50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True

by Harrison, Guy P.

  A “polar shift” or “pole shift” will bring about the 2012 catastrophe, say some believers. Depending on whom you listen to, this either refers to a flip of magnetic polarity, or that the Earth's rotational spin will stop or reverse. Again, don't stop flossing. You are probably going to be alive in 2013. A pole shift does not threaten Boy Scouts making their way through the woods with a compass nor the rest of us. NASA astronomer Morrison explains: “A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. It has never happened and never will. There are slow movements of the continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a bait-and-switch to fool people. They claim a relationship between the rotation and the magnetic field of Earth, which does change irregularly with a magnetic reversal taking place, on average, every four hundred thousand years. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal does not cause any harm to life on Earth. A magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia, anyway.”7

  WHAT IS THE APPEAL?

  Why has this hollow claim attracted and entranced so many people? Perhaps 2012 belief swept around the world seducing believers in the early twenty-first century because it took the common desire to glance back at our past and combined that sentiment with the understandable concern one has about being incinerated by the Sun and crushed by falling buildings. It mixes in astronomical pseudoscience to give it a modern, high-tech flavor as well. It's natural for us to want to hear whispers from the ancients, to know their wisdom and glean a bit of parental knowledge as we face the stress of modern life and an uncertain future. Furthermore, there is no denying our obsession with the end. The doomsday theme often emerges in everything from songs to comic books, from films to religions. I'm certainly not immune to it. Some of my favorite fictional books and films center on the end of the world. I've always been drawn to nonfiction science books that address real doomsday possibilities, such as asteroid strikes, plagues, and nuclear war. It's exciting stuff, no denying it. There is an “apocalyptic porn” market out there that seems to feed the reptilian brain of a wide range of people, including those who like to think of themselves as rational skeptics. But mentally toying with such ultimate horror is tolerable, I suspect, only because deep down very few of us really believe any of these things will come to pass in our lifetimes. It's like riding a roller coaster. You feel like your life is in danger, but even while screaming you still trust that the car will stay on the rails.

  GO DEEPER…

  Coe, Michael D. The Maya. London: Thames and Hudson, 2011.

  Sharer, Robert. The Ancient Maya. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005.

  I don't even think about the Rapture not happening on May 21 [2011] because I know that it will. You will see.

  —Rita, May 7, 2011

  Only after disaster can we be resurrected.

  —Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, Fight Club

  I grew up in a small coastal town in south Florida, which means I was fed a diet rich in oranges, fish, and strange warnings about the end of the world. Judgment Day, I often heard, would start with “good Christians” being swept up to heaven while everybody else was left on Earth to riot, loot, and be eaten by a dragon…or something like that. Eventually Jesus would return on horseback and fix the world. I can't recall my parents ever mentioning the “End Times,” but I do remember hearing kids at school, TV preachers, and a friend's mother talk about it. I also remember sitting through a few church sermons in which a preacher warned about the Rapture, the moment when born-again Christians vanish and avoid all the chaos and suffering to come. They always said it was almost here, and might even come that day. Earthquakes and wars were clear signs, they said, and when I was a child there were earthquakes and wars—just like today. I specifically remember one preacher warning me that if the Rapture happened before I accepted Jesus into my heart, I would burn in hell forever with no second chances—nice thing to tell a ten-year-old. But a funny thing happened on the way to adulthood. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse never showed up. But, no matter, the Rapture is still coming, very soon, of course. Century after century, it's always just around the corner.

  According to the book of Revelation in the Bible, which 31 percent of Americans take to be a literal prediction of the immediate future, the world will be struck with epidemics, famines, natural disasters, and wars.1 People who don't know much about history tend to be very impressed by this and point to current headlines as proof that the Apocalypse is drawing near. However, the reality is that bad news is nothing new. Many people were certain the world was going to end when the Black Death raged in Europe in the 1300s. World War II looked a lot like the end to some. And the Rapture was very near during some of the more tense days of the Cold War, many believers said with confidence fifty years ago. Not much has changed. The Left Behind series of Rapture-themed novels has sold tens of millions of copies. According to a 2002 Time/CNN poll, 59 percent of Americans believe that prophecies contained in the book of Revelation will come true, even if not every detail is accurate.

