[MarkBsnr]

If you look at the end of the first millennium, it was much worse than today. Plague, wars, invading pagans, made for a more vivid back drop to the expected end times.

I'd submit that our current situation parallels those times. If you don't think so, consider Dearbornistan...

[redgolum]

We don't have hordes burning and raping their way across the South. We don't have a plague depopulating whole counties and leaving the survivors pretty messed up.

We are not quite the same as then.