End of Times Christians and the Oilpocalypse

What scares me is that per the article there are approximately 20 million fundamentalist Christians in the US who think that the world as we know will end in their lifetime.

In several Christian forums there are people debating whether BP’s oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is a sign of the coming apocalypse. No, seriously. Many are convinced that it’s the end of the world as we know it. The Oilpocalypse doesn’t scare me nor should it any rational person – over a very, very, long period of time even the disastrous effects of this will be overcome; and life, being indefatigable by nature, will reclaim the environmental niches being destroyed before our eyes now.

What scares me is that per the article there are approximately 20 million fundamentalist Christians in the US who think that the world as we know will end in their lifetime. From Lisa Miller at Newsweek,

Now blogs on the Christian fringe are abuzz with possibility that the oil spill is the realization of Revelation 8:8–11. “The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea became blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed … A third of the waters became wormwood, and many died from the water, because it was made bitter.” According to Revelation, in other words, something terrible happens to the world’s water, a punishment to those of insufficient faith. The foul water, according to the New Oxford Annotated Bible, mirrors one of the plagues God called upon Egypt on behalf of his people Israel.

Though maybe it’s Revelation 16:3: “The second angel poured his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing in the sea died.”

Some interpreters are very sure: The oil spill matches biblical prophesy and is another predictor of the end. One commenter at Godlike Productions argues that the redness of the oil seen in pictures can be interpreted as blood. “The water is tinted red from the oil … it ACTUALLY looks like blood. coincidence??? NOT!!!!”

2 thoughts on “End of Times Christians and the Oilpocalypse”

  1. Relatively speaking, the current Gulf oil spill isn’t the biggest catastrophe. It’s a problem since it’s concentrated into one area, but oil spills account for only about five percent of the oil entering the oceans. The Coast Guard estimates that for United States waters, sewage treatment plants discharge twice as much oil each year as tanker spills.

    Aside from that, though, the world as we know it IS ending. It will be a much, much different world 30 or 40 years from now. When my grandmother was a little girl, a couple nutcases in North Carolina had just recently figured out how to build airplanes. Now we have the tech to put robots on Mars.

    When she was a child, a Swastika was a sign of good luck. Today, it’s a symbol of one of the worst evils we’ve ever known. Point is, the world as she knew it is gone forever.

    And the world as we know it is ending. For better and for worse.

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