Selfishness – The Most Destructive Pandemic of All Times

(This is an excerpt from Hurst’s manuscript, The Great Dilemma.)

Over the centuries, billions of people have suffered severe emotional and physical injury as self-centered folks brush past them on their rampant pursuit of personal desires. Upon doing research, we found that a large percentage of the 60 million human deaths in 2020 were due to some form of selfishness, and millions more suffer from greed-related agony.

Do many folks not believe, as much as possible, only what they want to think? Many people crave and freely indulge in wealth and power, fame, thrill, and sex; taking minimal consideration for the people around them as they pursue what they imagine will make them happy.

We will refer to these people as me-folks because of their driving desire to please themselves, and we will refer to this attitude as the me-virus. This restless sensation has been moving through humanity for thousands of years. Have we not all been infected with the me-virus at some point?

Here are some statistics of selfishness-related deaths and suffering in the year 2020. We also include links to the sites from which we got the information:

The Pandemic Statistics

• There were 9 million starvations, — https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/people-and-poverty/hunger-and-obesity/how-many-people-die-from-hunger-each-year/story and 811 million people were undernourished. — https://www.who.int/news/item/12-07-2021-un-report-pandemic-year-marked-by-spike-in-world-hunger (Food shortages often trace back to selfish governments.)
• There were 1.6 million deaths related to violence. — https://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/world_report/en/abstract_en.pdf  
• 300 million children were in a physical fight. — https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/documents/child-maltreatment/global-status-report-on-violence-against-children-2020/who-gsrpvac-2020-magnitude-consequences-infographic-en.pdf
• Roughly 50% of all marriages end in divorce.
• There were over 400,000 sexual assaults in America. — https://www.statista.com/statistics/251923/usa–reported-forcible-rape-cases-by-gender/

Other deaths and suffering, of which the connection to selfishness may be more controversial, include:

• 42.7 million induced abortions. (Yes, despite contrary opinions, which are heavily influenced by what selfish people want to think, induced abortions are essentially legal murder.) — https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2021/01/01/abortion-leading-global-cause-of-death-in-2020-with-42-7-million-killed/
• 8 million deaths from tobacco-related diseases. (1.2 million of these cases were from second-hand smokes.) — https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco
• There were 800,000 suicides. — https://ourworldindata.org/suicide
• 374 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases. — https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/sexually-transmitted-infections-(stis)
• 3 million alcohol related deaths. — https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/alcohol
• 1.8 million deaths from drug overdose. — https://www.cnet.com/health/drug-overdose-deaths-hit-all-time-record-number-in-2020/)
• And in my research I came across this statement, “Over 35 million people suffer from drug use disorders, according to the latest World Drug Report, released today by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)” — https://www.unodc.org/unodc/press/releases/2020/June/media-advisory—global-launch-of-the-2020-world-drug-report.html

I understand these cases are likely not all a direct product of the me-virus. Still, these numbers give an idea of how prevalent and destructive selfishness is.

Here we are, in the middle of a global and persistent me-virus pandemic. (Do some research yourself. How does this infection compare with other major pandemics?)

Obstacles

However, in search of what they want to think, me-folks have run into a few obstacles.

Obstacle 1 – The Conscience

One obstacle they have met is their conscience. When they do the things they want to do, something in their head may advise them that it is not a good act to perform.

But me-folks are sure that if they want it, it must be a good thing to get. Their motto is, “If it feels good, do it.” They soon find, if they ignore their conscience and tell themselves it does not matter, that voice will presently diminish and eventually expire.

Obstacle 2 – The Moral Code

Another issue that me-folks have run into is the moral code. Throughout the ages, most governments and cultures endorsed laws of moral correctness that divine authorities had introduced through the conscience mentioned above. Me-folks found pleasure in breaking these moral laws, so this was a real problem for them.

Obstacle 3 – God

When we make a goal, anything that hinders us from reaching that goal becomes an unwanted obstacle. Will it not be natural to take the necessary steps to work that obstacle out of the way so we can obtain our goal?

Have me-folks not made their personal desires their goal? Are these people not actively pursuing whatever they imagine might make them happy? Thus, the idea of an all-powerful super-being telling them how to live appears as a major obstacle.

Consequently, it has become the goal of millions of people to do everything in their power to avoid and minimize God and believe He does not exist.

It was the concept of naturalism that helped them around this obstacle. According to this theory, the world randomly evolved with no divine aid. Thus, there is no supernatural authority and no moral code. (Would me-folks not gladly deny the existence of every authority in their life if they could?) This fact has led to naturalism becoming widely taught as a fact of science.

By now, many countries have significantly slacked their stand on some of the moral issues, giving me-folks more liberty to do what they want.

Obstacle 4 – Logic

Logic has eventually proven to be another hang-up for some. Some of the things me-folks want to think do not make sense.

Some me-folks soon concluded that the remedy they used on their conscience also works on logic. They found that if they refuse to think about logic and instead focus on what they want to believe, it is not that hard to believe it anyhow.

A Selfish Pursuit

The me-virus can lead to this attitude, which Abdu Murray mentions in his book, Saving Truth:

“Confusion is embraced as a virtue and clarity shunned as a sin. The answers to life’s questions no longer need to correspond to reality. They need only cater to our desires.

“But as our culture has embraced confusion and shunned clarity, have we found ourselves to be better off? The divisiveness of our rhetoric is corrosive. Those who disagree with us are ‘them.’ Facts often seem to be a problem to get around instead of the useful tools they once were. And if someone takes a stand we disagree with on a particular issue, we label them in the most uncharitable way possible, never mind whether they may have a point.” [ii]

The creep of post-truth is seen in how we gather information about the world to conform to what we want to be true, not to what actually is true. [i] —Abdu Murray

The more one thinks about it, the more one realizes the seriousness and urgency of this frightful situation. Upon consideration, is the me-virus not the root cause of most—if not all—political unrest, social division, and poverty? This disease is the most widespread and destructive epidemic in human history. Can you think of any occurrence of crime or heated dispute that did not likely result from an uncontrolled case of the me-virus?

The Me-Virus’s prediction

Amazingly, the widespread pursuit of one’s personal desires fulfills a nearly two-thousand-year-old prophecy, which Apostle Paul records in the second book of Timothy. “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control…. always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth “(2 Timothy 3:1–4, 7).

This situation is also acknowledged in Matthew 13:15, where we read, “For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I (Christ) would heal them.”

The Conclusion

Charles Caleb Colton summed it up when he said, “Men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine themselves.”                                                   

Since the beginning of time, the truth has never changed, even if billions have of people enthusiastically rejected it. As long as we are alive and have the mental capacity, it is never too late to change what we believe for the sake of truth. (Even though it likely will be quite challenging and certainly not enjoyable.) We shall say it again: you will never, in the long run, regret facing the truth, even if the task is uncomfortable at the moment.

Let us root for truth, and slow the spread of this all-destructive Me-virus Pandemic.

(Please drop me some feedback so I can get a feel for how folks will respond to this subject. Thank You.)

[i] Abdu Murray, Saving Truth (p. 17). Zondervan.

[ii] Abdu Murray, Saving Truth (p. 23). Zondervan.