end of the world?

[jefhatfield]

www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl1.htm has some interesting theories

nostradamous thought july 1999 would be especially bad, but we would survive...people like to choose the end of a millenium...the apostles and disciples of christ thought the end would come in the first century ad

thoughts?

[crenz]

Some people like to think a lot about the end of the world, but completely forget to consider the end of their lives. We all somehow expect ourselves to live till we're old and satisfied, but that's not a given. I do think it is important to know where the world is heading towards, and as a Christian I fully expect Jesus Christ to return one day. However, in my daily life, I focus on what Christ wants me to do today, rather than wait till whatever happens. I find that more fruitful.

PS. Nice guitar!

[takao]

anybody remembers the 2000 crazyness ?
the end of the world probarbly has been predicted since thousands of years...it's nothing new

[JeDiBoYTJ]

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/end.php

:p

[Josh]

Interesting...the site www.bibleufo.com was most particularly interesting to read.

I do think the end of the world, by whatever means, is inevitable and will happen. I couldnt guess at a particular reason, but I would side with those who believe it will be sometime soon (next hundred years). I think it will happen during my lifetime (Im 20).

Opposed to religously, scientifically speaking, a devistating meteor blast is very probable. I cant remember the exact figures, but scientists have calculated statistics about the probability of life-ending impacts hitting planets at a comparable distance to ours from the center of our galaxy (the closer you get to the center, the more dense with objects it is, meaning the more probable impacts are).

Those scientist said that on average, planets at our distance from the center of our galaxy have experienced life-ending impacts about every 20 million years. The last time Earth experienced such a hit was 65 million years ago.

Statistically speaking, we should have been hit with a similar blast 3 times by now.

How long before our luck runs out?

[FoxyKaye]

That's some seriously messed-up stuff. Of course, the "lose weight" and "diet" banner ads lend it significant credibility. :rolleyes:

Besides, the X-Files already told us when the end of the world would come: December 2012. :D

[mischief]

[mischief]

Some use it as an excuse to not live their lives: "Why kick ass at life if the world will end soon anyway?"

Others as an excuse to commit atrocities: "It's the end times and I'm gonna git every las' one of you devil-worshippin' hippes!! *BLAM*BLAM*"

Most use it as an excuse to cover the fearmongering that's been the favourite in the press and Federal Government since the fifties: "It's nothing to do with me... I voted my conscience... I'm sure My candidate will stave off the nukes for another four years."

Western civilization is OBSESSED with the end of the world. If there's one thing that scares westerners it's something that will outlive them. If there's anything that scares westerners more, it's anything that's potentially eternal.

In short: GET OFF IT AND LIVE YOUR LIVES. SURE, YOU COULD GET HIT BY A FREAK BALL OF AIRLINE "ICE" IN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES BUT IT SHOULD NOT EFFECT YOUR LIFE. DEATH IS ALWAYS ONE ANURISM AWAY. DEAL WITH IT.

With all that stress you're more likely to lift something heavy wrong, tear the artery running along your spine, bleed out into your abdomen with a slight backache and die in under 5 minutes. So chill out dammit. ;) :D :eek:

[blackfox]

Which world are we talking about here? For my parents' generation, their world ended around 1967, with everything in the successive decades becoming more foreign and therefore, somewhat oblivious.

For me, my world ended in the last few years, with the Political Climate and the US participation in a War ( a novel experience for my generation.),not to mention a media environment which is prone to make me both scratch my head and go into seizure.

Not to mention milestones like entering/graduating college, 1st professional job, kids etc.

An actual end-of-the world (or end of humanity, rather) is as irrelevant as it is inevitable. Just seems like an rationalization of some to be lazy or make excuses for their future...

...blah.

[Laslo Panaflex]

Well, according to Time Traveling John Titor, the world doesn't end completely, rather we are just thrown back into the stone age, a Mad Max type world, a world that still has the ability to make time machines . . .

http://www.johntitor.com/

It's a really funny and interesting read, check it out if you haven't already.

