"The witlesses might be right."
This is built into the religion to scare people into going back into the cancer. You hear about a war, a "pandemic(??)" (which has to be the wimpiest pandemic I have ever seen) of swine flu, earthquakes, storms, crime, the economy, and the like--and that describes what the witlesses described as signs that the end is imminent. Then, you get a relatively quiet time--the economy is doing well, few storms or disasters, crime is down, relative peace, no disease epidemics. This sounds like "peace and security" is imminent, also describing signs that the end is imminent.
Now, what about the pandemic of Plague during the First Dark Ages? That makes our "pandemic(??)" of Wimp Flu seem downright wimpy--you had a 3 in 4 chance of dying from the plague. And there was more crime--even moats with crocodiles, heavy stone walls, and armed guards were no match for burglars (and they didn't have the technology to burgle places then as they do now). Highway robbery was expected. The economy was even worse than now--you were either a Lord and owned your Serfs, or a Serf. If you were a Serf, everything you did was what your Lord told you to, and they were usually pretty stingy with provisions for their Serfs (who were nothing more than property). And, if they got a storm or earthquake, a witch hunt added a second disaster to find who sinned to cause the first disaster (plus there was no news, meaning no relief).
And yet, all this happened more than 600 years ago. And, there was no sign of the final end--nor was the Renaissance, when peace and security actually happened (on a relative scale). Neither good times nor bad times brought upon the end of this system of things during the last 2000 years. Yet, the witlesses will tell you that relatively tame events of today are signs that the end is imminent.
It's all a scam.
