ViaCrucis
Confessional Lutheran
- Oct 2, 2011
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The problem is that there's no reason to believe that this is true. From what I can gather doing some Google sleuthing is that we are in an ordinary solar cycle, and so over the past several years there has been an increase in solar activity, and this will continue into 2025, when it will begin to decrease again. We aren't experiencing, nor will we experience, anything devastating to human civilization. In the modern world increases in solar activity can become problematic, severe solar flares can cause radio blackouts, such as what happened across Europe and Asia back in 2017 (see here). And that can be really annoying. But these have been regularly occurring problems for as long as we've been using radio to communicate--because bursts of electro-magnetic radiation from the sun can interfere with electro-magnetic devices here on earth.
But to claim that civilization is starting to end on January 5th is a very big claim to be making. And I'm not seeing anything from any credible, reputable sources that would suggest this.
At any given moment we could be said to be on the precipice of a civilization altering event. A large comet or asteroid could collide with the earth and wreak all manner of havoc across the globe. Our continued abuse of the environment and rising global temperatures could thaw out some long dormant virus or bacteria that could create a pandemic that would make what we've gone through with Covid-19 seem like a pleasant walk in the park by comparison. Some crazed politician somewhere out there, or some clandestine terrorist group could get their hands on a nuclear weapon and initiate a nuclear holocaust.
However, do I have reason to believe that an asteroid is going to hit anytime soon, or that some long frozen zombie virus is going to show up, or that nuclear armageddon will strike next week? Nope. I consider all those things to be valid concerns that I think deserve to lead us to act smart--study asteroids and come up with meaningful solutions to help mitigate them if we can, try and put into effect commonsense measures to mitigate climate change, try and elect sensible leaders who serve the interests of the public and seek peaceful resolutions to potential conflicts.
"End of civilization" is a big claim. In one sense almost anything could cause our current civilization to be dramatically changed; that's certainly happened a lot over history. Rarely do civilizations just end, however. When Alexander died and his empire split among his generals, Hellenistic civilization didn't die, but fused with the conquered societies, even in Judea which is why we read of a "Galilee of the Gentiles" and of Hellenistic Jews in the time of the New Testament, it's why a group of Egyptian Jewish scribes produced a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, aka the Septuagint. When Odoacer took over the Italian peninsula and Romulus Augustus fled to Ravenna, sure the Western Roman Empire was fallen, but really it just meant Western Europe was now under new jurisdiction by "barbarian" kings, such as the Visigoths in Hispania and Gaul, the Ostrogoths and Lombards in Italy, the Vandals in North Africa. Eventually the Franks would take Gaul and Germania. That Frankish kingdom would give rise France and the Holy Roman Empire, aka Germany. Roman civilization didn't die in Western Europe, it just came under new management. In the East it continued to flourish in the "Byzantine" period, which lasted until Mehmet II of the Ottoman Empire eventually took control of Constantinople in 1453 and proclaimed himself the new Caesar of Rome--the Ottomans seeing themselves as the new management of the Roman Empire; though up in Moscow the Muscovite kings started calling themselves Caesar (Tsar) believing themselves the new heirs of Rome's legacy. So, you know, Roman civilization didn't so much as end as, again, come under new management. The American colonies when they overthrew the British crown didn't end European civilization in North America, it just came under new management.
-CryptoLutheran
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