As I watched the Summer Olympics that took place in France earlier this year, I was taken with the parade of nations which by report consisted of 206 nations. There are countries you hear about regularly, some that you don’t think about very often, some old countries with new names, and some countries that you have never even heard of represented. There are always some notable feel-good human-interest stories about who has been picked to carry their country’s flag. Everyone seems generally very happy to be there and honored to represent their country on the world stage. From television, it seems like a party-like atmosphere and something that would be a memory making event for the participants.
Now in the Olympics there always seem to be a few countries who are banned from the games, are boycotting the games, or have an odd name like Unified Team so it probably isn’t the most accurate representation of countries. So that got me to wondering just how many countries there actually are in the world. Well, it is not as easy of an answer as you might think it would be. It depends on who you ask and who is counting apparently. Reportedly, the Central Intelligence Agency recognizes 237 countries while the United Nations recognizes 195 member states and two non-member observer status states (The Vatican and Palestine). Do other intelligence agencies in other countries also recognize 237 countries? More? Less? Are there countries who don’t recognize other countries as a slight?
I was curious what the biggest country was as well. Interestingly, the United States has the third highest population (India, China, US) and the third most land (Russia, China, US).
That got me thinking how the United States ranks against other countries in other areas. Things we are ranked first in include the following: Gross Domestic Product, Military Budget, Military Might, Market Capitalization, Gold Reserves, Number of Millionaires & Billionaires, Movies Made, Nobel Prizes, Top Ranked Universities, and Olympic Medals.
Before we get too high on our horse, we also rank first in the following: Alcohol/Drug Use Burden, Alcohol/Drug Use Disorders, Opioid Death Rate, Drug Rate Death, Health Expenditures Per Capita and Bankruptcies.
Shockingly to many I suspect, according to the World Happiness Index, the United States is the 23rd happiest country. To determine the world’s happiest countries, researchers analyzed comprehensive Gallup polling data from 143 countries for the past three years, specifically monitoring performance in six categories: gross domestic product per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make your own life choices, generosity of the general population, and perceptions of internal and external corruption levels.
I’m sure if you searched long enough online, you could find the United States ranked just about anywhere depending on the domain and how the ranking was generated.
At the end of the day, despite any warts we do have as a country, I believe that I am privileged to have been born in the United States. I believe it is one of the best countries to live in at this point in history and I thank my lucky stars most days that I wasn’t born in a less privileged country.
I have never really ascribed to the premise that we need to Make America Great Again. Our country may be changing but it is still great just the way it is. Just because our country isn’t what it was 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, doesn’t mean it isn’t still great. It seems that many yearning to Make America Great Again are yearning for a very idealized version of America that probably is no longer possible, if it ever existed in the first place. It also seems that the America some Make America Great Again adherents are yearning for wasn’t or wouldn’t be so great for many of their fellow Americans.
Despite our greatness, I do think we would all do well to mind our hubris as a country and to invoke some humility. Again, depending on how you count them, we are 1 in 237 or 206 or 195 or 193.
It is human nature to have -centric focus. We all tend to focus on ourselves, our loved ones, our community, our school, our state, our country, etc. over others. It is how we are built as humans but in order to best serve each other we often have to learn how to not do some of the things that come naturally to us.
In the overall scheme of things, we are 1 country of 237/206/195/193 currently in existence. We have been in existence mere minutes on the grand clock of historical countries and empires. France in some form or fashion has been a country for over 1500 years; England for about 1100 years; Spain for about 500 years. The Roman empire is said to have existed for almost 1500 years. Again, there are a lot of ways to calculate length of countries and empires, but the point is that the United State is a mere pup on the world stage of countries and empires. See the following link for several different approaches to calculating country and empire lengths. https://www.eupedia.com/history/longest_lived_empires_in_history.shtml
History teaches us that empires rise and fall. People of the future will be the ones who ultimately determine if the United States was rising or falling at the end of the year 2024 when I write this. I suspect we are too inside of it all to make any realistic appraisals of the arc our country is currently traveling.
Turn on your television or log onto the internet and it won’t take you long at all to find someone talking about how we are at a urgent point in time, at a crossroads, or approaching an election that will be a turning point in what happens to our country. At some point, I guess that might be true but so far it just seems to be a way to rally people to your viewpoint, cause, or candidate.
As we approach election season in the United States, you will even hear people say that God’s will is backing a particular party, candidate, or amendment. Again, a little humility might be in order here. God is a big God and by definition can see, do, and be all things but we might ask ourselves if God’s most urgent priority and concern right now is really a single election taking place in 1 of 237/206/195/193 countries that has been in existence for only 250 years on a world stage of recorded history that has lasted around 6,000 years? The United State makes up 0.004 percent of the current countries in the world. The United States has been in existence for 0.04 percent of recorded history of the world. There just might be things going on in the other 99.996 percent of countries that deserve more of God’s attention right now. Perhaps the events of these last few months of 2024 AD barely register compared to the other 99.96 percent of recorded history.
Something to think about.
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