The world has been ending for thousands of years. Early Christians believed the end would happen in their lifetime and that the Roman Empire represented the last gasp of humanity. As it turns out, it was one of the first gasps in the birth of the modern world in which we live. In the year 1000, medieval millenialists nervously wondered if the addition of a digit to the way we count our years would herald the end. It would seem it didn’t. A thousand years later people wondered if the change in that digit would result in a mass computer failure that would reverberate around the world and cause a major disruption of society to the point of the world regressing to the stone age. Didn’t quite happen that way.
In fact, in the hundreds of millennial predictions, sects, and beliefs that have surfaced since the death of Christ, and before, not a single one has come to pass. The world may seem close to the abyss, but it never quite makes that last step needed to cross the edge. In fact, it often seems in hindsight that it was never on that last step at all, but more than a day’s walk away.
Now we approach the next round of dire predictions. From the end of the Mayan Calendar in 2012, to the last Pope prophesized by St. Malachi to come after the current one, to religious-based predictions that the end must be near as the current state of affairs in the world must be omens signaling the end, we unfortunately will never have the answer until the world actually decides to take the last baby step off the cliff.
Oddly, Nostradamus seems the odd man out in this orgy of prediction that seems to be gripping the world of those who study things paranormal. He doesn’t predict the end of the world until thousands of years from now, if ever.
I can’t help but wonder why the end of the world preoccupies us so much. For all the predictions and doomsday talk, Chances are, we’ll never see it coming. It could come in the form of an asteroid impact, or even a supernova silently bombarding us with lethal doses of radiation. Or it could be one of the religious predictions that comes true, but in this case, it might not be such a good idea to try to read the mind of God and blow the big secret before the almighty has a chance to finish his plan. You might just invite his judgment for such a thing.
I think the reason is psychological. Some need an order to dismiss the chaos of world affairs. It becomes comforting, perhaps, to see a great earthquake with a horrendous loss of life and see it in the context that it means something. We watch the economic troubles of today, and maybe it makes more sense for them to be part of the divine plan for the earth’s end, rather than mistakes stemming from greed and poor financial infrastructure. The problem is though, we’ve seen all of this before, and the first time around none of them turned out to be indicative of the end. In fact, the world has been in almost constant calamity for two thousand years, leading many to believe that the time in which they lived were the end times. For most of these people, it wasn’t.
I can’t say for certain, nor can I say that I hope I’m wrong, but I think it would be prudent for all of us to take all the talk of the end being near with a grain of salt, especially as 2012 approaches, and those on the crazier end of the spectrum start thinking of making up a batch of koolaid. Chances are, these are not the end times, rather they are the times in which we live. When the end does truly come, whether its tomorrow or a thousand years from now, it will likely be inevitable and unchangeable by the time we know about it, and if it is divine in nature, we will be the last beings in the universe that can stop it. So why do we worry so?
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Re-check your info on Nostradamus – according to a recent program on the History Channel, Nostradamus DID feel that some novel event involving the center of our Galaxy would happen in December 2012.
the end of the word is a christian concept, and something christianity is alternately fearing and anticipating with glee.
many christians are looking forward to it because they feel smug superiority in that they will be saved while their lowly neighbors will not. they plan to revel in their neighbors destruction.
their god is an angry vengeful and destructive god. “he” is just waiting to pull the rug out from under us, because humans cannot be allowed to be too successful, or have too much control over creation. it is unseemly, and prideful!! this is why god refused the gifts of cain, they were gifts he had created, and thus he challenged god.
the mayan calendar ended in 2012 because that’s when their calendar ended, just like ours ends on dec 31. and their culture was destroyed before they were able to complete the next cycle. it’s just that simple.
the article was a very interesting look at destruction fever, but failed to mention (the more secular end of times) Y2K. My brother-in-law was very much looking forward to the end of technology, business, government and education. (at least until he needed police protection, emergency help or medical care, but i don’t think he thought that far ahead) Y2K would have made all that time he spend hoarding junk and chopping wood worth it.
I’d like to point out that the ‘end of the world’ isn’t just a Christian concept. It’s also found in the Hindu puranas, the Buddhist Maitreya myths and in the myths of the Hopi indians and virtually every indigenous tribe around the world. Virtually all of these traditions speak of a Golden Age that devolves into a Dark Age.
Though it will not mean much coming from me, a total stranger, I personally experienced a spiritual revelation on 12.12.05 that these were indeed the ‘end times’. Prior to this event I was a dyed in the wool skeptic and agnostic. Sadly it’s impossible to prove to others that my experience was more than just my ‘imagination’, but I still tell people from time to time in hopes that it will plant a seed.
We are really spiritual beings living a spiritual experience that we only believe is physical. The Hindus teach that we’ve become “ensnared” or trapped in the illusion of this world. The Buddhist teach that this world of ours is more akin to that of a dream.
The events happening now are related to precessional cycles and the cycles of the zodiac – which is why so many traditions make heavy use of the number ‘12′ (i.e. the 12 tribes of israel, Jesus the ‘Sun” and his 12 apostles, King Arthur and his 12 knights of the round table, the 12 Imams of islam, etc.)
I urge others to keep an open mind about these times, and not immediately dismiss them because the end date has been predicted numerous times and never happened. The Hindu puranas teach that the end times are really a 5,000 year long period. This is why prophets and others have been saying the end is nigh, because we’ve been living the end times all this time.
Even if you know when the end of the world is coming, what will you do about it? Get off the planet? The Earth may not end for many many years, on the other hand tomorrow you could get hit by a bus or a flying monkey and die.