Semi-Interesting Article about Those Who Predict the End of the World

by Good Girl or Bad Girl? 8 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Good Girl or Bad Girl?
    Good Girl or Bad Girl?

    http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/featuresopinon/display.var.1908416.0.End_of_the_world_is_business_as_usual_for_some.php

    End of the world is business as usual for some

    by Ron Ferguson

    People forecasting the imminent end of the world used to walk through city streets wearing sandwich boards; today's doomsayers are more likely to be wearing lab coats and talking about climate change. Apocalyptic themes, which used to be the preserve of religious groups, now inform our secular culture. Mind you, predictions about the endtime are still flourishing back at the religious ranch, as was shown in The End of the World Cult, last week's chilling documentary on Channel 4.

    Film-maker Ben Anthony was afforded entry to the Strong City commune in New Mexico where Michael Travesser, a 66-year-old former sailor previously known as Wayne Bent, modestly calls himself the Son of God. He has spent the past 20 years preparing his 56 devoted disciples for doomsday.

    Anthony discovered sinister undertones. Teenage girls talked to him about desiring sex with their leader, and he discovered that the cult leader's sexual activity extended to his own daughter-in-law.

    When Travesser announced that the world would end at midnight on October 31, 2007, his followers were exhilarated. Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed the wee problem with this prophecy. The messianic charlatan got it spectacularly wrong.

    This prediction game has been going on for aeons. About two centuries after Christ, some zealots in Jerusalem were convinced the apocalyptic day was dawning. They climbed to the top of Masada - a place where Jewish martyrs had once committed suicide rather than submit to the enemy - and awaited the end. Well, it came. They all died of sunstroke. Apocalyptic tip No 1: if you're going to watch the fireworks on the top of a mountain in the Middle East in summer, put on some factor 50, at least.

    Bishop Gregory of Tours, who was around in the sixth century, thought the end of the world would come between 799 and 806. With the approach of the first millennium, many people headed for the caves. They then had to come back home sheepishly and get on with the rest of their lives.

    At the time of the Reformation, the Mayor of Munich was so concerned about rumours of the Second Coming that he had all his crates of booze buried in the ground. In 1532, a minister and amateur mathematician called Michael Stiefel predicted that the world would end on October 9, 1533, at 8am. Early that day, the local peasants assembled at his church to witness the summons to glory. After the deadline passed, they seized the preacher and dragged him off to the local magistrate, where he was sued for damages.

    And one early-nineteenth-century religious fruitcake, Lady Hester Stanhope, always kept two Arab horses in her stable - one for herself and another for the messiah. Oh, stop it, Hester! (It would have made a great eschatological Gone with the Wind movie, starring Margaret Thatcher as the adoring aristocrat and Ronald Reagan, the galloping Gipper, as an aw-shucks messiah with spurs.) Most prophets have been careful to predict an endgame date well into the future, but others have been foolish enough to name a date within their own lifetime. This presents obvious credibility problems. The Jehovah's Witnesses have had several cracks at it, and can boast a 100% failure record. Each time they get it wrong, they shamelessly produce another date. Apocalyptic tip No 2: if you're going to set a time for the endgame, make it at least 200 years hence.

    Those making prophecies tend to do so by multiplying obscure numbers from the Book of Revelation and adding them to the Cowdenbeath scores from 1939, or something like that. Interestingly enough, when Jesus was asked about the day and the hour, he said he didn't know. He simply asked that people live lives of accountable readiness.

    Christian leaders shouldn't be too snooty, though. The truth is that Christianity itself is an apocalyptic cult which emerged out of Judaism. The early Christians believed that the end of the world would come in their lifetime. It was only when the skies stubbornly refused to open that the church hunkered down for the long haul. (A cult can be defined as any third-division religion which hasn't made it into the premier league worldwide. History is written by the winners.) What really matters is the way we relate to one another on this old earth. With our profligate using up of the fragile resources of the planet and our stockpiling of nuclear weapons - while righteously lecturing other nations about the evil of such practices - we humans are perfectly capable of triggering an apocalyptic meltdown without any divine assistance.

    And what did Michael Travesser do when midnight on October 31 came and went? Before going back to such unPresbyterian relations with his relatives, the unabashed apocalyptic chancer provided another date - December 15, 2007. Oops, missed again.

  • footstepfollower
    footstepfollower

    Great article well written and entertaining.

  • Double Edge
    Double Edge

    I remember in the late 60's there was some big push on by some big guru proclaiming the end of the world on a certain date....it was on the news and in the newspapers (which, back then, was a big deal....before cable news and the internet). Well, that weekend came and went, but the big news was how many people went to Vegas to get their last "shot" at life - it was a record.

  • OBVES
    OBVES

    It seems you have not read my posts on this forum at all or ignored them. Only true christians who belong to the class of 144000 may predict the end of the world. Have you read of those predictors who made predictions and did they claim they were one of those 144000 ?

