It really has been for as long as I've been old enough to understand politics and realities of the world. Which for me is around 1975.
Some of the options back then included:
Nuclear war
and/or the Anti-Christ/tribulation, and the various plagues of REVELATION
"peak oil" or a collapsed economy, that leads to collapse of industrial economies and mass starvation.
a global plague that kills most or all people.
Starting around 1999, a fear that the Millennium would cause all computers to shut down, destroying our civilization.
Apocalyptic speculation kicked up a notch as the year 2000 approached. It seemed to calm down for a while, then kicked into high gear again with the 2006-2009 crisis.
Some of the more recent scenarios:
Collapse of the dollar, leading to hyperinflation, poverty, riots in the streets, the government firing on civilians, and starvation.
Regarding the Bilderberg Group and other global elites, a conspiracy to "cull" the population from over 7 billion down to less than 1 billion, through a global plague (caused by deliberate spread in vaccinations, and toxic food additives in processed foods) and lockdown control of the global police state that rises out of the orchestrated crisis.
Massive and expanding global islamic terrorism, possibly bringing nuclear terrorism, or plague from germ warfare.
A solar flare (that occurs about every 150 years, and has not occurred since our electrical power-grid-driven modern industrial economy began) could wipe out our modern economy, disable all computers and electronics for years and, again, result in mass starvation and collapse of the modern world.
Social-Marxist orchestrated collapse of the United States and other western democracies, a slow "march through the institutions" and censorship of free thought through Political Correctness, that eventually leads to Soviet-style authoritarian lockdown of the remaining dissenters, "re-education centers" and purges. As envisioned by the likes of the Frankfurt School, William Ayers, and at least partially shared in the ideology of our great leader Comrade Obama.
Some other deception by wealthy and political elites, possibly exploiting the zeal of Marxists, Muslims, secularists, Christians or other groups, and hijacking the crisis in the direction they (the elites) want to take it.
Some of those aired warnings offer serious evidence, others are unintentionally comedic hype to get people to buy their books and survival gear, and/or watch their weekly show. Some silly, some serious and valid.
I'm by nature an optimist. But with our nation's enormous debt, fragility of the global economy, increasing aggression of Russia, China and the Islamic world, rogue states like Iran and North Korea obtaining nukes, and in Iran's case having the fanaticism to use them, and the increasing rise of Islamic terrorism and other terrorist movements, never before has "the end" seemed more likely.
Do you believe the end is near? If so, what do you think is the most likely end scenario?
Or alternately, how do you think we get out of it, and what alternate direction do you think the future takes?
No, I have a policy not to watch any ideas you post, because I don't wanna end up in an FBI list alongside Pete Townshend. It just has all the markings of something someone's crazy old uncle would post on Facebook that would go largely ignored, except maybe by other people's crazy old aunts/uncles.
Either Solar flares (which occur about every 150 years) or a deliberate nuclear electromagnetic pulse set off over the U.S. could destroy our civilization. And both the North Koreans and the Iranians have tested such EMP weapons. As Hal Lindsey details in the second story of this broadcast.
Judge Jeanine Pirro on her weekly program last night devoted the entire hour to this subject, and congressional and homeland security proposals to protect the U.S. from such a destruction of our electric power grid, by either solar flares or EMP weapons.
More recent update by Wall Street Journal reporter, and U.S. Representatives disscuss their efforts for legislation to protect U.S. power grid. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmSzyy0Uzw8
The problem with your initial post is this/these IMO:
1. No one on the internet gives a crap. 2. at least 90% of people are agnostics, deists, or atheists. 3. Even people claiming to be Christians are in actuality Deists like Jefferson. The type of people that can remove what they want from the Bible and believe "their" God doesn't do that or want/expect that from them. 4. When any of those apocalyptic events happen no one will be here to say you were right, remember you posting this, or otherwise. 5. After it happens people will be worried about how to get their money, trade, steal, get stuff for their children; or worried about the 'aliens', the Russians, the Terrorists, or whatever other snark or bugawug is out there.
I thought I was clear in my opening post, but maybe not, that this is a topic for discussing ALL speculations on how the world ends, and not just Biblical/Christian ones.
And while I have given a number of Christian/Bible Prophecy-related scenarios, there are many others that one could be an agnostic or atheist and see the potential for, such as nuclear war, global epidemic, solar flare, peak oil, collapse of the global economic system.
Most are deadly serious and have at least a degree of factual basis, a few I've posted here are wildly speculative and off-base to the point of self parody and self-humiliation.
