A Brief Discussion on the Belief in the End of the World
It may seem like a recent trend; people preparing or looking forward to the end of the world, with books like Max Brooks’ World War Z and The Zombie Survival and the mystery of the Mayan calendar. TV shows like Doomsday Preppers and Doomsday Bunkers, glorifying or in more cases making people who are preparing for the end of the world look like crazy people. Films like The Divide, Book of Eli, Mad Max, Waterworld, the list goes on and then to top it off games like Dead Island, Metro 2033 and Fallout 3 which is about a world limping on after a global nuclear assault. So popular culture is rife with this belief that the world may end but the real source of this idea is older than any of these forms of media and it is of course the bible.
Although categorically speaking the belief in the end of the world can be said to be a logical argument that all things must end the idea originates from religious beliefs in judgement day. Almost every major religion has a belief in the end of the world and every religious person believes the world will end in their lifetime. The most recent end of days scare before the Mayan apocalypse last year was Harold Camping an American Christian radio broadcaster who predicted the precise date of the rapture. The rapture is the Christian belief that all those faithful to god will be taken up into heaven to prepare for a war against Satan while every else suffers on earth waiting for the end. Needless to say there were no planes crashing as there pilots mysteriously vanished no multicar pile ups of empty cars or anything ridiculous like that but I was a little worried.
Religion is without a doubt anti-intellectual if the story of Adam and Eve is anything to go by but the reason for this is because religious people don’t see a point in learning about a world that is basically just a spiritual waiting room. To them this world is finite and to some extent they’re right, we like to think our civilisation will last forever but it hangs by a thread everyday; if the economy collapses what then? If a massive solar flare knocks out all electricity on the planet and we’re sent back to the dark ages what then? What do we do if a pandemic kills 98% of the population or a nuclear war extinguishes the majority of life? And of course there are always aliens and zombies to contend with. The bottom line is the world will end, whether or not there’s something after that is a different kettle of fish.
Brooks. M. (2004) The Zombie Survival Guide. Duckworth.
Gray, J. (2008) Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia. Penguin books
Joseph, P. (2007). Zeitgeist.
Rinehart. J. F. (2006). Apocalyptic faith and political violence : prophets of terror , New
York : Palgrave Macmillan,
Sharp Entertainment (2012) Doomsday Preppers
