Doomsday Revisited

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Back in the dim, dark past of this blog ( Jan. 18th in non-cyber-time), I had a post called Doomsday.
My cyber-friend (real friend not met in person), Jeanne, took up a challenge and asked some people what they thought about the ideas I'd expressed (check out the extensive comments with that post...).

Yesterday, she surprised me again and won herself the bestowal of the title Honorary E-Mail Reporter!

She sent the following (which I reproduce exactly as I received it...):

"This is a comment I got from a friend...

"The end of the world as we know it could be anytime considering the "as we know it" part. Think of the fact of how strange or foreign our everyday world would be to a person who traveled through time from the 1500's and saw what we have in the year 2007. Our radios, phones, and cars, not to mention other modern inventions would be mind baffling to a person of the 16th century.

"Now, let's think of 50 or even 100 years in the future. Modern science and advances will have leaped again. Who knows what we will possibly see in our lifetimes or what will become of our world after we are gone. But I can tell you this... The world of the future will probably be nothing like it is today. We live in the world 'as we know it', but that world is ever changing so one day it might be the end of the world as WE know it, but it will be the world as our great great great great grandchildren know it.

"Speaking about the 'end of the world' is a whole statement in itself. Religiously, I'm not sure if I know enough to answer this question. Spiritually, I think a person is screwed if they have not found God and it's the end of the world. You do want your golden ticket into heaven when it all goes down. There's that movie and book that focuses in on the worshipers of God being taken to heaven and spared of all harm or evil when the end comes. Personally, I don't think that will happen, but I do think that I want to be on God's good side and be one of his followers when the 'end' comes. I want to know that when I die I can go to heaven and face it... If a large asteroid comes hurling at the Earth and wipes out all life on Earth, we will all die. I think it's good to know you will be with all your loved ones in heaven with God.

"Also, I have heard some religious people push that the end of the world has to do with religious stuff. I am not so sure about that. God is all powerful. He can control a lot. But he can't control us from blowing each other up in a nuclear war. He puts so much faith in mankind, but it's mankind that I sometimes don't trust. Will we kill ourselves in the end and be our own doom?

"There are so many science fiction and horror movies and books focused on the 'end of the world.' I do believe that the images and ideals sometimes portrayed in our movies and books are sometimes a reflection of our own fears. Who knows, the end of the world may come out of an alien attack or a final world war or our destruction of the ozone layer or radiation exposure, pollution, or an asteroid destroying Earth, or melting of polar ice caps. Heck, I don't know... The 'end' may come from a natural event, our own undoing, or something unimaginable like contact with an alien race. I do believe if the end comes, it will have to be be because something happened that made it come. It won't just come. Did Y2K kill us all? No, but some things in life can happen. It would have to be something so powerful that it kills us all or kills many leaving survival near to impossible for the living. For instance, I would be screwed if we were suddenly stripped of modern electricity and put back into a time
of no outlets because I take medicine from a machine that plugs into a wall. In the 'end', it may become survival of the fittest or maybe... we'll just be all wiped out at once. But something will have to happen to cause the 'end' to come.

"Or maybe the end will never come and humans will continue to advance with our world changing with us. No one knows and time can only tell, but the end of the world will be a debate till the world does end. As it's ending, people will probably be discussing this question and debating it's answer.

"It kind of reminds me of that song, 'It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.'

"My question is what would you be doing if you knew that the end was coming?

"What would you want to be doing if you knew it would come and you could die?

"What would you want to be doing that last few minutes before the 'end?'

"That's my food for thought. You don't have to answer. Just curious...."


"...and here is her husband's comment:

"our world can end in a multitude of ways...it depends on what you mean by world...world as in our earth...earth will be here a long time, until of course the sun goes to red giant and sometime years after that nova...our world as in reality...it could be infinite because our new reality would be heaven if we die and heaven is infinite...while this reality here is finite in space and time..."