  If all goes according to plan, earthly problems will mount for us and then the Antichrist will rise up to direct our descent into enslavement, destruction, and eternal suffering. Thanks to the Omen movies, we all know to be very afraid of the creepy but charismatic Antichrist. For half my life I heard people declare with great confidence that he was Pope John Paul II. That didn't work out, of course, so it must be someone else. A significant number of Americans think it might be President Barack Obama. But, don't forget, nearly 20 percent of Americans also think the Sun revolves around the Earth, so I wouldn't suggest relying on popular opinion polls to find out who the Antichrist is.2 Still, belief about the Antichrist is worth noting for what it reveals about people and their ideas about the end of the world. According to a 2010 study by Harris Interactive, 25 percent of Tea Party members suspect that Obama is the great evil one.3 Among Republicans in general, 24 percent think he may be the Antichrist. Thirteen percent of independents and six percent of Democrats also worry that Obama may be hiding the “mark of the beast” somewhere on his body. Overall, 14 percent of Americans think that the US president could be the “seed of Satan.”4

  Did I mention there is also a red seven-headed dragon wearing crowns and a giant sea monster involved in all this? Dragons are always fun, but my favorite Apocalyptic creatures as promised in Revelation are the locusts: “The appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle; and on their heads appeared to be crowns like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. They had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to battle.”5

  The selective nature of the Rapture is extreme to the say the least. According to Rapture believers it's not enough to be a Christian. One must be specific type of Christian. For example, Catholics and Mormons are in trouble, according to many confident Rapture-ready people I have spoken to. They also tell me that a “born-again” experience is required to clear the bar on Judgment Day. A key point many Rapture believers seem to miss in all of this is how incredibly cruel and barbaric it would be if it actually happened. It is unconscionable that believers often seem thrilled about the horrors of doomsday in order to scare people—including young children—but never seem to reflect on the apparent madness and evil of it all. Why is it necessary for some five or six billion people to suffer and die? Why is so much destruction required? One would think that an all-powerful god could come up with a smoother transition plan.

  In the end, Satan and the Antichrist fail, of course, which raises the question, Can't they read? The story is laid out in the Bible, so why would Satan bother trying when he knows he is going to lose? The climax of the whole affair, by the way, is Jesus returning as a warrior with a sword and riding on a white h
orse to smash nations and establish a new kingdom of God. This image seems to contradict the popular notion that Jesus is concerned only with love and forgiveness.

  I met the late evangelist Sir Lionel Luckhoo several years ago while reporting on a faith-healing service in the Caribbean. The Guyanese lawyer was best known for being listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's most successful lawyer with 245 successive murder acquittals. More interesting to me than courtroom conquests was his ability to know the future. He told me that he was in a race against time to spread the “word of Jesus.” It was November 1993 when we spoke, and I asked him about the end of the world. He said he did not know the exact date but did know that it would be soon. “I am sure of one thing,” he said. “We [Christians] will not see December 31, 1999, because we will be in heaven! The return of the master is imminent. Jesus is at the door.”6 Luckhoo was just one of countless millions of Christians over the centuries who were confident that they would see the Rapture occur in their lifetime only to go to their graves disappointed. It's a safe bet that every one of the preachers today who repeatedly promise that the end is almost here will one day die and the world will keep on spinning. The only question is, How many more generations must pass before doubts about the Rapture finally take hold and believers accept that it's just never going to happen?

  ENCOUNTER WITH A DOOMSDAY BELIEVER

  “I would estimate that about 97 percent of the people in the world will not make it,” the woman behind the sunglasses said. “That's sad, of course. That's why I'm out here trying to let people know.”

  Her name was Rita and she told me that the world as I knew it would end on May 21, 2011. That's only about two weeks from the day we spoke in southern California. I was confident that the world would not end—and obviously it did not, as her fatal date came and went. Doomsday believers like Rita are nothing new, of course. They have been around for thousands of years. For me, however, every time I meet one it's like the first time all over again. My fascination rises with their sincerity—and Rita was as sincere as they came.

  Here was this soft-spoken and polite middle-aged woman walking back and forth on a sunny day warning the heathens that they were almost out of time. Her tiny body was draped in a heavy sandwich board with “End of the World—May 21, 2011,” written in large letters, front and back. Rita clearly cared. She wasn't signing up new members or asking for money. She only wanted people to know that her loving God was going to kill billions of people in a couple of weeks and some heavy duty praying was in order. I walked away from our conversation sad for her. Strange as it may seem, I almost wanted the world to end just so this sweet misguided woman wouldn't have to face her own internal psychological Armageddon.

  For readers who may be wondering where the May 21 date came from, I did the mind-numbing research to find out so you don't have to. It was Harold Camping, head of a Christian radio network, who came up with the date based primarily on the timing of the Noah's ark story. Camping believes the flood occurred in the year 4990 BCE (seven thousand years ago). Of course any high school kid with a halfdecent education would know to tune out right there. For the entire Earth to have been flooded a mere seven thousand years ago would mean that the entire fields of geology, biology, zoology, anthropology, marine science, and archaeology are all wrong. Obviously a global flood did not happen seven thousand years ago, so no extrapolated date from that point is going to work. Camping's prediction never had a chance because it was a mistake based on a mistake. While talking with Rita, I knew doomsday wasn't coming but I couldn't help caring about her.