[Raid]

www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl1.htm has some interesting theories

nostradamous thought july 1999 would be especially bad, but we would survive...people like to choose the end of a millenium...the apostles and disciples of christ thought the end would come in the first century ad

thoughts?

Well according to the Mayan calendar, a calendar that accurately tracks celestial events, the 5th world will end and the 6th world will begin Dec 21st 2012. Now I'm not sure that the Mayans thought that the end of the 5th world would mean a purge of all life or not, but the 6th world is when 'magical forces' are supposed to come back. I'm not personal saying that's doomsday or anything, but on that day I'm going to sit back with a good scotch and welcome the 6th world. :D

[mischief]

Now I'm not sure that the Mayans thought that the end of the 5th world would mean a purge of all life or not, but the 6th world is when 'magical forces' are supposed to come back. I'm not personal saying that's doomsday or anything, but on that day I'm going to sit back with a good scotch and welcome the 6th world. :D

The Mayan Calendar should not be read the same way as western calendars. Westerners like tangible things. Things they track in Almanacs. The best way to describe the Mayan Calendar is as a "Psychotropic Almanac" They use it's units to track the evolution of Human Consciousness. Each "world" or "Sun" represents a paradigm of dominant Human behaviour in that particular "Sun".

I met this guy: ( http://www.2near.com/edge/carl/enlight.html ) recently. He's got a very clean read on how they approached their calendar. I like the fact that he makes no doom-based predictions and simply presents a model that comes very close to what's actually going on.

[jefhatfield]

will christ come back? i believe so...the first time he left this earth plane he said he would be back and on the third day, after his death, he did come back and was seen by no less than 500 people

so it is not strange that his followers and friends were expecting him back in their lifetimes...but to christ, time stands still and before abraham was, "i am" proclaims christ because past, present, and future all exist at the same time

if there is no return of christ and evolution takes its course (i believe in christ but also in evolution...and also that the earth is round), man, who is a short lived species, will run his course rather quickly in a few million years

that's short compared to the species lifetime of a horse or shark

the earth ends every day that a species is wiped off this planet far faster than one is generated...in hawaii alone, species are wiped out every year and scientists believe each species came to the island once every 50,000 years

it won't all end in a bang, but piece by piece as has been the case with man's intrusion on nature...each species is like a rivet holding a flying airplane together and each time a rivet is lost, we are closer to calamity

as far as i am concerned, we have not only lost rivets, but a few doors, wheels, and an engine or two at this point and are being held up by a thread

[jefhatfield]

The Mayan Calendar should not be read the same way as western calendars. Westerners like tangible things. Things they track in Almanacs. The best way to describe the Mayan Calendar is as a "Psychotropic Almanac" They use it's units to track the evolution of Human Consciousness. Each "world" or "Sun" represents a paradigm of dominant Human behaviour in that particular "Sun".

I met this guy: ( http://www.2near.com/edge/carl/enlight.html ) recently. He's got a very clean read on how they approached their calendar. I like the fact that he makes no doom-based predictions and simply presents a model that comes very close to what's actually going on.

my wife befriended an old mayan man (who is now in his 70s) who was the last of the tribes in his nation not affected by westerners...he had a lot of interesting things to say about time and "endings" in life

he told her how the ancient ways and understanding of the stone age (pre columbian) mayans has been completely lost and even today's mayans could never understand the context of the once great culture

[NusuniAdmin]

The end of the world hmmmm :rolleyes: *begins to fade out from reality and thinks about end of the world and forgets he was riding his bike*

5 seconds later....

*rides off a cliff*

10 seconds later....

*relizes he was still riding his bike*


anyways i dont think world will end from any religious thing, i think it will be either A) We kill ourselves or B) Yellowstone National Park Supervolcano explodes finally (after being 40+k years overdue) and we have a huge nuclear winter and all life dies

[BRM]

Christ will return and the Bible says when that happens there will be billows of smoke, the sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood. Hummm...that sure sounds like a Yellowstone eruption to me.

