​The ace in the hole for many Bible believers is prophecy. For example, one Internet Bible apologist proclaims that "2,500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2,000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter—no errors."
 
I was led along by this as well. It works if you confine yourself to limited information. However, in no case is there a documented example of people reading a holy book prophecy at a certain date, then taking action based upon it, then having it come true at a later date.
 
Even if a prophecy happens to predict accurately, that would not single a holy book out as being unique or divinely written. Quantum reality (discussed in the coming chapters) permits clairvoyance and there is substantial evidence, in real time, today, that people not claiming to be inspired by god can make accurate predictions (prophesies).
 
Foreknowledge has allegedly also been discovered in ancient cultures predating the Bible. For example, the Dogon tribe in West Africa has lore dating to 3200 BC about a companion star to Sirius. They say it has a 50-year elliptical orbit, is super dense, and rotates on its axis. This lore has been confirmed and the star is called Sirius B. It's smaller than Earth, invisible to the naked eye, not discovered by astronomers until 1862, and not photographed until 1970. The Dogon also described a third Sirius star (C), not discovered until 1995 with .05 the mass of Sirius B. Many Dogon details are said to have been found in 400-year-old artifacts.
 
Long before Galileo invented the telescope, the Dogon are reported to have explained that Jupiter has four major moons, Saturn has rings, and that the planets orbit the sun. Does this mean the Dogon are inspired by god? Using Bible inspiration logic, that would have to be so. Yes, the Dogon lore is disputed by scientists. So too the Bible's. Such is the way of things made of men.
 
People can, after the fact, retrodict and reverse engineer to show all sorts of proofs of prophecy. For example, the 911 Trade Center destruction has been shown to be predicted in Star Wars, and by reading certain texts upside down, diagonally, and backward. Consider how words and numbers can be used to show extraordinary things, whether or not they are found in a holy book: 9/11 is the date of the Trade Center terrorist attack and 911 is the emergency number; 9+1+1=11; 9-11(September 11) is the 254th day of the year, 2+5+4=11; After 9-11 there are one hundred and 11 days left in the year; The twin towers look like an 11; The first flight to hit the towers was 11; There were 92 people on board: 9+2=11; New York is the 11th state added to the union; New York City has 11 letters; The winning lottery number on that day was 911. All of this was elaborated after the event.
 
Such coincidences surrounding various events and written words provide fuel for endless conspiracy, prophetic, and inspirational theories.
 
The Apollo 13 mission, launched on April 11, 1970 (the sum of 4, 11 and 70 equals 85 - which when added together comes to 13), from Pad 39 (three times 13) at 13:13 local time, and exploded on April 13. All elaborated after the explosion.

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​Some Kabbalistic Jews go so far as to attach meaning to the spacing between words.
 
A favorite evangelistic tactic is to prophesize the end of the world. The message is simple: Believe what my religion says, or be doomed in a coming apocalypse. That message certainly caught my attention at one time. If the end was coming, I wanted my family and me on the boat. It led me through all sorts of hermeneutical exercises cross-referencing passages all over the Bible to verify the date Bible scholars said was certain.
 
We are vulnerable to a doomsday message because people throughout time have thought that the world revolves around them and that they and their special generation have been singled out. It is human to think that our time is the best of times and the worst of times.
 
Consider the words from an Assyrian tablet, 2800 B.C. (notice that's BC): "The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching."
 
Writers of holy books were like all other people and were dramatically influenced by the political events of their times, surrounding religious beliefs, and natural disasters thought to be acts of their gods.
 
At the very time that Christian Biblical stories were being composed, Pompeii and its sister Roman city, Herculaneum, were turned to ashes by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius (79 CE). A memory was embedded that echoed through centuries. It and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE created the language and metaphors for Biblical eschatology (final prophetic events) that have inspired prophetic doom for the past 2000 years.
 
When Vesuvius erupted, an estimated 4,000 feet of the 8,000-foot mountain exploded into the sky and across land and sea. The sun darkened as far away as Rome. But people closer to ground zero were blinded. When they attempted a breath, they inhaled volcanic cinders that were more than a thousand degrees. The pyroclastic flow was so fast and lethal that it would disintegrate a person before nerves could transmit to the brain that anything was even happening.
 
Food and water were decimated. Disease became rampant. The volcano's impact on life and survival created a memory burnt into minds for centuries.

