The Apocalypse Continued

 The Apocalypse Continued

It is October 2024. The November 2024 U.S. Presidential General Election is a few weeks away, the Nobel Prize Committee is currently selecting this year’s winners, football season is well underway, and many people are making his/her final decisions on which costume they might wear on Halloween. My personal thoughts have drifted towards the Apocalypse.

Nearly four in ten Americans believe we are living in the “final days” or “end times”, according to a recent Pew Research Institute finding. I have two years of personal research on the Apocalypse, both from a religious view and a more practical disaster-preparedness perspective. I was always fascinated by how millions of people throughout history, separated by vast distances, could have very similar social and religious beliefs about civilization-ending catastrophic events. This fact could not be explained simply by claiming these peoples shared a similar mental psychosis or religious fanaticism.

I am a Christian Baptist. I was raised in what most would consider Fundamentalism. Fundamentalist Christians maintain the Christian Faithful will be Raptured to Christ before the worst of the Tribulation. Simply put, the true Christian Faithful do not need to worry or be concerned about the Apocalypse because they will be Raptured to Christ, beforehand. I do not pretend to have full comprehension of the End-of-Days matters, but if that were the case then the entire Book of Revelation could be summed-up into a single paragraph. There would be no need to include the Book of Revelation in the Holy Cannon of the Christian Bible.

The word “Apocalypse” is an ancient Greek word meaning “removal of the veil” and has acquired a religious context of revealing Divine and Sacred Knowledge, directly translating to the modern word “Revelation.” I approached my personal research from a Philosophy of Religion perspective, since I hold a degree in Philosophy from Virginia Tech. Apocalyptic writings usually describe one or more catastrophic, possibly civilization-ending, or extinction-level events. 

The major underlying themes of apocalyptic writing and stories tell primarily of war, famine, disease, very unusual astronomical events, a great struggle between the forces of ultimate good and ultimate evil, with a champion or savior to bring hope to the faithful and all creation. Some argue these events occur with each generation, or every 19 or 20 years. Others contend the timeline of such Apocalyptic Events occur every millennium, and still others have a much longer time-horizon of 5,000 years. Nevertheless, the underlying themes and subject matter of the Apocalypse is very similar across cultures, whatever your time span might be.

Modern computers, the internet, and other related technologies have altered research into the Apocalypse and Apocalyptic Events. For example, my personal computer has a Wikipedia Database equivalent to a 2,000-volume encyclopedia set, along with more than 2,000 books in digital electronic format, essentially making my Windows laptop a small library. Additionally, you can now obtain an online college degree in many of the subject areas directly addressed by Apocalyptic Stories.

Many societies have Fall and Harvest festivals of some kind. Most of our current American Halloween celebrations are from Scottish and Irish immigrants who brought with them ancient pagan Gaelic and Celtic traditions. As a matter of InterFaith respect and dialogue, I leave it to the individual to decide how he/she wishes to celebrate the Fall Harvest months. As a general no-harm principle, you should do unto others as you would have done to you, and be thankful for the bountiful supply of sustenance. 

To conclude, the Apocalypse is not a “simple” or “light” subject matter. There is hope, however, through faith, technology, and other means. I pray everyone has a fun, safe, and bountiful Fall Season.