The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #71422 Message #1221623
Posted By: Little Hawk
08-Jul-04 - 04:03 PM
Thread Name: BS: The end of the world is nigh.
Subject: RE: BS: The end of the world is nigh.
GUEST, you are among millions and millions of people who have been worrying about this ever since the 1st Century A.D. There has never been a century in which the various signs you mention did not occur. There are always wars and rumours of war, pestilences, unexpected earthquakes in unexpected places, etc. Always! You just have to look for them and by golly you will find them. :-)
Believe me on this. The world has been "about to end" ever since the year 1, and it will be "about to end" long after you or I have shuffled off this mortal coil.
There's a pschological reason for people to think that way...which is this: they are mortal. They know darned well that the drama of their particular little physical life is going to end at some point (though I believe their soul goes on afterward, but that's another issue). Knowing that their own end is in the cards, it hardly seems fair that the whole World should go on so nicely without them. All our stories have an end, so why shouldn't the World? It makes for a neat, complete, and satisfying conclusion to the whole thing, right?
This is foolish. The World is not going to end, it's going to change. The Universe is not going to end, it's going to change. Everything changes.
Besides, those passages in the Bilbe are not really so much about an outward physical event as they are about an inner spiritual event that occurs inside each person when they go through spiritual development and change. When your spiritual consciousness undergoes a profound shift (as it does when you attain "Christ consciousness", for example) then the old World that you knew does indeed end...because you are seeing it through new eyes. That doesn't mean that the physical planet has ended, it just means that your way of perceiving life has changed radically.
So many Christians were terrified about the "end of the World" around the approach of the year 1000 that thousands and thousands of people went crazy and killed themselves....or killed other people....or did various ridiculous things, creating social chaos.
Guess what? It didn't end in the year 1000. It won't end this time either, but I would be very surprised if it didn't keep changing some. That's the nature of Life.
Anyway, whether it ended or not, that wouldn't change your spiritual challenges one iota as far as I'm concerned.