# Is Christianity the only major religion with doomsdays? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 19, 2011, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416 "2011-05-19T04:48:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TNWPsycho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/47e85d/32.png) [@TNWPsycho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TNWPsycho)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416/1 "2011-05-19T04:48:16Z")
It appears that the Christian religion has spawned a literal buttload of dooms days since its inception. I presume that’s because of the promise of Jesus to come back. Do other religions have them? Or nearly as many? Islamic? Hindu? Buddhist? Jewish? ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416/2 "2011-05-19T05:30:41Z")
there are explicit end times messianic beliefs in both Judaism (duh) and in Islam (coming of the Mahdi). But people of those religions are less prone to setting dates, except when a Messiah or Mahdi claimant claims that the date is already here. If you google for “mahdism” you will see people claiming that there is an upswing of messianic expectations amongst Muslims nowadays. I am not competent to evaluate validity of such claims. But I don’t think anybody is setting dates there. ETA: in Buddhism or in Sect Shinto you might find apocalyptically minded sects, but then you can find all sorts of things there. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416/3 "2011-05-19T05:39:13Z")
And, of course, there’s Ragnarok in Norse Mythology. > **[Ragnarök](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnar%C3%B6k)** > > In Norse mythology, Ragnarök (/ˈræɡnəˌrɒk, ˈrɑːɡ-/ (listen); Old Norse: Ragnarǫk) is a foretold series of impending events, including a great battle in which numerous great Norse mythological figures will perish (including the gods Odin, Thor, Týr, Freyr, Heimdall, and Loki); it will entail a catastrophic series of natural disasters, including the burning of the world, and culminate in the submersion of the world underwater. After these events, the world will rise again, cleansed and fer The... ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416/4 "2011-05-19T08:03:01Z")
And while it isn’t a major religion now, one of the reasons people are setting this year as “the end of the world” is that it was the end of an era in Aztec mythos. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416/5 "2011-05-19T08:24:03Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > And while it isn’t a major religion now, one of the reasons people are setting this year as “the end of the world” is that it was the end of an era in Aztec mythos. Actually IIRC, the 2011 predictions are all from the Christian followers of Harold Camping. It’s the alleged 2012 doomsday that you are thinking of I believe, although that’s based on Mayan not Aztec mythology. ---
**Author:** ![Jormungandr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@Jormungandr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jormungandr)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416/6 "2011-05-19T10:06:08Z")
Hinduism has [Kalki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalki), Vishnu’s final avatar, coming at the end. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416/7 "2011-05-19T10:41:46Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Actually IIRC, the 2011 predictions are all from the Christian followers of Harold Camping. It’s the alleged 2012 doomsday that you are thinking of I believe, although that’s based on Mayan not Aztec mythology. You’re right, apologies for the brainfart. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416/8 "2011-05-19T12:48:41Z")
Many cultures have cyclic periods of death and rebirth, such as the Mayan one, some Native American drawings show a division coming where some will go to one place and others to another, presumably one good and pleasant the other full of hardship. Science has at various times predicted various doomsdays, such as population explosion/lack of food, various run away greenhouse overheating/melting of the ice caps predictions, life on earth ending asteroid collision possibilities (actually listening to them it’s a certainty), supervocainos, and finally if that doesn’t do a total doomsday it the start of Helium fusion inside our sun would, again according to them, unquestionably destroy the earth and they have a predicted time frame on that. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416/9 "2011-05-19T13:35:07Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Science has at various times predicted various doomsdays… Not a religion. ---
**Author:** ![Erg0Sum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4da419/32.png) [@Erg0Sum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erg0Sum)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416/10 "2011-05-19T14:25:07Z")
As the [Chabad Rabbi kindly explains](http://www.chabad.org/library/moshiach/article_cdo/aid/607585/jewish/Significance-of-the-year-6000.htm) the year 6000 in the Jewish calendar is the \*\* latest \*\* date that the messiah can come and issue in the world to come. That being said, he can also come in any day before that as well. It’s currently the year 5771, so in 229 years you can pretty much expect every orthodox Jew in the world to go crazy. That being said the form of [“the world to come”](http://www.jewfaq.org/olamhaba.htm) is not well defined. I’ve heard suppositions that range from the technological singularity to the bodily resurrection of the dead to a return to the garden of Eden(in a physical or spiritual sense). ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416/11 "2011-05-19T15:42:01Z")
Zoroastrianism also has the idea of an [end of days](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrian_eschatology) — in fact, IIRC they were probably the ones who originally came up with the idea, and the Abrahamic religions cribbed it from them. It comes complete with a Messiah (the Saoshyant), the resurrection of the dead, and a final conquest of Hell. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416/12 "2011-05-19T22:43:24Z")
> [@](#): > > in the Indian city of Benares, beneath a dome that marked the center of the world, is to be found a brass plate in which are set three diamond needles, “each a cubit high and as thick as the body of a bee.” Brahma placed 64 disks of pure gold on one of these needles at the time of Creation. Each disk is a different size, and each is placed so that it rests on top of another disk of greater size, with the largest resting on the brass plate at the bottom and the smallest at the top. Within the temple are priests whose job it is to transfer all the gold disks from their original needle to one of the others, without ever moving more than one disk at a time. No priest can ever place any disk on top of a smaller one, or anywhere else except on one of the needles. When the task is done, and all 64 disks have been successfully transferred to another needle, “tower, temple, and Brahmins alike will crumble into dust, and with a thunder-clap the world will vanish.” I read via Googling that this was just a story invented to market “Tower of Hanoi” sets in the late 19th century. I report. You decide. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-christianity-the-only-major-religion-with-doomsdays/582416/13 "2011-05-19T23:28:37Z")
> [@TNWPsycho](#): > > a literal buttload of dooms days Doomsdays are not objects that can be rectally inserted. Please don’t further devalue this poor word. It didn’t do anything to you. 🆒