Scientists and religious people agree; this year’s a "global catastrophe.”
Religious people have Armageddon, and Scientists have the Doomsday clock; which was set at 89 seconds to midnight on January 27, 2025 making it the closest the world has ever been to what scientists and religious people both agree is a "global catastrophe.”
The decades-old international symbol, described by the University of Chicago-based nonprofit the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists as a metaphor to show how close our planet is to reaching "human extinction," is set every year.
In January 2024, the clock was set at 90 seconds to midnight, the same as it was in 2023. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists tracks human made threats and focuses on three main hazards — nuclear risk, climate change and disruptive technologies — to determine the clock's placement.
People around the world suffered an average of 41 extra days of very dangerous heat this year because of human-caused climate change, according to a group of scientists who also said that climate change worsened much of the world’s damaging weather throughout 2024.
The past 10 years have been the warmest 10 years since record-keeping began. The fearful news is that the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said: “Even if CO2 emissions were to be drastically cut down starting today, the world economy is already committed to an income reduction of 19% until 2050 due to climate change.
These damages are six times larger than the mitigation costs needed to limit global warming to two degrees.
And health and economic costs from three toxic chemicals used in plastics is estimated at $1.5 trillion for a single year. The study, published December 16, 2024 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analyzed data from 38 different countries, representing one-third of the total global population.
Bisphenol A (BPA), commonly found in food packaging, is an endocrine disruptor associated with cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and reproductive disorders. BPA exposure was associated with 5.4 million cases of heart disease and 346,000 strokes, leading to 431,000 deaths.
The challenge news is even when air pollutant concentrations decrease, health risks posed by these pollutants remain consistently high. A global research network examined data from 380 cities to assess how the effects of air pollution on mortality have changed between 1995 and 2016.
The central finding: although concentrations of air pollutants such as particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide have decreased, the associated health risks have hardly changed. The study was published in The Lancet.
The majority of Christians, Jews, and Muslims do not believe that all of humanity is moving closer and closer to a catastrophic Judgement Day.
The minority who do think that Judgement Day is coming soon share the usual negative, fear-filled views of most end-times thinkers: Christians, Jews and especially Muslims, who do believe that: “The hour (of Judgement) is near” (Qur’an 54:1); and ˹The time of˺ people’s judgment has drawn near, yet they heedlessly turn away.” (Qur’an 21:1)
According to a 2012 poll by the Pew Research Center, at least half of Muslims in nine Muslim-majority countries believe that the coming of the Mahdi is "imminent," and could happen in their lifetime. Sadly these end-times thinkers always see pre-ordained threats of cataclysmic world wide doom; and not just warning of the consequences if we humans do not repent and change our behavior.
The Greek word Armageddon is a transliteration of the Hebrew har məgiddô which is a mountain near Megiddo, a hilltop fortification built by King Ahab, that dominated the Plain of Jezreel.
Har Magedon is the symbol of a battle in which, when the need is greatest and believers are most oppressed, God suddenly reveals His power to distressed peoples and the evil enemies are destroyed.
Armageddon is a warning of humanity’s need to change to avoid Armageddon. Because temperatures in the Middle East have risen far faster than the world’s average in the past three decades.
Precipitation has been decreasing, and experts predict droughts will come with greater frequency and severity. And major wildfires in Europe are starting earlier in the year, becoming more frequent, doing more damage and getting harder to stop.
In Africa, where 70% of livelihoods rely on nature in some form, the report showed a two-thirds fall in wildlife populations.
Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam has a powerful eschatological strain. It anticipates the end to the world as we know it; a final historical confrontation between good and evil (Armageddon); after which, with God’s help, human life will be rewarded and transformed.
As the Qur'an states: ”Verily! Those who believe and those who are Jews, Christians, and Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, and do righteous good deeds, shall have their reward with their Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.” (2:62 and 5:69) Notice that the Qur'an specifically stresses religious pluralism applies on God's judgment day.
And Pope Francis said: ‘All Religions Are Paths To God’ This is a new and very strong support for religious pluralism.
Yet a Pew Research Center poll found that in South and Southeast Asia 55-60% of all Muslims believe in the Madhi’s imminent return; and in the Middle East and North Africa 51% do.
A hadith says that Jesus, will return to a place east of Damascus and will join forces with the Islamic messiah, the Mahdi, in a battle against the false messiah, the one eyed Dajjal, Armilos in Jewish tradition.
As ibn Babuya writes in Thawab ul-A'mal, "The Apostle of God said: `There will come a time for my people when there will remain nothing of the Qur'an except its outward form, and nothing of Islam except its name, and they will call themselves by this name even though they are the people furthest from it.
The mosques will be full of people but they will be empty of right guidance. The religious leaders (Fuqaha) of that day will be the most evil religious leaders under the heavens; sedition and dissension will go out from them and to them will it return." This sounds, and indeed is, terrible. But, those who trust in God know that the night is coldest in the last hours before sunrise.
Secularists believe that these apocalyptic visions of a future (Armageddon) are absurd, although many secularists themselves fervently believe that run away genetic modification of food and/or extreme climate change is going to doom human civilization in future generations.
The basic difference between the pessimistic, humanist secularists and the religious optimists is that those who believe in the God of Abraham also believe that God's inspiration and guidance guarantees that the spiritual forces of good, will overcome all the world's evils at the end of days; and justice, peace and religious pluralism will prevail. Or as Prophet Micah envisions it: (4:1-5)
“In the end of days the mountain of the Lord’s Temple will be established as the highest mountain; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many (not all) nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob. who will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.
“Torah will be broadcast from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. God will judge between many (not all) peoples and will settle disputes among powerful nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into ploughs, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more.
“Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig-tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken. All the nations will walk in the name of their gods, and we (Jews) will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.”
Thus, the Bible and the Qur'an's final judgement is the self-destruction of violent, hate filled, religion twisted terrorism and narrow 'my way or death' philosophy (Armageddon); and the victory of kindness, love, democracy and religious pluralism.
The Qur’an refers to Prophet Abraham as a community or a nation: “Abraham was a nation/community [Ummah]; dutiful to God, a monotheist [hanif], not one of the polytheists.” (16:120) If Prophet Abraham is an Ummah then fighting between the descendants of Prophets Ishmael and Isaac is a civil war and should always be avoided.
If all Arabs and Jews can live up to the ideal that ‘the descendants of Abraham’s sons should never make war against each other’ is the will of God; we can help fulfill the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah: “In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the heart.”
The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.” (Isaiah 19:23-5)
Finally, if one believes that God inspired prophets are able to describe scenarios of various developments in the distant future then one has to accept that the understanding of these passages should change and improve as we come closer and closer to the times they describe.
Topics: Bible, Climate Change, Interfaith, Prophet Isaiah
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