This is for the Muslims, Jews, Christians, and other religious/spiritual people here-
will there be an earthly Messianic Rule, Millenium, New Age, whatever term you want to use? What form will it take?
My short answer- yes, either by JC’s direct return with the Risen C’tians (PreMil 85%) OR by the gradual Christian discipling of the vast majority of humanity (PostMil 15%).
What say ye?
United Methodist Christian here.
I think probably not. People keep seeing things that look like the signs of Christ’s return in glory, but in two thousand years not a one of them has been right. Thus I suspect that the kingdom of heaven is entirely personal. I’m hanging a lot on Luke 17:20-21 (“20 Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; 21 nor will they say, ‘Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.’” RSV), and I can’t fit the Revelation into that at all.
Conserative Jew here-
Maybe, someday. Not soon. I have no idea what God’s plan for mankind is, but I’m positive it’s nowhere near completion. We’ve got a long, long way to go.
And thank God for that! Why end the game just when it’s starting to get interesting?
Catholic here. The short answer to the OP is “No”.
Pantheist here.
We are entering/have entered the Age of Aquarius and seeing the violent overthrow (well, really the Last Great Tantrum of) Picean thought: I’m 100% right, you’re 100% wrong.
Will this be Heaven on Earth? No, but the Age of Pices will probably be bloodiest, least tolerant astrological age we see in a long time. It was, however, an age of tremendous progress, with perhaps the black-and-white thinking playing a role in jump-starting modern philosophy and technology.
Let’s hope the Age of Aquarius can carry us further without going too far into wishy-washiness.
But to answer the OP: great changes are coming, but the Saga of Humankind is far, far from over.
Agnostic/Pantheist/VaguebeliefinaweirdForcelikething-ist here.
While I usually refer to myself as an Agnostic Apathetic, I DO kind of believe that there is some Force-like interconnectedness within the universe. I do not, however, believe that this is a conscious entity with a “plan” or an agenda as to the end of the universe. This ain’t Shiva. Or Yahweh, for that matter. And I don’t expect that it will ever show up on a scientific instrument, so I leave the physical side of things to science.
Which means that I expect the end of the universe to consist of the current scientific understanding of what will happen, i.e., a tossup between constant expansion/heat death and gradual recompression/new singularity/new big bang. No trumps, no angels, no Beasts, no second coming of a being who may have not even had a first one, no great giant battles between three planes of existence, no six-armed dancers, no fire giants, no giant wolves eating the earth…just a whimper or a bang.
Also, just for completion, no eldritch tentacular horrors from the unimaginable depths of time and space.
Episcopalian.
“No.”
Yeah, but Episcopalians think the end of the world is when they run out of coffee after Sunday service…
Another Catholic. No, not really. You’re supposed to live your life as IF God would judge you at any moment. But it’ll be because a truck hit you, not because his Dad ends the world.
Spiritualist
I see a better world by 2011, the sharp edges of religion will smooth and science will move away from defining religion as ignorance. While things won’t be perfect people will begin to understand the need to work together in an atmosphere of tolerance. Much good work will be accomplished – feeding the hungry, healing the sick – with less emphasis on money, more emphasis on compassion.
Strawman. Science doesn’t define religion as ignorance. Science doesn’t have anything to say about religion whatsoever. Religion is beyond the purview of science.
Most of the time, the complaint is that religion doesn’t return the favor.
Hi, I’m a Tantric Witch.
Short non-answer: How the heck would I know? (How about I read the Tarot cards on this question?)
Short smart-alecky answer: For the near term, I’d be content with just keeping the political Christian Taliban off our backs. Anything that could cause their downfall before they start another Dark Age would look like a Golden Age to me by comparison.
Just call me “Hypatia.”
Longer answer: I’m curious about how so many different sources look to the year 2012 as the date when “it” will happen, whatever it is. Much of the pinpointing of 2012 is the fault of José Argüelles, whose New Age books about the Mayan calendar said its cycle comes to an end in 2012. But not all of this can be traced to Argüelles. Haven’t the astrologers come up with portentious conjunctions and aspects for the year 2012? Etc. One bit of information that is not generally known: A Sufi sage I knew had given an interview in Switzerland in 1962, when he said that the change of the age should be looked for in fifty more years. This was way before the other 2012 hype began to be published. I don’t know why the Sufi master gave this time frame. Perhaps it was already being talked about in esoteric circles then.
Of course, I don’t know what going to happen or not going to happen, I just wondered why such widespread agreement on 2012.
