It’s the end of the world as we know it… again
For those of you who have been following this blog for a while, you may remember a post I did way back on May 21, 2011. That was supposed to be Judgement Day (the start of the end of the world in Christian belief) according to an obscure group of believers following the preaching of Harold Camping.
Obviously, that didn't happen.
In the spirit of this Friday's (potential) Doomsday, I thought I would re-post my post from that (non)fateful day in 2011.
But don't worry, NASA and archeologists everywhere highly doubt it will happen.
Happy reading! It will be nice to curl up with a book around the smoldering fires left after the asteroid hits 😉
A colleague of mine has posted another list (with more fiction) here.
I also found this post in one of the blogs I follow full of interesting stuff.
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Original Post from May 21, 2011
In case you haven't heard, today is Judgement Day according to an
obscure but very vocal group of believers following the preaching of
Harold Camping.
Camping estimates that about 3-4% of the world's population – those
that are truly faithful – will rise into heaven, followed by five
months of earthquakes and other plagues and disasters until the world
officially ends on October 21, 2011.
Are you quaking in your boots yet? I wouldn't be too worried, Mr.
Camping has been wrong before. He first predicted the apocalypse would
happen back in 1994…
In fact, there has been a number of doomsday predictions over the years.
Here is some great reading on eschatology, the study of the end of the world:
The Apocalypse : A Brief History by Martha Himmelfarb
Boston University has a great web page with an Apocalyptic Glossary
A History of the End of the World by Jonathan Kirsch reveals how the most controversial book in the Bible changed the course of Western civilization.
Time magazine's online article
published yesterday also gives a great summary of apocalypse
predictions and end-of-the-world dates that have come (and gone) over
the last couple hundred years.
2 thoughts on “It’s the end of the world as we know it… again”
Many years ago, the Australian music group The Seekers sang a song containing these lines:
The Lord sits high above on judgment day
All mankind’s going to pass away
Perhaps the haunting minor key in which this lyric is set gave it a special potency, but I can remember suddenly realizing that they were right. One day, all humankind will pass away… not maybe, if we aren’t careful or don’t play our cards right, but inevitably and for certain in the natural order of things. Everything that comes into existence eventually leaves it; neither our planet nor the star that is our sun nor the universe itself is immortal. Current evidence suggests that the Earth has already cycled more than half-way through its lifespan.
Of course, we know this is true; it just isn’t a realization we’re inclined to take out and confront very often. Scoff as we may at doomsayers who link our end with their own curious mythologies and often bizarre epistemologies, the long-term prognosis is solidly on their side. The only issue is the timing—so let’s hope current predictions are way off because I’ve put a lot of very expensive Christmas presents under the tree this year!
Hi Mark. Thanks for your comment.
Of course you’re right, but I hope that it doesn’t happen any time soon! I’m looking forward to the holidays too 🙂