It’s the end of the world. Boo!

Did that scare you? Dontcha worry one bit, the world will surely end but for today it’s still intact, faulty government, climate change and all. What you should know is that you and I have survived more “end of the worlds” than we know of and we’ll probably survive the future predictions too. Chances are the person who predicted them will most likely die before his prediction actually came true.

But the catch is this – the world will definitely end someday. In fact, we’re in the middle of the birth pangs! Haven’t you noticed the worsening natural calamities, wars and rumors of wars, increased crime rate, blind people ferociously defending blind leaders, what more do you need? Biblically, this was predicted to happen in the last days, and these days things don’t seem to be getting any better.

We’ve created a list of the times the world was predicted to end (the next one’s on Saturday!) and other predictions in the future, although this doesn’t even cover 1% of all the ‘prophecies’ it just goes to show that many may predict but nobody really knows the real date.

1666: The Great Fire of London

The number 666 in the Bible is known as the ‘mark of the beast,’ this is why many people in 17^th-century Europe believed that the world will end in 1666. It didn’t help that a year before, a hundred thousand people died from the Great Plague. The world did not end but what did happen was the Great Fire of London which lasted four days from September 2 to September 5. It burned through 13,000 houses and 87 parish churches. However, fewer than 10 people perished from the blaze. It was indeed the end of the world for the establishments on that city, thankfully not the people.

1997: Hale-Bopp comet comes to earth with UFO

When the Hale-Bopp comet appeared in the skies in 1997 and Chuck Shramek took a fuzzy photo of it in the skies, a UFO seemed to be trailing behind the comet. News spread on the internet making people believe that an alien spacecraft will land on earth and many people saw it as a sign of the apocalypse. NASA disputed the claim but imaginative people were hell-bent on believing that information was being withheld.

A San Diego UFO cult named Heaven’s Gate believed that the comet was a herald to the End Times. 39 cult members committed mass suicide believing they could board the UFO that way and it would whisk them away from the hell that is earth. The world did not end but it did for those 39 lives.

Y2k: The Year 2000

Being alive at the beginning of a new millennium must be such a thrill. It’s a historical moment indeed, some for darker reasons. People believed that civilization will end when the ‘00s begin mostly owing to the fact that computers then were programmed to only change the last two digits so if it flipped to ’00, it’ll mean the 1900s. Back then computers were already heavily relied upon and a collapse like that is a huge thing. But then, obviously, nothing very serious happened except for a few minor software glitches here and there.

If it did flip back to the 1900s, would it have been better that way?

May 21, 2011: Rapture and Judgement Day

You’ve probably heard the name Harold Camping always being mentioned during predictions of the apocalypse. That’s because he has predicted the end of the world more times than I’ve been to the zoo. Anyway, he ultimately predicted that the rapture and judgment day will happen on May 21, 2011 (even put up billboards for it) followed by massive earthquakes and other atrocities. He claimed that the date was exactly 7000 years from 4990 BC, after the Great Flood in the Bible. He later revised the date to October 21 of the same year, claiming that his mathematical calculations were wrong the first time. While we’re grateful Harold is sharing us these things to help us prepare, all I’m saying is I wouldn’t trust my fate to a wishy-washy person such as him who never seem to get calculations right the first time.

A lot of people panicked and some committed suicide to evade the oncoming peril. And when the day came and went, Camping got a lot of flak from people worldwide. Pretty easy to see why.

December 21, 2012: End of the Mayan calendar

Days before Christmas 2012, people freaked out and stocked up on supplies and it wasn’t because of last-minute Christmas dinners to prepare. It was believed that the Mayan calendar ended on December 21, 2012 after a 5125-year-long cycle and many believed that catastrophic events will follow after said date. All we can say is, catastrophic events did follow but it was years later, like 5 years later, like right now. Theories then about the world ending varied from the planet being sucked into a black hole, the sun emitting solar flares that kill us, or we will smash into a planet called Nibiru (more on this later).

September 23, 2017: Collision with Planet X

Sometime this Saturday (maybe at, hmm, noon-ish?), theorists believe that a hidden ‘Planet X’ in the Solar System will collide with Earth and kill us all. This planet, called Nibiru, is predicted to crash Earth by notable theorist David Meade. He claims that this scientific phenomenon is what Revelations 12:1-2 of the Bible is saying. The passage reads “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.” (ESV)

Scientists say that during a specific time frame on September 23, the moon will appear under the feet of the constellation Virgo and the sun will appear to precisely clothe Virgo, much like what Revelations said.

Meade also attributes this theory to the eclipse that happened last August 21 saying that it’s a “major, huge harbinger.” While he clarifies that the world will not end per se, he does warn us that September 23 will be the start of a series of catastrophic events and that the “major part of the world will not be the same the beginning of October.”

Safe to say that NASA scientists and the Christian community both dismissed the prediction. We don’t have an excuse to skip work on Monday then.

May 20, 2018: The Day of Pentecost

A lengthy Facebook post contains the calculations with which came to the conclusion that the world will end on May 20, 2018 which is the day of Pentecost. Frankly, if a person starts a conversation with me telling me they figured out the Bible through their own calculations, I’d walk out on him immediately. I’m sure by now people realize that the Bible is not a puzzle to be figured out and that people will never know the exact date of the end of the world. But there you go, if we survive September 23, the next thing to survive is May 20, 2018.

2020: Armageddon is coming

Statistics say you’re most likely to die from earthquakes and typhoons before you die from end of the world predictions. Yeah, don’t Google that. But here’s one for the distant future: Jeane Dixon prophesied again after her failed prediction about the world ending on February 4, 1962, well, failed. She now claims that the Armageddon will take place in 2020 and that Jesus will return to defeat the unholy trinity that is the Antichrist, Satan, and the false prophets from 2020 to 2037. Who knows, maybe Jeane will be accurate this time. Although if you look at the hundreds of failed prophecies and prophesiers before her, most likely not.

³² “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³ Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. ³⁴ It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. ³⁵ Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— ³⁶ lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. ³⁷ And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.” Mark 13:32-37

And with that being said, I find myself wanting to watch a movie. Comedy, perhaps? Care to join me?

Do you believe in these theories? Comment below if you’ve survived them and lived to tell the tale.