Because of her Christian beliefs, Dana Egg, a junior marketing major, isn't too concerned about a possible apocalypse in the future. She said that when the end of the world is here, worldly things would have meant nothing.
"If you have to change the way you live, it just proves that you weren't living life to its fullest," Egg said.
The end of the world is not typically considered a light topic suitable for conversation, but most people have opinions on it, and some even wonder if and how it will occur.
Born in the early days of World War II, Kenneth Johnson has built a career out of developing and writing television shows. Two of his most memorable works include "V" and "Alien Nation," two shows that center on world-changing alien invasions. Johnson believes that the monotony of everyday life can lead to fantasies about cataclysmic events.
"I think most people in the developed world lead pretty predictable lives, for better or worse, so the thought of a grand sea change in our existence always stirs the imagination," Johnson said. "That's precisely what I sought to explore in 'V.' In 1983, remember, we hadn't had a cataclysmic national occurrence since Pearl Harbor."
As a child, Johnson lived under the ever-present threat of a nuclear strike - a threat that did not faze him much.
"I never bought into it too much as a kid," he said. "It seemed like a very remote possibility, and I felt a certain skepticism about how the picnic blanket I was to pull over my head would actually afford much protection against a thermonuclear blast. I just went on riding my bike, playing softball and reading."
Even so, the threat of a world-changing event is constantly present - a fact that Americans have a way of forgetting, Johnson said.
"Again, at least in America, it's the heat of the moment: everyone looking over their shoulders right after Sept. 11 - great patriotic talk and appropriate praise of heroes and victims ... but since there hasn't been another hit since Sept. 11, and we don't face the threat of it on a daily basis like London or several other places have, we sag back into complacency," Johnson said. "I do feel very uncomfortable, however, when I'm filming down near the great Los Angeles Harbor at San Pedro. When I look out over all those thousands of cargo containers ... knowing it would only take one with a nuke in it ... and our crackerjack Homeland Security Department is only screening about six percent of them. That gives me an uneasy feeling."
For Egg, the media leads on too much worry. She said that unknowing humans create all books and movies.
"The end of the world is not an exaggeration, but producers definitely take advantage of the fact that the entire world is looking for an answer," she said. "This allows producers to interpret as they wish and assures them of drawing crowds worldwide, of all ages, religions and races."
With films about antichrists and demonic possession hitting the box office, students are faced with the topics that stir their opinions.
"I believe that when the end of the world comes, Jesus will come to Earth and take his followers with Him; what is left of the Earth will be under Satan's rule, and there will only be darkness," Egg said.
Kyle Royder, a senior engineering technology major, said that the end of the world will be caused by the way we are treating the planet. While Royder doesn't buy into the global warming scare, he recognizes that humans are dramatically depleting the planet's resources.
"I believe the biggest problems facing our environment, and what will one day be the cause of the end of the world, is pollution and waste and will only get worse with time as Earth's population increases exponentially," Royder said. "The only way to overcome the issues of pollution, global warming and rapidly declining resources is to educate people to make them more aware of their environmental responsibility toward our planet. I think the most significant step we can take in this direction is to push the idea of recycling on a larger scale. If each one of us starts recycling, we can end up saving an immense amount of water, electricity and oil as well as help keep petroleum products or other harmful products out of our oceans and land. Another way we can all help out is to utilize the transportation provided by Texas A&M, which most of you are already paying for, or to carpool or ride a bike to school."
Royder is not too bothered by the possibility of the end of the world, but he is not quite ready for the end to happen just yet.
"I would be disappointed that I would not get to experience most of what my life has to offer - from traveling the world, to getting to use the education that I have worked hard to obtain from Texas A&M, to starting a family so that I can pass my knowledge and ideals on to," Royder said. "If the world ended, the rest of the universe would continue on. I like to believe with all the other systems in the universe, there is one out there with conditions similar to ours that can sustain life."
Johnson's own theory is similar to Royder's.
"Oh, as I look out into the cosmos and know of all the deaths and births of stars, I figure we'll all just glide away out there so that by the time earth is uninhabitable we will have long since found other shores ... that we'll hopefully not pillage as badly as we have Mother Earth," he said. "But then there's Robert Frost's notion: 'Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From What I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire, But if I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate, To say that for destruction ice, Is also great, And would suffice.'"