  Me: “Are you confident that you will be Raptured if the world ends May 21?”

  Rita: “No, not at all. I hope that I will be, but only God knows.”

  “Does walking around in the hot sun warning people about May 21 help your chances?”

  “I hope so, but I really don't know. It's not about what you do or who you are. It's all been predetermined who will be and who won't be.”

  “So what you do from now until then doesn't really matter because it's already decided?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it's possible that you could be left behind to suffer while some killer who is in prison right now could be Raptured?”

  “Yes. Well, I don't think Osama bin Laden would go to heaven because he didn't believe in the God of the Bible. But we can't really know.”

  “How do strangers react to you when you tell them the world is going to end later this month?”

  “I get every kind of response you might imagine. Some are nice, some are not.”

  “What happens if May 21 comes and goes without earthquakes, tsunamis, or anything unusual? How will you feel?”

  “I don't think about that because I know it will happen. I made the decision months ago to disconnect my computer and stop thinking about it. It's going to happen.”

  “But there have been countless predictions of the end of the world throughout history, and all of them failed to come true. Doesn't that concern you a little bit?”

  “But they were all based on misreadings of the Bible and misunderstandings. Many people make the mistake of looking too closely at political happenings, things that don't really matter. It's all in the Bible.”

  “You won't be tempted to kill yourself or anything like that if nothing happens on May 21, will you?”

  “No, that's not a concern at all. I don't even think about the Rapture not happening on May 21 because I know that it will. You will see.”

  After May 21, 2011, passed Raptureless, Harold Camping announced to his followers and to the world that Judgment Day had indeed occurred but no one realized it because it was an “invisible Judgment Day.” He then said the actual date of destruction had been revised to October 21, 2011. A few days after the May 21 disappointment I listened to Camping take phone calls from listeners on his radio station. Some callers were upset and some mocked him. Many others, however, assured him that they still believed in him and trusted that his new prophecy was accurate.

  I think about the lady with the doomsday sign sometimes. I hope Rita fares well with whatever psychological stress Camping's failed predictions might have caused her. I wish her well, wherever she is today. She and I are not so different, really. Rita believed she had an important warning for all humankind and was willing to face criticism and ridicule to share it. I write essays and books to share my warning about irrational beliefs. Sometimes I am criticized and mocked for my efforts. But I do it anyway because I care about others—just like Rita who saw the mirage of yet another apocalypse on the horizon and was compelled to warn strangers about it. People like her think the world will end in supernatural destruction very soon with a few special people escaping to heaven. I believe the world will keep on spinning and life will endure. I suppose we have to wait and see to find out who is right. In the meantime, however, I suggest that my outlook is the healthiest way to live.

  WHO GETS TO MAKE THE RULES?

  Warnings about the Rapture and global destruction are not as simple as most preachers describe because there is tremendous disagreement about it within Christianity. Various churches and denominations have conflicting views about precisely how it will happen, where everybody goes, who gets saved and who doesn't, and which parts of Revelation are meant to be interpreted metaphorically and which parts are meant to be taken literally. How is a Christian supposed to know which one of the many versions of Christianity has it right on the End Times? What matters? Are the Catholics right or are the Baptists right? What about the Rastafarians, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and so on? Key areas are viewed very differently within the many different versions of Christianity. Points of disagreement include Holy Communion, baptism, the Book of Mormon, Saturday or Sunday Sabbath, the return of black people to Africa, pants for women, blood transfusions, tattoos, dancing, divorce, modern science, homosexuality, and many more. Depending on whom you ask, those points and many others are the difference between salvation and damnation. It's
a tough call to choose which way to go because no one denomination can make the case that it has the weight of evidence or logic in its favor. But it's even more difficult than that for those who might want to play it safe because Christianity is not the only religion that comes with a doomsday warning.

  How can we know which religion's apocalypse is the one we should be concerned about? There are many belief systems that have their own unique end-of-the-world scenarios. And most of them require one to be correctly aligned with their demands in order to survive or at least end up in a happy place. Islam, for example, is the world's second most popular religion with more than one billion followers, and it has its own distinct final chapter. Are you up to speed on the predicted appearance of the Mahdi in the final days? Some say he's due to arrive any day now. Should we all become Muslims in order to play it safe? But wait, should we be Sunni or Shia Muslims? What about the great flood to come, as promised by Norse religion? Should we all start building arks? With so many to choose from, how do we decide? Can we vote on our preferred apocalypse? If so, I think I'd go with the Zoroastrians' more inclusive version of doomsday. Theirs involves a bit of suffering followed by forgiveness for everyone and peace on Earth. And no dragons or creepy, long-haired locusts to worry about.