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- Even if we survive the Y2K bug, don,t expect a quick
end to all this "End of the World talk. Waves of worry about the future
will rise and fall until Judgment Day itself. But experts on end-time prophecies
say the latest wave is likely to settle down after 2001 " and perhaps
even flow in a more positive direction.
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- Among all of history,s projected doomsdays, the year
2000 has a special appeal, due to at least two major factors:
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- It,s a nice, round number, rooted in a religious tradition
that invests a lot of meaning in nice, round numbers. The Book of Revelation
alone refers to 1,000-year increments six times. In fact, the original
connotation of "millennium wasn,t just any 1,000 years, but specifically
the period of Jesus, earthly reign. Moreover, some Christians divided human
history into 2,000-year stints from Adam to Moses, from Moses to Jesus,
and from Jesus to ... what? If <http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=English&version=NIV&passage=2
+Peter+3:8"a thousand years are like a day, in St. Peter,s words,
then the year 2000 would mark the start of a day of rest in a divine week.
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- Bad things could actually happen. This is the apocalyptic
contribution of the Year 2000 computer bug " the fact that some computer
programs just might stumble over the turn of the century. "It,s a
concrete thing to freak out about, said Daniel Wojcik, a University of
Oregon professor who wrote the book "The End of the World as We Know
It.
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- Other, more run-of-the-mill factors compound the millennial
unease " rapid societal change, distrust of authority, and even (gasp!)
the Internet.
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- "I think Y2K brings it all together, Wojcik said.
"Of course, the Internet does, too. You get this cross-pollination
of ideas, they sort of build on each other. That,s a new phenomenon.
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- The result is that Year 2000 fears aren,t restricted
to the fringe: Surveys consistently show that 20 to 30 percent of Americans
believe there will be a religious event of global proportions within their
lifetimes. And an Associated Press poll conducted in 1997, even before
the Y2K bug began to bite, indicated that a majority of Americans devoted
at least occasional thought to the world changes that might accompany the
turn of the millennium.
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- "It,s going to be the news story of the year, said
University of Southern California professor Stephen O,Leary, author of
"Arguing the Apocalypse.
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- "You,re going to have all kinds of fallout and social
effects from this, he said. "I,m more concerned about panic than I
am about the actual crisis of computers. ... Think of industries that depend
on public confidence, such as banking or health care.
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- O,Leary, who has studied the psychology of date-setting,
says there,s a characteristic cresting in advance of a doomsday deadline,
"and we,re approaching the crest of the wave.
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- BEYOND 2000
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- However, O,Leary and other observers by no means expect
Y2K to be the end of "The End.
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- "People ask me, What are you going to do in the
year 2001 when all this blows over,, O,Leary said, "and I say, You
have no idea. ... It,s not going to blow over.,
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- By now, the response to failed prophecies has been well-documented
by historians and sociologists. Doomsday dates can be reset to months or
years in the future, or prophets can claim that the strengthened faith
or increased attention has led to a divine reprieve.
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- "What we,re going to see in the next few years is
a few waves and troughs of panic that will go beyond the year 2000, he
said. New dates await " for example, the end of the Mayan calendar
in 2012, which holds more weight than the Bible for some New Age believers.
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- The doomsday dynamic can lead to tragedy, as evidenced
by 1997,s Heaven,s Gate mass suicide. The negative effect can even spread
beyond the believers: For example, the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre
in Jerusalem in 1009, amid Europe,s Y1K religious fervor, was followed
by anti-Semitic pogroms.
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- "There is sometimes a tendency to demonize and look
for victims, O,Leary noted.
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- Ted Daniels, director of the Millennium Watch Institute,
said there already has been concern expressed in some Jewish circles that
Y2K glitches will somehow lead to anti-Semitic sentiment.
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- However, the doomsday dynamic can also dissipate peacefully,
even positively.
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- As an example, O,Leary cited the wave of church-building
that followed the year 1000, or the rise of new religious denominations
in the wake of the Great Disappointment of 1843-44.
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- "They can focus the energy which they previously
spent on preparing for the date into all kinds of creative outlets, he
said.
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- Those post-Y2K outlets already may have been manifested
by mass renewal movements such as the Million Man March or the evangelical
Promise Keepers, O,Leary said.
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- All this assumes, of course, that life will go on after
the year 2000. And when you get right down to it, even the most fiery prophets
still hold out hope for a better life, although it may not be in the world
as we know it.
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- "It,s never the world that,s going to end, except
in a theological sense, Daniels observed. "What,s going to end is
the world order., The corruption, the evil, the suffering that we seem
never to be able to get past are finally going to be removed from the earth.
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- Alan Boyle writes about space, science and the future
for MSNBC on the Internet.
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