Catastrophies and the Second Coming
More Doomsday Debunking
Occasionally updated and edited. Copyright © 2011

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Some believe that natural catastrophes and their toll in human suffering are indicators that God is trying to get our attention.

Specifically, some Christians point to Matthew 24:7 as evidence that God is using natural disasters to awaken humanity to the imminent second coming of Jesus.

There are problems.

First, a casual reading of Matthew 24 (and parallel passages in Mark 13 and Luke 21) reveal that Jesus was predicting the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, not the Second Coming.

Second, we often note that Jesus did not specifically state that such phenomena as earthquakes would increase.

Third, and the purpose for this article, is the fact that human suffering due to natural catastrophes has reduced significantly over the past 100 years.

According to a Reason Foundation study, "The worldwide death rate from weather happenings has dropped over 98 percent since the 1920s."

In fact there was "a 98 percent decline in the weather-related death rate since the 1920s."

From 1920 to 1929 there were 241 deaths per million people. From 2000 to 2010 there were 5.4 deaths per million people. That's a 44.6-fold decrease.

Let's presume.

Had the death toll increased nearly 45 fold since 1920, we suspect that evangelical advocates of Darbyism would be demanding a verdict. Clearly, they would say, the evidence points to a supernatural move of God; an unavoidable divine attention getter not seen since the days of Noah.

But, alas, the evidence debunks the doomsday nonsense gleaned from Matthew 24 which, we hope you noted earlier, relates to the destruction of the temple that was seen by the disciples. It does not refer to the Second Coming of Jesus nor a future temple.

The article can be read on line here: Reason.org article

The study can be viewed in pdf format here: Reason.org study

September 29, 2011