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​The "world," to the Italians, was Rome and its provinces. For Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Vesuvian cataclysm was interpreted as an act of gods to end the world.
 
The Vesuvian end of the world and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D. provided fodder for religious stories. It was not enough to simply experience or observe such events. The survivors perceived deeper meaning and a cause other than blind nature.
 
Dio Cassius, some 130 years after the eruption, wrote in his History of Rome:
 
". . . giants (black volcanic dust clouds) appeared, now, on the mountain, now in the surrounding country, and again in the cities, wandering over the Earth day and night, and also flitting through the air . . . day was turned into night and light into darkness . . . a sound of trumpets was heard . . . others believed the whole universe was being resolved into chaos and fire . . . it destroyed all fish and birds . . . believed the whole world was being turned upside down, that the sun was disappearing into the Earth, and the Earth was being lifted into the sky . . . a terrible pestilence upon them."
 
Out of the mix of the Vesuvius disaster, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the desire for an end to Roman persecution, the apocalyptic narrative in the New Testament was created.
 
Dio's account of the Vesuvius eruption contains language practically identical to the Bible's apocalyptic verses written at a similar time:
 
"There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down . . . there should no flesh be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened . . . and lightning will come out of the east and shine even into the west . . . the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give light, and the stars shall fall from heaven . . . and great earthquakes, and famines and pestilences and fearful sights and great signs will there be from heaven – the sea and the waves roaring and men's hearts filling with fear . . . the angel took the censer and filled it with fire and cast it to Earth and there were voices, thunderings, lightnings and earthquakes . . . followed hail mingled with fire and blood . . . and a third of the trees were burnt up. And the second angel sounded and a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea, and a third part of the sea became blood and a third of the creatures in the sea died . . . and he opened the bottomless pit and there arose smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened . . . and I saw the three horses of the apocalypse and these three were the third part of the men killed by the smoke and brimstone." (Revelation)
 
Now, some 1700 years later, Bible readers ignore the political, religious, volcanic, and historical context of the writings. Anti-typical, modern-day, end-of-our-world meaning is attached to those ancient words with author attribution given to the Creator of the universe.
 
End time musings by apocalyptic religionists can fuel unspeakable hatred. If we become convinced that the end is imminent, that our group has been singled out as superior to all others by the authority of god and our special belief, and that our actions can hasten the end and speed us to our great reward (such as stature in heaven or a bounty of virgins), then almost any atrocity can be justified. Millions have been butchered in holy wars fomented by holy book end-time prophesies.
 
The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, spent millions renovating Tehran in preparation for the imminent return of the Mahdi, a ninth-century figure who will emerge from a well, partner with Jesus, and violently convert the world to Islam.
 
At the same time, messianic Jews are trying to get the cornerstones for a new temple in place to ready for the coming of their Messiah and the end to Islam. Clyde Lott, a Mississippi preacher, is attempting to breed blemish-free red heifers (red hairs only) for export to Jerusalem. The Bible says (Numbers 19:2-10) their sacrifice and ashes are necessary to purify the Jews to build the temple. Muslims specify a yellow heifer.
 
For many Bible believers, the end times started clicking on May 15, 1948, when the United Nations recognized Israel. So, there is no time to spare in making prophecy fit world events. Every disaster, every conflict in the world gladdens a prophet of doom somewhere.

End of the world religious predictions fuel fear, false hope, and satisfy our it's-all-about-me obsession. They serve to keep a lot of people industriously calculating dates and watching the newspapers hoping they read more and more like the events presaging Revelation's Armageddon, or Islam's coming of al-Mahdi and "The Hour." Almost fifty percent of the population believes their god will bring an end to the world within the next fifty years, rewarding the believers and slaughtering the unbelievers.

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​If there is a divine plan that the Creator wants us to know, and it includes the end of the world, why would it be made a mystery? Certainly, if there is honesty, justice, and truth (which there is), all of us should have equal access. We should not be faced with the impossible task of trying to find out which modern or ancient "prophet" (among the tens of thousands) has the right prediction.
 
Holiness, purity, grace, or ethics have nothing to do with making presumptuous predictions in the name of the Creator of the universe. Life is about getting out there and doing and being good, not attempting to discern ancient manuscripts to calculate end-time prophecies.
 
Perhaps the healthiest perspective is to not worry about the end of the world today when it is already tomorrow on the other side of the world.