Eschaton is defined as the moment when the World ends. This word is derived from the Greek word eskhatos which means last.

For Christians, this is Rapture or the "Second Coming of Jesus." For a vivid description of Rapture, read this Darwin Award of a woman dying while attempting to experience Eschaton. Other religions also have some sort of Heaven-situation where we are suspended in an infinite afterlife.

Paranormal types also have their own Eschaton found in novelty theory and approaching concrescence, which describes a mystical and complicated conclusion to Life.

But if you are a naturalist, atheist, or agnostic type, how do you conceive the End? Well, the Sun will eventually engulf the Earth and the Universe will either dissipate or pull a reverse Big Bang ("The Big Crunch"). But is this a satisfying Eschaton?
 

Since Universal Annihilation is unpleasant, naturalist types, like myself, turn to Eschaton as the Singularity--the moment of supreme human-intelligence. To grasp how this is possible, trace the evolution of the brain from weak cells in bacteria four billion years ago, to chordates 544 million years ago with nerve buds, to primates 65 million years ago with basic brains, to homo sapiens sapiens 130,000 years ago with an enlarged neocortex and folds in the brain, to modern humans with culture, computers and a group Internet mind. Then, if you extrapolate just a little further into the future, you encounter beings of unfathomable superiority. One of the potential consequences is that we become jacked into a Matrix that simulates heaven; all pains will be washed away and the possibilities of happiness will be astounding. Read more by the founder of this technological Singularity.

What you see, though, threading all three visions of Eschaton (religious, paranormal, and technological) is a natural human desire to ponder eskhatos.

Why is Eschaton necessary for us? Is this desire just an unintended result of taking our skill at comprehending cause-effect relationships to their limits? Is understanding eskhatos essential to how we define a sense of meaning in life? Or are we onto something in that we actually are headed for a special surprise ending?

I don't know. I find it interesting, though, how an atheist like myself ended up falling into the same primitive curiosity for Eschaton that religious types have.

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