Why so many predictions of the end of the world?

[Borticus]

Every year there seems to be some crackpot pastor or theist, that believes the world will end soon. This year we already have two pastors saying the world will end either in January with the blood moon. And in December. Even though the Bible says nobody will know the hour of the time it’ll happen. Why do these Christians go on claiming when the end will occur, when their book says otherwise?

[1989]

Attention whores?

 

Seriously.  When Harold Camping predicted the end of the world his followers sent him all kinds of cash.  Some people sent or spent their entire life's savings.  It made a hell of a lot headlines but in the end it ruined a lot of lives.  The problem isn't the crackpots who make wild predictions, but the crackpots who believe them.

[wellnamed]

Despite the fact that the N.T. proclaims that no one knows when, it's still clearly the case that the biblical texts contain this eschatological view of time, that there's a linear flow of events leading inexorably towards a conclusion. And I also think people intuitively grasp that it's a bit awkward to have that expectation sort of floating out there in space for thousands of years, when Jesus seemed to imply that it would be much shorter (e.g. Matthew 24:34). So I think that's important background that primes people to think in those terms. It's easy for people to think "the end must be soon" and so on. And then you add the fact that people are often attracted to secret knowledge, searching for patterns, and so on and it's not surprising that there's some subset of Christians that get obsessed with end-times prophecy. If Christianity didn't contain that background expectation then they'd probably just get obsessed with some other idea that allowed them to exercise those same tendencies, like people who become interested in bible codes, or things like that.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

31 minutes ago, 1989 said:

Attention whores?

 

Seriously.  When Harold Camping predicted the end of the world his followers sent him all kinds of cash.  Some people sent or spent their entire life's savings.  It made a hell of a lot headlines but in the end it ruined a lot of lives.  The problem isn't the crackpots who make wild predictions, but the crackpots who believe them.

So they lost their money.  Big deal.  It's not the end of the world.  

[LogicalFallacy]

16 hours ago, Borticus said:

Every year there seems to be some crackpot pastor or theist, that believes the world will end soon. This year we already have two pastors saying the world will end either in January with the blood moon. And in December. Even though the Bible says nobody will know the hour of the time it’ll happen. Why do these Christians go on claiming when the end will occur, when their book says otherwise?

 

Humanity as a whole seems rather obsessed with predicting the end of the world. Christians are simply the modern iteration of this affliction.

[reverendturmoil]

On 1/18/2019 at 1:04 PM, wellnamed said:

Despite the fact that the N.T. proclaims that no one knows when, it's still clearly the case that the biblical texts contain this eschatological view of time, that there's a linear flow of events leading inexorably towards a conclusion. And I also think people intuitively grasp that it's a bit awkward to have that expectation sort of floating out there in space for thousands of years, when Jesus seemed to imply that it would be much shorter (e.g. Matthew 24:34). So I think that's important background that primes people to think in those terms. It's easy for people to think "the end must be soon" and so on. And then you add the fact that people are often attracted to secret knowledge, searching for patterns, and so on and it's not surprising that there's some subset of Christians that get obsessed with end-times prophecy. If Christianity didn't contain that background expectation then they'd probably just get obsessed with some other idea that allowed them to exercise those same tendencies, like people who become interested in bible codes, or things like that.

Mathew 24:34 doesn't imply 'much shorter.'  There's no doubt the generation Jesus was referring to was the generation of people who saw the events PASS that he previously mentioned between V. 3-33.

 

Predicting the end of the world has been an obsession in almost all of Christianity's sects.  The JW'S predicted it several times, 1874, 1914, 1918, and 1925.  Then what I think has really thrown people into an end of the world tantrum is those who try to figure out Daniel's 70th week.  So many Christians are preoccupied with it.  The worse of all are those who are obsessed with pre-trib.  There's a bunch of those fools on Youtube, "rapture and moment," - "rapture any second," - "Rapture imminent," - "Blood moon next week, rapture imminent."  One pre-trib fool/pastor puts out as many as 3 videos a day and gets about 4,000 views within a day.  

This is the way I look at it.....

What will be the sign of "end of the world?"  That was the question posed to Jesus in Mathew 24:3, and what prompted that question was Jesus' comment, "See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down."  We have to look at what words they used to figure out what they're asking.  Mathew 24 has 3 different words for 'end' and three different words for 'world' in it, and the word 'world' is a really bad translation of 'aion' which is a 'time period'.  'End' in verse three is better understood as a completion or consummation,  i.e. the completion of a/this time period.

The Preterist view is ridiculous.  They know the 'age' began in 33AD but say it ended in 70AD.  The futurist view is more accurate as long as pre-trib is taken out of it. 

So Jesus responded by saying, "Take heed that no man deceive you."  Then went on to give over a dozen signs that preceede the completion of the time period. That 'time period' is the time period the gospel would be preached and then done with.  V. 14.
So what's the end of that time period?  

It's believed the earth will outlive it's usefullness in 7,000 years.  The time period after this one ends last 1,000 years, called the millennium.  We are approaching the end of 6,000 years since Adam which means this age is soon to end.  According to that thinking, the end will come no sooner than 2030, and no later than 2043.  My GUESS is 2033. Did Jesus give us any definite sign to look for that triggers the end?  Maybe.  He said, "See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down."

There's still one stone standing upon one another.  When the Western Wall falls, that's when the defecation hits the rotating oscillator.

[◊ DestinyTurtle ◊]

There's two sides to this: predator (the pastor)'s side and the prey (the believer)'s side. From the predator/manipulator's perspective it's a well known strategy to imbue people with a false sense of alarmism and urgency in order to psych them into compromising themselves, like giving you money. Just look at the hoax emails in your spam folder for examples of this. The other side, I think, is that irresponsible/selfish people are seduced by the idea that everything is going to be over soon and that they'd be beamed out of everything before they have to face the consequences of their choices. Maybe it's a combination of selfishness and overwhelm by fear/guilt. Anyways, most people don't adequately take responsibility for their life or take ownership of their future, so it's easier to pretend like there is no future at all, or the future is a daydream in which you will be personally congratulated and validated by Jesus himself. 

[Wertbag]

I saw a Christian say the generation that Jesus spoke of starts with the rebirth of Israel, so 1948. How did he get there? Take a large shoe horn and ram it till it fits. 

 

To my mind if your doomsday doesn't get its own movie it really wasn't hyped enough. Y2K really set the standard for apocalypses with 2012 a close second. I think the trick is to get passed the rapture and include other reasons to pad out your theory. Stick a super volcano, planetary alignment, or ancient calendar in the mix and you'll really get things jumping. Y2K had the genius idea that every chip would die, even those with no date function cos reasons. Let your imagination run wild with what happens and you get a $200 million Hollywood budget to tell your story.