Originally posted by Rajk999
There were only three occasions when there was great anguish, men were living in fear etc occurred in most of the world:
- WW1
- Great Depression
- WW11
Since that time no such event ever took place.
You will be hardpressed to get facts to support your post.
Well all his contemporaries and the early Christians assumed the end was indeed imminent in their own lifetimes. Many suggest Jesus himself thought the end was coming and for the Jews of his day he was not mistaken. You could consider Jesus might have referred to the Jewish wars with the Roman Empire, incorporating the destruction of Jerusalem and the large scale execution (by crucifixion at diverse angles) of its male inhabitants, or to any of a tediously long series of very large scale horrors since that time, such as the Black Death or the Mongols or ... Well why not the first emergence of the Islamic armies, destroying two empires (Persian and Byzantine) and extending from Spain to China? The Christian Crusades had a pitifully small (albeit highly unpleasant) impact on their vast territories; they did more harm to the Byzantines, who were Christian of course. The last days have been on hand in most if not every generation for the past two millenia and generations of prophets have prospered on the associated fear and dread. Maybe some would see the upcoming American presidential election as an occasion for intense fear and dread.
BTW Americans have allowed their fear and panic over recent terrorism to grow vastly beyond all serious proportion.
Men become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming... Get a grip!!! There is not the chance of a snowball in hell that Islamic terrorism will achieve any significant dent in Western civilisation. There is a very good chance though that American aggression in the Middle East will cause untold suffering while neoliberal values are indeed undermining the values we claim to admire, but actually fail to defend.
You know what? There is a real big problem with this entire proposition of Last Days or end times. Whether there will ever be such an occasion is of no special relevance to this discussion, since prior to that occasion there have already been and will continue to be a tireless frothing of charlatans confusing their followers with tales of the end days. They are always on hand, they are always imminent, they are always inevitable, and they are always deferred. I may be wrong one day and once only, but I will be right about this one hell of a lot of times first.