Not Everything is Political - Believers https://adam.notpolitical.info/forum/ en Mon, 02 Nov 2026 09:36:39 GMT vBulletin 60 https://adam.notpolitical.info/forum/images/misc/rss.png Not Everything is Political - Believers https://adam.notpolitical.info/forum/ End Times https://adam.notpolitical.info/forum/forum/religion-faith-spirituality/believers/405951-end-times Mon, 05 Oct 2026 02:02:10 GMT
For all of my adult life we've been pounded with anxiety about the cataclysm at our front door, from the inevitable nuclear holocaust, to global cooling, the population bomb, running out of oil or arctic ice,

A lot of this stuff has been concocted or co-opted for political purposes, of course, but our fathers and grandfathers faced existential threats such as the Great Depression and World War II, and it seemed to many that if only we could summon the unity of purpose we had in WW II we could conquer any threat. Maybe even go to the moon. I think a bit of that nostalgia fired our cooperation with the over-the-top covid orders.

But I'm wondering if believing we are it, the generation facing the ultimate abyss, is somehow woven into Western civ if not universal society. I doubt the latter. A book I read about the idea of "progress" was confident it was a Western idea by and large. Many societies believed we were meant simply to carry on, to replicate and preserve the world of our ancestors. I don't see that that precludes believing an End is coming, though.

We, though, like the old cartoon theme, seem particularly concerned that The End is Near. This time it really is.

Paul, in the first generation after Christ, believed the Second Coming would be witnessed by those he preached to, so much so that he didn't much believe people should bother getting married and starting families (but he said, more or less, go ahead if you want.) The Rapture had a rush of popularity a couple of years ago. One preacher I heard often said he didn't think we were there yet, quite; but if signs of the end were to appear when we were in "God's waiting room" (another Florida nickname) we were in the parking lot.

My old Lutheran pastor told me that when John wrote down his Revelation it was one of many such manuscripts, part of a whole genre of apocalyptic literature. Many scholars and such think the focus of John's Revelation was really the toppling of the Roman Empire, the consuming bane of that time and place.

So I'm just wondering if awareness of our own mortality morphs into anxiety that We're All Gonna Die, and makes us suckers for charlatans like Al Gore or even Greta Thunberg types.

Or are we become nervous nellies precisely because we have NOT faced genuine existential crises in several generations, and those who did have largely passed from the scene.

Are we looking for "meaning" by fighting a dread scourge, even if we have to make it up, like fraudulent incidents of racism. Are we going to be able to brush them off, telling people like Ms Thunberg to go ahead and wait on her roof for Haley's comet while the rest of us rest up for another workday? Must we fight every panic? (I fear we must.)

Have we misunderstood the Second Coming, and applied it to our own need to be heroic?]]> Believers Newman https://adam.notpolitical.info/forum/forum/religion-faith-spirituality/believers/405951-end-times Their God is My God https://adam.notpolitical.info/forum/forum/religion-faith-spirituality/believers/405247-their-god-is-my-god Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:43:41 GMT
]]> Believers Michele https://adam.notpolitical.info/forum/forum/religion-faith-spirituality/believers/405247-their-god-is-my-god