THE END OF TIME

Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the Republican primary race, and endorsed The Donald.  Note the GOD OVER GOVERNMENT sign.  That is a surprise.  I thought both he and Nikki Haley were planning to hang in to the end, hoping Donald Trump would be judged so guilty that he couldn't continue his campaign.  Trump should win the New Hampshire vote over Haley on Tuesday, and crush her in South Carolina on February 24.  Thus, as she was governor of that state, look for her to drop out before or soon after that date.

In case you were wondering what this fuss was about Biden not being on the New Hampshire primary ballot, Democrats bypassed Iowa and New Hampshire, and will count South Carolina as the first primary state, even though no one of any substance is running against him.  New Hampshire, however, got pissed off about being sidestepped--although they say they are required by law to do this--so went on with the ballots anyway, showing his absence.  Thus, if Democrats choose to show up, they will see a ballot of 21...yes, twenty-one...names, but no Joe Biden.  So, as an afterthought, someone on his New Hampshire staff thought they might as well have a write-in campaign for him.  Mayor Michelle Wu from Boston and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker have good-heartedly appeared to rally for Biden.  A poll shows he should get around 65% of the vote.  He might as well show up tomorrow to just wave his hand.  There is that 5November2024 vote to think about.

About the posting for this Sunday, The Bible has a version of how everything started, as detailed in Genesis, and nothing is said about evolution.  Science thinks the Big Bang was it and we are here because of evolution.  Both views are based on nothing much, although the concept of evolution makes sense to me.

That was the beginning.  What about the end?  There is, of course, that strange man with a sign proclaiming The End is Nigh.

For the believer, the end is when humanity is tested.

• The King James version of 1611 used the expression end of the world seven times.
• Then again, what Jesus was referring to was the end of an age, for after He returns, all should be well again.
• In other words, don't worry that much, for He will only return at a time of unparalleled great tribulation, and He will save us.
• This "version" also talks about a world without end:  The Kingdom of God is a joyous, peaceful and ever-increasing kingdom that will have no end.

So here is the sense.

• The Rapture is when Jesus takes His children (only believers) up to be with Him in Heaven.  
• They will never die.
• However, unbelievers will be thrown into the lake of fire for eternity.
• The entire Earth will be bare and this will be the End of the World.
• But, oh, The Bible tells us that after everything is destroyed, God will create a new Heaven and a New Earth to last forever.
• There seems to be no hope for children to be created after the Rapture.

From the non-spiritual viewpoint, some think the end will come if Donald Trump is re-elected president.  Otherwise:

• There is the Doomsday Clock, where we are 90 seconds to the end.
• Incidentally, there was an announcement that the time will be adjusted at 10AM ET on Tuesday.  
• Surely, they won't increase the time, so I guess Trump could be more seriously a danger than we thought, and the time will be dropped to, perhaps, one minute.  Or, it could be those wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

• 
  Stephen Hawking warned that humanity is at a tipping point, and global warming would cause the Earth to become like Venus, where the temperature is 482 F and sulphuric acid rains from the sky.  This a mild variation of my Venus Syndrome.

• 
  Experts reveal 10 most likely ways humans will be wiped out.
• #1  Speaking of the Doomsday Clock, nuclear war.  There are 7,000 nuclear warheads waiting to be activated.

• 
  #2  Biological and chemical warfare.
• #3  Catastrophic climate change.
• #4  Ecological collapse.
• #5  Pandemics.
• #6  Asteroids.
• #7  Supervolcanic eruption.
• #8  Solar geoengineering.
• #9  Artificial intelligence.
• #10  Unknown risks.

• There are, however, more profound ultimates.  Here are 5 ways for the universe to be destroyed.

• 
  Since the Big Bang, the universe has continued to expand.  This could continue essentially forever as the Big Freeze.  This forever has been calculated to be around a googol years, or one followed by 100 zeroes.  Keep in mind that "we"are not yet 14 billion years old, and a billion only has 9 zeroes.
• The Big Rip could happen in only 22 billion years when everything dissociates, even atoms.

• 

  The Big Crunch would occur when the expansion changes courses and collapses in on itself because of gravity into a singularity.  One model has this occurring in about a 100 million years, and the contraction would only take about a billion years.
• 
  The Big Bounce is if quantum processes allow for a new period of expansion.  Not a new Big Bang, but something called quantum tunneling, leading to a never-ending chain of expansion and contraction.

• 
  The Big Slurp is called a false vacuum decay, where our universe will move from a state of high energy to lower energy, until it stabilizes into the lowest possible energy state, known as its vacuum state.  

• 
  The scary part about this theory is that all known quantum fields are already in a stable vacuum state, expect for one, the Higgs field.  However, there is no reason why this field could not suddenly slip into a vacuum state, which would send a bubble of vacuum energy expanding outwards at the speed of light, possibly changing the physics of our new universe, or, in a worst case scenario, destroying all matter. 
• 
  This could not happen at all, take many billions of years, or occur right now.  
• We just discovered the Higgs boson, so scientists don't know enough of this possible phenomenon.

Frankly I don't hold much hope of us, Homo sapiens, being king of our universe for much longer.  More recently I have worried about artificial intelligence.  All those multi-billionaire techies seem enrapt with this prospect.  Here are two recent postings I have had on this subject.

• The AI Arms Race.
• God, Evolution and Artificial Intelligence.  To quote:

In other words, we should imagine future intelligence billions of years into the future not in human bodies, but some form of silicon or other molecules or the ether.  Humanity's greatest achievement could well be to create our successors.  Is this what God intended?  Or maybe there is no God.  Or could the ultimate AI be God?

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