END OF THE END?

On 21 May 2011, the world was waiting. Many thought that they would not even wake up on that day. The elderly for whom the most important entertainment in life is television were particularly alarmed. Having heard the prophecies of the 89-year old American preacher, Harold Camping, that the end of the world would come on this day, many of them anxiously telephoned younger people to be reassured and told that all this was speculation and fiction by an old man who had allegedly found in the Bible that on that day, mankind would see the second coming of Jesus Christ. In accordance with biblical prophecies, the Day of Judgement would thereupon begin. Harold Camping said that only two per cent of the Earth's population would go to heaven, while the rest would be sent by the Angels to "the other side of the heavenly paradise".

The preacher said that he had calculated the date of the end of the world, using his own mathematical schemes to decipher the Holy Scriptures. According to him, Christ was crucified on 1 April 33 AD, and 21 May 2011 will mark exactly 722,500 days from that date. The interval between the two dates is the double product of the sacred numbers 5, 10 and 17. Camping attributes the recent tragic events in the world such as the devastating earthquakes in Japan, New Zealand and Haiti to a mysterious combination of numbers. These disasters, in his opinion, are only harbingers of the end of time, and humanity brought heaven's punishment upon itself with the fall of morality and the loss of important spiritual and social values. In turn, Orthodox priests claim that the date of the end of the world is a great mystery that is impossible to predict. Incidentally, the Islamic religion also holds this view. Islam, like other world religions, does not deny the onset of the end of the world, claiming that it will affect not only the Earth but the entire universe which will undergo significant changes. However, the exact date of the events described in the teaching is not named. But we'll come onto that later.

After the apocalypse failed, the same American "prophet" from Oakland said that he was misunderstood and that the end of the world had already begun, but had gone unnoticed. Pastor Camping claims that hell will not happen immediately - it will take five months. So earthlings have time until 1800 (1900 Baku time) on 21 October 2011. Some linked the predictions about  Judgement Day to the Grimsvotn volcano that woke up in Iceland on 23 May - here it is, the first sign.

History of the ends of the world

It is worth noting that such projections on the "exact" date of a possible apocalypse are made by different people with enviable consistency. For example, last time Doomsday was expected in early 2000 - with the advent of the so-called Millennium. But if we look at history, it was the Romans who first began to seriously prepare for the apocalypse. According to legend, Romulus, the founder of Rome, saw 12 eagles, each of whom showed him 10 years of the Roman era, and then - the end. In total, the eagles showed the Romans 120 years. Rome was founded in 753 BC. Add 120 and you get 634 BC. But, as we know from history, nothing terrible happened at the time.

After that, the chronology of Doomsday looked roughly like this.

33 Some Christians believed that the world would come to an end soon after the death of Christ. But when this did not happen, Doomsday was postponed until better times.

666 The number of the devil beast mentioned in the apocalypse. But the world is still intact.

1000 Chroniclers pointed out at the time that panic and terror reigned in the whole of Europe. People stopped working, spent days asking for forgiveness for their sins in churches, gave away their property and hid in monasteries. Every clap of thunder fanned the flames of panic, while the red rain that fell in Aquitaine and the meteorite that fell on England plunged the population into utter horror.

1033 Another end of the world. This time it was timed to coincide with the 1,000th anniversary of Christ's death.

1248 The date of the general demise was linked to sectarian strife. The head of Western Christians - Pope Innocent III - publicly stated on several occasions that the second coming of Jesus and Doomsday would happen in 1284 - 666 years after the advent of Islam. Christians love this combination of figures. Fortunately, the Pope himself did not live to see this day. He was saved from embarrassment by his death in 1216, and it was no longer necessary to justify the false start.

1603 A Dominican monk, writer and astrologer, Tommaso Campanella, predicted that this year would see a collision between the Earth and the Sun. This did not happen, but Campanella who died in 1638 was considered a skilful predictor of the future until the end of his life.

1666 The number of the beast again, and it does not matter that it was preceded by the number one. Real hysteria about this broke out in England as a prophet scared everyone with a great fire that would clear the Earth. It proved possible to stop unrest only by arresting the hapless prophet.

18 May 1910 Europe is in panic again. According to calculations by astronomers, Halley's Comet should fall on Earth. Then, according to updated data, it became known that the comet would fortunately fly by, but the Earth would pass through its tail, which was rumoured to consist of the poisonous gas, cyanide. Enterprising citizens immediately started selling vials with the "antidote". Doomsday did not happen.

4-5 February 1962 This date was marked with a "parade" of five planets visible to the naked eye, joined by the Sun and the Moon - seven large space objects, something that actually happens very rarely. This prompted Indian astrologers to predict "the final curtain". But it failed again.

1988 Edgar Whisenant, an engineer in the field of aerospace engineering, published a book predicting that the world would end in 1988. The book sold 4 million copies, and the author received a huge fee. But Armageddon did not arrive. Then Whisenant issued a "revised" edition, postponing the end of the world until 1989. The public, however, was disappointed in the prophet and the book was not successful.

September 1994 The American engineer Harold Camping blessed the world with his book of arithmetic "calculations" that the second coming of Christ would take place in September 1994. But people, bearing Whisenant's mistake in mind, had become much more prudent, although there were still a few thousand buyers.

2000 A year with three zeros - the favourite date of many predictors concerned about Doomsday. But everything went smoothly again - except that computers were reset in some banks.

1 p.m. 2 minutes 3 seconds on the 4th day of the 5th month of 2006 It is easy to see that all the figures are lined up in order, which alerted the cabbalists and numerologists. Next time such a coincidence will only happen after 61 years (01/02/03/04/05/2067). But what can we say about such "run-of-the-mill" dates if mankind survived quite well even the infamous number of the beast - 06/06/2006 - but in a new combination.

