Every major religious ideology has a form of end times event. Whether it’s based on a form of cycle, or an absolute basis, depends on whether the principle of worldview is focused on whether you think God is internal (e.g., new age religions) or external (e.g., theism) and whether there is one God (e.g., Islam, Christianity) or many gods (e.g., European pantheism, native tribal religions). Naturalism by nature would assume constancy unless an external event arises, so by nature theories of life and death are essentially absolutes.
Religions based on inner godhood is shown in new age religions. Concepts can be portrayed in reincarnation or proceeding to learn in cyclical patterns for long term growth. This is obviously to me a flawed system of thought. The concept would assert that as we progress along lives, reality would essentially get better over time. But it hasn’t, since the material world moved from the safety of tribes and traditions to selfish mentalities resulting in an over abundance for some and merely a lack for others. Many cannot think outside of their own daily prerogatives, which essentially means all the “lesser gods” are never going to progress past humanity, which is even more demonstrated by materiality and self worth that tends to gain over others and those people seem unconcerned about the spiritual progress of the others. Universally the system doesn’t seem to work. If you look at YouTube videos, these people are looking at future levels of elevated consciousness occurring as we speak as we enter the Age of Aquarius. Surprisingly none have preferred a way to fix the current economic mess of the COVID lockdowns…
Religions with an outer God are across the board, so I’ll try to summarize some of the viewpoints here:
Polytheistic religions have some sort of Shiva or destroyer who brings about an ultimate battle between good and evil. Good essentially has to win since long term evil leads to unsustainable living patterns and death. Many expect an enlightened leader to help, but essentially a larger spiritual battle is always in play. There is much logic to the concepts, but one’s fate and life path are essentially unknown.
Islam expects a Mahdi to take over and bring about worldwide Islam. The Hadith resemble the opposite path expected by Christians expecting a 7 year tribulation. Who they call Christ, we would call Antichrist, same on the the converse side. The one eye Dajjal would seem to represent a dualistic person that sided with one path (good) only, but I digress.
Christians expect some cataclysmic event that ushers in Gods Kingdom. Dispensations thought goes to the Great Tribulation, spiritual thinkers expect some sort of progressive human evolution towards salvation theology, others expect something that is somewhere between those two with some massively bad things happening on earth in the future.
Jews are expecting a Messiah, just not Jesus, but more like a David like king. Liberal Jewish thought occasionally bends against eschatology, which is somewhat confusing given the amount of prophecy written in Jewish literature.
Essentially, with a divide, what tomorrow brings will essentially be different. With the global nature of nation states with different ideologies, even economics and political diplomacy has shown, we aren’t on a path to long term peace and prosperity. The challenge has always been a simple one, what is good and evil, which I have defined as loving God/others (good) and a self seeking ideology (evil).
Now that we have addressed the fate of end times, I’m going to discuss the nature of perception, narratives, and how things which are evil seem not to be in the current society in which we live. People sometimes forget the truth is anchored in basic assumptions rather than larger narratives. The more complex the story, the more unlikely it’s true and the more inconsistencies that will become apparent.
