Once you understand your history, we can, we might, have the possibility with this technology,
this new Guttenberg press of the internet, we might have the chance of stopping the ten
generation cycle of empire, cycle of civilization in its tracks.
Look, I’ve been a history guy for a while now and I’ve never heard of a ten generation
cycle of civilization.
A generation is about 25 years, depending on your source, from the time you’re born
until the time you have kids, it’s roughly 25 years.
Ten generations is 250 years.
Stefan is talking about Rome, which… the Republic lasted over 500 years, the Empire,
at least as a whole, lasted over 400 years.
I don’t know where he’s getting this 250, ten generations thing.
The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history
has been 200 years.
So wait, does Rome not count?
I’m confused.
I can’t think of a single country that has only lasted for 2- they’re talking about
America.
Which would put the end, right about now.
This video is brought to you by Cheddar.
Eschatology is a field of study within theology concerned with the end times.
For Christianity, that means the book of Revelations, the Rapture, the battle of Armageddon, and
the second coming of Christ.
It’s been seven years since these billboards were put up just about everywhere.
They were placed by the Family Radio Network, led by Harold Camping, in preparation for
the Rapture, which he calculated would happen on May 21, 2011.
And that wasn’t his first prediction.
In 1992, he predicted that Christ’s second coming would occur two years later, on September
6, 1994.
When that didn’t happen, September 29th, then October 2nd, and then just for good measure,
March 31st, 1995.
According to Harold Camping, the Church Age ended in 1988 which began a six year period
of Tribulation, the seventh year being the year that Jesus would come to Earth, so 1994.
The number seven comes up a lot.
Since God created the world in seven days, they take that number seven and then the word
day to mean whatever they want, in this case, years.
The Tribulation is mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 24.
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world
to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
He doesn’t specifically what’s going to happen during it or how you even know if it’s
actually happening, but there you go.
It’s apparently just the period of time before the end time.
When nothing happened, Camping revised his calculations to say that the Tribulation would
last 8400 days or 23 years.
How did he come up with 23?
Numerology is the belief in a divine or mystical importance attached to certain numbers, seven
for example.
Harold Camping believed that the number seventeen signifies heaven.
Since six years of the Tribulation had already occurred, he just added seventeen, and got
twenty-three.
Twenty-three also means judgment…
apparently.
So in his fifth prediction, Camping had convinced his followers that the end would occur on
May 21, 2011.
Many of his followers sold their worldly possessions and donated all their money to his awareness
campaign.
Over 100 million dollars were spent on billboards and advertising to get the word out that the
Rapture was coming.
The Rapture is the part of Christian eschatology when all true believers are taken to Heaven
and it precedes second coming of Christ.
So, when nothing happened on May 21st, Camping declared that a “spiritual rapture” and
judgment had occurred and that the end of the world would follow 153 days later.
So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore.
It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn.
This seemingly random verse, is literally how he came up with 153 days.
What?
Which happened to be October 21, 2011, seven years ago, today.
It’s almost like I planned it that way.
But Randy Macho Man Savage died the day before and stopped the Apocalypse from happening.
Hey, it’s just as good of a theory as 153 fish.
Harold Camping died in 2013, otherwise I’m sure the seven year itch would have been significant
somehow.
People have been predicting the end times since basically the beginning, there is a
massive Wikipedia article listing every substantial prediction for the end of the world, going
all the way back.
It seems we can’t go 2 years without someone declaring that the end is nigh.
This is despite the fact, that the bible itself says that you can’t calculate or predict
the end.
But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but
only the Father.
But that doesn’t stop people from trying anyway.
Like in 1833, when pastor William Miller calculated that the Second Advent of Christ, which is
just another word for the Second Coming, would be on March 21, 1844.
He arrived at this date because in 457 BC, Jerusalem was rebuilt.
The return of the Israelites to Israel is often cited as one of the signs of impending
doom, which Harold Camping also used.