    The true christianity ended at the latest in 150 AD. And it was to be restored at the end times. You were not living in the period 150 AD - 1878 AD to check out those predictors if their teachings were consistent with the Bible . We can make assumptions or guesses and I can do them to disqualify any prediction up to the year 1878 AD.

    So , we can start with the year 1878 AD and from that date we can examine predictions of the end of the world .But first you must prove the Bible is for our times.It is extremely difficult as I can reason to prove you that all Holy Scriptures applied to the people living up to the year 106 AD or 70 AD and there are reasons if I want to prove my point that the revelations from God Yahweh ended and the miracles that accompanied them. The true christian were in direct contact with God Yahweh and worked miracles .No one works such miracles today it may be because the true christianity ended centuries ago !

    You looked at wrong places to find the right answers to the issue of predictions. World sees predictions in a distorted manner.

    I wrote many posts on the internet regarding the end time and predictions of the end of the world.

    You have to find if a person making prediction does so in accordance with God's plan. Just as we look for the true christian religion among many the same we look for a person that makes the prediction if it is well founded on the Bible.

    You mentioned that guy from New Mexico who predicted this year as the year of the end of the world buy who is he to do so ? Does he has religious views better than Jehovah's Witnesses have ? Where is he standing with God Yahweh in His time plan ?

    How he explains the Book of Revelation etc . Many factors must be taken into account.This requires a great deal of research on a part of those who want to know the Truth .

  • PEC
    PEC
    Those making prophecies tend to do so by multiplying obscure numbers from the Book of Revelation and adding them to the Cowdenbeath scores from 1939, or something like that. Interestingly enough, when Jesus was asked about the day and the hour, he said he didn't know. He simply asked that people live lives of accountable readiness.

    OBVES, he is writing about you.

    Philip

  • Good Girl or Bad Girl?
    Good Girl or Bad Girl?

    It seems you have not read my posts on this forum at all or ignored them. Only true christians who belong to the class of 144000 may predict the end of the world. Have you read of those predictors who made predictions and did they claim they were one of those 144000 ?

    The true christianity ended at the latest in 150 AD. And it was to be restored at the end times. You were not living in the period 150 AD - 1878 AD to check out those predictors if their teachings were consistent with the Bible . We can make assumptions or guesses and I can do them to disqualify any prediction up to the year 1878 AD.

    So , we can start with the year 1878 AD and from that date we can examine predictions of the end of the world .But first you must prove the Bible is for our times.It is extremely difficult as I can reason to prove you that all Holy Scriptures applied to the people living up to the year 106 AD or 70 AD and there are reasons if I want to prove my point that the revelations from God Yahweh ended and the miracles that accompanied them. The true christian were in direct contact with God Yahweh and worked miracles .No one works such miracles today it may be because the true christianity ended centuries ago !

    You looked at wrong places to find the right answers to the issue of predictions. World sees predictions in a distorted manner.

    I wrote many posts on the internet regarding the end time and predictions of the end of the world.

    You have to find if a person making prediction does so in accordance with God's plan. Just as we look for the true christian religion among many the same we look for a person that makes the prediction if it is well founded on the Bible.

    You mentioned that guy from New Mexico who predicted this year as the year of the end of the world buy who is he to do so ? Does he has religious views better than Jehovah's Witnesses have ? Where is he standing with God Yahweh in His time plan ?

    How he explains the Book of Revelation etc . Many factors must be taken into account.This requires a great deal of research on a part of those who want to know the Truth .

    Who is Obves talking to? Me? I didn't mention anything. I didn't write this article. I just came across it, read it, found it interesting, and posted it. Who is this Obves guy anyway? Hey Obves, have you read all of my posts or have you "ignored" mine as well. LOL.

  • funkyderek
    funkyderek
    It seems you have not read my posts on this forum at all or ignored them. Only true christians who belong to the class of 144000 may predict the end of the world. Have you read of those predictors who made predictions and did they claim they were one of those 144000 ?

    OBVES, you deluded simpleton. Any idiot can predict the end of the world - as you've ably demonstrated. And most of these idiots - like you - seem to be completely unfazed no matter how many times their predictions fail.

  • bobld
    bobld

    Why do people always predict the end of the world will be in ??????????????.If you read the holy book is tells you when.Just live and let live.Die and let die. When the end comes,does it matter if it's today, tomorrow, next year, a hundred years, a thousand or 10 billion years from now.

  • OBVES
    OBVES

    We are to search for the truth in the Bible as Isaiah 28.9-10 prescribes and every word counts in the Bible . Jesus gave numerous statements on how the end of the world was going to come and read Matthew 24.3-31 .The Book of Revelation would not have been included in the Bible if we were not to know the times of the end of the world.

    Matthew 24.48-50 read people carefully and you must reconcile these words with Matthew 24.36. There is an apparent contradiction which understood correctly is not a contradiction.

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