Immanentize the Eschaton

[ob1quixote]

Estimating the nature and timing of our collective demise, the end of civilisation, of the entire human project, is even less certain - it might happen in the next hundred years, or not happen in two thousand, or happen with imperceptible slowness, a whimper, not a bang. But in the face of that unknowability, there has often flourished powerful certainty about the approaching end. Throughout recorded history people have mesmerised themselves with stories which predict the date and manner of our wholescale destruction, often rendered meaningful by ideas of divine punishment and ultimate redemption; the end of life on earth, the end or last days, end time, the apocalypse.

- "The Day of Judgement", Ian McEwan, The Guardian, Saturday, 31st May, 2008

Part One
Part Two