Why are we so determined to think our days are numbered, and so willing to bend the facts to fit our delusions? With potential sources of devastation ranging from interplanetary impacts to unstoppable pandemics, natural mega-disasters to unnatural alien invasions, global war to individual mad geniuses, there are almost endless endgame possibilities and lots of CGI fun to be had wreaking big screen havoc.
After seeing or reading such tall tales does anyone watch the skies more carefully for hostile UFOs, or in any way worry more that the end is nigh? I doubt it.
If anything the best of them leave you feeling a bit more alive. It is not easy to get our heads round the Earth having existed for billions of years, probably existing for millions if not billions more, and our own life in comparison — however long and fruitful — being an almost infinitesimally insignificant instant in the middle of it all.
So fleeting and so far from either end of the story that many of us behave like individual black holes, mentally warping time to write ourselves into the grand finale. A Reuters poll earlier this year found that nearly one in four Americans and one in seven worldwide believe the world will end during their lifetime.
In the UK the figure was less than one in Charles Piazzi Smyth, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, became convinced that the pyramid had been built not by the Egyptians but by an Old Testament patriarch perhaps Noah under divine guidance.
As such, Smyth saw theological implications in just about every measurement of the Great Pyramid, including a calculation for the End of Days. Early that year, British and Irish writers opined that the comet was a harbinger of a forthcoming invasion by Germany.
Some Parisians blamed the comet for a massive flood of the Seine River that devastated their city. Most scientists sought to reassure the public. But the damage had already been done. In , John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann wrote a best-selling book, The Jupiter Effect , warning that in March , an alignment of the major planets on the same side of the Sun would trigger a series of cosmic events - culminating in an earthquake along the San Andreas fault that would wipe out Los Angeles.
The book had an aura of credibility, since both authors were Cambridge-educated astrophysicists and Gribbin was an editor at the prestigious science magazine Nature. Several scientists criticized The Jupiter Effect , saying its argument was based on a tissue-thin chain of suppositions. It was also a best-seller. At least during this apocalyptic scare, there was someone to blame: Over the decades, computer programmers had used two, rather than four digits, to represent years.
Some pundits defended the programmers, noting that their actions had been a logical way to conserve precious computer memory and save money.
Others were less flattering. Still, panic over the Y2K Bug never quite reached the fever pitch that many anticipated. Billions of dollars were spent worldwide to fix the Y2K Bug, and debate still rages over how much of that spending was necessary. Ever since the early s, the media has reported that the Large Hadron Collider LHC could potentially create a black hole that would swallow the Earth.
The LHC—which was switched on in September —is 17 miles in circumference and buried feet beneath the Alps on the Swiss-French border. Scientific beliefs about a natural cataclysmic event that will end the world compete with religious theories.
The theme of conspiracy theory is also extremely evident throughout society today and these theories are exposed in This destruction would be caused by volcanoes and tectonic plates amongst other natural destructive forces, coinciding with Mayan Calendar prophecy. Holba also states that Gilbert connected the Mayan culture with astrology and astronomy to produce his theory of the end.
The Hopis believe we are in the fourth world. The three previous worlds have been destroyed; first by fire; second a pole shift; and finally the third world was destroyed by a flood, Apocalypsesoon. They do not believe in a definitive end but a series of chances to conform to the rules of the Hopis sacred teachings. These themes are all used in contemporary cinema today; ensuring mythmaking in film is understood universally, using the similarities of religions and beliefs.
Science has indicated that solar flares could cause problems for Earth in the future. As shown in , the neutrinos melt the Earth from the core; like a microwave. There are various scientific theories on how and when the end will come and one would suggest that a scientific explanation seems more plausible than the Rapture. Weber states how there have been many predictions which have turned out to be false. James Date unknown writes in his article, The Prophecy, that there is no set date for this event.
So the belief in whether there is a set date is arguable amongst the believers.
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