[Dont Hurt Me]

Floods,Earthquakes,Pestilence,Wars & Rumor of Wars I would say we have a big yes on those. Sure they have allways been with us but not in this magnitude since recorded history.
We have 2 things to fear Maybe 3, ourselves and a chunk of rock running into our planet.

[jefhatfield]

Floods,Earthquakes,Pestilence,Wars & Rumor of Wars I would say we have a big yes on those. Sure they have allways been with us but not in this magnitude since recorded history.
We have 2 things to fear Maybe 3, ourselves and a chunk of rock running into our planet.

asteroids have been the big thing of the past few years...he he...thanks hollywood but it's extremely rare...for a second, let's look at science and probability vs possibility

volcanos, on the other hand, kill a lot of life and the right one...if big enough, will estinguish us, all other mammals, and most plant and sea life...the debris thrown from a major eruption would cool things to near absolute zero and that would be one heck of a winter...far worse than any man made nuclear winter

nova and all the other science shows do point out that theoretically, it could never really reach the full absolute zero, but it would be just a few degrees warmer than absolute zero...but that is still very cold...an ice age is friggin balmy compared to the winter aftermath of a major eruption and there are a few volcanos that can spit out that much sh** if they feel the need

i guess if that happens, the volcanic eruption that is, i will move to a warm planet like pluto and walk around without my shirt, paint myself green and yellow, and cheer the green bay packers ;)

[Abstract]

Don't forget that the poles are going to flip and cause all our electricity to flow the other way, making all electronic devices useless. And since we don't know how to live without electronics, including cars and such, we'll die. We'll die from starvation, as we don't know how to hunt, and there aren't any animals to hunt in cities. We'll die from a lack of clean water, as our society is so sterile that any bacteria can cause havoc.

Well, that's what I saw on the Discovery Channel. I don't know how much is actually possible, but seemed interesting. :)

[solvs]

Hurricanes and floods in FL, Earthquakes in CA, Volcanos here in WA. Not to mention the wars and terrorism. We're all doomed. But I've heard April 2012. Could be December, allowing for time shifts and daylight savings, leap years, etc. Either way we're all doomed.

Ragnarok ends the same way.

[CubaTBird]

omg, look at what u guys were sayin, im sure NO ONE thought of any of this durin WWII or WWI and those were MUCH harsher times than now.

[Nermal]

Floods,Earthquakes,Pestilence,Wars & Rumor of Wars I would say we have a big yes on those. Sure they have allways been with us but not in this magnitude since recorded history.
We have 2 things to fear Maybe 3, ourselves and a chunk of rock running into our planet.

But they don't happen in the Bible until after the Rapture. And we haven't had the Rapture yet.

For the uninformed - it's when all the Christians go to heaven, leaving the unbelievers behind. That single event should convince a lot of them though!

[Thom_Edwards]

...the debris thrown from a major eruption would cool things to near absolute zero...

i hope you are being sarcastic. absolute zero is the point at which there is "absolutely zero" heat released, meaning atoms collapse.

i agree a major volcanic eruption could really mess some stuff up, but there is *no* way it would take earth to absolute zero. and what if this earth-covering cloud actually held heat in, like the alleged greenhouse effect? maybe all the polar ice caps melt and we're flooded out.

actually, it wouldn't be the temperature change/extremity that would take us out, but rather the sunshine required for vegeatation to flourish would be blocked which would end up choking out life.

but, is that the end of the world? no. the world would still be here, just nobody here to see it!

