“Apocalypticism rises and falls with economic and political conditions on the ground,” said Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University. “Give a culture some leisure time and excess income and they’ll forget about the end of the world pretty fast. But mass an army at the border, and prophesies of the end of times will spike just as quickly.” While the Mayans aren’t normally known as major players on the religious scene, beliefs in the end of the world, or the world to come, are common themes across most major faith traditions. “Our fears about the end of the world are fairly universal,” Prothero said. “What changes is the form those fears take.”
Is Doomsday upon us (again) in 2012? – SILive.com
