Does that mean we don't learn from our past? Or are we just forgetful?
Answers (4)
History repeats because we are all humans and we all want more or less the same things. For instance, a lot of people have noticed that details of the collapse of Rome are identical, in a general way, to the collapse of USA. Here is a free ebook summarizing every collapse in history:
comingdarkage.blogspot.com/
Why wouldn't history repeat itself? Just how many options do we have? One country says I want your land, people, resources or travel rights to get somewhere else or we just hate you and/or your religion and want you dead. The other country says no so they go to war over it.
It's not that we don't learn our lesson. Quite often we do but the people who learned that lesson die off and you have a whole new set of people who don't know diddly and it starts all over again.
I think an example of that is how adults live and learn and gain life experience and they try to tell their kids what they know to help them and how many kids say things are different, you dont know what you are talking about, what happened to you 20 years ago is not going to happen to me! If that attitude prevails after only 20 years it's easy to see why 75 years or 375 years or more allows for repetition.
Everybody knows the damage when the hydrogen bombs were dropped on Japan and the ramifications to several generations. And now North Korea wants to drop some nuclear bombs. Did they not hear about WWII or do they think things will be different because they didn't live it and they know better?
Certain types of events do recur. One consistently recurring lesson of history is the failure of human rulership. In all ages good government has constantly been foiled by self interest, shortsightedness, greed, corruption, nepotism, and especially the lust to obtain and retain power. The past is littered with arms races, failed treaties, wars, social unrest and violence, the unfair distribution of wealth, and collapsed economies. Take a hard look at the world around us today.
Ecclesiastes 8:9: " Man has dominated man to his injury"!
Never before has the whole earth been threaten by the combined forces of deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, massive extinction of plants and animal species, atmospheric ozone depletion, pollution, global warming, dying oceans, and a exploding human population.
Solution, (God's Kingdom) Matthew 24:14, Revelations 21:3,4
Thank you for sharing.