[jefhatfield]

i hope you are being sarcastic. absolute zero is the point at which there is "absolutely zero" heat released, meaning atoms collapse.

i agree a major volcanic eruption could really mess some stuff up, but there is *no* way it would take earth to absolute zero. and what if this earth-covering cloud actually held heat in, like the alleged greenhouse effect? maybe all the polar ice caps melt and we're flooded out.

actually, it wouldn't be the temperature change/extremity that would take us out, but rather the sunshine required for vegeatation to flourish would be blocked which would end up choking out life.

but, is that the end of the world? no. the world would still be here, just nobody here to see it!

i didn't say it would go all the way to absolute zero...all the stars in the universe would have had to burn out completely for that

a major winter caused from debris, if bad enough would bring us within a few degrees of that temperature...but the debris would settle after millenia and things would gradually warm back up but there would be no life around at that point...only when the universe has expanded and all the stars have blown out will there be anywhere in the universe that will remain at a constant absolute zero

the clouds covering us would not cause a greenhouse effect in the event of a major, major eruption...some debris in the atmosphere can cause global heating, but what i am talking about is end of the world event level catastrophes in the form of an eruption

if i tossed a covering, let's say a blanket on you on a cold day, it would help you survive...but if i tossed a million blankets on you, i would squish you like a bug and you wouldn't be a happy camper...a major, life ending volcanic eruption is not something any of us want to be around when it happens

don't worry, reaching the full absolute zero is many years away

[Thom_Edwards]

But they don't happen in the Bible until after the Rapture. And we haven't had the Rapture yet.

For the uninformed - it's when all the Christians go to heaven, leaving the unbelievers behind. That single event should convince a lot of them though!

wow, i can't believe i've actually posted to this thread twice! i'm trying to resist, but i can't!!!!!

not to attack anyone's religion, but i've searched the Bible for the "rapture section", and i just can't find it. the rapture is actually an extremely new concept in a relatively new religion. this first started around the turn of the 18th century and was "formalized" around the turn of the 19th century, as the people of the day were getting into transendentalism. this circa 1700 movement started a rather major shift in religion, which was actually an attempt to deter the previous major shift in religous interpretation brought on by luther and calvin in the mid-16th century.

i do know about the scripture in first thessalonians, but i find it odd that it took 1700 years for people to derive this notion. also, people seem to only quote 4:17, which references those still alive being taken to heaven. however, if you read 4:16, you see that those that are dead are taken first. then, in chapter 5, it mentions that jesus' return will "come like a thief in the night" and suprise those who "are sleeping," catching them not living right. this does not match up to the rapture concept.

i find religion very fascinating

[MacBandit]

i didn't say it would go all the way to absolute zero...all the stars in the universe would have had to burn out completely for that

a major winter caused from debris, if bad enough would bring us within a few degrees of that temperature...but the debris would settle after millenia and things would gradually warm back up but there would be no life around at that point...only when the universe has expanded and all the stars have blown out will there be anywhere in the universe that will remain at a constant absolute zero

the clouds covering us would not cause a greenhouse effect in the event of a major, major eruption...some debris in the atmosphere can cause global heating, but what i am talking about is end of the world event level catastrophes in the form of an eruption

if i tossed a covering, let's say a blanket on you on a cold day, it would help you survive...but if i tossed a million blankets on you, i would squish you like a bug and you wouldn't be a happy camper...a major, life ending volcanic eruption is not something any of us want to be around when it happens

don't worry, reaching the full absolute zero is many years away

Nope sorry no amount of clouds or mirrors reflecting all the sunlight from Earth could cool the planet surface to anywhere near Absolute Zero. Absolute Zero is -459.688 degrees Fahrenheit. The thing you forget is the furnace that is contained within our planet. You don't have to dig down very far to reach soil that is kept at a temperature above surface temps. Even if the sun were to disappear tomorrow the surface temps would not drop to within a few degrees of Absolute Zero. It would be a few hundred degrees below zero Fahrenheit but not Absolute Zero.

In reality an eruption by a Super Volcano such as Yellowstone would cause a major winter. Mostly likely dropping surface temperatures as much as 10 degrees. What you have to realize is it only takes a few degree drop to start an ice age. The other thing that you need to know is based on geologic evidence the warmest surface temperatures on Earth are immediately prior to an ice age.