11 August 2002, 0400 The famous Romanian soothsayer and hieromonk, Arseny, was trying to prove to everyone that "the end of the modern world" would occur at a specified time in a devastating earthquake. According to the monk, the South Pole was going to connect to the North Pole, bringing fiery chaos to the Earth.

29 April 2007 The American evangelist Pat Robertson said in 1990 that the Earth would explode on this day. He miscalculated. What does the end of the world look like in the near future? It is expected on 23 December 2012, according to the ancient Mayan calendar. It remains unclear what exactly will happen. Historians believe that the Maya had calculated their calendar until this date before their civilization collapsed. And the rumours about the end of the world were invented later by journalists who hunt for sensations.

13 November 2026 In 1960, the prestigious journal Science published an article reprinted in many later editions. A renowned mathematician and one of the founders of cybernetics, Heinz von Foerster, estimated that on that day, the world population would reach such a level that it would no longer be able to feed itself. By the way, 13 November 2026 will be Friday.

2033 Two thousand years after the crucifixion of Christ. Isn't it a good date for the end of the world?

How "Doomsday" can happen

If we ignore all the above unfounded theories and refer to scientists, our world still has a chance of dying. Here are the most likely causes. An ecological disaster: there are many variations - land, water and air will be so polluted with chemicals and radiation that humans will either mutate beyond recognition or die from diseases caused by conditions incompatible with life. A nuclear war: in general, it is almost the same as an ecological disaster, but much faster. A cosmic accident: if we collide with a comet or asteroid, scientists predict that a few plots of land will remain intact at best; the rest will be destroyed, but it is possible that the entire planet will perish in a moment. A flash of the Sun: due to growing solar activity and an increase in the size of the Sun, all life on Earth will be burned in half a billion years, and in order to survive, people will move to the seas and oceans, but this will not help them - after three billion years, the planet will turn into a cosmic handful of ashes. But in this category, there are more pessimistic forecasts. The Dutch astrophysicist, Dr Piers Van der Meer, an expert of the European Space Agency, has discovered that the temperature of the Sun's core, which is usually 27 million degrees Fahrenheit, has risen to a dangerous 49 million degrees over the past few years. In his view, the process of the Sun's heating in the past 11 years is very similar to the changes that occur in stars before the explosion of supernovae. According to him, the global warming which we are seeing right now is not due to the greenhouse effect and human activities, it is due to the heating of the Sun. According to the scientist, the unusual processes occurring on the Sun are proven by pictures of giant prominences obtained by the NASA observatory that continuously monitors the Sun from space. Calculations show that if the temperature of solar depths continues to rise at the same rate, the process will soon become irreversible, and in this case, the Sun will explode after six years. Ice Age: the Earth, under the influence of a solar flash or its weakening gravity, will depart from the Sun so far that everything will freeze; according to researchers, something like this is expected in two and a quarter million years.

As for Islam, not only does it have a clear notion of how events will develop in the last minutes of the life of human civilization, it also displays the 12 major signs by which every true Muslim can easily determine the arrival of the end of the world. So, the first sign of the coming of the Day of Judgement will be another coming of the Prophet Jesus Christ. Here we can see a connection between Islam and Christianity. In Christianity, Doomsday also comes with the advent of Jesus Christ. It is noteworthy that by the time he announces his existence, there will be no prophet left in the Islamic world. It will be followed by a terrible and bloody war between two great Islamic powers, after which, according to the Hasidic Scriptures, a slave will give birth to a lady. It is the third sign that still causes various disputes among Muslims, since the meaning of this prophecy is not completely clear. This is probably an allusion to the fact that children will no longer obey their parents, gradually turning them into their slaves who are ready to fulfil any whim of their children. The fourth sign of the end of the world is that people will fall into sin, not only ceasing to revere the Koran, but also allowing themselves to abuse alcohol, live a dissolute life, etc. As a consequence, the world will be mired in ignorance, and the fifth sign is the coming to power of uneducated and greedy people.

The sixth sign is associated with a sharp increase in the female population, while the seventh with the advent of a variety of different false prophets. And again, we can see a connection with the Christian religion here, according to which thousands of false prophets will lead ordinary people astray. According to the eighth sign of the end of the world in Islam, the world will be overwhelmed by a series of powerful earthquakes that will lead to an acceleration of time. That is, according to the ninth sign, people will be able to do in one day or night the things on which they previously spent months or even years. The tenth sign is a growth in the number of murders, and the eleventh - an increase in the welfare of all without exception, the absence of the division of society into rich and poor. The last, twelfth, sign of the approaching end of the world boils down to the fact that a powerful Islamic state will be built with a new ideology that will lead all Muslims who renounced Islam to hell.

Judgement Day, according to the Koran, will begin with the powerful sound of the trumpet of the archangel Israfil, which will kill all life on Earth, while a terrible storm will grind people's homes into dust, leaving no trace of them. Disasters will be so strong that they will affect not only our planet but also the entire universe. After the second sound of Israfil's trumpet, all the dead will rise, and that will be Judgement Day for them - each of them will answer to God for their sins. This day will be an opportunity for everyone not only to admit their sins, but also to try to atone for them by returning debts to their neighbours or asking their forgiveness for their acts. Some people, completely cleared, can enter into heaven and see Allah. They will be granted eternal life. Thus, the end of the world in Islam does not mean the end of life, but rather transformation into another state.

Whether Doomsday comes or not, Allah tells people not to be afraid of it. The Koran says that "Allah has concealed the exact time of the onset of Doomsday. People who predict the advent of the end of the world at a certain time are lying. The wisdom of the concealment of this time is in the constant readiness of people and in its surprise coming".