"Mom, have we been here before?"

     Puzzled by seven-year old Alice's question her mother asked, "What do you mean? In this house? In this town? What do you mean have we been here before?"

     "Here." Then seeing the continued puzzled expression on her mother's face Alice groped for the words that would express the ideas swirling in her head. "I mean everyone. Here. A long time ago, were we here before?"

     Fifteen-year old elder brother Sam came to his kid sister's rescue. "She's asking, did mankind destroy itself millions of years ago and did things have to start all over again." Grinning, he gave his kid sister the answer. "No. This is our first time round." Then he added thoughtfully, "But we are at the crossroads of survival."

     "How do you know that everyone wasn't killed and it took zillions of years to start over again? It might have happened." Little Alice was insistent. Knowledgeable Sam explained that the fossils would have given away if there had been such a past. Alice still wasn't convinced. She was sure it might have happened and that the bombs were the kind that left no traces. They just blew everything away.

     I heard about this interchange from their mother, Brenda Wayne. She was proud of the thoughtfulness of her two youngsters, but also concerned. "My kids are really scared that doomsday is coming, and that they won't live into old age. I guess it's all that violence on TV, especially on the news."

     Several weeks later Brenda called again. "You won't believe this. Alice just won't let go of the idea that we've been here before, and that we destroyed ourselves and had to start over. And now she's got her little friend Susan convinced that it did happen before. Because didn't the Bible tell the story of the great flood that destroyed all the people and animals except Noah and the ark? And that Noah and his family and the animals on the ark had to start making people and animals all over again. Now how do you answer that one?"

     Later Brenda told me how Sam had looked up the great flood on the Internet, and then had gone to the library. He came back with the explanation; the flood probably didn't encompass all of earth, just the Mediterranean basin. But he agreed in part with his kid sister. "That flood must have destroyed an important civilization." Thereafter Sam spent more hours in the library looking up past civilizations, which made him even more thoughtful and troubled.

     I found out about his continued research when I visited the Waynes some weeks later. Sam explained, "It's happened again and again. Really great civilizations in China, in India, in Mesopotamia, the Aztecs, the Incas, the Egyptians, then the Romans; it's happened again and again that great civilizations were built and then people destroyed what others had built. It's real creepy."

     Brenda added, "Sam talks about this all the time now. He's become a real historian. But I don't know what worries me more. That he's so preoccupied with human destructiveness or the reality of human destructiveness."

     I wondered if Brenda's youngsters were unusual in their doomsday preoccupation. Before long I found out that they were fairly typical, although Sam's immersion and research into human history was unusual. In response to simple questions about what they expected of the future my sample of children expressed a fear of impending disaster, even the end of life on earth. Although mine was not a scientific sample, the uniformity of the responses was startling. The children told how they are frightened and many indicated a resignation that there wasn't going to be "a future" for them. Perhaps not surprising, this apprehension was not restricted to the children. Their parents' frequent refrain was "I've never been scared like this before. In fact I never thought there was any real danger. But now..."

     Is the concern of the parents something that wasn't felt in the past? Or is it that the fear wasn't as prevalent and on such a conscious level as it seems to be right now? And yet a recurrent dread about the consequences of human destructiveness goes far back into the history of mankind. We already see an allegorical suggestion of it in early Biblical stories starting with the Garden of Eden as Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge-of-good-and-evil. Having eaten the forbidden fruit they cease to live in a paradise of innocence and awaken to an awareness that their actions can be either positive or negative, i.e. represent good or evil. The story of Cain and Abel that follows is often referred to as the first murder. But now, because Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of knowledge-of-good-and-evil Cain must face the consequences of having killed his brother. And with awareness that actions can be positive or negative comes the realization for Cain and Abel's descendents that they have a choice, to be good or evil. As the Biblical story unfolds it tells how the descendents of Cain and Abel, because they chose evil deeds, are punished with the great flood. Only righteous Noah, his family and animals are left to begin life anew.

     The story, as seven-year old Susan observed, does indeed resemble Alice's 21st century's question of "Have we been here before." Although God promises Noah that he will never send another great flood, the belief that there will be a Judgment Day for our destructive sins permeates the Judaic, Christian, Islamic religions. The presumption that the end of the world is imminent is not a new scenario.

     Just as seven-year old Alice understood, at least implicitly, where human violence can lead, so throughout history there appear warnings that human achievement can be obliterated through violence. Our great religions speak to how we must overcome the vicious and violent part of our natures, but with obviously limited success. Tragically, the great religions have often been hijacked by the very destructiveness they have tried to defeat. The desire, the need to destroy keeps sneaking up on us.