Current tensions in the Ukraine have been said by several, including Russia expert and Princeton University professor Stephen Cohen, to be comparable to the Cuban missile crisis, and have a real possibility of pulling us into a third world war. And like JFK in the years leading up to the Cuban missile crisis, I'd argue that Obama's weakness on many fronts, unwillingness to defend our allies, and outright betraying them (Poland, Czech Republic, Israel, Libya, Egypt, Syria) has invited the current situation.
Kennedy is hailed as a strong leader who got us through the Cuban missile crisis, but if not for his weakness leading up to it that emboldened the Russians to it, there would have never been a Cuban missile crisis.
The Bilderberg Group is a group of several thousand of the richest industrialists, who allegedly have a plan to "cull" the world's population from 7 billion or so, down to a controllable billion or less, at least partly by entering toxic substances into food, medicine and vaccines.
I thought I was clear in my opening post, but maybe not, that this is a topic for discussing ALL speculations on how the world ends, and not just Biblical/Christian ones.
And while I have given a number of Christian/Bible Prophecy-related scenarios, there are many others that one could be an agnostic or atheist and see the potential for, such as nuclear war, global epidemic, solar flare, peak oil, collapse of the global economic system.
Most are deadly serious and have at least a degree of factual basis, a few I've posted here are wildly speculative and off-base to the point of self parody and self-humiliation.
Current tensions in the Ukraine have been said by several, including Russia expert and Princeton University professor Stephen Cohen, to be comparable to the Cuban missile crisis, and have a real possibility of pulling us into a third world war. And like JFK in the years leading up to the Cuban missile crisis, I'd argue that Obama's weakness on many fronts, unwillingness to defend out allies, and outright betraying them (Poland, Czech Republic, Israel, Libya, Egypt, Syria) has invited the current situation.
Kennedy is hailed as a strong leader who got us through the Cuban missile crisis, but if not for his weakness leading up to it that emboldened the Russians to it, there would have never been a Cuban missile crisis.
But as a Christian...all of the conspiracies are tied together by Lucifer...so, ultimately it doesn't matter I guess. Aliens (fallen angels in disguise), pole shift (Niburu), disease and war (anti-christ types)..etc etc. At any rate, i think WWIII could light up in many ways and have 2 or 3 parts rather than be full on the entire time. I'm of the opinion that over a 5-10 year period all kinds of crap will happen so fast and furiously people will actually die of stress. it will be coming from everywhere and all manner of various things,...disease, war, meteors, weather, pole shift, EMP, the economic collapse, and famine.... I believe if it happens and I think everything will line up perfectly to be a perfect shitstorm that no one can explain and no one can escape.
But I don't think the world ends..i just think it will end for a Loooooooooooooooottttttt of people...like 75%.
Well, as you acknowledge in your own answer, these end times scenarios can be observed as imminent, even if one is NOT a Christian.
But certainly, for Christians things such as a nuclear war, global plague, world war, global economic collapse, or rise and tyranny of a global government, would all be seen through the template of at least potentially being the fulfillment of end-times prophecy.
Christians in Nazi concentration camps thought Hitler was the prophetically foretold anti-Christ.
Since at least the late 1970's I've seen that things are in place where an anti-Christ type figure could lock down authoritarian control on the U.S. and European population. With credit increasingly replacing cash, the UPC price codes with all numbers framed in a 666 bar. The internet where every message and phone call are recorded and can be retrieved instantly from a national database (thank you NSA, Bush's Patriot Act, and Obama's renewal and expansion of it!). Security cameras everywhere, face-recognition technology, the capacity to freeze assets. The militarization of local police, DHS accumulating 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition, construction of 600 FEMA camps across the U.S. that can detain up to 50 million people. In the last 2 years I've increasingly heard of a chip created that has the potential to replace credit cards, that is being proposed to --you guessed it!-- be placed in either the right hand or forehead of each person.
For the first time, an authoritarian one-world government in the West has the ability -right now-- to do a complete lockdown. But I think they will continue to refine that ability before they really turn the screws.
Even as a Christian, I look at these things disturbingly resembling Bible prophecy enough to possibly be fulfilling them. But I don't jump the gun and say it definitely is.
But disaster, particularly economic collapse that would trigger an authoritarian police state to put down revolution and dissent, certainly seems imminent unless reforms are made. As I've pointed out repeatedly, even the CBO, GAO, global credit rating agencies, and our Chinese debt financiers (who are quietly getting out of U.S. treasury assets) have all warned that the current system is "unsustainable" unless we change course. And these people are not right-wing Christians, looking at events through Bible prophecy.
