Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!

2012 – The End is Near

The end is near? Are you kidding me? Wake up people, it’s already here! There’s a movie coming out titled “2012” and it’s suppose to be a depiction of the world as we know it ending in the year 2012. This is based on all the hoopla that’s been reported lately (although it’s nothing new as people have been talking about this for decades now) about how the ancient Mayan and Chinese calendars, and one found in an Egyptian tomb, all end in 2012. From what I can decipher from the movie trailers, the events culminating in the destruction of the planet, and all creatures that inhabit it, are based on the recorded visions of such an event in the Bible and other ancient writings. There will be fire raining from the sky, earthquakes of magnitudes never before seen, volcanoes erupting all over the globe, tsunamis that will wipe out entire continents, and of course all other forms for natural disasters – tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, fires, etc. – occurring simultaneously. There’s no where to run, no where to hide, no safe place.

Now, I have read, even studied on occasion, my Bible and it does indeed depict the world being ravaged by all the aforementioned means in the “end times.” (For those of you not that biblically versed, in very simplified terms this a period in time just before Jesus is to return to the earth to save us from our wretched selves and stop us from actually really completely destroying the world. Because left to our own demented devices, we would surely find a way to do ourselves in. We’re well on the path to this type of destruction already.) However, the Bible is clear that no one knows the date or the time that this will occur – not even Jesus knew, and he was God! So, for us (mankind) to make the presumption that because some ancient civilization’s calendar ends in 2012 that that is the date the world will end, is ludicrous! Be serious, do you think if God said, several times, that no one will know the date or time that he’d leave a calendar with the date circled and “world ends today” written on it in big red letters just laying around?

With that said (or typed as the case may be), I do believe that we are in fact living in the “end times,” but we’ve been living in this time period for a very long time and have chosen to ignore it. While the Bible talks about the natural disasters that are to occur and increase with intensity, it also talks about societal ills such as wars, famine, disease, sexual perversion and abuse, torture and atrocities humans will inflict on one another, greed, murder, lying, cheating, and idolatry, just to name a few. These things too will increase and intensify. And they have but we have looked away, pretending that they’re not really happening. You can go back 50 years and pull the headlines to verify that, in fact, there has been mayhem all around us, and while we are shocked and often times justifiably enraged to read about these things, we continue to go about our business with an attitude of complacency and acceptance that that’s just the way of the world. But give us volcanoes, earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, all in 3-D, and we’re suddenly afraid that perhaps maybe we have gone too far, that things have gotten out of control, that we have not been on our best behavior.

Hop on the internet, open up any paper, turn on any news channel or radio station, from anywhere in the world, and you will find – daily - reports of wars, famine, disease, sexual perversion and abuse, torture and atrocities, murder, lying, cheating, idolatry, etc. The majority of us read or see these things and are disgusted, or outraged, or deeply saddened. We may even cry but do they have any impact on how we conduct ourselves from that point forward?

Now, while I think a movie such as 2012 could be a vehicle for opening eyes and starting conversations, I don’t need a calendar, or a movie, to tell me that the world as we know it is coming to an end. Much of the world as we knew it, where decency, kindness, empathy, morals and general goodwill ruled, has already come to an end. It saddens me to know that it probably will take a horrific “act of God” to stop us from destroying ourselves and the earth.

Humans are so stupid. God help us.

1 comment:

  1. I was pretty sure the show Wife Swap marked the beginning of the end of the world. Thank you for validating my theory.

    ReplyDelete