The Last Days

[_karl61]

It seems to me that so many have thought that they are living in the last days. Those in the first century thought it was the end of time. Those saints in the late 1800's thought in was the end time, especially likely the year that Joseph was reportedly told he would see the Lord (certain amount of years) but I notice in the New Testatment that when you will hear of wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes and pestilence that these were warning signs. I have been thinking about the word pestilence. Living in the United States in the late 20th and 21st century pestilence has never been an issue but it could bring about a famine in biblical times. It could wipe out entire tribes as it would wipe out the crops. It seems the more you stand back and look at the times of the new testament that indeed they thought it was the end of time, the romans were the ones desribed in the book of revelation and the thousand year reign would start within five to ten years.

[_Some Schmo]

People thinking they are living in the last days is one of (if not, the) scariest things about religion, in my view. The idea that people always thought they were living close to the end of the world actually gives me a sliver of hope for this generation. The thing that's running interference with that hope is that fact that we now have the technology to blow the crap out of ourselves several times over.

[_ozemc]

I hear that so much, it drives me crazy.

I guess you could say that my spirituality, as it were, has changed tremendously over the last few years.

For a long time, I was a Bible-thumping Baptist of the worst sort. I would argue over the inerrancy of the Bible, the Flood, Adam and Eve, etc. with anybody and everybody.

However, and I don't really know how it happened, it seems like scales started falling from my eyes the more I started learning about the universe, and galaxies, etc.

I guess I just got to the point in my life, late 40's, where I started looking at things I had always taken for granted in a new light. In 2005, I was divorced, from someone that cheated on me, and I really began to question about the rightness or wrongness of how we live our lives.

That led into deep thoughts about my own life and my own views of God.

But, to get back to the point of the thread, I don't think we're in "the last days", and I really don't believe that we will see things as described in the Bible. for what it's worth, I do think that the Revelation of John was writtten for the times he lived in about what was going on then, not some far-off future.

Many, many, many years from now, and I'm talking in the terms of billions of years, the earth will burn up, when the sun is in its death throes. Not before, and definitely not in the next 20 or 30 years.

[_Mercury]

this is what the end times talk is for:

[_Who Knows]

How many years will it take before the LDS church stops using the term 'latter-days'? A hundred years from now? Probably not. 500? I think you're getting close. 1,000 years from now? I think by then, it'll be quite clear that 2008 (much less 1830) shouldn't have been called the 'latter days'.

Maybe by then, a new 'latter-day' church will have come into existance, saying that Joseph Smith and the Mormon church fell into apostacy (just like the LDS church says about other religions), but that NOW, we're truly in the latter days.

It would be fun to watch it all unfold.

[_ozemc]

How many years will it take before the LDS church stops using the term 'latter-days'? A hundred years from now? Probably not. 500? I think you're getting close. 1,000 years from now? I think by then, it'll be quite clear that 2008 (much less 1830) shouldn't have been called the 'latter days'.

Maybe by then, a new 'latter-day' church will have come into existance, saying that Joseph Smith and the Mormon church fell into apostacy (just like the LDS church says about other religions), but that NOW, we're truly in the latter days.

It would be fun to watch it all unfold.

Hmmm, I'm not sure I'd like to live 1000 years, but, by the same token, I would like to see us explore the cosmos. Not going to happen in my lifetime.

Maybe I was born too early ....

My pre-eternal spirit must have been too anxious! :-)

[_John Larsen]

How many years will it take before the LDS church stops using the term 'latter-days'? A hundred years from now? Probably not. 500? I think you're getting close. 1,000 years from now? I think by then, it'll be quite clear that 2008 (much less 1830) shouldn't have been called the 'latter days'.

Maybe by then, a new 'latter-day' church will have come into existance, saying that Joseph Smith and the Mormon church fell into apostacy (just like the LDS church says about other religions), but that NOW, we're truly in the latter days.

It would be fun to watch it all unfold.

That is the brilliance of it. But then it will be the latter-days, you see? Those that labeled it the latter-days in the past were only "speaking as men".

[_Sethbag]

In 1988, while on my mission, I had deep religious discussions with my 2nd missionary companion. We were both ultra-TBM and believed that the signs of the times were such that the End Is Nigh(tm). The only difference between us was that he was convinced Jesus would be back in under 5 years from that time, and I was willing to give it 10 or 15 more years. I know exactly what it's like to be convinced we know that it's right around the corner.

I recall hearing something from a ex-JW in an interview that at one point he was afraid to ever miss a single meeting because he was afraid if he did, and if the end was upon them, he might miss out on crucial instructions on where they were to go, and what they were to do, next.

I was so convinced that World War III, between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, was imminent, that in 1986 I joined the Army Reserve so that I could be ready to do my part, and at a higher rank than I would be if I waited for it to start and got drafted. Well, the Warsaw Pact has come and gone.

My own thoughts on the matter are that Jesus is never coming back. We'll either be in our next global war with China, or else with some entity in the Muslim world.

Given the proliferation of nuclear weapons, however, I now firmly believe that somebody will push the button and at least a few places will be turned into glass parking lots, if not the entire world, before the end of the 21st century. I just don't see how it can be avoided. When someone like Osama bin Laden finally gets their mitts on a nuke, they're going to use it, and all hell will break loose.

[_Blixa]

I found the millenialism I encountered at church very disturbing when I was a child. I don't know how much the average Primary goer gets it these days, but I used to hear over and over that things would end in our life time and wasn't it nice we would live to see it! That scared the heebie jeebies out of me. It also made me pissed off: so I don't get to grow up and have a wonderful life doing the things I dream of?

After one Primary teacher devoted several classes on how we were surely in the latter days (I think a current rash of UFO sitings was marshalled as "proof," and possibly also the emergence of Sasquatch into popular discourse), I told my grandma how unnerved I was. She laughed and quite promptly told me to put it out of my head. "They've been saying that for years. I heard it, I'm sure my mother heard it, hell, Joesph Smith was even saying it was right around the corner back in his day. And before him lots of other churches claimed the world would end in the next few years. It's just silly, just something they say to keep people worried."

[_Mercury]

...and possibly also the emergence of Sasquatch into popular discourse.

That makes sense. Maybe they thought it was Cain getting ready for Armageddon.