DC here,
Predicting the end of the world/civilization is like guessing the winner of the next Kid's Choice Awards, you're probably wrong and no one cares. However, if you're reading this, I assume that there wasn't a rapture this weekend. Which kind of sucks, because I really wanted a world without self-righteous D-bags. I'm not saying that all Christians are self-righteous D-bags, I'm saying that some Christians are self-righteous D-bags. Just like some atheist are extremely self-righteous. As are some Jewish people, as well as some (coughcoughmajoritycough) Muslim people are self-righteous. After a rapture, all the Christians are gone and everyone else is proven wrong... let's see those of us who'd be "left behind" have much of an ego after that.
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| "The Christians are gone?!? QUICKLY, NOW! CHANGE THE TEXTBOOKS BEFORE THEY RETURN!" | | |
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Obviously, like every other prediction in the last two thousand years, this one didn't come to fruition either. Though it put a huge damper in my looting/shooting/building better society plans, but what better way to cheer myself up than looking back and laugh at some of the biggest flops?
- Pat Robertson heard from it from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend you were messing around.
Actually, Robertson claimed to have heard from God himself that the world would end in 1982, but I couldn't resist a REO Speedwagon reference. Apparently, he claimed on The 700 Club (named after the audience's COLLECTIVE IQ) that in 1982, Armageddon would begin and 7 years of suffering would ensue.
His Proof? The same proof offered up time and time again by his people, "God told me."
Evidence to the contrary? Why would any god pick the biggest A-Hole on the planet to be the recipient of his word? This is the same guy who said America deserved 9/11. Case closed.
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| Fire-Spewing Demons, Whores, Dragons, Living Dead; The Biblical Apocalypse is Metal as Hell... no pun intended |
- Computers too stupid for a date-change?
Ah, Y2K!
As a bit of a survivalist myself, I LOVE LOVE LOVED this one! There was a fear that computers, which can calculate the exact SECOND to launch a rocket in order to intercept MARS, would try to change Dec 31st, 1999 into Jan 1st, 1900. Why? Because a short-sighted programmer didn't realize that a two-digit year would come back and bite him in the ass. The fear that all of the world's nukes would launch, our airplanes would fall out of the sky and our banks would shut down had the modern world trembling (the third world didn't really care) and the survivalists stocking up on more food than Star Jones the day before her lipo.
The Proof? The two-digit year calendar system used in computer programming.
Evidence to the Contrary? These same computers can calculate pi to an nearly-infinite degree in seconds... they can handle a two-digit year change.
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| "Gee, golly, gosh! You mean it's NOT 1911?" |
- Man-Made Black Hole to swallow everything!
Unlike most of these world-ending scenarios, this one has a infinitesimally small chance of actually happening. The Large Hadron Collider was scheduled to be powered on in Sept 2008, helping us humans understand physics to a degree never before imagined... there was just a chance that it would create black holes in the process. This is where the naysayers stopped reading and began freaking the hell out. Assuming that one of these black holes would basically eat the earth, Special interests groups sprang up all over the place trying to have the project stopped
Of course, the LHC was started without a hitch, although SCHRODINGER's Large Hadron Collider both destroyed the world and didn't at the same time. (ten hive-fives if you get this joke without using Google)
The Proof? ACTUALLY, there was a chance that the LHC would create black holes, although the odds were 198,000,000,000,000:1 and nobody mentions that the blackholes created would be microscopic and would only have enough force to consume themselves.
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| A Black Hole warning that DIDN'T come from Hawking? We should have known better. |
- In 1806, the chicken didn't come at all.
The Prophet Hen of Leeds was a poor chicken who, in 1806, began laying eggs with the phrase 'Christ is Coming' inscribed on the shell. Impressed? The local villagers sure were, they 'repented' and awaited their lord, I'm sure they swore off poultry for a while too.
The Proof? The Chicken was, in fact, laying eggs with the words on them.
The Funny Part? Well, one day, the villagers wanted to catch the first look of their Mother Hen Madonna laying... only to find the hen's farmer with the pre-scribed egg in one hand, and an upside-down hen in the other. In order to make believers out of his friends and neighbors, Farmer Frown was shoving eggs up that poor chicken's ass!
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| When reached for comment, she only said, "I got clucked." |
In 1844, a Baptist Minister by the name of William Miller predicted that the end of the world would come in October 22nd of that year. His followers, the creatively named Millerites, gave away all of their possessions and eagerly awaited. When
Oct 22nd came and went, the now-poor followers were understandably pissed. It came to be known as 'The Great Disappointment", although I wish we could have saved that moniker for 'The Book of Eli'
Proof? Nada, "God told him"
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| Seriously? They couldn't have held out using that phrase for another couple of hundred years? |
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There you go, five of the silliest world-ending scenarios that never were. Hopefully, you'll think of at least one before you trust in anyone telling you that the world is over (I'm looking at you, 2012) and you can laugh at others rather than yourself in retrospect.
