There is something in the human gene pool that thrives on disaster. We slow down to view car crashes. We delight in the demise of celebrity. We expect the worst from every situation. And when it comes to anticipating Armageddon, we’ve been there many times before.
- In the year 1000 CE (Common Era), Christian authorities predicted the second coming of Christ (or anti-Christ, depending on your source) and the world panicked.
- When that misfired, they claimed that they “forgot” to add in the age of Christ at death, making 1033 yet another frenzied debacle.
- France 1100, Guibert of Nagent’s pre-emptive crusader attack on Jerusalem was inspired by the imminent arrival of the anti-Christ.
- Germany 1300, the return to the tyrannical rule of evil Emperor Frederick II from 100 years before was anticipated to punish the church ahead of Christ’s return.
- In 1500, Martin Luther proclaimed that within 300 years, the “kingdom of abominations would be overthrown.”
- The year 1666 (equipped with 666 satanic overtones) inspired omens of disaster and the Great Fire of London was the “Devil’s Deed”.
- England 1800, the Reverend Edward Bishop Elliot of Trinity College, Cambridge published a massive work proclaiming the end was near.
- The 1978 Jonestown “revolutionary suicides” were driven by the fear of capitalist intervention, control and disaster.
- The 1997 Heaven’s Gate beam-us-up-we’re-ready suicides were based on the return of the Hale-Bopp comet and the “recycling” of everything on the planet.
- The year 2000 software-meltdown/end-of-world/non-event was hell for business owners, but was heaven for COBOL engineers.
- May 5, 2005 (050505) came and went without as much as a whimper, as will October 10, 2010, November 11, 2011 and December 12, 2012.
So it goes. Over the last two milennia there have been thousands of doom-slinging monkeys at thousands of end-of-days typewriters, and none has drafted a passable apocalypse. For many more examples, try googling “failed disaster predictions.”
The Greeks gave us a word for it: Eschatology. A mixture of philosophy and theology, it is the study of the “end.” Where most philosophers apply the concept as a metaphor for change, most religions profess the “end of days” as an actual future event. Terms such as “human destiny,” “final events,” “end of the world,” “Armageddon,” “consumption,” “apocalypse,” “doomsday,” etc., have crept into the vernacular as a means of describing an anthropocentric event that is fundamentally based on bedtime-story folklore.
As a species, we love not only our tragedies, but our happy endings too. Religious institutions have managed to bundle our greatest fears and anxieties with our wildest hopes and dreams, a manipulating package that offers the perfect mix of guilt, teamwork, disaster and redemption.
For all 2012 postings, click on Category Fecality 2012 at right —>