     Although the victims of Genghis Khan may already have thought that they had witnessed the end of human civilization, the possibility of the annihilation, the extinction, of the human species does seem to be new. During the Second World War Hitler menaced the allies with the threat of Götterdämerung should they take their battle to the Fatherland. Fortunately the atomic weapons he had tried to build were not to be his, and the threat failed. There was no twilight of the Gods, no end to mankind's existence. But we are now faced with what may be an even more virulent threat, the Armageddon cults that use religious belief as the justification to destroy not only human civilization but all of humankind.

     The why for the Armageddon cults is what Sam wanted to discuss when he asked his mother to call and arrange a get together. "How could those terrorists believe that God wanted them to be murderers and go in for mass destruction? I don't get it. Those people don't make sense."

     Our discussion lasted for hours. I was impressed by the thoughtfulness of Sam's questions as well as his knowledge. And I was curious whether his friends and classmates shared his knowledge and apprehensions. So I asked. "How many of you talk about this with one another? To what extent are your classmates trying to figure out what's going on and where we humans can and must go from here?"

     The answer was: "A few of us. But we talk about this a lot."

     "Are your friends as knowledgeable as you about human history?"

     Sam thought a while, then said "Well Arthur's gotten real interested in religions, and what they've got to say. His parents take their religion very seriously. They're born again Christians, so Arthur got curious whether these were new or old ideas. I'm not sure his parents would approve of his searching the Internet about Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, Judaism, Confucianism. Maybe it's just as well they don't know. But Arthur's gotten really excited. He says that all the religions have a lot in common. Like people have known for a long time what the problem is. How we must take care of one another – stop killing each other. It's just that stopping the killing and hate seems so difficult."

     Brenda and I looked at one another. I could see why she was both proud and concerned. These youngsters were asking fundamental questions and searching for solutions.

     After a while Sam continued: "Stewart says we've got to have machine parts. You know, computer chip implants to stop us from going berserk and killing each other. That's just like him. He's such a nerd. He thinks that becoming part machine is the solution. He just doesn't get it that it's people who'd be doing the programming of the chip implants. And that that would mean some creep would program super-duper killer chips. When I pointed this out to him Stewart said that that's easy to take care of. All you'd have to do is program some of the parts to function as a sort of overlord. And when they spotted destructive computer chips they'd disable them. Stewart is sure that such a program would work. But the rest of us think that some other creeps would program an override on the override."

     Brenda explained. "I think these kids are getting some of their ideas from the science fiction they've been reading. Hearing them discuss some of these stories I'm beginning to think they are a modern version of the themes the old-time philosophers used to write about. Except that even I get much more out of the science fiction stories than I ever got out of my philosophy courses." As I left I thought how some of my own science fiction stories embody the philosophy that life has taught me.

     Several weeks later Sam himself called. The conversation went something like this: "MaryLou, she's Stewart's cousin, she's got an interesting idea. She thinks that we're close to developing drugs that will affect the amygdala. And that that's how we're going to put an end to what she calls our heritage of being 'the killer ape'."

     Brenda got on the phone and explained that "MaryLou is in her first year of graduate school studying neuroscience. She's sharing some of what she's learned with her much younger cousin and his friends." Like Brenda, I was impressed not only by the ideas but the way these youngsters of such different ages and stages of development were sharing them. Brenda and I laughed as we both recalled how when as teenagers we had read Aldous Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD and had been impressed by its possibilities. The difference, however, was that today's youngsters were viewing some of the ideas not only as a possible but as an imminent reality.

     In the history and literature of our human past there are allusions that we humans are still in a state of becoming. That eventually we will become better creations than the ones we are now. The theme of mankind transcending, of reaching a higher level, capable of all-encompassing love and caring, has often been a haunting refrain. Isaiah's vision of:

         "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
          And their spears into pruninghooks;
          Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
          Neither shall they learn war any more."

is an expression of this hopeful theme. It declares a yearning, a search for the reality of our becoming humans who truly understand the meaning of good and evil. Perhaps that is the subconscious reason why most cultures look to a savior to free them from the bondage of baser feelings. We've been struggling to achieve what we sense we should become ever since Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge-of-good-and-evil.

     When Brenda called again she sounded happier than she had in months. "I've got to tell you the latest. Little Susan told our now eight-year old Alice 'I'm sure God will save us. He'll make sure people will stop hurting each other.' To that our Alice responded with, 'Nah. He's not going to rescue us. He gave us brains so we'd figure it out ourselves.'"

     Laughingly Brenda said, "You know I'm beginning to think we will figure it out. The way these youngsters are discussing the problem as to how we're going to survive and avoid Armageddon; and they've gotten so much nicer to each other. You know they've given me hope like I never had before. I feel certain now, what with watching and listening to them, that it will be all right. We humans will work it out. We're gonna make it!"

     To which I added, "You mean, we humans have got the brains and the heart to make it through the crossroads of survival. . ."