I didn't know that FEMA had been transferred to become part of Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It had previously only been a disaster-relief agency.
The poster of this video did themselves a disservice by putting a specific date on their video that will quickly make it obsolete and the source of ridicule. As are many other similar videos on Youtube.
Regardless, DHS still has FEMA CAMPS set up to hold roughly 50 million people, along with NDAA 2012 and NDAA 2013, the Patriot Act, and 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition, to legally pave the way for an authoritarian power grab, and wage war on all dissenters.
For fun sometimes I listen to Alex Jones. I don't trust him as a reliable source, but clicking on one of his videos guarantees you'll be listening to some of the wildest conspiracy theories out there. (My favorite to date being his allegation that Andrew Breitbart was assassinated by the CIA, with some kind of heart-attack-inducing gun that can be fired at someone from a distance. Despite that numerous local bystanders in his neighborhood saw him collapse and instantly came to Breitbart's aid.)
In this video, Jones is interviewing Lyndon Larouche about recent events in Ukraine, and Larouche goes on in 10,000 directions on multiple other conspiracy theories. I've heard of Larouche (who first became visible to me in the early 1980's, when David Duke made headlines running for office and was associated with him). I always thought he was some KKK-type. But based on this video, he's a wacked-out conspiracy theorist that can't be solidly pinned to either the Left or Right. It's just interesting to actually see LaRouche, and hear him tell it in his own words after all these decades of obscure notoriety.
I actually think he's right in one area, about the power struggle between the trans-Atlantic countries and the Eurasian countries. But I don't agree we've been in steady decline since the JFK era, or that it inevitably leads to "thermonuclear war". (He actually makes a distinction between nuclear war and thermonuclear war, that likewise doesn't doesn't fully make sense to me. He alleges that thermonuclear war means a nation launching everything they've got. But logically, a nation might use half of their nuclear arsenal, but then keep half to deter any further aggression against them with the threat of launching even more destruction. For any sane country, the goal is always deterrence, not all-out destruction.)
The stuff he says about fracking rings untrue to me also. The reports I've seen are that fracking is safe, and the Left's reports of dangerous environmental damage from fracking have proven to be manufactured and false evidence.
In Larouche's defense, while I don't buy his assertion that all-out nuclear war is an inevitable result of the clash over Ukraine, Princeton University professor (and Russia expert) Stephen Cohen said on CNN a week ago that this clash is a dangerous game, that at least poses the danger of a mis-step that could accidentally lead to nuclear war, and that we're "three short steps away from war".
This one, with Alex Jones interviewing a former military officer (allegedly and anonymously), is even more interesting.
Alleging the U.S. military has plans to provoke a battlefield first strike by the Russians in Ukraine, to allow U.S. nuclear retaliation, that cripples Russian forces and allows the U.S. (in the lack of Russia having the ability to further respond) to go ahead and take out Syria and Iran!
Oh, and by the way, Iran has already had nuclear weapons for years. Plus the U.S. military is thoroughly infiltrated by Russian and Chinese sleeper agents. Seduced and brought to the other side by hot sexy blonde Russian spies. Lively stuff.
A more serious discussion of using nuclear EMP weapons against the United States, by either Iran or North Korea.
As much as George W. Bush was demonized during his presidency for his alleged wrongheaded paranoia about an "axis of evil" between Iran, Syria and North Korea regarding proliferation of nuclear weapons, there has been considerable evidence of that secretive cooperation in recent years. Beginning with the Israeli bombing of a Syrian facility that (post-attack, examining the bombed remains) had a more advanced nuclear program than anyone expected them to have, some of the components being North Korean, speeding development along.
The above clip discusses Iranian nuclear scientists attending a North Korean nuclear test. And pretty impressive video of a North Korean underground test, presumably taken by a U.S. reconnaissance satellite or plane.
And I've seen other reports previously about Iran testing a new missile from a ship in the Caspian sea, that would likewise fit the scenario of a dry run for an EMP attack on the U S.
We think of the United States as insulated from foreign powers by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But as this clip details, they could sail up in a missile-capable ship and launch 12 miles off our shore, with virtually no response time.
The one in 1945 involved the then-untested chain reaction of a nuclear explosion, and they didn't know if the chain reaction would stop at some point and just create a huge explosion, or whether the chain reaction would continue to consume earth's entire atmosphere. But they did it anyway. The 1962 one I wasn't aware of.