The End Has Been Nigh

Introduction

I wrote about the impending rapture[1] five months ago, because Harold Camping had predicted that the rapture would occur on 21 May 2011.  Since it (quite noticeably) did not occur, he has since revised the details of his prediction.  Apparently, although there was not a physical rapture, 21 May was the day when everyone was judged and the effects of that judgment will become physically manifest tomorrow, on 21 October 2011.[2]  There is a Christian tract on eBible Fellowship further explaining this prophecy, which seems to be based mostly on picking some numbers from the Bible and using them to do some basic arithmetic.[3]  (I should correct an error in my previous entry about this topic.  The tribulation, according to this message, will not be after the rapture.  Rather, the tribulation ended on 21 May and the five months from then to now have been the judgment period.  Why would it take an omnipotent God five months to implement the full effects of his judgment?)  On the Family Radio website, there is a special message, dated 10/20/2011 (yesterday), in which the writer instructs the saved to still pray for others, since we cannot know who was saved and who was not.[4]  (Perhaps this five month time period is time for people to worry about whether they were saved or not and an incentive to encourage/threaten more people into believing?  Then again, according to the prophecy, this was all decided before time began, so one wonders why God could not have set up a better system in the first place.)

The End is Nigh Yet Again

“He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly.  Amen.  Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” (Revelation 22:20 KJV Bible)

Judgment Day, and other events that that are the topic of religious prophecy, seem to be perpetually near while never quite arriving.  The penultimate verse in the Book of Revelation (quoted above) shows the promise that Jesus would return quickly and, and many believers eagerly await his return.  This never-ending wait, the repeated delays, serve to instill doubt in me about the veracity of such prophecies, and I find it difficult to believe that there are others who continue to believe in  the ability of preachers to predict the future.

While it is understandable that we wonder about the future of our species, the planet Earth, and the universe, a feeling a feeling of regret about their destruction seems more appropriate than eager anticipation.  I cannot help feel a sense of betrayal when I hear that some of my fellow human beings desire the destruction of all existence and, even worse, believe that God is justified in sending many people to Hell.  In the long arc of the future, there will come a day when this planet no longer exists, but rather than looking forward to that day, rather than seeking a quicker religion-based end, we should seek to make this world a better place.

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Acknowledgements

I found the tract at eBible Fellowship via JT Eberhard of What Would JT Do? (at Freethought Blogs).[5]

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References[1] Sharmin, Ani.  On the (Once Again) Impending Rapture.  Posted on 21 May 2011 at The Eternal Bookshelf.  Retrieved on 20 October 2011 from http://eternalbookshelf.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/on-the-once-again-impending-rapture/.

[2] What Happened on May 21?  Posted at Family Radio.  Retrieved on 20 October 2011 from http://www.familyradio.com/x/whathappened.html.

[3] The End of the World October 21, 2011.  Posted at eBible Fellowship and last revised 20 August 2009.  Retrieved on 20 October 2011 from http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/outreach/tracts/may21/.

[4] Special Message 10/20/2011:  Having Had Mercy, Have Mercy!  Posted at Family Radio.  Retrieved on 21 October 2011 from http://www.familyradio.com/x/message.html.

[5] Eberhard, JT.  It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).  Posted on 20 October 2011 at What Would JT Do? (WWJTD).  Retrieved on 20 October 2011 from http://freethoughtblogs.com/wwjtd/2011/10/20/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-i-feel-fine-2/.

On the (Once Again) Impending Rapture

²⁴ But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,

²⁵ And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.

²⁶ And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.

²⁷ And then shall he send angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

²⁸ Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:

²⁹ So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.

³⁰ Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.

³¹ Heaven and earth shall pass away:  but my words shall not pass away.

³² But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

³³ Take ye heed, watch and pray:  for ye know not when the time is.

³⁴ For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.

³⁵ Watch ye therefore:  for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning:

³⁶ Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.

³⁷ And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.

(Mark 13:24-37 KJV Bible)[1]

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That’s how it goes, you think you’re on top of the world, and suddenly they spring Armageddon on you.  The Great War, the Last Battle, Heaven versus Hell, three rounds, one Fall, no submission.  And that’d be that.  No more world.  That’s what the end of the world meant.  No more world.  Just endless Heaven or, depending on who won, endless Hell.  Crowley didn’t know which was worse. (Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens)[2]

A Letter:  A Message to the Left Behind

Brethren,

It has come to my attention that the world is about to come to an end[3] with the rapture occurring on May 21, 2011 at 6 p.m. in each local time zone, starting in the Pacific Rim.[4]  Some Christians are even spending their time spreading the message, ignoring their soon-to-be irrelevant earthly concerns.[5]  Reports and commentary on The Day to End All Days will be coming in from the godless in several time zones as the wave of God’s wrath ripples over existence.[6]  We have much to look forward to.  Those of us who have not accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior will be left behind while true Christian believers[7] will be ratured up to Heaven.

