Why does every single generation think they are living in the End Times?

[1liesalot]

For 2,000 years, every generation has believed the end of the world is nigh and that some Bronze Age carpenter (who probably never existed in the first place) is about to trash the world and it's sinners. Seriously, why? Is this humanity's collective death wish? Or am I missing something here?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Ego.

[TomFoolery]

Gambler's Fallacy maybe?

[Munch]

I'll take cognitive dissonance for 500.

[Shiranu]

I think the people of WW2 and particularly the Cold War had pretty valid reason. Besides that... not many times humanity has really been on the brink.

[GSOgymrat]

This is my take on it:

"One trait I see linking the two is the feeling of powerlessness, often connected to a mistrust in authority," Douglas says. Among conspiracy theorists, these convictions of mistrust and impotence make their conspiracies more preciousâ€"and real. "People feel like they have knowledge that others do not."

"Apocalyptic beliefs make existential threatsâ€"the fear of our mortalityâ€"predictable," Lissek says.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/psychology-reveals-the-comforts-of-the-apocalypse/

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Of course it's ego. Imagine that ego stroking you could get if millions of people believed that YOU were the only person who had the ear of god, but the huge let down when everyone wakes up to realize that you were like all the clowns before you who were wrong.
I'm just amazed that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in my lifetime. In all of recorded history it had never happened until 2 days before my 10th birthday. That alone,  being alive when it happened is bigger than any possible predictions of the end of the world.

[Termin]

 The bible can't be wrong
The bible predicted certain things would happen
People in the past were wrong about those events
Those events are actually happening now
Therefore we are in the end times
The bible can't be wrong
The bible predicted certain things would happen
People in the past were wrong about those events
Those events are actually happening now
Therefore we are in the end times
The bible can't be wrong
The bible predicted certain things would happen
People in the past were wrong about those events
Those events are actually happening now
Therefore we are in the end times
The bible can't be wrong

Rinse repeat.

[TomFoolery]

I think the people of WW2 and particularly the Cold War had pretty valid reason. Besides that... not many times humanity has really been on the brink.

I dunno, I can think of many times people probably thought the world was ending, but the world was a lot "smaller" then. I can imagine when the plague came to Italy and everyone died that it probably felt like the end of the world. Along with being conquered by Romans/Huns/Persians/insert your own horde here. Volcanic eruptions (imagine being a Roman in Pompeii?), earthquakes, hurricanes, the list goes on.

You would think that since we've moved on from superstition and come to understand thunderstorms aren't the wrath of God that we'd have stopped sitting on hillsides waiting for it all to come down in a blaze of glory, but we humans do like a good story. 

[stromboli]

1. Because preachers in every generation need to get people in the pews.

2. Ego.

[Blackleaf]

Well, when I was a Christian, while I hoped that the rapture and such would happen in my life time, I wasn't convinced that it would turn out that way. Instead, I thought of the present as the "last age" because there was nothing left to happen except for the end. Regardless of how long it took to happen, it was the final chapter, so to speak.

[Unbeliever]

I just read today (in e: The Story of a Number) that even John Napier (who discovered logarithms) applied the Sibylline Oracles to calculate the end of the world. He thought it would happen between 1688 and 1700. He dated the seventh trumpet to 1541.

:41:

[MagetheEntertainer]

Probably because they don't want to think of anything happening after them.  Many people who believe in God and religion to that extent are very scared of this world, everything is so different from the "Good old days" The gays can marry, the presidents black, and the kids are smoking the reefer!  So since the world is becoming more progressive and moving further away from the morals of a christian society they want  it all to end.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Maybe we have a hereditary "getting too old for this shit" complex and subconsciously want the whole thing to be over and done with. Would certainly explain our fascination of coming up with newer and more efficient ways to kill each other.

[josephpalazzo]

Well if the end of the world... then I will massively max out my credit cards... ok, got to go shopping...