@RedCedar oh deary-me. I just finished talking with my long-time friend, also ex-HotCopperite, who believes in the Apocalypse - and the reign of Christ and the uprising of and promise of everlasting life for the 'just' and 'good' but above all believers of a certain kind of creed. I am not going to divulge the creed. I believe no such thing, but as he is my friend and now in dire need of friends, I don't get into any kind of argument with him, it is his last hope to find redemption. Here is my take on the Apocalyptic thinking and stories of most of humanity:
There are now reporters, even scientists who have delved into the history of the various physical catastrophes which have befallen the earth in the last 10 - 12-thousand years. There is a British journalist who specialises in researching ancient sites, which may pre-date or coincide with the comet strike 12900 years ago (this time period is called Younger Dryas , which caused big floods all over the world, but we are most familiar with the biblical telling of such, but the story already appears in Mesopotamia (before the bible was written) and there is evidence of a huge flooding event even in North America.
He has produced various Netflix movies (with awful background music!!) which are interesting to view, just simply from the geographical point of view, but his conclusion that an earlier civilisation was wiped out, is just too much for me and definitely is a 'no-no' for the scientific world - he almost goes into the realm of fairytales.
However the story of a great flood seems to be present in every surviving culture on earth, many of the stories similar to our biblical Flood story. And the stories of surviving such horrific events have also been handed down in those stories.
In fact human beings, as soon as they had the ability to tell and re-tell stories, would have witnessed earth-shattering catastrophes over the millennia and made up stories to explain them. Many of the surviving myths in all cultures talk of such. It is also human to fear and expect such horrific events to recur, hence stories on how to deal with them are concocted, again almost similar across cultures.
This is my explanation for apocalyptic thinking in the present - also: that kind of thinking seems to re-surface in particularly trying times, which we seem to be having atm. In America we have the prevalence of very insular development of various apocalyptic-specific sects (Mormons, 7th-day Adventist and some Presbyterians too, too many to name). Religions all over the world have similar stories, starting with the Aztecs, the Nordics (Ragnarok), Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and of course Christianity. I think all these beliefs are based on remembered Apocalypses (caused by cosmic events), which it seems were survived by a handful of people all over the world, to make a new beginning. And it all began with a story of their survival . . .
Check out Graham Hancock - he is interesting to watch, just for the sites he is showing - places I had never even heard of before - they do exist and they reall are as old as he says - easy to check over the internet. I stopped short of the 'previous highly developed civilisation' thing - he's got a bee in the bonnet about that one.
