"People are Scared"

Huston Smith on the Rapture, etc. (snippet):

....People are scared. I think that’s a fair statement. For innumerable reasons, I mean you can list them. Our planet is in danger through global warming and other things. One think tank gives our planet only a fifty percent chance of surviving the twenty first century. That’s our planet, And then we have the growing gap between the haves and have-nots and what that’s going to do to our whole economy. You know I’ve been a teacher and the humanities are just dwindling in Universities, but I don’t blame the students, because they’re scared. We have our daughters are well enough along, they’ve got their own homes. But our grandchildren-- will they be able to float themselves so that they have a roof of their own to be in. And civil liberties are in jeopardy. People are scared. Okay. Now if you are scared, you reach for straws. And I think what’s basically behind this huge stampede is, okay, this world is scary, let’s be sure we have eternity on our side. And that points them in the direction of the more conservative religions that promise them happy eternity if they just sign on with born again....