Judaism has the Book of Daniel; Christianity has the Book of Revelation; Islam has the coming of the Mahdi; Zoroastrianism has the countdown to the arrival of the third son of Zoroaster.
The stories and their interpretations vary widely, but the underlying concept is similar: God intervenes in the world, bringing history to an end and ushering in a new moral order.
Apocalyptic thinking runs at least back to Egyptian mythology and right up to Heaven's Gate and Y2K mania. More worrisome, to the nonbelievers at least, are the doomsday cults that prefer to take holy retribution into their own hands. By obviously, killing everyone and sending them most likely to a very fiery eternal sleep.
In 1995, members of the Aum Shinri Kyo sect unleashed sarin nerve gas in a Tokyo subway station, killing 12 people and injuring more than 5,000. Had things gone as intended, the death toll would have been hundreds of times greater.
A more determined group armed with a more lethal weapon—nuclear, biological, nanotechnological even—could have done far more damage.
Next up-Dream World
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