End of the World: Not this time?

You must have heard it again. The first time that I witnessed it, it was in 1994, if I have a good memory. I was still a teen then. I spent all of my little savings because I didn't want to risk the chance of dying and leaving my money behind. It has happened again: "The end of the world!" This time, 21st May 2011.

Search engines have been crazy over the last few days. Worldwide, people were searching for information regarding the end of the world in 2011. You must have read that Harold Camping, an 89-year old former engineer, predicited the world was going to end on Saturday, May 12, 2011 at exactly 6 p.m. How he was able to come up with this date, only God knows. After this announcement, his followers started going around, alerting people that the world was going to end on the 21st of May. There are some tracts online which say judgement day will start on the 21st of May 2011, when God's elect people would be taken into heaven, and Earth would be finally destroyed on October 21, 2011.

So what did you do on the day before the big event? Who? Me? Ah, yes. Well, I went out to spend some time with a couple of friends. I had heard of the end of the world a few days back but then, I couldn't annul this event that I had planned well before the prediction. Plus, it was a day before the said-day and none of my friends nor acquaintances seemed to be the least worried about the world ending the next day. In fact, it didn't even feature in our conversations. 

And what happened on the 21st? Um hum. It was around 10 a.m while I was at work that I remembered that the world was supposed to end on that day. Waoh! Madam had completely forgotten and did not even seem to be the least disturbed by this. My colleague wasn't the least moved by the news when I told her. Her reply was, "I guess I would stay down here with all the other sinners 'cos I haven't been really living a religious life." With that, she burst into laughter.

It was after midnight and I was still up. No one called me to say that a relative had disappeared or had been lifted up into heaven to be more specific. I was sitting right there in my living room, watching a movie and playing with my baby. And now I am writing. It is a day after the end of the world. Still nothing is happening. Surely the world is not going to end now - at least not before I publish this post. And what about the "real" last day? That is supposed to be October 21st, 2011, right? Waoh! I had made plans to go on holidays in December 2011. Looks like someone is planning to go on holidays after the destruction of Earth.

Do not be fooled. No one will know when the world is going to end. It is pointless for people to go around making baseless calculations and even giving specific dates and times. In the Injeel (New Testament), it is written: "The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." [1 Thessalonians 5: 2 (NIV)]. No one would know the last day, even Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) himself said he didn't know, but talked of the warning signs of the end times.

So chill guys. Keep your calculators aside and stop scaring the hell out of some people with your end of the world predictions. Only the Most High will decide.