dear Reader,
again some time has passed by without a word from your favourite editor. Seemingly …..
I am lost for words,
so to speak.
However whilst I have been in some kind of “hibernation” ,
world events since the last edition have shaped even more the future of generations to come.
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Our world never stands still…….
for better or for worse, and neither does the universe. We might believe it is static because the time spans are so epochal, but in fact the universe also changes every year, month, day, hour. Until the final day. DOOMSDAY ! ( or Judgement Day ) Let's explore, as I have currently nothing else to do |
Doomsday is a funny word,
at least funnier than Judgement Day. I have not found any reference to where the name actually comes from. Obviously it describes a bad day, not so much as in “ bad hair day” for example, but a really really bad day, a doomed day, most likely the last one we can experience, and therefore stands for “the end” or “End time” , a time period described in eschatological writings in the dominant both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic religions . The difference is that the first maintain a linear cosmology, ie with end-time scenarios of a Judgement Day including transformation and redemption. The latter have a more cyclical view of the end, with decay, redemption and rebirth. It might be obvious to the reader at this stage that none of this is based on science, but on “belief”, be it religious or otherwise. |
Painting by Michelangelo
"THE DOOMSDAY SAYERS"
My best guess is that 8 out of 10 predicted apocalyptic events have a religious connotation :
be it Rapture, Last Judgement, or any other event that would result in the
ending of humanity, our civilisation, the planet, or indeed the whole universe.
How many predicted doomsdays did we miss so far ?
Well , to be honest, more than enough to kill mankind 100 times over !
Now I have no idea where people predicting this stuff got their knowledge from,
be it by divine intervention, fevourish religious studies, or astronomical predictions,
but all I know is that it never happened , not until now that is, and probably never will, at least not in this context.
But some of these predictions at least make good reading:
- A group of astrologers in London predicted the world would end by a flood, starting in London on Feb 1, 1524, which made 20,000 Londoners leaving their homes.
- Jan Matthys predicted that the world would end on April 5, 1534, and only the city of Muenster ( Germany ) would be spared….which is or better would have been good news, as it is my own old University town.
- Cristopher Columbus wrote in his book “ Book of Prophecies” ( 1501) , that the world would come to an end in 1656…..and who would deny such an explorer authority on such an important issue.
Not surprisingly, a peak of these predictions at least in our hemisphere were during the time of "Reformation",
this big upheavel, the fight for the "right" belief,
accompanied with religiously induced civil and continental wars.
On the funnier side of things, predictions were often"supported" by "events", be it fraudulent or real.
Take Mary Bateman , England, for example, who predicted that Christ was returning in 1806 because a hen in her garden began laying eggs, on which the phrase “Christ is coming” was written.
Well, what transpired was that she had written this on the eggs herself in a corrosive ink ,
and reinserted the eggs back into the hen’s oviduct .
Can you believe this ????
Ghee, what a mess !!!!
Money was made as well.
( ...and may be still ??? )
In 1910 Camille Flammarion predicted that the appearance of Halley’s Comet in the same year would destroy the atmosphere of our planet and end the lives of most of its inhabitants, but not the planet itself.
Not surprising that he sold a huge amount of his “Comet pills” to protect against toxic gases.
You see, you can even make money out of sh……, sorry I meant Cosmic Events !
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And so it goes on and on and on. Most of the stories I could tell however have one scheme in common.
They are linked to events in the heavens. Not in a religious way though, but for real ! Either a comet , or a solar or lunar eclipse were sighted and regarded as "a sign of the heavens that Armageddon has arrived. And for the more advanced astrologers, any of these events you can predict on the basis of the eclipse cycle. So you can impress the folks out there by predicting the future ! |
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Columbus did it !
It was the year 1504, and Columbus was in trouble with some local tribes in South America, who he needed to get supplies from for his ships. So he stated, knowing of the forthcoming event during the night of February 29 of that year, that he would make the moon disappear, and of course like every other good magician who brings his beautiful assistant back, he made the moon re-appear again. This “trick” gave him immediately a “semi - God” status, so all of his requests were fullfilled. |
Sometimes I wish it would be that easy in our times !
And may be it is ?
Because on the more contempory side , and with more deadly consequences, remember Charles Manson, still in jail today,
for him enticing murder in the
Tate-LaBianca case , in California, in 1969 ?
He predicted an apocalyptic race war and "manipulated" his followers to a murder spree in order to bring it about.
How did he do this ?
He based his prediction on his interpretation of one of The Beatles’ albums.
Well, finally, religion exchanged for drug consumption and "Lucy in the sky " .
That's how he did it, I guess.
Because on the more contempory side , and with more deadly consequences, remember Charles Manson, still in jail today,
for him enticing murder in the
Tate-LaBianca case , in California, in 1969 ?
He predicted an apocalyptic race war and "manipulated" his followers to a murder spree in order to bring it about.
How did he do this ?
He based his prediction on his interpretation of one of The Beatles’ albums.
Well, finally, religion exchanged for drug consumption and "Lucy in the sky " .
That's how he did it, I guess.
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And even closer to the here and now, John Hagee claims that 4 “blood moons” in 2014 and 2015 may represent prophecies claims given in the Bible relating to the second coming of Jesus Christ. And it will happen in September of this year, on the 28th, to be precise. |
"The sun will be turned to darkness,
and the moon to blood before the great and dreadful day of the LORD comes." Joel 2:31 (Common English Bible) |
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Great, I read somewhere else, that the stock market will most likely crash in the same month, but have no idea whether these things are related.
Folks, there is only one solution :
I am off to my boat already.
And finally :
In order to come up with a real , “true” doomsday scenario, I thought I might put myself into the same line of well distinguished
forecasters, doomsday-sayers, and other charlatans,
so here is my own prediction :
Armageddon will happen in exactly 1,000,000,000 years from now, when the end of our Sun’s current phase of development has come,
after which it will swell into a red giant, most likely totally scorching the earth, and
finishing off our little island called "EARTH" in this vast cosmic ocean,
vanishing unnoticed
as the current disappearance of small islands in the Pacific due to rising sea levels .
Now try to prove me wrong !
Folks, there is only one solution :
I am off to my boat already.
And finally :
In order to come up with a real , “true” doomsday scenario, I thought I might put myself into the same line of well distinguished
forecasters, doomsday-sayers, and other charlatans,
so here is my own prediction :
Armageddon will happen in exactly 1,000,000,000 years from now, when the end of our Sun’s current phase of development has come,
after which it will swell into a red giant, most likely totally scorching the earth, and
finishing off our little island called "EARTH" in this vast cosmic ocean,
vanishing unnoticed
as the current disappearance of small islands in the Pacific due to rising sea levels .
Now try to prove me wrong !