do you see any dinosaurs roaming around?

except for birds?

1; Dualism. There are forces of good and there are forces of evil.
2; Impotence. Man can only choose evil or good for himself but is basically powerless to effect anything on a large or cosmic scale.
3; Vindication. God or an emissary will eventually intervene to vanquish evil, and those who have chosen good will be rewarded.

During the tyranny of Antiochus IV, who forced Pagan statues into the Jewish Temple and made certain religious practices illegal, the Jews were no longer being punished for not keeping the covenant, but for trying to keep it. Casting around for an explanation, what gained traction was Zoroastrian dualism. To which they added the fourth common tenet; Imminence. God would intervene soon.

This remained popular through the destruction of the second Temple, which understandably took the wind out of the interventionist sails. But by then the Christians had picked it up because Jesus repeatedly taught that the “Kingdom of God” was at hand. Christians have carried that banner ever since.

For both religious and non-religious, it’s not so much the Imminence that’s the issue, but the black and white worldview of dualism. The belief in (as Dubya put it) an “Axis of evil,” combined with the idea of man’s impotence in the face of it. Whether it’s attributed to “original sin,” or man’s inhumanity to man, it’s the poison of dualism that seems to be feeding the fervor.

There are in fact so many more reasons today which are feasible possible causes of our extinction which didn’t exist until recently, that the extraordinary claim is that we will survive much longer, and the delusion that we will is a symptom of widespread human grief, namely the denial stage in the bereavement process.

Face it: We’re all gonna die.