The death of thousands of birds in Arkansas on New Year's Day sparked national debate in the United States of a pending doom and world destruction by many people.

At least 3,000 red-winged blackbirds died on New Year's Eve near Beebe, Arkansas where the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said the agency began receiving reports of blackbirds falling from the sky about 11:30 p.m. December, 31 in a 1-square-mile area of Beebe.

A few days later, the death of more than 80,000 freshwater drum fish, and a few yellow bass and white bass were reported in the Arkansas River.

Wildlife officials say the 2,000-3,000 birds that fell dead from the sky in Beebe, Ark., New Year's Eve exhibited no sign of poisoning.

Beebe Mayor Mike Robertson said what did kill the birds hadn't been determined and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission will start sending the bird carcasses to the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission for testing.

Meanwhile, evangelical right-wing Christian leaders point to the death of the birds as a sign of the end of days.  Many of these neo-conservative religious Christian extremist groups have some of their followers bellowing on the City streets of America that the end of the world is soon to arrive.

There are those who say that finding a dead bird near your house is just a reminder that everything is mortal, everything dies or ends in time, and it is just part of the cycle. All life is connected by the shared experience of being alive, no matter what species. Everything is interconnected and interdependent.

According to Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, what plays the greatest part in decline and disaster is despair. Like a bird which is unable to fly away due to fear --“Despair is the obstacle to all attainment and achievement.”

In Arkansas, the death of over 2500 black birds entering the New Year should symbolize America’s salvation is tied to casting away despair and in its place allow hope to reign. Said Nursi points out that despair will be defeated and hope will rule the day: “Have hope! The loudest and most powerful voice in the upheavals and changes of the future will be the voice of Islam.”

Said Nursi’s “Damascus Sermon” is a sermon on hope in which he teaches that Humanity must act resolutely to change the conditions which have brought despair within civilization.

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi states that Islam teaches Muslims to use reason and reasoned proof in order to breed understanding in this age of science, technology and reason. Islam provides for the material progress of man, and indeed urges him towards it.

For man’s true progress, hope and development in moral and spiritual matters can come from signs that may signal doom for non-believers, but signals hope from despair for the Muslim.

Robert Miranda