Earthrise seen from the Moon during Apollo 11
Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen.[Rev 1:7]
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.
So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
[Matt 24:42-44]
And so the end of the world will not happen on 21 Dec 2012.
What is revealed and what is known is that the end will happen at a time most unexpected.
And that can possibly be when the world is supremely confident, greatly assured in its knowledge and collective abilities, and all the peoples in the world are utterly convinced that humankind's fate and destiny are entirely in its own hands, each individual having the means and abilities to literally make the future to be whatever each individual or community wants it to be for itself.
It is conceivable then, in such a day, that "all the peoples of the earth will mourn", instead of rejoicing, when they see him who was pierced descending from the clouds.
So also then the end will not come when there are massive earthquakes here and there, disasters triggered by extreme weather and climatic changes, or major wars and conflicts and massive sufferings of humankind in the world from poverty or famine or diseases or plaques like SARS, H5N1, etc. For in such times God is more likely remembered and eagerly awaited, and many, if not all, will rejoice if God returns to end all their sufferings and miseries and pain.
But Jesus will return when he is most unexpected, even unwelcomed.
A possible scenario of such a state of unwelcome, could be when all the nations of the world are at peace, for a significant duration; when all nations have unite, able to settle differences without wars and bloodshed, and instead able to cooperate and launch grand and massive international and global projects, such as never before attempted, even since Babel, even to control the weather and climate, and harness the power and energy of earthquakes and hurricanes, and all the people of the world prosperous.
Then humankind must also overcome one final and fundamental vulnerability, the certain conclusion and termination of all mankind and life on earth as we have always and only known, namely the sun. And this will happen, when the sun runs out of fuel, and even way before that, when the sun inflates to become a red giant, scorching and melting all of earth to barren molten rock.
To overcome this certainty of demise, humankind must be able to travel to other places in the universe, ie undertake inter solar and inter galactic travel, and to be able to colonise on other planets and moons or asteriods and other rocky inter stellar debris, even to recreate an environment for the continuation of an earthly or earth-like livelihood, with all its plants, animals, fishes and birds.
And certainly before that, intra solar system travel shall become as common place as taking the subway downtown.
Earth shall also no longer be threathened by asteriods impact. Instead humans will be able to control and manoeuvre asteriods, to change their trajectories, using the very material of these rocks themselves as fuel, and even to use them as vehicles for travel within the solar system and elsewhere.
The unified international space command will have a fleet of scouting autonomous robots to survey all the rocks in the asteroid belt, and elsewhere. And there is also a fleet of autonomous robots to build initial installations, so that humans, and other robots, can land on them subsequently, to exploit these asteriods for various purposes, from manufacturing, to energy, to travel, and even to become extraterrestrial colonies for the by-then much overcrowded earth. These fleets of scouting and colonies construction robots will all be based on the Moon, Mars, and some of Saturn's moons.
But of course all these sounds very much science fiction, at least for the moment. For sure, we need to discover additional fundamental science - and medical and bioengineering knowledge - to perform practical inter galactic travel, such as worm holes or other exotic forms of manipulating the fabric of the universe, if such are correct notions then.
On the other hand it is only very recent that we had Newton, and then only a few centuries later, Einstein. And knowledge growth, in this Internet age, is explosive and exponential. The next fundamental discoveries may already be on the threshold of happening, and then other discoveries to happen soon thereafter at an accelerating pace, at intervals of decades instead of centuries, and then in years, and so on, so much so that indeed the future painted above can happen in a blink of an eye; and some alive today may experience intra solar travel within their lifetimes. And if understanding gravity is like knowing the mind of God, as Einstein puts it, then we must also be closer to knowing God's mind then at any other time.
Of course it may not happen at all, not as painted above in any case.
