Apocalypticism

[1] This belief is usually accompanied by the idea that civilization will soon come to a tumultuous end due to some sort of catastrophic global event.

[1][5][6][7][8] Apocalypticism is often conjoined with the belief that esoteric knowledge will likely be revealed in a major confrontation between good and evil forces, destined to change the course of history.

[10][11][12] However, it is not exclusively a religious idea and there are end times or transitional scenarios based in modern science, technology, political discourse, and conspiracy theories.

[24][25] Paul the Apostle states in his letters to the early Christian communities in Asia Minor that he expects to be alive when the end of the world comes, and this passage in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 is often cited as proof, although its interpretation is disputed.

Another document in 999 shows two brothers taking a 29-year loan on lands of the abbey of San Marciano in Tortona, suggesting that even common people did not believe the world was ending.

These documents do not appear to have been written with the intention of publication and Newton expressed a strong personal dislike for individuals who provided specific dates for the Apocalypse purely for sensational value.

[62]Newton may not have been referring to the post 2060 event as a destructive act resulting in the annihilation of the globe and its inhabitants, but rather one in which he believed the world, as he saw it, was to be replaced with a new one based upon a transition to an era of divinely inspired peace.

[62] The Great Disappointment in the Millerite movement was the reaction that followed Baptist preacher William Miller's proclamations that Jesus Christ would return to the Earth by 1844, what he called the Advent.

LDS president Wilford Woodruff preached multiple times that many then-living adherents "would not taste death" before witnessing the return of Christ.

[76] Church members believe that there will be increasingly severe wars, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other man-made and natural disasters prior to the Second Coming.

The group's doctrines surrounding 1914 are the legacy of a series of emphatic claims regarding the years 1799,[81] 1874,[81] 1878,[82] 1914,[83] 1918[84] and 1925[85] made in the Watch Tower Society's publications between 1879 and 1924.

Claims about the significance of those years, including the presence of Jesus Christ, the beginning of the "last days", the destruction of worldly governments and the earthly resurrection of Jewish patriarchs, were successively abandoned.

Watch Tower publications also say that unfulfilled expectations are partly due to eagerness for God's Kingdom and that they do not call their core beliefs into question.

"[96] After this Christadelphians believe that Jesus will return to the earth in person to set up the Kingdom of God in fulfilment of the promises made to Abraham and David.

[108] Camping, who was then president of the Family Radio Christian network, claimed the Bible as his source and said May 21 would be the date of the Rapture and the day of judgment "beyond the shadow of a doubt".

[122] In March 2012, Camping "humbly acknowledged" in a letter to Family Radio listeners that he had been mistaken, that the attempt to predict a date was "sinful", and that critics had been right in pointing to the scriptural text "of that day and hour knoweth no man".

[citation needed] After March 2018 passed, he moved the apocalypse to April 23, 2018, in which he also predicted the Sun, Moon, Jupiter, and Virgo will signal the rapture, and that Nibiru would destroy the Earth that day.

[131] In addition, David Koresh, through forgery, stole the identity of the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists for the purpose of obtaining the Mount Carmel Center property.

In 1993, the ATF and Texas Army National Guard raided one of the properties belonging to a new religious movement centered around David Koresh that evolved from the Branch Davidians for suspected weapons violations.

His followers left their possessions and waited for the promised day, when, at his command, many cast themselves into the sea, some finding death, others being rescued by sailors.

[146] Ragnarök is an important eschatological event in the Ancient Norse religion and its mythology, and has been the subject of scholarly discourse and theory in the history of Germanic studies and is attested primarily in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources and the Prose Edda, composed in the 13th century by the Icelandic scholar, lawspeaker, and historian Snorri Sturluson.

Rudolf Simek theorizes that the survival of Líf and Lífþrasir at the end of Ragnarök is "a case of reduplication of the anthropogeny, understandable from the cyclic nature of the Eddic eschatology".

Simek says that Hoddmímis holt "should not be understood literally as a wood or even a forest in which the two keep themselves hidden, but rather as an alternative name for the world-tree Yggdrasill.

[149]: 182–183 Hilda Ellis Davidson theorizes that the events in Völuspá occurring after the death of the gods (the sun turning black, steam rising, flames touching the heavens, etc.)

John Lindow says that the poem may describe "a mix of the destruction of the race of giants and of humans, as in Ragnarök" but that "many of the predictions of disruption on earth could also fit the volcanic activity that is so common in Iceland.

No such calendar is known to have existed, and the source was a "prediction" made to media outlets by the Jorvik Viking Centre in York, England, intended to draw attention to an event that the institution was to hold on that date.

In a 2014 article on the claims, philologist Joseph S. Hopkins perceives the media response as an example of a broad revival of interest in the Viking Age and ancient Germanic topics.

[167] UFO religions sometimes feature an anticipated end-time scenario in which extraterrestrial beings will bring about a radical change on Earth and/or "lift" the religious believers to a higher plane of existence.

One such religious group's failed expectations of such an event, the Seekers, served as the basis for the classic social psychology research on cognitive dissonance conducted by the American psychologists Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter and published in their book When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World (1956).

[171] The narrative continues with a projection of Ahura Mazda and the six Amesha Spentas solemnizing a final act of worship (yasna), and the preparation of parahaoma from "white haoma".