End of the World, Missed it Again!

Now just as I didn't detect much in the way of World Peace on World Peace Day I'm not seeing much Apocalypse on End of the World Day.

You may remember that a week ago I quoted American christian activist Scott Lively's homophobic rant about marriage equality legislation in the U.S. triggering the end of the world. It is all meant to start on Yom Kippur which actually started at sunset yesterday (ends sunset today). This all comes from the Book of Revelation in the christian bible which describes how an all loving, omniscient, omnipotent deity tortures and kills the vast bulk of the people and creatures on Earth, or allows this to happen (he's got form, remember the flood).

And then makes it all nice for the chosen few who survive.

Trouble is Scott's not the first to come up with the "we're all doomed" scenario. The list is a very long one but here are some selected highlights...............

The first one, only 30 odd years after christ's death, is 66–70 CE and comes from Simon bar Giora, an Essene. The Essene sect of Jewish ascetics saw the Jewish revolt against the Romans in 66–70 as the final end-time battle before the arrival of the Messiah.

500 CE Hippolytus of Rome, Sextus Julius Africanus and Irenaeus. All three predicted Jesus would return in
the year 500. One prediction was based on the dimensions of Noah's ark (obviously).

992–995 CE Various Christians predicted that the end was nigh as Good Friday coincided with the Feast of the Annunciation; this had long been believed to be the event that would bring forth the Antichrist, and thus the end-times, within 3 years.

Now for the obvious one, the first Millenium on January the 1st, 1000. The Millennium Apocalypse at the end of the Christian Millennium. Various Christian clerics predicted the end of the world on this date, including Pope Sylvester II. Riots occurred in Europe and pilgrims headed east to Jerusalem.

Here's a good one. 1284, Pope Innocent III (d. 1216) predicted that the world would end 666 years after the rise of Islam.

1346–1351, lots of people, time of the Black Death, obvious. (still didn't happen)_

1555. Pierre d'Ailly, around the year 1400, this French theologian wrote that 6845 years of human history had already passed, and the end of the world would be in the 7000th year.

A familiar name, Martin Luther predicted the end of the world would occur no later than 1600.

And again, Christopher Columbus predicted in his Book of Prophecies (1501), that the world would end during 1656.

1736 Cotton Mather's third and final prediction for the end of the world.

1836 John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, foresaw the Millennium beginning this year. He wrote that Revelation 12:14 referred to the years 1058–1836, "when Christ should come".

Charles Taze Russell predicted the return of Jesus to occur in 1874, and after this date reinterpreted theprediction to say that Jesus had indeed returned in invisible form.

Charles Taze Russell, "...the battle of the great day of God Almighty. The date of the close of that "battle" is definitely marked in Scripture as October 1914. It is already in progress, its beginning dating from October, 1874."

International Bible Students Association. In 1918, Christendom would go down as a system to oblivion and be succeeded by revolutionary governments. God would "destroy the churches wholesale and the church members by the millions." Church members would "perish by the sword of war, revolution and anarchy." The dead would lie unburied. In 1920 all earthly governments would disappear, with worldwide anarchy prevailing.

1972 Herbert W. Armstrong. The second of three revised dates from Armstrong after his 1936 and 1943 predictions failed to come true.

1982 Pat Robertson. In late 1976 Robertson predicted that the end of the world would come in 1982.

2000

Peter Olivi. This 13th-century theologian wrote that the Antichrist would come to power between 1300 and 1340, and the Last Judgement would take place around 2000.

Isaac Newton Newton predicted that Christ's Millennium would begin in the year 2000 in his book Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John.

Ruth Montgomery. This self-described Christian psychic predicted the Earth's axis would shift and the Antichrist would reveal himself in this year.

Edgar Cayce This psychic predicted the Second Coming would occur this year.

Sun Myung Moon The founder of the Unification Church predicted the Kingdom of Heaven would be established in this year.

Ed Dobson This pastor predicted the end would occur in his book The End: Why Jesus Could Return by A.D. 2000.

Lester Sumrall This minister predicted the end in his book I Predict 2000.

Jonathan Edwards This 18th-century preacher predicted that Christ's thousand-year reign would begin in this year.

2013 Aug 23. Grigori Rasputin prophesied a storm where fire would destroy most life on land and Jesus Christ would come back to Earth to comfort those in distress.

What will actually happen.................

The sun will slowly expand into a red giant, pushing the Earth farther out into space, but not far enough. Our home planet will be snagged by the sun's outer atmosphere, gradually plunging to its doom inside the fiery stellar furnace.

"The drag caused by this low-density gas is enough to cause the Earth to drift inwards, and finally to be captured and vaporized by the sun," explains astronomer Robert Smith of the University of Sussex.

Previous projections had all figured that the Earth would avoid falling into the sun, even during our star's red-giant phase.

The good news: This won't happen for another 7.6 billion years. The bad news: Life on Earth will end long before then. In fact, we've only got a billion years left before the slowly expanding sun boils off the oceans and reduces our planet to an uninhabitable cinder.