End of world inevitable, but...

... it probably won't be tonight

By BRONWYN SELL

Sorry to break this to you as you're chilling the champagne and ironing your dancing trousers, but the world is going to end.

Chances are it will not happen tonight, and probably not for about 4 or 5 billion years, but the majority of New Zealanders who think the Earth will live forever are kidding themselves, say astronomers.

A little over half (51 per cent) of the 750 people surveyed in a Herald-DigiPoll did not believe the world would end one day. Nearly 41 per cent thought it would, and 8 per cent did not know or did not want to say.

"I don't want to be depressing so near the millennium, but the end of the world is absolutely inevitable," said Auckland Observatory director Ian Griffin.

He said only a miracle of technology would save us from dying when the sun died, unless events on Earth killed us first.

"Stars are a bit like us - they are born, they grow up, they grow old and they die. Our sun is about halfway through its life, so astronomers think that in about 4 or 5 billion years, the sun is going to swell up and basically boil up the Earth."

According to the Bible, the Earth and sky will eventually "flee," to be replaced by a new heaven and Earth.

But the Archdeacon of Auckland, the Ven Peter Beck, said people should be more concerned with living in hope, love and justice than worrying about Armageddon.

"All the way through history people have been looking for the end of the world, and no doubt some think it's going to end [tonight].

"Most Christians don't see it like that. I think most of us would say, 'Life is to be lived now'."