't think even THAT will trigger the actual end of the world. I think if the end is coming that soon, what two or three generations from now will face will be nothing in comparison to what it's really like when it happens. They will more likely understand more what Sodom or the Flood were like than I or anyone now living could ever imagine.

Were no different than the folks in S+G, and the folks on the eve of the Flood.

But so were folks a generation ago, and a generation before that, and before that..., and in every other era of human history for the last five thousand years.

We actually happened.

One difference (in my view) is that the Sodom thing is a myth where we know the (likely fictional) ending, but today is actually happening and we don't know how it will turn out. Humans might pull out of the holocaust that seems to be coming, or they might not.

Another difference is that the Sodom thing was about a deity autonomously choosing to smite a community for insubordination. The current situation is that there's no conscious agency preparing to smite us, it's just natural cause and effect. We're bringing it on ourselves, or a bit more accurately, they're bringing it on ourselves.

A third difference is that we won't escape by apologising profusely to their deity for our rotten ways and obeying its edicts to the letter from now on. I'm not aware of any religious law that specifically tells us not to overheat the planet. Our religions are mostly rather old things and whoever made up the rules didn't know we'd ever be powerful enough to do that.