Today is September 21st. If you believe the “Doomsday Mayan Prophecy” which has spread like wildfire thanks to nutters on youtube and the popularity of sensational Hollywood movies (such as Armaggedon, Deep Impact, The Day After Tomorrow, or the more popular 2012), we are supposed to have exactly 3 months left till the end of our world (or age) as we know it. What better day to get the popcorn out and watch the Discovery Channel movie, “Apocalypse Now” which I bought from Carrefour. 🙂
This movie has incredible visual effects. I thought that it almost seemed made to generate fear from the viewer. I also thought about how a person watching this would probably feel a bit more anxious if they didn’t have a proper worldview. I learned from Wikipedia that 8% of people surveyed had anxiety about Dec. 21, 2012! The number is as high as 20% in places like China and 13% in Russia, Turkey, Japan and Korea. Do you expect that number to rise as people hear more and more about doomsday possibilities in the next few months? I expect it will. I think there will be an increase in cult-like groups popping up expecting crazy things to happen (Don’t drink the koolaid, folks!), especially as our world seems to be spiralling out of control with religious intolerance, an inevitable showdown between Iran and Israel/America, a deepening divide over the American Presidental election in November and a worsening world economy with increased food prices and an increasingly dissatisfied number of unemployed people.
The movie starts with the line, “Since the dawn of civilization, mankind has been preoccupied with its own demise, but never more than now.” The film, 87 minutes in length, goes through all the expected “scientific theories” of how the world could end, including:
- Sudden eruption of one of the planets 7 super volcanoes
- Nuclear warfare
- Germs-a global pandemic
- Aliens (I kid you not!)
- Asteroids
- Global Warming/Climate Change and effects of rising sea levels, drought and starvation
- Androids or some form of Super Intelligent Machines!
- The Large Hadron Collider could produce microscopic blackhole(s) that could “gobble up the earth”.
- “Spaghettifcation” through a blackhole
- Gamma Ray Strike
- Deep Freeze of the Earth (next natural ice-age)
- a Solar Flare large enough to destroy the Earth
- Death of the Sun
One part of the movie that almost made me choke on my popcorn from laughter was the line, “In fact, this may be the last show you ever see! The question is not whether the Apocalypse will happen. The question is, How?”
As a Christian, I found it mind boggling that the idea of God’s Holy wrath coming down on a sinful, disobedient world worthy of condemnation for straying so far from His ideals, values and laws was missing from possible scenarios. The film did not even mention the important historical note that the word “Apocalypse” comes from the last book in the New Testament of the Holy Bible, Revelation, in which it declares the “apocalypse” (or better translated “unveiling”) of Jesus Christ. I understand that the film was probably made by atheists who don’t hold to that worldview but they could have at least mentioned what people of different faiths believe. The only sentence in which religion was even brought up was this one: “Since the dawn of man, almost all of the world’s religions and civilizations have pondered this point and dreamed up all sorts of apocalyptic endings for mankind.” Look carefully at the words used in that sentence: Use of the words “pondered” and “dreamed up” clearly reveal their open scorn. The movie implies that people just “make this stuff up” and hence we have different religions. For the most part I would agree unless a God outside of time and space has revealed the end from the beginning and proven such through prophecies. And He has! “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” (Isaiah 46:10) The idea of one God declaring Truth through Revelation is not brought up in this film. The fact that God is missing from this movie comes as no surprise to believers as the Bible declares in Psalm 10, “in all his (the worldly man, that is) thoughts, there is no room for God.” (found in verse 4 to be exact)
Well, that’s certainly a lot to think about on a Friday evening! Have you seen this movie from the Discovery Channel? If so, what was your impression?
What are your own thoughts on “the end of the world”?! Would love to hear different thoughts out there and why you believe what you believe.
Andy in Oman 