[Drewswa77]

will christ come back? i believe so...the first time he left this earth plane he said he would be back and on the third day, after his death, he did come back and was seen by no less than 500 people

so it is not strange that his followers and friends were expecting him back in their lifetimes...but to christ, time stands still and before abraham was, "i am" proclaims christ because past, present, and future all exist at the same time

if there is no return of christ and evolution takes its course (i believe in christ but also in evolution...and also that the earth is round), man, who is a short lived species, will run his course rather quickly in a few million years

that's short compared to the species lifetime of a horse or shark

the earth ends every day that a species is wiped off this planet far faster than one is generated...in hawaii alone, species are wiped out every year and scientists believe each species came to the island once every 50,000 years

it won't all end in a bang, but piece by piece as has been the case with man's intrusion on nature...each species is like a rivet holding a flying airplane together and each time a rivet is lost, we are closer to calamity

as far as i am concerned, we have not only lost rivets, but a few doors, wheels, and an engine or two at this point and are being held up by a thread

Where is the study that says the Human species is a relatively "short lived" one? Have there been studies on other races of the human species that suggest they will "run their course" in a few million years?? If so thats really interesting.

[Drewswa77]

i didn't say it would go all the way to absolute zero...all the stars in the universe would have had to burn out completely for that

a major winter caused from debris, if bad enough would bring us within a few degrees of that temperature...but the debris would settle after millenia and things would gradually warm back up but there would be no life around at that point...only when the universe has expanded and all the stars have blown out will there be anywhere in the universe that will remain at a constant absolute zero

the clouds covering us would not cause a greenhouse effect in the event of a major, major eruption...some debris in the atmosphere can cause global heating, but what i am talking about is end of the world event level catastrophes in the form of an eruption

if i tossed a covering, let's say a blanket on you on a cold day, it would help you survive...but if i tossed a million blankets on you, i would squish you like a bug and you wouldn't be a happy camper...a major, life ending volcanic eruption is not something any of us want to be around when it happens

don't worry, reaching the full absolute zero is many years away


Would you get real! To get down anywhere near ab. zero the volcano would have to act like a rocket and thrust us out toward the edges of the solar system. Then maybe we'd get down around ab. zero. According to this armaggedon site(http://armageddononline.tripod.com/volcano.htm) the last super volcano lowered global temps 21 degrees. Which is huge and would be devastating. But its not 500 degrees! Good God.

[mj_1903]

Would you get real! To get down anywhere near ab. zero the volcano would have to act like a rocket and thrust us out toward the edges of the solar system. Then maybe we'd get down around ab. zero. According to this armaggedon site(http://armageddononline.tripod.com/volcano.htm) the last super volcano lowered global temps 21 degrees. Which is huge and would be devastating. But its not 500 degrees! Good God.

You would probably have to go a little further than that and perhaps send us out to the edge of the universe and beyond, then wait a few billion years for the earth to cool itself down. Then you might get close, but you probably would never reach it.

As for religious events, as a complete non-believer I simply think natural events will cause an "end of the world" which of course is only for humans. The world will continue to rotate around its axis for many billions of years after humans have vanished.

[hansen]

anybody remembers the 2000 crazyness ?
the end of the world probarbly has been predicted since thousands of years...it's nothing new

Eventually someone will be rigth :D

[MacBandit]

Eventually someone will be rigth :D

Yup, just like the new powerbooks next week madness. :D

[jefhatfield]

It would be a few hundred degrees below zero Fahrenheit but not Absolute Zero.



yes, a few hundred degrees, but how many hundred??

major debris from a life ending event like a major eruption of that magnitute would take it down a few hundred degrees thus cancelling out the sun's effect for many years, but scientists don't know if that would be 300, 350, or 400 degrees below zero, fahrenheit...to me, since it's 70 degrees fahrenheit here right now, i would call 400 degrees below zero pretty darn close to 459 degrees below zero

again, yes, the debris would settle and thousands of years later, the temperature would get back to normal levels and there would be beautiful sunrises and sunsets, but no life as we know it...some protozoa may hang out and thrive and wouldn't notice any difference ;)

a more minor eruption, that would take the earth's temperature down ten degrees, like mentioned above, would be a big enough headache in itself

that being said, the major volcano i mentioned is far far more likely than a ben affleck/bruce willis type of asteroid coming here and pulverizing the planet

