Mankind has always clung to end-times myths, Y2K just showed everyone how profitable they can be in modern times. And thanks to mass media and the internet there's an apocalypse for everyone to buy into, from the most shrill of evangelicals to the technology-worshiping atheist.

The problem with your theory that "man has always had end times myths" is that they were never given hard and fast dates until William Miller in the 19th century. The Rapture fixation is almost purely American, both in derivation and current belief. Believers in other countries are downright perplexed about it.

Also, a lot of Americans today live their lives as if a complete breakdown of society, law, whatever, is right around the corner, which annoys me to no end. Seemingly rational people are stockpiling mountains of canned goods and guns and ammunition because they truly believe they are going to need them in six months.

So you've met my parents jangbones? How are they doing these days? I've not heard from them since the elections, when they were telling me about how unless white Americans wake up and do something about the growing number of Muslims, blacks, and Mexicans in this country, we'll be stripped of our citizenship and made into the slaves of all not white people.

your parents are not the only ones living in perpetual end times

a former coworker of mine was young, college educated, gainfully employed in technology, and a hundred percent convinced that America was less than a decade from complete collapse

jangbones, that's half the people on this site.

Any apocalypse that ends in American white slavery I refer to as the "groovularity." I hope my Chinese/Black/Indian/Mexican/Jew masters let me whip the bad slaves (the whitest ones)!

Rapture Me Away would make a great infomercial cleaning product.

Ye know not the hour, dog. Could be 4, could be 5.

Yeah, what pastor said. The apocalypse runs on "Cable TV technician" time; you can only know the day-part they might arrive in if they can be arsed to show up.

Sadly, unless they do something positive for humanity like jump off a building in the hopes to be raptured away before they hit, they've probably got their "oh, well, I didn't carry the two. 2024 for sure!" story all ready to go.

Michael Travesser. National Geographic channel did a couple of specials on him and they had camera crews there on Halloween of 2007, when he claimed the world would end. Of course it didn't, but that didn't stop him or his followers from believing something major had occurred anyhow.