It doesn’t matter that in 1833, the state of Israel didn’t exist, all that matters
is they attempted to rebuild it in 457 BC.
He said to me, “It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated.”
So, we take 457 BC, and we add 2300 years, because day means year… and then we add
one, because the year zero didn’t happen, it just went 1 BC to 1 AD… so we get 1844.
When nothing happened on March 21, they just added seven months to it, because you know…
seven.
So on October 22, 1844, the Millerites prepare for the end of the world, and much like with
Harold Camping, many of them gave up their worldly possessions.
This was the inspiration for the opening scene of Season 3 of the Leftovers.
This event, or rather, the fact that the world did not end, is known as the Great Disappointment…
Which is what my dad says about me whenever I tell him I’m a youtuber.
William Miller spent the rest of his days hiding in shame, I mean imagine googling what
was the biggest disappointment ever, and there’s your name, 170 years later…
nothing worse has happened since then apparently.
The Millerites later became the Seventh-Day Adventists, who continue believing to this
day that the second coming will happen any moment now.
Much like the people who knock on your door…
no, the other ones.
Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Both of these churches believe that the world was created 6000 years ago.
So, Young Earth Creationists.
Or at the very least, it’s been 6000 years since Adam, so we are currently in the seventh
millennium.
With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
So for them, a day is a thousand years, rather than just one year.
It is said in the bible that Jesus will return to Earth and usher in a thousand-year kingdom,
known as the Millennium.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are trying to get that going now.
In fact, they believe that they are the earthly representatives of God’s Kingdom and that
we are currently in the Millennium.
God’s Kingdom was established in 1914, which is also when World War 1 started.
And since then, Jehovah’s Witnesses have predicted then end of the world multiple times,
but their first prediction was 1941.
Which was when America joined World War 2, strangely enough.
Post-World War 2 America saw a huge increase in religious interest, especially when it
comes to the end of the world.
We now had bombs that could cause that, so, makes sense.
As a result, we saw the rise of Evangelicals, like Harold Camping, new religions like Scientology,
and various other cults and alternative movements.
Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists both believe in Millennialism.
That’s the idea that we either are or soon will be under the thousand year reign of Christ,
which should be relatively peaceful.
This is in contrast to Millenarianism which has a more cataclysmic apocalyptic view.
Many millenarian cults came out of the 50s and 60s, including the Branch Davidians, a
splinter group from the Seventh-Day Adventists, founded in 1955.
Vernon Howell changed his name to David Koresh, believing he was a descendant of King David
from the bible.
David Koresh also identified himself as the lamb mentioned in Revelations chapter five,
meaning he is the final prophet that will usher in the second coming of Christ.
The Branch Davidians believed they were the ones who would break the Seven Seals and bring
about the end of days.
Instead, in 1993, their days were ended at their compound in Waco, Texas which was the
90s version of Sandy Hook.
Conspiracy theorists will never shut up about it.
So to avoid any of that, I’m going to point you to a few videos down below and I’m not
going to say anything else about Waco.
So stop typing.
A lot of these cults that were started in the 50s and 60s met their end in the 90s,
due in large part to the fact that original members were dying off.
Also thanks to the internet, very few cults made it through that filter.
In 1997, a UFO religion known as Heaven’s Gate made headlines by committing mass suicide.
Their leader, Marshall Applewhite, believed that he was the reincarnation of Jesus.
They also believed that the Earth was going to be destroyed and that the only way to survive
was to follow Applewhite onto a spaceship which trailed the comet Hale-Bopp.
The comet was at its closest distance to Earth on March 22, 1997.
Four days later, the bodies of 39 Heaven’s Gate members were found after committing mass
suicide in order to transport their spirits onto the UFO.
They mixed phenobarbital with apple sauce and vodka, then taped plastic bags around
their heads.
The expression “drinking the kool-aid” comes from Jonestown even though it was actually
the knock-off brand Flavor Aid.
But they didn’t necessarily believe that the end was coming, which is good, because
I don’t want this to be another 30 minute video.
Aside from the Ufologists, 1997 was an important date for end times predictions, since it was
2000 years since Jesus was born.
Yeah, you heard that correctly.
Jesus was actually born in the year 4 BC, when they set the starting point for the calendar
they didn’t know that, I guess, then you add 2000, and then one because the year zero
didn’t happen.
When nothing happened in 97, people moved to the year 2000, because obviously.
Numerous churches and preachers believed that the world would end in the year 2000.
So let’s just talk about one.
The Unification Church was a cult founded in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon, and believed that
the Kingdom of Heaven would be established in the year 2000.
Members of this cult are known as Moonies, which is hilarious.
Jesus didn’t return in the year 2000 and Moon died in 2012, so that was basically the
end of that.
Though, the next big religiously predicted date is 2033, 2000 years after Jesus died.
Just for the sake of being thorough, this is the exact same thing that happened around
the year 1000.
But let’s take a step back from religion and look at the more secular predictions.
You probably remember the Y2k bug… unless you’re current in high school, in which
case you were born after that….
I’m so old.
Basically, it was thought that computers wouldn’t know how to interpret the date going from
99 to 00 and the power would go out, planes would drop from the sky, basically everything
that happens in Fallout.
And then of course, there was 2012, which all of you should remember.
That hysteria stemmed from the Mayan calendar, December 21, 2012 clicked over to the thirteenth
baktun, there’s a Scishow episode explaining all of the cycles if you’re interested.
But the Maya never predicted that the world would end.
We entered the twelfth baktun on September 18th, 1618 and nothing happened, everything
kept ticking over.
The Maya did believe that the last creation lasted thirteen baktuns, but didn’t predict
how long this one would last.
Pop culture just decided we should make a big deal out of this in order to sell books
and movies.
And just for good measure, somehow brought Nostradamus into it.
Nostradamus…
mmk, he… a lot of people, after something big happens, go to his poems and look for
a line that kinda sorta says what they want it to in order to say that he predicted it.
When 2012 was a thing, they tried to say Nostradamus predicted it.
He didn’t, in fact, he only ever makes one end of the world prediction and it was several
years before that.
The year 1999 seven months From the sky will come the great King of Terror.
Most people interpreted this to mean that an asteroid or comet would strike Earth in
July 1999.
Until it didn’t happen, then they interpreted it to mean all sorts of things, like John
F Kennedy Jr dying.
But what would happen if a comet or asteroid were to strike the Earth?
Cheddar explored that question in their video “Is there a best case asteroid impact scenario?”
What would be better for us life here on Earth, an asteroid hitting the ground or an asteroid
hitting water?
Cheddar is a fairly new Youtube channel focusing on business, technology, media, and news but
without the boring parts.
They also seem to have quite a few videos regarding asteroid impacts on Earth.
Including and interview with the guy whose primary job is to discover and find ways to
divert asteroids.
I’m Lindley Johnson, I’m the Planetary Defense Officer here at NASA.
Planetary Defense Officer, that’s just amazing.
So once you’re done here, make sure to head over to the link at the top of the description
to check that out and consider subscribing.
Scientists have their own predictions for apocalyptic events, including an asteroid
impact and things like Yellowstone eventually exploding.
And of course the sun swallowing the earth and the eventual heat-death of the universe.
But a surprisingly large amount of people believe that they are currently living in
the end times… 49% of Americans…
yeah.
But that shouldn’t really be surprising, given all of the examples we just went through
and the countless that we didn’t, it seems like every generation almost wants to be the
last generation.
That’s why they pick arbitrary numbers like 2000, or 10 generations, or 153 fish.
The bible itself says that you won’t know the world is going to end until it’s actually
happening, so relax, because now, you know better.
If you didn’t notice, I got some new channel art courtesy of PoetheWondercat.
I wouldn’t’ve been able to do that without the support of my patrons, especially my newest
legendary patron, Patrick.
If you’d like to help support the channel, head over to patreon.com/knowingbetter, and
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