Ragnarök is not interchangeable with Armageddon. First of all, not everyone is destroyed. Certainly not all the gods, and in some versions, a man and a woman are hidden in a tree, so even we survive. And second, though the earth is destroyed, true to the cyclical nature of the story, it is also made again.
The poet went to all that trouble at the beginning of the poem of telling us how, in the early days, the gods played games in the yard, and then hearkening back to it at the end of the poem, when the gods find the golden playing pieces in the grass after the battle. Things are very different, but they are also the same.
Peace comes again. Life starts again. Things go on. It’s not the end of the world at all.
Filed under: My Imaginary Friend is Better Than Yours
You do know, I’m sure, that people survive Armageddon too. In fact, Armageddon is only bad news for Satan and his crew of demons. After Armageddon is when God will create the New Earth where Christ and the saints will rule for 1000 years.
Then Satan gets to have a bit of leg-stretching time before his ulitmate defeat and everything is peachy forever.
Of course you are still right about Armageddon and Ragnarok being not interchangable. There’s quite a bit more action during Ragnarok, if I recall correctly. More comings and goings and music being played and whatnot.
Oftentimes, though, I’ve thought that perhaps our time now is actually the time AFTER Ragnarok–Adam and Eve being the two repopulators of the earth. I also wonder if our time now is not actually the time AFTER Armageddon.
Sometimes I lay around and play in my mind and think about what if our world is a remade world–that some of the fossils and canyons are from the time before time.
Yes, I realise I’m nuts.