But the point is made: namely that the signs to watch for of the imminent end is not in the wars, famine and so on, as popularly interpreted in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - these are but awakening calls for those whose ears can hear and eyes can see - but rather, ironically, more in the realisation of the longed-for and much desired peace, unity, harmony, and utopia of all the earth, in the flowering and blossoming of the full potential of collective mankind in all his knowledge and capabilities, and when Man comes close to the perfection of God, in whose image, Man is. And then the end will come.
And of course no prediction of an exact date and time of the end is true, never ever.
So also then the end will not come when there are massive earthquakes here and there, disasters triggered by extreme weather and climatic changes, or major wars and conflicts and massive sufferings of humankind in the world from poverty or famine or diseases or plaques like SARS, H5N1, etc. For in such times God is more likely remembered and eagerly awaited, and many, if not all, will rejoice if God returns to end all their sufferings and miseries and pain.
But Jesus will return when he is most unexpected, even unwelcomed.
A possible scenario of such a state of unwelcome, could be when all the nations of the world are at peace, for a significant duration; when all nations have unite, able to settle differences without wars and bloodshed, and instead able to cooperate and launch grand and massive international and global projects, such as never before attempted, even since Babel, even to control the weather and climate, and harness the power and energy of earthquakes and hurricanes, and all the people of the world prosperous.
Then humankind must also overcome one final and fundamental vulnerability, the certain conclusion and termination of all mankind and life on earth as we have always and only known, namely the sun. And this will happen, when the sun runs out of fuel, and even way before that, when the sun inflates to become a red giant, scorching and melting all of earth to barren molten rock.
To overcome this certainty of demise, humankind must be able to travel to other places in the universe, ie undertake inter solar and inter galactic travel, and to be able to colonise on other planets and moons or asteriods and other rocky inter stellar debris, even to recreate an environment for the continuation of an earthly or earth-like livelihood, with all its plants, animals, fishes and birds.
And certainly before that, intra solar system travel shall become as common place as taking the subway downtown.
Earth shall also no longer be threathened by asteriods impact. Instead humans will be able to control and manoeuvre asteriods, to change their trajectories, using the very material of these rocks themselves as fuel, and even to use them as vehicles for travel within the solar system and elsewhere.
The unified international space command will have a fleet of scouting autonomous robots to survey all the rocks in the asteroid belt, and elsewhere. And there is also a fleet of autonomous robots to build initial installations, so that humans, and other robots, can land on them subsequently, to exploit these asteriods for various purposes, from manufacturing, to energy, to travel, and even to become extraterrestrial colonies for the by-then much overcrowded earth. These fleets of scouting and colonies construction robots will all be based on the Moon, Mars, and some of Saturn's moons.
But of course all these sounds very much science fiction, at least for the moment. For sure, we need to discover additional fundamental science - and medical and bioengineering knowledge - to perform practical inter galactic travel, such as worm holes or other exotic forms of manipulating the fabric of the universe, if such are correct notions then.
On the other hand it is only very recent that we had Newton, and then only a few centuries later, Einstein. And knowledge growth, in this Internet age, is explosive and exponential. The next fundamental discoveries may already be on the threshold of happening, and then other discoveries to happen soon thereafter at an accelerating pace, at intervals of decades instead of centuries, and then in years, and so on, so much so that indeed the future painted above can happen in a blink of an eye; and some alive today may experience intra solar travel within their lifetimes. And if understanding gravity is like knowing the mind of God, as Einstein puts it, then we must also be closer to knowing God's mind then at any other time.
Of course it may not happen at all, not as painted above in any case.
But the point is made: namely that the signs to watch for of the imminent end is not in the wars, famine and so on, as popularly interpreted in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - these are but awakening calls for those whose ears can hear and eyes can see - but rather, ironically, more in the realisation of the longed-for and much desired peace, unity, harmony, and utopia of all the earth, in the flowering and blossoming of the full potential of collective mankind in all his knowledge and capabilities, and when Man comes close to the perfection of God, in whose image, Man is. And then the end will come.
And of course no prediction of an exact date and time of the end is true, never ever.
