Apocalypse Now?

There are a lot of people out there who believe the Apocalypse is nigh. You've probably heard some of them on television. Mike Huckabee, for instance, believes that the End Times are upon us and is constantly looking for signs everywhere. Ben Carson may too, given his religious background, as may others in the GOP's carnival. Lots of TV preachers believe it. Pat Robertson believes it.

And they're all so sure because clearly we're living in the End of Days. Look at the world we live in. Clearly we're on the brink.

So if you're one of those people who are terrified that the world is going to end tomorrow, I have some words of comfort for you. Just remember your history.

Specifically, the part of history (and this is good Christian history too) talking about The Black Plague.

Because if you or I had lived during the years of the first outbreak of y. pestis, we could have been forgiven for thinking that the End Times were not just nigh but that the call from God was coming from inside the house. We would have been perfectly sane to be afraid that, were we to open our closets, Jesus was going to pop out with a chainsaw and Rapture the ever-living fuck out of us (okay, so the medieval conception of the End Times didn't include The Rapture, but you get the point: if there were any times to be the End Times, these would have been them).

And people did all kinds of crazy shit because they really truly believed the world was going to end. None of this, "In our lifetimes God is coming back so send five smackers to my ministry," bullshit. More like, "God may be back in the next five minutes so let's get wasted." People were scared.  And with good reason.

See, during the first outbreak of Plague, some estimates say as many as half the population of Europe died. That means if Europe were a law school and Plague were the curmudgeonly professor everyone dreads, he'd start the first class by saying, "Look to your left. One of the two of you will not graduate." And then you'd realize you had puss-filled lumps under your arms and were coughing up blood. One half the population. The Plague had a better batting average than Ted Williams.  Even if it was just a third, as other estimates have put it, that's still hitting the cover off the ball.

And that's not accounting for people who recovered. Because recovering from the flu isn't pleasant but doesn't involve spending days vomiting blood, puss-filled lumps which leave scars when they burst, hemorrhaging which leaves you black and blue, or being abandoned by family, friends, and society. Everyone would have been touched by it. Everyone in the known world would have borne the marks in one way or another.

Why am I asking you to remember this horrible thing? Because, and correct me if I'm wrong, the world did not end. In fact, after the Plague swept through, the world improved in some ways. It would not be implausible to say that we owe the modern world to the Black Death.

And it came back. Again and again. And it sucked again and again. But the world remained unended each time, even as the worst thing to have ever happened happened over and over. And I'm sure that there were Bible verses quoted proving that, yep, the world was about to end. And there were probably people who took advantage of people's (justified, to my mind) fear to make money. It was all probably quite similar to now, in many ways.

But the thing is, the world is still here. And if you compare the world today and the signs of the times which are supposed to be so terrible with every second person dying over the entire world (and that's an average; many places lost nearly everyone)... well, I'm afraid that, "everyone I know horribly dying of a mystery disease," comes way ahead of, "Obama reelection," on my list of signs of impending Apocalypse.

So stop worrying so much about the end of the world. It's been through a lot worse and it's still ticking.