And we intend to remain here for quite some time, thank you very much. The world keeps going, much as it has for several billion years, much as it will for millions more, long after I and everyone reading this are dead, long after humanity itself as a species ceases to exist. The world will keep going after that, until the sun expands and consumes it, far into the future. To say anything else (other than a chance collision with an asteroid) is a strange form of wishful thinking, the need to see ourselves, the times in which we live, as special.
In the meantime, religious doomsayers will come and go. And they will all, inevitably, be proven wrong given enough time. How about a listing of such dates? In 1914 the founder of what would come to be the Jehovah's Witnesses predicted the end of the world, and the outbreak of war in Europe seemed to confirm his view. Until the end didn't come, and a religion was organized around the idea that 1914 had marked a transformation in heaven. Early adherents to this new religion went on to predict the end of the world in 1925, 1932 and 1941. And those are just the predictions from the Jehovah's Witnesses. Some believers looked for the end of the world in 1966; upon the founding of Israel in 1948 many saw it as the fulfilling of Biblical prophecy and the start of the end of the world. Still waiting on that one. The famous Hal Lindsey predicted the end of the world in 1981, and the equally famous Pat Robertson (who still retains a large and loyal following) believed the end of the world would come in 1982.
Want more? Hal Lindsey's original 1981 prediction (of something he called a "Secret Rapture", whatever that means) was followed by a prediction of 1988 (the real deal). People looked to the end of the world in 2000 and now in 2011 and 2012. But we don't have to keep going forward, for when we look back in time before the 20th Century we see endless predictions of the end, all of which have failed, every single one. But have we learned anything in the nearly two thousand years of continually predicting the end of the world? Obviously not, for the end-time dates keep coming. Even the people who fell for this most recent scam, the newest date on the long list of failed prophecies, don't seem to have learned much. At least a few former May 21st believers have shrugged it off as a test of their faith and report that it has only been strengthened. They derive the wrong lesson from this whole matter, as most seem to have done. After all, who cares about May 21st when everyone knows that the real end of the world is coming next year!
It is all-too-clear that constantly being fooled and lied to has not prevented most people from continuing gullibility when it comes to apocalyptic fantasies. What we need now isn't more blind faith, it is reason, evidence and critical-thinking skills to prevent this very same phenomenon being repeated over and over again. Why should humanity continue to blunder into the future, blinders firmly attached, when we have the tools to remove those blinders and let them see more clearly? Make no mistake, this fixation on "the end" is not a harmless delusion. Real people are hurt by this. Bank accounts drained, jobs quit, relationships ended. And worse. While some prepare for the end in these relatively minor ways others seek to bring the end through violent means. Lest we forget the Heaven's Gate cult, or the menace of Iran's leaders who hope to bring about the return of the Mahdi through violence, two of many examples that could be used here.
Why can't we focus on the world in which we live, what we have here now and enjoy this place without constantly worrying about a supernatural apocalypse?
This is the time, more now than ever, to be promoting the tools of reason and skeptical thought to a populace that is all-too-easily taken in by the newest huckster, the newest doomsayer, and I ask everyone who celebrates science and reason, everyone who enjoys this life, whether or not you are personally religious, to join in promoting these indispensable tools.
In the meantime, religious doomsayers will come and go. And they will all, inevitably, be proven wrong given enough time. How about a listing of such dates? In 1914 the founder of what would come to be the Jehovah's Witnesses predicted the end of the world, and the outbreak of war in Europe seemed to confirm his view. Until the end didn't come, and a religion was organized around the idea that 1914 had marked a transformation in heaven. Early adherents to this new religion went on to predict the end of the world in 1925, 1932 and 1941. And those are just the predictions from the Jehovah's Witnesses. Some believers looked for the end of the world in 1966; upon the founding of Israel in 1948 many saw it as the fulfilling of Biblical prophecy and the start of the end of the world. Still waiting on that one. The famous Hal Lindsey predicted the end of the world in 1981, and the equally famous Pat Robertson (who still retains a large and loyal following) believed the end of the world would come in 1982.
Want more? Hal Lindsey's original 1981 prediction (of something he called a "Secret Rapture", whatever that means) was followed by a prediction of 1988 (the real deal). People looked to the end of the world in 2000 and now in 2011 and 2012. But we don't have to keep going forward, for when we look back in time before the 20th Century we see endless predictions of the end, all of which have failed, every single one. But have we learned anything in the nearly two thousand years of continually predicting the end of the world? Obviously not, for the end-time dates keep coming. Even the people who fell for this most recent scam, the newest date on the long list of failed prophecies, don't seem to have learned much. At least a few former May 21st believers have shrugged it off as a test of their faith and report that it has only been strengthened. They derive the wrong lesson from this whole matter, as most seem to have done. After all, who cares about May 21st when everyone knows that the real end of the world is coming next year!
It is all-too-clear that constantly being fooled and lied to has not prevented most people from continuing gullibility when it comes to apocalyptic fantasies. What we need now isn't more blind faith, it is reason, evidence and critical-thinking skills to prevent this very same phenomenon being repeated over and over again. Why should humanity continue to blunder into the future, blinders firmly attached, when we have the tools to remove those blinders and let them see more clearly? Make no mistake, this fixation on "the end" is not a harmless delusion. Real people are hurt by this. Bank accounts drained, jobs quit, relationships ended. And worse. While some prepare for the end in these relatively minor ways others seek to bring the end through violent means. Lest we forget the Heaven's Gate cult, or the menace of Iran's leaders who hope to bring about the return of the Mahdi through violence, two of many examples that could be used here.
Why can't we focus on the world in which we live, what we have here now and enjoy this place without constantly worrying about a supernatural apocalypse?
This is the time, more now than ever, to be promoting the tools of reason and skeptical thought to a populace that is all-too-easily taken in by the newest huckster, the newest doomsayer, and I ask everyone who celebrates science and reason, everyone who enjoys this life, whether or not you are personally religious, to join in promoting these indispensable tools.
Would you permit me to say that eschatology is a crock of shit?
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