As those of us who will be left prepare for the upcoming tribulation, I would like to express my sentiment that all is not lost.  This is a battle, the other side believes, with an already-settled outcome, but we will prevail in the end.  Why do I believe this?  A deity who has created a world such as ours, with its vastly imperfect nature, cannot himself be perfect.  He must have a weakness which we can use to bring about his defeat and destruction.  We will fight and we will win, and we will show that the altruism and cooperation of humanity can defeat any tyrant, even one who considers himself Almighty.

As long as there is life, there is hope.

Sincerely yours,

Your fellow godless heathen, Ani Sharmin

P. S.  In the extremely likely event that the rapture does not happen, please keep the altruism and cooperation in mind.

It’s The End of the World Yet Again

He [Newton] showed that comets, like planets, move in ellipses:  “Comets are a sort of planets revolved in very eccentric orbits about the Sun.”  This demystification, this prediction of regular cometary orbits, led his friend Edmund Halley in 1707 to calculate that the comets of 1531, 1607 and 1682 were apparitions at 76-year intervals of the same comet, and predicted its return in 1758.  The comet duly arrived and was named for him posthumously. (Carl Sagan, Cosmos)[8]

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Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

(Robert Frost, Fire and Ice)[9]

Prophecies, especially those concerning the end of the world, are not uncommon in the history of humanity, or even in the history of the Christianity.  We humans seem fascinated with our own demise, a fascination which can be both enlightening and frightening, sometimes simultaneously.  A discussion about the possible events that could occur leading to the end of humanity, the end of Earth, or the end of the universe can be thought-provoking when based on evidence and reason, when accompanied by genuine consideration of the real world.  Even entirely fictional accounts of the end of the world (whether in religious texts or other literature) can be fascinating, when read as fiction and considered a narrative from which one can draw meaning or metaphor.

Unfortunately, the doomsday prophecies that are a part of Christianity (as well as other religions) are based upon faith, rather than evidence or reason.  They ignore the realities of the world, and are therefore completely different from scientific predictions such as Edmund Halley’s prediction of the return of the comet that was later named after him.  As a fictional story, the message that the rapture narratives send is one of an unreasonable and hateful deity who destroys those who do not worship him and rewards his followers, teaching them to look forward to the destruction of their own world and species.  There is also a certain arrogance in end of times predictions; they often assume that ours is the chosen generation, the one that will live to see the End in all its glory.

Whenever religious leaders take the responsibility of predicting the date of the end times onto their shoulders (which were not meant to carry such weight) other Christians are quick to denounce the prediction, often citing Bible verses (such as the one from Mark 13 above) to prove that humans cannot know when the end times will occur.  In saying this, they miss the main point, which is that the ideas about the end times as described in Christianity are baseless; events such as the second coming of Jesus and the judgment of humanity, followed by a segregated afterlife based upon the whims of a deity, are equally ridiculous whether one believes they will occur tomorrow or on an unknown date.

The end of humanity, the end of the planet Earth, the end of the universe—these are events upon which humans love to ponder, and scientists have put forth much effort in studying potential causes for these events.  At this point in human history, in addition to studying the various cosmic events that could occur leading to the ultimate end, we have also invented weaponry sufficiently advanced to bring about our own end.  Considering this fact, it is even more imperative that we use our minds and make every effort to improve our future.  A mindset which recommends ignoring potential dangers to our homeworld and encourages actions which will hasten our demise is not one which has relevant or useful contributions to offer in achieving this goal.  It is in our ability to think, not our ability to literally believe religious stories, that our salvation lies.

May the sun rise on Sunday morning over the horizon of an Earth that continues to spin and may this Earth continue to exist for a long while yet.

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References

[1] Mark 13:24-37 KJV Bible

To read online, go to http://biblia.com/bible/kjv/Mk13.24-37.

[2] Gaiman, Neil and Pratchett, Terry.  Good Omens:  The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter,Witch.  New York:  Penguin Putnam Inc., 2001 (1990), p. 11-2.

