Apocalypse Prophecies

We humans have some sort of weird obsession with the End of the World. Not just now, but always.  

D'OH

If Family Radio (and their supporters) have it right, it may come at the end of this month. According to others, sometime next year. If you’ve looked around a bit, you’ll know it wouldn’t be the first time in the history of mankind that people have looked at some old books or up at the sky and decided, “Well, this is it! Time to stop planning for the future, because there isn’t one.”

While listening to NPR the other night, I heard a couple who believe in the May 21st date speaking about what they’ve been doing since they believe that the end of the world, or at least the beginning of the end, is coming in just over a week: and everyone who is a truly faithful Christian will be lifted up to heaven. They have budgeted everything so that by the time the 21st rolls around, they will have absolutely nothing left in their savings. The wife (or at least girlfriend, I wasn’t sure from just listening) commented at one point that they have a baby daughter. I admire their faith and resolve, but I was somewhat aghast at the fact that they hadn’t decided to leave just a little money - just in case - because the idea that the world will end on the 21st wasn’t exactly divinely issued.

This guy looks legit.

It comes from Harold Camping, the leader of what I’m fairly sure could be referred to as a Christian cult (in the sense that it is a alternate form of Christianity headed by a questionable leader) that‘s buying up billboards and doing a bus tour to spread the word.

What people should know about Camping is that he is a millionaire, not an priest or preacher, and not a bible scholar. He is the president of Family Radio (out of California) and has a thing for crunching numbers. The bulk of his money comes from people who follow him devotedly, and he keeps them in tow with a combination of charisma, and fear for the future and their souls. He claims to have developed a mathematical system for reading prophecies for specific dates out of the bible - but the there are certain truths that need to be addressed. Not only does he use modern translations of the bible as his only resource, but he doesn’t speak either Hebrew or Aramaic, or Greek, which would allow him to at least use un-translated (and at least theoretically) more accurate versions of scripture. Also, Camping has predicted the end of the world not once, but ten times in the past, and as I’m still here, I’m pretty certain that this date isn’t going to be any more significant than the others he’s nailed down as the certain date of the rapture.

Still, people really do believe in him, and are planning their lives around the idea that the world is going to end, and that if they believe hard enough, they’ll be saved.

What about the so called Mayan Prophecy? There’s tons of books out now, on everything from how to survive the end of the world, to how to get your affairs in order before it occurs, to why and how it’s going to happen. Why are so many so certain? Where does it even come from? It all boils down to the supposed 'fact' that the ancient Mayan calendar, (apparently ‘amazingly accurate!’ Regarding astrological events ) 'ends' on December 21st of 2012. People are claiming that some sort of cataclysm is going to end the world - our poles will shift suddenly, or the earth with crash into the Sun, the moon into the earth, or a giant meteor/rogue planet will collide with us, or a massive solar flare will reach out and burn us to a crisp.

Any reason to believe in this?

Well, for one thing, does the end of your 2011 calendar mean that the world is going to end - or does it mean that it’s time to buy a new calendar? And while the Mayan Calendar is very mathematically precise, it doesn’t exactly line up with the Gregorian Calendar (the one most western countries use today). If you follow the Mayan Calendar (and there are actually multiple forms!), you know that it functions like your typical rolling counter - once it passes 9, it ticks back over to 0 and starts again. The end of the Calendar just means the start of the next calendar cycle. The December 21st date comes from shaky attempts to line up the two calendars - some schools of thought say that the real date has already passed, while others claim it’s still years away. The simple truth is that there isn’t a Mayan End of the World Prophecy - anyone saying otherwise is probably trying to sell you something.

Yes, the Bible does say the world is going to end - and if Revelations is anywhere near accurate and not just symbolic, it’s going to suck big time for everyone on Earth. But we’re forgetting a lot of the point by just focusing on the idea of the end.

“"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” - Matthew 24:36 (NIV ©1984) (provide link)

And soon after:

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” - Matthew 24:42 (NIV ©1984) (link to this)

If you’re a Christian going by scripture, it says right in there that no one is going to know when it happens. To say otherwise is, by that belief, not only wrong but blasphemous. If you’re Christian, you’re not supposed to be worrying all about the end of the world, but standing vigilant and righteous and living a good life according to scripture so that when it comes, you’ll go to heaven.

And while there is no mystic prophecy from the Mayans and Hopis (which, by the way, it terrible just for portraying native cultures as 'magical' or 'mystic') regarding 2012, the Mayans do believe in an end - so what about the Mayan belief in the End of the World? They held that ends weren’t ENDS, but Transitions - the beginnings of new cycles. Emphasis is put into how to enter the new cycle in a good way, more than anything else. The Mayans believed in world ages, and if you believe in the 2012 prophecy, you should know that we’re living in the 4th era according to the Mayans. That’s right - according to their myths, 'The End' has already happened three times, and The Beginnings followed right after. The belief is that each of the succeeding worlds was an improvement on the last, at that.

As for all the worries about what’s going to happen then, and all the horrifying events that are supposed to take place in the sky? While Science may not be right all the time, I’m pretty confident that if there WAS a whole planet or giant meteor headed our way in time to smash into us by the Christmas season next year, we would have spotted it by now - and there are no credible predictions about anything headed our way. Black holes suddenly appearing, or the sun collapsing suddenly, are pseudoscience at best and complete bunk at worst.

I think if people took a step back and realized that most of the people hyping the ‘End of the World’ were also selling books, movies, or CD’s all about it, they’d realize it’s all fear mongering for the purpose of making money. 

"But what about all the stuff that's happening now!" I can almost hear some of my non-existent readers crying. "What about the birds and fish just dying randomly? What about all the turmoil in the Middle East? Or all the new diseases?"

That is multiple books worth of things already debunked - sudden mass deaths within a species have been going on for hundreds of years, but media have only recently started paying attention to it because of the current popular focus on the 2012 'prophecies'- and it has everything to do with the terribly way we treat our planet, not dark and supernatural forces. The revolutions going on around the world are the result of human politics, not sinister invisible end-times groups. Diseases come about because of the process of evolution, and the environment we offer to viruses and micro-organisms in our world and bodies through irresponsible habits on a global scale.

My beliefs are this:

The world is going to end. Could be tomorrow, in a nuclear holocaust, or about five billion years from now when the sun burns out - that is, if we haven’t destroyed the planet ourselves by then. It’s going to happen - and we’re not going to be able to stop it. But will it happen May 21st? It might, but I don’t think so. December 21st, 2012? Maybe, but again, probably not. At least not by means of a fictional Planet hurtling through space to destroy us all.

What’s really important is to live in the Now, and be ready for Then. We live in turbulent times now, there are people in trouble now, and many of us have family and friends to attend to now. It doesn’t matter if the world ends on the 21st of this month, or millennia from now - if it happened tonight, would you be okay with how you lived your life, treated the people you love, and how you affected the world? We don’t know what the future holds, but we can do our best to be ready for it when it comes, and be happy with how we lived our lives when it rolls around. 

Personally, I’m not afraid. I’m going to continue living my life doing the best I can to enjoy it, appreciating what I have, and the people who share my days with me.

Whether nor not the world ends in my lifetime, at least spiritually, I think I’m going to be okay. May 21st, December 21st, or any other for years to come, I think I‘ll be okay.