[jefhatfield]

Where is the study that says the Human species is a relatively "short lived" one? Have there been studies on other races of the human species that suggest they will "run their course" in a few million years?? If so thats really interesting.

in the course of things, we have not been around as long as horses or sharks, and their span on earth is nowhere near as close as some species of plants and microbes

no, i wasn't around before man so i can't vouch that we are as old as horses and sharks...the imperfect, yet fairly reliable fossile record and carbon dating shows that many types of life have been here way before we have

are we the smartest and most powerful species? no doubt, but that does not make us the oldest species

i believe in god and i think the beauty and design of evolution shows a divine and amazing process...mother nature, as we call her is god but god does not get credit for it from so many people

even strains of disease and the storms that hit florida are a result of this planet that god created, imho, and it's a mystery why god invented viruses and other things that plague mankind...but i don't think god is punishing us with the current storms in florida for some "sin"...god did not bring down aids to the gay white men in san francisco and new york since most of the people in the world who have the disease today are africans, and the majority of those afflicted are heterosexual

but if we have a major volcano that wipes out a lot of people, we can't blame man and we can't blame god...we live in a dynamic, and often dangerous and beautiful system that god created...by his will, he lets man and nature co-exist and sometimes one infringes on the other

that being said, i don't think god/christ, is exactly happy with how man in general has treated nature...we are to be good stewards of his handiwork and that, recently in history, has not been our practice

[Mord]

Those scientist said that on average, planets at our distance from the center of our galaxy have experienced life-ending impacts about every 20 million years. The last time Earth experienced such a hit was 65 million years ago.

Statistically speaking, we should have been hit with a similar blast 3 times by now.

How long before our luck runs out?

the metiorite overdue thing is of no significance the earth is just as likely to have a metiorite hit today as it is to happen the day after a meteor hits or 100 million years after a strike, it's still a 1 in 20 million chance that a metior will strike in the next year.

what we should be worryed about is when the poles will swich and well all die from cancer as we would have no protection from solar winds.

i'm atheist so all the god crap just seems stupid to me.

[jefhatfield]

the metiorite overdue thing is of no significance the earth is just as likely to have a metiorite hit today as it is to happen the day after a meteor hits or 100 million years after a strike, it's still a 1 in 20 million chance that a metior will strike in the next year.

what we should be worryed about is when the poles will swich and well all die from cancer as we would have no protection from solar winds.

i'm atheist so all the god crap just seems stupid to me.

speak about switching poles and disaster...let me explain...it kind of relates...where i live i have a front yard and a backyard and they are like the poles of my property...on one pole, or yard, sits one mean cat who protects the yard and in the other yard sits the other mean territorial cat

every now and then the two cats switch yards and there's a lot of hissing and grandstanding

but the last time the cats switched yards, there was a big war and my cat, the ferile mean one, got clobbered by the other cat, a domestic but very mean siamese cat...my cat came in with a claw embedded into its head and a couple of weeks later it got severely infected and it cost us 200 dollars and we have to make the cat an indoor cat for a good spell...which is pure torture for us and the cat

the other cat mysteriously came down with lung cancer and had to be put down a week after the fight..nobody in the siamese cat's home next door smokes...it's just so strange

so the moral of the story is...well, there is no moral, but weird things happen when the poles change, or at least when cats decide to change yards

[Stelliform]

so the moral of the story is...well, there is no moral,
?!?!? You got that right! :D

Or the moral could be a mess while the pole switches, then we have to buy new compasses?

[Mechcozmo]

According to Judaism:

The world was created in a damaged state, and it is our job to fix it. The hebrew word for "Repairing the world" is "Tikun O'lam." There is no mention of an end to the world, instead there are multiple mentions of making the world a better place. Just a little FYI.

Or, to borrow from the Hitchicker's Guide to the Galaxy...the world will end 5 minutes before we learn what the Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything is, destroyed courtesy of the Vogons.

