Our Post-Apocalyptic Fascination

28 Days Later.

Dawn of the Dead.

Mad Max.

The Postman.

I Am Legend.

Cloverfield.

They all start when our world ends.

I just finished reading "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy (I didn't get to the end; halfway is more than enough of that depressing weird book) and noticed that our society as of late has a strange obsession for the Apocalypse and what follows. Who knows where it started (perhaps the original zombie movie in 1985, Day of the Dead), or even why it started.

But our society today has a penchant for thinking about what happens next.

-It could be a morality tale: if we continue on our destructive paths, who knows what happens next. If we try to play god via science, it could backfire on us (28 Days Later, I Am Legend). If we just nuke everyone and everything, what would be left (Mad Max, The Postman)? What can be done to prevent such a horrible fate?

-It could be a fascination with the unknown. We don't know how our world will crumble, or how many times it will sort of crumble before it is truly done. It's the same reason we love ghost hunting shows and The X-Files. For all the time we spend trying to know everything, we sure love not knowing something.

-It could be, and this seems like the most likely option, that we have just played too many video games. Dead Rising, Fallout, Left 4 Dead, anything that lets you kill endless waves of zombies.

Against violent video games? The same rule that apparently applies to Nazis also applies to zombies. So it's all good.

All in all, it's an interesting thing to consider every once in a while, but not something good to dwell on (hence why I stopped halfway through The Road).

"Isn't it a good thing to be prepared for all possibilities?" you may ask.

You can't be prepared for nuclear winter, zombie infestation, alien invasion, and superpollution.

My point is, only God knows how this world will end. He alone knows the day and the hour, He alone knows how it will all play out.

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. -Matthew 24:36

The book of Revelation talks about a period of tribulation for our world, in which many horrible things will occur. It also speaks of the Second Coming, or the Rapture. It's not clear which comes first, and some believers side on either the Pre-Tribulation (believers will be taken to heaven before the horrible crap) or the Post-Tribulation (after the crap) viewpoints.

My former pastor in Minnesota said it best. He believes in Pan-Tribulation. "We'll just see how it all pans out."

The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God stands forever.

-Isaiah 40:8