[ISBN:  0-441-00861-5]

[3] Finocchiaro, Peter.  Why the world might end next Saturday:  A group of Christian activists believe the apocalypse is May 21.  We look at the evidence and the man behind it.  Posted on May 10, 2011 at Salon.  Retrieved on May 12, 2011 from http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/05/10/rapture_may_21/index.html.

[4] Hagerty, Barbara Bradley.  Is The End Nigh?  We’ll Know Soon Enough.  Posted on May 7, 2011 at NPR.  Retrieved on May 20, 2011 from http://www.npr.org/2011/05/07/136053462/is-the-end-nigh-well-know-soon-enough.

[5] Parker, Ashley.  Make My Bed?  But You Say the World’s Ending.  Posted on May 19, 2011 at The New York Times.  Retrieved on May 20, 2011 from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/us/20rapture.html.

[6] Eberhard, JT.  It’s the end of the world as we know it…and I feel fine.  Posted on May 11, 2011 at WWJTD.  Retrieved on May 11, 2011 from http://wwjtd.net/?p=335.

[7] Eberhard, JT.  An Old Letter about “true” ™ Christianity.  Posted on April 14, 2009 at Zerowing21’s Xanga.  Retrieved on May 19, 2011 from http://zerowing21.xanga.com/698959756/an-old-letter-about-true-tm-christianity/.

[8] Sagan, Carl.  Cosmos.  New York:  Ballantine Books, 1980, Ch 4, p. 65.

[ISBN:  978-0-345-33135-9]

[9] Frost, Robert.  Fire and Ice.  Collected in:  The Poetry of Robert Frost (edited by Edward Connery Lathem).  New York:  St. Martin’s Griffin, 1975 (poem originally published in 1920), p. 220.

To read online, go to http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173527.

The Dream: On the Anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous I Have a Dream speech on August 28, 1963, and today is the anniversary of this historic event.[1] This speech has become an important part of our history, with words from which we draw hope and inspiration when we ourselves seek to improve our country and our world.

There is hope in his words, a hope that America can live up to the promises of freedom and justice on which it was founded, as he says, “But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”  Being a part of a movement for equal rights requires a hope that justice can be achieved — that there is actually good to be found in the world and in one’s fellow human beings.  The great ideas of the past, those articulated by our ancestors, inspire us and we hope that those ideas will apply in the future to everyone and not just a few.  We hope that our fellow human beings will look upon those who are different from them and know that, despite the differences, we are all human.

There is perseverance in his words combining the knowledge that the fight will be long and difficult with the belief that it will all be worthwhile.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

It can seem at some times, as it must have to those who struggled so valiantly against the segregation and discrimination during the time of Rev. Dr. King, that the battle is everlasting and ongoing and that there are so many obstacles to overcome.  Yet, they knew that they could not live with such injustice, and so they knew that no matter how long it took, the fight was worth it.  Rev. Dr. King asserts that nothing less than justice and righteousness will be enough — that living with less than this is not acceptable, and that it is important to keep fighting on until that goal is met.  This struggle and perseverance is shared by anyone who is in any such movement for equal rights, as the process of changing human minds can take time, and it is why his words mean so much to us today, offering encouragement from a person who kept working for equality even when it was difficult.

There is a dream for the future in his words, the familiar excerpt describing a future in which we would love to live and for which we hope.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

His speech, and this section of it especially, is often quoted and often looked upon as a great moment in our nation’s history, as his words echo down the years in our minds and hearts today.  We look forward, as did those who were there that day, to a better future for all.  We look at all that has been accomplished thanks to their hard work and hope that we are contributing in any way that we can.  Even if we never see the perfect future that is envisioned, we know that Rev. Dr. King and the many who worked with him contributed greatly to moving humanity in the right direction and we hope that our species will continue to move forward, getting closer to the day when we all consider each other “sisters and brothers”.

While listening to a recording of the speech, one can hear the crowd clapping and cheering, motivated by his moving words.  Ultimately, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (though he was just a human) and this speech (though it was only a few minutes in the vast history of time and located in one tiny place in the vast universe) remind us of so much more.  They remind us of all of the anonymous people who were standing there that day and of all the people throughout human history who have likewise stood up to injustice.  Ultimately, such movements and struggles for justice are not about any one person or any few minutes of an important day, but about all of those people whose lives are affected daily by discrimination and whose lives are made better when justice prevails.

It is in them and in their hopes for a better future that the dream lives.

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References

[1] King, Jr., Martin Luther.  I Have a Dream speech from August 28, 1963.  Text and audio found on American Rhetoric.  Retrieved on August 27, 2010 from http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm.