One of my five off-off-the-top discussion topics (besides phobias, political corruption, Andy Griffith show characters, bad hotels, drunken behavior, and German customs).....is doomsday predictions that simply were great to hear, and never occurred.
I think people in general....want to badly believe in something, even if it is bad news, a hoax, or just crazy.
So onto the first example. Way back....roughly 2,050 years ago....in the 'Holyland'....there was this group of characters who lived in solitude. Their lead character...a guy by the name of Simon ben Giora, came up with this great doomsday prediction for the group. He said that this great battle was going to occur in Judea....with the Romans being wiped out. Shortly after that....the Messah would arrive. Naturally, to celebrate this upcoming doomsday, he had the group stamp coins to commemorate the upcoming battle and victory. For the record, the people of Judea, did end up with two campaigns against the people of Rome, and Rome won both of them. The coins? No one ever brings up this topic.
Second, Hans Hut. Hans grew up in Germany in the late 1400s, and became this traveling book-dealer of sorts. At some point around 1526 (36 years old)....Hans got extremely active in ministering to people. In southern Germany, he made a name for himself....mostly for hard doses of Christianity. In the early part of 1527, he predicted the end of the world would occur on 28 May 1528. Naturally, this got around, and triggered a lot of aggravation and anxiety among the public. Toward the fall of 1527, Hans got picked up by some folks and accused of various crimes....which led to interrogations and torture. He would die on 7 December 1527. As you might imagine, the 28th of May came the next year, without much of a problem.
Third, in the early 1960s.....Jim Jones told his folks of a nuclear war coming in 1967. In preparation for it.....he moved the family to Brazil (based on a news article that said it'd be a safe place in a nuke war). At some point, he dropped the nuke war prediction, and moved the family to California. This was the same Jim Jones who moved the family out of California, and helped to kill every member of his sect.
Fourth, Charles Manson...upon hearing the Beatles record.....spoke of a great race war coming in 1969. It never came.
Finally, you come to Stephen Nelson. who works in the science department of Tulane University....officially a fairly smart guy. He's come out with his own prediction, with some factual background. He points out that roughly every 100 million years....a significant 'rock' (asteroid) hits the Earth of a noticeable size. The last event? Around 66-million years ago, so by his prediction....in about 34-million years....the next asteroid of significant size ought to hit.
On four of these predictions, it was simply a hoax. But with Nelson....he has a doomsday prediction with some slight evidence.
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