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38 Doomsday & Doomsday Cults 38 Doomsday & Doomsday Cults Doomsday & Doomsday 5/5/2000 Ice: the Ultimate Disaster. millenarianism is a revived Roman Empire led Doomsday & Doomsday cults Doomsday been have also Cults associated with UFOs and aliens who are to take by the Antichrist and consisting of 10 European Cults nations. The theme is drawn out from the followers to another planet while Earth is description of a beast with 10 horns in the book destroyed. In the 1950s, Marian Keech led such of Revelation.* The Skeptic’s Dictionary a cult. When the world didn't end and their The Skeptic’s Dictionary space ship didn't arrive to take them away, There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, Doomsday is the day the world as we Keech told her followers that their faith had that the great scientists Isaac Newton (1643- know it ends. It is a day of colossal catastrophe, saved both them and the world. Nice touch. Not 1727) and Robert Boyle (1627-1691) belonged devastating destruction, extinction, and all doomsday cults end so sweetly, however. In to different Bible-reading groups while both annihilation. A doomsday cult is a group of 1997, 39 members of a UFO cult known as resided in London. At one end of town, Newton people led by a charismatic character who has "Heaven's Gate" committed suicide as a was trying to calculate the exact moment of convinced them that the end is near. A condition for preparing themselves for transport creation, while at the other end of town Boyle doomsayer is somebody for whom the signs of on a space-alien craft to another world. and his group were working on calculating the catastrophe and imminent calamity are David Morrison, Senior Scientist of the exact day the world would end. The story can't ubiquitous. NASA Astrobiology Institute, has been be true, some think, because Newton liked to Some associate doomsday with the end responding to those who fear the cries of the work alone, or rather nobody liked to work with of the universe and a day of judgment by some doomsayers on the NASA-sponsored website him. I don't know if the story is true, but it mighty being who dwells outside of the "Ask an Astrobiologist." He fields queries such illustrates a universal trait about human beings: universe and occupies no space. The good will as the following: a fascination with our origins and our ultimate be rewarded for being good and the evil will be demise. By the way, the universe was created at punished for being evil. Since most people are a Q. Is there a planet or brown dwarf called midnight on 23 October 4004 BCE* and will mixture of both, no matter how you define these Nibiru or Eris that is approaching the Earth and end on 23 October 1996.* Bishop Ussher terms, it could get messy. The religious threatening our planet with widespread calculated that Adam and Eve were driven from doomsayers usually refer to a sacred book that destruction? Paradise on 10 November 4004 BCE, only a contains cryptic prophecies about the end of the couple of weeks after being created. You don't world. Various books of the Bible, for example, A. No: Nibiru and other stories about wayward believe it? Then, you probably didn't see the have been sources of end-times speculation for planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual world end in 1996. as long as these books have been around. basis for these claims, and most of them (such Some doomsayers, however, are a bit as that Nibiru has been hiding behind the Sun or Science and Superstition more parochial and associate doomsday with that it will be visible to the naked eye from the massive destruction only in their little part of southern hemisphere next year) are ludicrous. Until recently, if we wanted to explain the world. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to our origin or our ultimate demise, we were Some of the most active doomsayers of Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; our time are followers of the Abrahamic the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 restricted to creating myths about the beginning and end of our species. For thousands of years, religions and believe that prior to judgment day billion miles. we could only guess at where we came from and there will be a great battle. Many Christians where we were going to end up. "For 160,00 believe the final war will occur at Armageddon The Niburu hoax has been linked by years, superstition held Homo sapiens captive," between the forces of good, led by God, and the some doomsayers with the Old Testament (and as Bob Park puts it.* Science has emerged only forces of evil, led by Satan. It is likely that no they have photos to prove it!) and by others with in the last few hundred years. Now, thanks to spectators will be allowed at Armageddon (so the belief that the ancient Maya predicted that you better pick your side now), which is said to the world will end in 2012. The Maya, however, Charles Darwin and others we have a pretty good idea of where we came from. Thanks to be located in modern Israel. How billions of knew as little about our planet's future demise as people will fit into this tiny space is a mystery Gordon-Michael Scallion, St. Malachy, Edgar many physicists and astronomers, we have a pretty good idea of how it's probably going to that I'm sure theologians have worked out to the Cayce, Zecharia Sitchin,or Nostradamus, all of satisfaction of their undemanding clients. whom falsely predicted colossal catastrophes end. Superstitious myths about our origins and ultimate demise still abound among the Doomsday has been predicted many for our planet. The world is no more likely to times by many prophets. Obviously, so far end when the Mayan calendar ends than it is religious and anti-scientific secularists, but they do little damage to the progress of science. they've all been wrong, which lowers the odds likely to end when a modern calendar hits 31 that any given prophecy that the world will end December. Those doing science either reject the religious myths of our ancestral storytellers as products on some specific date will come true. Some, like Every time a new prediction of the end of creative minds that tried to understand the the Jehovah's Witnesses, have been wrong so is made, numbers of people fall in line and are universe using little more than their many times that they've quit making specific oddly filled with joy at the thought of the imaginations and the feedback they got from predictions, but they're still warning us that the fearsome events to come. As Morrison notes, equally ignorant folks sitting around a campfire, end is near. Not to worry; there are plenty of some people want the world to end and they or they have figured out a way to interpret the others who continue to howl that the end is near. "are upset to be told that this catastrophe will A recent example is the Strong City cult led by not happen" (Morrison 2008). This joy at the myths to make them seem compatible with modern science. Those who attempt to force Michael Travesser (aka Wayne Bent), who thought of the world ending is evident in the claims he is the messiah and predicted the world youthful enthusiasm for the event exhibited by modern science into the mold of their religious myths are not doing science and are little more would end at midnight on 31 October 2007. Strong City members and in the partying that Not all those who claim to know when went on by the followers of Joseph Kibweteere than a constant nuisance. (Mythmakers still sit around the the end will come are motivated by supernatural in Uganda before they were burned to death campfire telling tales to their ignorant signs, however. Some predict massive after the world failed to end as predicted on the audiences. Some of these mythmakers are as destruction will come to Earth when the planets eve of the year 2000. Similar jubilation mixed ignorant as their camp followers. Some are align in a certain way. 5 February 1962 was with fear was seen in medieval Europe as the scientists trying to lure camp followers to such a day and seers such as Jeanne Dixon year 1000 approached. Some Christians, called donate money to their implausible or impossible predicted the end of the world would occur millenarians, are particularly drawn to round projects, like the free energy hucksters. They then.* 10 March 1982 was supposed to be a day numbers in the thousands based on an arbitrary call it an investment, but it's a donation. I think of devastating earthquakes, according to John 0 starting point. They make some weird Bob Park said that.) Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann in The Jupiter associations: Effect. Another day for planetary alignment and predicted mass destruction on Earth was 5 May Sometimes the links to the temporal (Continued on Page 39) 2000.* Richard Noone took advantage of world can be tortuous to say the least. A Get Your Daily Horoscope at people's fears to exploit that date in his book common theme on the fringes of Christian www.xstrology.net/dailyhoroscope.htm