In Case You Missed It, The World Ended

By: Daniel Nardini

Obviously, the world did not come to an end. A preacher named Harold Camping predicted that the world would end on last Saturday, May 21st. Meanwhile, a Christian group that owns a radio show in California called Family Radio predicted the same thing. They all calculated that the world would end on May 21st, and that those who believed would be “raptured,” or carried away to Heaven. All of the rest of us would perish.

Well, we are obviously still here. Atheist and Humanist organizations had a field day with this. In California and in 26 other states, atheists organized a drive to take in the pets of those who believed the world was coming to an end. This way the pets would not be abandoned and would have good owners to take care of them. In North Carolina, the American Humanist Association held a two day party of cultural festivities and concerts. This is the way I would have celebrated the end of the world—let’s have some fun!

I just plain feel sad for all of the children and their relatives who are wondering why they have family members who are kooky enough to believe in this non-sense. It reminds me of the Heaven’s Gate tragedy where 39 people killed themselves between March 24-26, 1997, and the 74 people of the Order of the Solar Temple who killed themselves from 1994 to 1997. They all believed that the world was coming to an end and that they would all be picked up by space aliens. In this world of ours it never ceases to amaze me that there are people who believe that life is so worthless, so meaningless that they would believe either the world is coming to an end or they should kill themselves because they think the world is coming to an end.

Only time itself will end all of creation and not the predictions of a foolish and fanatical few fallible humans. When that happens is anyone’s guess. But I do not see it within our life times nor within the next one million years. In the concept of the universe time is virtually infinite. Our lives on Earth are very short by comparison. Let us enjoy our lives as best we can and wait until our individual natural life expectancies end. Each and every one of us should find meaning within our lives, and this is a gift we should all cherish.

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