[rainman::|:|]

The impending pole reversal will probably not hurt mankind. The magnetosphere will restablize, and of course you have to realize the reversal itself will take hundreds or thousands of years. Probably the worst thing that will happen is the extinction of some migratory animals, but it's happened before in the Earth's history...

Personally, I have no use for religious supposition about some final rapture... probably we'll all wind up killing ourselves and that'll be that. life may begin again on earth in a few billion years, who knows. i won't be around.

but i don't expect the end of civilization in my time. unless some nutty religious folks try and force it...

paul

[musicpyrite]

.......Personally, I have no use for religious supposition about some final rapture... probably we'll all wind up killing ourselves and that'll be that. life may begin again on earth in a few billion years, who knows. i won't be around.

but i don't expect the end of civilization in my time. unless some nutty religious folks try and force it...

paul
Totally agree.

I've always believed that human kind will kill itself over religion. Look how many wars have happened over, or as a result of religion. I'm not saying religion is totally bad, being non religious myself, it's just when people start killing each other 'in the name of their religion' (aka something like a Jihad) that's a problem.

Religion plays such a big part in most (if not all) in society, that it's disturbing. (to me at-least)

[Les Kern]

www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl1.htm has some interesting theories
nostradamous thought july 1999 would be especially bad, but we would survive...people like to choose the end of a millenium...the apostles and disciples of christ thought the end would come in the first century ad

thoughts?

An old aquantance was convinced, through the teachings of his church (pentacostal) that, and I quote, "The number of the beast, 666, is in every bar code on every product".
As Robert Heinlein said, "One man's religion is anothers belly-laugh".
He's right.
Beware of fundamentalists of all persuasions; they are odd, sometimes psychotic, and know that you can never, ever change their minds.

[Counterfit]

Well, according to Cornelius (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics_2004/athletics/3610598.stm) Horan (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/3081905.stm), it's coming soon :D


I think it'll be whenever Shiva gets sick of our crap.

Wait a second... I'm not Hindu... :confused:

[musicpyrite]

As for this 'end of the world, the bible predicts it' nonsense, it is a proven fact that this bible code isn't real. If you ever watch TV (I rarely do) look at the History Channel, a few months ago they had a show talking about all this bible code stuff, and how it worked, and the algorithms and stuff used to predict it.

What they did was use this code in the bible, and the code came up with things like the Kennedy assanation, 9-11, etc.

What they also did was code with the book Boby Dick.

It too predicted things like 'end of world' and 'death/much suffering'.

So do you know what people started saying? That Moby Dick was written by Jesus. :rolleyes: :confused:

Please people, stop wasting all you time with this nonsense and get on with your lives.

Organized religions use this (aka fear) to control your life. Fear of death, fear of not making it to heaven, fear of going to hell.

[crackpip]

don't worry, reaching the full absolute zero is many years away

There is no way that a volcanic eruption could take the earth anywhere near absoute zero. First off, the only way for the earth to cool is through radiation, applying the blackbody relation means that the cooling is related to temperature to the 4th power. Thus as the Earth cools, the rate of cooling decreases very rapidly. Secondly, the Earth can't cool much below an average temperature of 0C until the oceans freeze. This would take quite a while since it takes quite a bit of energy for phase changes in water. Thirdly, the same process would have to happen in the molten outer core of the Earth. Lastly there is the presence of radioactive isotopes emitting radiation within the Earth providing heat as well. All of this couldn't happen in the timeframe that the aerosols (ash, etc) released by even a supervolcano would stay in the atmosphere before settling.

Also, on a separate point, in order for the layer of debris to completely block out incoming radiation from the sun, it means it will block all outgoing radiation from the Earth. This means that the cloud of debris will be the only emitting surface, and since it is a good reflector it will be a poor emitter, so again the cooling rate will be small.

That's not to say that the Earth wouldn't be in a world of hurt, if a massive chain of volcanoes started to erupt. I'm just saying that the atmosphere wouldn't get much colder than say -100C, which is still far from absolute zero.