“It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
― Yogi Berra
As early as the first millennium, people have been predicting the end of the world; the first recorded one predicted that it was to occur between 66-70 A.D. After that, many more predictions followed during each millennium, more so in the current century. There were bracket-years predictions, i.e. 1368-1370 as predicted by a French alchemist in 1366. Others were more specific to the month and day and even time - October 19, 1533 at 8:00 a.m. by a mathematician named Michael Stifel.
By one count a total of 196 "published" predictions by those with considerable following - from religious leaders, spiritualists, psychics, astrologers, cult leaders, yes, even mathematicians. Nostradamus and his quatrains predicted July 1999. Charles Manson chimed in with his own prediction for 1969. Well known psychic/astrologer Jeanne Dixon, known to have predicted JFK's assassination, was a best seller author and syndicated columnist, predicted April 4,1962 then later revised it to 2020. They were all wrong.
Of course, we know now, at least through today anyway, since you are reading this, that indeed none of those predictions happened.
Now, why were they taken seriously at first, or at least up to the moment they were proven wrong? Several reasons. Some had charisma, religion played a role, cult following and mass hysteria, etc. In some cases, psychics and astrologers made so many predictions that if a handful somehow came vaguely close, or interpreted to be close enough, they were highlighted by their proponents while ignoring the rest that were even blatantly wrong. In the case of Nostradamus, his predictions were so vague that it was all about how they were interpreted and made to fit certain actual events.
Keep in mind the power of numbers. Let's say ten million people read their horoscope every day. Even if one horoscope proved correct for just 1% of the readers on that day, that would still have been 100,000 people. The following day's horoscope, with the same 1% rate of accuracy, would have another 100,000 people getting correct predictions (some from the previous number, some would be new "hits") . Over time that will multiply into some kind of meaningful statistical mass; enough to keep readership at a sustainable level of interest, including those who read them purely for entertainment.
At this point, we can assume, given the level of incredulity over past end-of-the-world prophecies cited above, that any future predictions along the same path are likely to be wrong. But wait, we still have several waiting for the next centuries to unfold. One scientist predicts 2026, two spiritual leaders have 2026 and 2028 predicted - one due to an asteroid hit, and another based on the rapture.
There are three predictions for the 22nd and 23rd centuries. Two have specific dates of Dec. 30, 2129 and another for Sept. 30, 2239. Egyptian-American biochemist, Rashad Khalifa, predicts 2280. Most predictors usually refer to their prophecies to occur during their lifetime. The last one stuck his neck out to a specific date two hundred years from now.
Then there are far out into the future predictions that will be beyond any reasonable fact checking because the earliest is 300,000 years to a few billion years from now. Then there's one that simply predicts a mathematical number of 10 followed by 100 zero years into the universe's future. For certain, our sun has a finite mass that it loses at the rate of 4000 tons per second. It will be a matter of time before it ends it's energy giving existence, albeit, not for another 2-3 billion years. 10 followed by 100 zeros are the number of years for when the universe will be so spread out that all of space will have zero energy. So, there we have it.
Now, how about actual events long before we were here from fossil evidence that led to the decimation of innumerable species. Mass extinction happened at least five times. However, each "end-of-time event" did not occur as one day events, except for one. Climate changes took thousands of years to complete. There were intense volcanic activities, changes in solar radiation, plate tectonics, severe changes in ocean chemistry, prolonged drought, all kinds of ecological imbalances, etc. Then there was that one-day event 65 million years ago when an asteroid hit what is now the Yucatan Peninsula on the Gulf of Mexico. It wiped out the dominant species of dinosaurs. Extinction of 50% of all species followed, which then ushered the rise of warm blooded animals, including mammals, from which our earliest ancestors arose.
So, end-of-time events did occur a few times. No written records of any kind of predictions from dinosaur-prophets because even though they ruled for perhaps 160 million years none of them could write. But there were plenty of fossil records from that one event and prior to and after, which allowed scientists to piece together a history of several end-of-times that resulted in the extinction of 99% of all species that ever lived.
Natural calamities happened and will happen again.
We have our own history, replete with humanity's proclivity to make war with one another. But only now, the present time, when we actually have the ability to unleash the most powerful weapons against each other. Mass casualties never before experienced in battle happened during the last two world wars, Chemical weapons were used in WWI and in WWII two atomic bombs were dropped over Japan that ended the Pacific War, just three months after the European conflict was put to an end.
Today, with the amount of nuclear weapons stockpiled in the hands of several nations, humanity has finally achieved the ability to wipe out life on earth several times over. This is the modern-day sword of Damocles hanging over the entire world. Generally speaking, such worries do not preoccupy everyone's thoughts constantly but every now and then it has a way of sneaking into people's consciousness or loudly intrudes in conversation of either sociological or political nature. What is the average person to make of it? How does anyone know?
There remains one resource coming from the world's several religions, including from the three major faiths of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Almost without exception, each of them has a prediction on end-of-time future events written in texts that when taken together seem to follow along the same vein. The most common theme being that of the return of the Messiah or Mahdi.
Without leaning one way or another, basis our own personal faith, there is a way to synthesize what appears to be a general common theme, in a non-prejudicial manner. First let's get in here a not-too-familiar word but will be quickly followed with a definition: Eschatology is defined as "the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind". It is therefore the study of “last things”
In almost every religious eschatology, apocalyptic texts are always part of the entire message. Given that almost all of them were written in the early centuries A.D., some of the predictions, according to some religious and geopolitical analysts alike, could only be referencing to today or the near future. While the world had always been visited by catastrophes like earthquake, famine, diseases and the regularly occurring wars in the past, most opinions from the same analysts seem to point to calamities that can happen only today or at some future time.
Do they have a point? Well, we can ponder a few things. By no means that these are the only ones.
As mentioned earlier, the world today, not centuries ago, has the capability to destroy itself with weapons of mass destruction not limited to nuclear but chemical and biological as well. We know now from the Covid experience that the rapidity of transportation and ease of movement across boundaries can easily disperse pathogens several times more quickly than how the Bubonic plague and the Spanish flu did. Intentional dispersion by warring nations will only intensify the speed.
The quote from Matthew 24:6, "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.." can only be true in today's world-wide-web of the internet; clearly not so in ancient times or even as late as the 19th century when news across borders moved at glacial pace. During those times, only those geographically close to the conflict would hear about wars and only later when historians would write about them that people would know about wars. Today's instantaneous cable news and social media make hearing about "wars and rumors of wars" a timely reality.
With 8 billion people and counting, it is not difficult to imagine the severity of famine that is predicted in the apocalyptic texts of many religions. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and other versions of carriers of doom in the other texts, will seem to have a clearer path than at any other time previously. The third horseman symbolized "a food merchant, rides a black horse symbolizing famine and carries the scales."
Let's stop with the gloom and doom at this point because as bad as the amount of tribulation being dispensed by the various eschatological texts, there is in every case the moment of redemption that is more hopeful. That is the good news. Unfortunately, this is even more a point of contention between belief systems that only results in more division. Let us not forget that several conflicts in the past were precipitated by religious differences, either as the whole reason or in part.
What we are left with is back to Yogi Berra's charming thought about prediction. In truth, predicting is not only hard, it is impossible, in human terms, that is.
We will not be able to predict when the end time is. However many texts there are from various sources of faith, that moment is and cannot be known. The New Testament that Christians around the world refer to, says exactly that.
Mark 13:32. King James Version .. But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
That is where we are today.
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