EXTINCTION

We watched a DVD movie "Knowing" with Nicolas Cage as an astrophysics professor. The story is based on a simple premise. A new elementary school buried a time capsule containing drawings of what they thought the future would be like 50 years down the road. One girl put in a sheet on which she had written a string of numbers covering the full page. Fifty years later the capsule was opened and that sheet landed in the hands of the professor. He discovered they predicted all the major disasters of the past 50 years with 3 remaining. Within a few days two, involving him and his son, came true. The last one foresaw the extinction of the Earth.

The Earth dies by a super solar flare - all life wiped out. This is not impossible. Actually, solar flares are common. And every seven years, coinciding with a peak in sun spot activities, solar flares cause very significant disruptions to Earth's communication systems. Perhaps there are some apocalyptic solar cycles we are not aware yet. The Earth will die for sure when the sun becomes super nova, albeit billions of years in the future. But it could be tomorrow, no one really knows.

Extinctions have happened in the past. Before man came along, the dinosaurs died off when a huge asteroid crashed into Earth. Even today, species become extinct, through the hands of man.

The idea of an armageddon is rather ubiquitous in major cultures and religions. In Christianity, the end of the world is prophesized, but exactly when is still a mind game with some Christians. The Mayans seemed to have thought that the world will come to an end on Sunday, December 23, 2012. Even the Jews and Muslims have their 'day of judgement'. According to Indus, Shiva destroys the world at the end of a 'kalpa', an æon of some 4 .3 billions years.

So what when extinction comes? In the movie, aliens came and transported the 'chosen ones' to a new earth and mankind gets a new beginning. For us ... To the religious who believe in an after-life, it should matter not. They go to a supposedly better existence. What for those who do not subscribe to an after-life? Poof, the end, that's it. Really?