First of all I want to distinguish between the end of the world as we know it and the return of Christ as prophesied in the Bible. Just because we evolve into the future as a society that loses the abilities of modern medicine, modern plumbing, and electricity does not mean God is coming back soon in the flesh. God never promised us America and America is not described in prophecy (unless it is either the evil empire of the devil called Mystery Babylon or the mountains that people flee to escape the devil - beast).
I am not deriving anything from prophecy that is not really clear. The only thing I think we know for sure about the return of Christ is that no one knows when. I also believe it will be in a time of peace. This is because Jesus describes His return as coming like a thief in the night to your home. Many much more brilliant people than myself (with much more time on their hands and a much better researched case than anything I wrote) predicted various times (with tremendous scriptural support) and all were dead wrong. I am definitely no better than them.
The end of the world as we know it is likely to coincide with global catastrophe (otherwise known as Global Warming or Climate Change). There are some strong similarities in the Bible between judgments of God and ecological disasters. The punishment is entirely self inflicted and is the direct result of the sin of gluttony. We all are living like kings did several hundred years ago (in America today) and having too many kids in the third world and the world cannot sustain it forever. It is also hard to get to other planets and the cost would be much more and the benefit of that would be less than cleaning the entire earth.
I believe the modern world system, led by America is Mystery Babylon. I believe the mysteries refer to modern technologies the world depends on that would be described as magic any other time in recorded history. The internet and computers, fossil fuels like gas and coal, and the final mystery is Bitcoin.
I definitely believe there is at least one conspiracy theory going on and this is supported by the Bible in the prophets. I also think there is a big connection between the church and the devil at this time because the Bible keeps on talking about adultery which is not just a sexual sin but one of betrayal of one committed to a relationship. There is also descriptions in prophecy about time being accelerated which could easily refer to how modern life is changing faster and faster.
I do not believe Christ’s return is imminent. I think it is likely humanity could survive in some form for thousands of years in the future. The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world.
There are 3 major technological revolutions throughout recorded history. They are, in order: Agricultural, Industrial, and Information. We are at the beginning of the third but they are stacked onto each other, so the later ones need the previous ones, both directly for resources and technology, but also ideologically and conceptually. The biggest changes in the Information revolution are not technology but social changes which we are just at the beginning of.
The problem with modern society, apart from the lack of morality, is that it is a very unstable and brittle system. It is a dead end as we are running out of energy and resources and we need them more than ever. Our ideology wants things that require more energy continually every generation and unless we find a huge amount more energy, we won’t be able to keep things running. Even if we did get exponentially more energy, we would still be at the same place a few generations later. Our problem is not that we need more energy but we need more self control.
The system is also self destructing at a technological, social, political, and personal level so that what we think of as a civilization will not be the way the system will run in the future. We take many things for granted because the agricultural revolution was so successful and we survived the industrial revolution, but past success does not determine or guarantee future success.
I am an Eagle Scout (from the old Boy Scouts) and taught emergency survival at a Summer Camp when it was just boys. I also served in the Army as an enlisted soldier and made it through all my training successfully. I also studied about disaster survival and bought supplies for 6 months during the 2008 Economic Crisis.
I have also tried to put together a portable civilization in my writings and have combined Christian Existentialism and Philosophical Taoism into a different way of thinking about life. This is to try to preserve some of the wisdom of the past for what some in the disaster survival community call the long emergency.
The long emergency is a way of understanding the likely way that society will change over the future decades of this century. The people in power are not stupid, at least the ones that really control most of what goes on in the world, not the elected figure heads we call politicians. They realize what is happening and have planned for it. The problem with announcing this likely scenario from a trusted opinion leader would mean everyone would instantly give up and everything would then fall apart immediately.
The other important thing to remember is that if things fall apart fast, the leadership will likely change, which is bad for us as well. Groups prepared for this might include kind groups like Mormons but they might not have enough weapons to fight off the other groups. So that is why the powers that be have decided to slow down the breakdown, so that most people will not notice until things the end of the process. This is the reason why law enforcement and the military have gotten so aggressive this century.
There are many things going on we are not aware of that are likely more important than the things we are aware of. We are terrified of the Cold War, Terrorism, China, and Disease. More issues will arise at convenient times to further distract us.
I read in a survival book that people have survived disasters who have no preparation and others have failed despite extensive preparation. Ultimately, if it happens when we are alive, we get to decide how much we are willing to endure to survive. There is no shame or lack of ethics in choosing to stop fighting and die. We will all die someday anyway and that is relatively soon in the grand scheme of things.
Prepare for the future by learning as much as you can and thinking critically. This situation we are in now will likely get worse and then pass away. But there will be good surprises as well on just as great a scale. And who is to say we will not be just as happy and healthier in a slower lifestyle with less technology.