Ready for the End of the World

It isn’t news that some believers are so ready for the end times that they’re ready to help bring it about. It is news, however, and slightly terrifying, just how many of these believers there are.

“[T]he fact that such an overwhelming percentage of Republican citizens profess a belief in the Second Coming (76 percent in 2006, according to our sample) suggests that governmental attempts to curb greenhouse emissions would encounter stiff resistance even if every Democrat in the country wanted to curb them,” Barker and Bearce wrote in their study, which will be published in the June issue of Political Science Quarterly.

The study, based on data from the 2007 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, uncovered that belief in the “Second Coming” of Jesus reduced the probability of strongly supporting government action on climate change by 12 percent when controlling for a number of demographic and cultural factors. When the effects of party affiliation, political ideology, and media distrust were removed from the analysis, the belief in the “Second Coming” increased this effect by almost 20 percent.

Just in case you wondered why some of us are interested in loosening belief and encouraging uncertainty, well, our futures may depend on it.

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Ready for the End of the World
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4 thoughts on “Ready for the End of the World

  1. 3

    It isn’t news that some believers are so ready for the end times that they’re ready to help bring it about. It is news, however, and slightly terrifying, just how many of these believers there are.

    Because after 2,000 years of it not happening, it’s gotta happen any day now. (eyeroll) Creos.

    Anyone who’s willing to profess such a thing should leave any inheritance to the state. It’s sort of a reverse Pascal’s Wager. Or a tax on ignorance.

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