Kemetic/Feri.
The idea of a “Messianic Rule” or a “New Age” or something strikes me as a claim that something about the fundamental nature of the universe is somehow magically going to change, with the best explanations for why and how being “some god waves its hands and makes it so!” or “the stars align!” or “That’s how the numerology works out!”
I find this singularly implausible.
Do-it-yourself Roll-your-own eclectic here, of the Wiccan / Pantheistic sort, lots of visionary feminism stirred in.
Yeah, it’s coming. Not in my lifetime or yours. But one day the species will make decisions without reference to any formal structure of power over other people; formal systems of coercion will flat-out not exist on this planet. Law enforcement will not exist. Money will not exist.
People will still squabble, get on each other’s nerves, occasionally nurture petty hates, sometimes intentionally inflict pain and suffering. But it will be personal, local, between various individuals. The kind of contexts we know of now, in which many categories of picked-on & mistreated people have stored anger that gets expressed as hostility and violence towards each other and/or almost at random, and in which most people are jaded and calloused by their experience of mistreatment as to have limited empathy and concern for the pain of others, will not apply. So the petty squabbles of people will not disrupt the more pervasive sense of peaceful cooperation, and people will not fear each other and each other’s freedom.
People will share what they have while welcoming each other’s contributions. There will be trust and forgiveness and the assumption of being trusted and forgiven, and people will prize a reputation as one who pitches in and does good for other people.
And once we arrive there, we will persist in that condition as a species for a long long time (we are now in our infancy as a species), perhaps for hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps for millions, perhaps until the stars burn out. It is who we were meant to be, it is in our nature, it is who we are.
Oh, and in case it wasn’t compellingly obvious, it happens here, in this world (not some transcendental world we get transported to as this one ends in Hollywood flames or something), and it happens to everyone (no heaven just for the saints while the sinners perish).
Unitarian Universalist
No. It’s just Christian mythology–and Christianity peaked a while back and is now on the decline.
Episcopalian, former Y2K expert, and vehement anti-rapturist.
No. Emphatically, vehemently, and loudly, NO! (Not that that will surprise the old-timers around here.)
Christian have been expecting the end of the world since Christ died and citing Scripture to back it up. They overlook verses which refer to false prophets predicting the end is near and Christ’s saying that no one will know when the end comes. I remember the panic back in 1999; I’ve read about the panic in 999 C.E. People have pointed to any number of things and said “The world will end on [insert date]!” A few of them have gotten in deep trouble after persuading their followers to give everything away. Why should the folks who are saying the world will end in 2012, or any other date be any different?
To me, this End Times stuff is a bunch of nonsense made up a century and a half ago by a man who may well have been asmisguided as he was devout. It’s a tool of fear, used to scare people into faith, not unlike a cartoon I once saw of a guy lying on the ground with a sword at this throat saying, “So, tell me about this Jesus Christ fellow?!” It also seems to me to revel too much in the suffering of one’s fellow human beings. I’m afraid to me, it’s Christianity at its worst and I do find it shameful.
Even if I were to decide some sort of End Times would come within my lifetime, I don’t think I should I change my behaviour because of it. To me, doing so would be the equivalent of “Look busy! The boss is coming!” As a devout Christian, if I am incapable of living a good, devout life without that threat hanging over me, perhaps I’m not as good a person as I think I am. I’m not going to church today. I injured my knee quite badly two weeks ago and it won’t withstand the rigors of a church service and the work week ahead. If I were to decide the end of the world is near and decide, “Whoops! I’d better go to church because of that”, I’d be no more than a hypocrite and Christ had some harsh words for hypocrites.
Since I believe in a God who is truly without boundaries or limits and is far beyond human understanding, I’ll concede there is a chance the world will end this week, just as there’s a chance my knee will miraculously heal itself during the next few hours. Even if the world does end, it shouldn’t make a difference to my daily life, conduct, and faith. God’s a bit too smart to be fooled by a quick change about under duress, or so I fervently hope.
Respectfully,
CJ
Jesus,(who Christians belive was God), said the world would end in his generation, not in those word exactly ,but he when asked about the end of time, said,“This generation will not pass away until all things are accomplished”. I believe it was in John’s writings that the idea of a new world was coming. Every one has a day of death and their world ends, I do not worry about it, I know I will not live forever…no one does. Some people are conforted by the idea of Jesus returning.I will wager that in 2,000 more years people will still will be waiting.
Monavis
The world ends on July 5th, 1998. Praise “Bob”!