~This post is written to my fellow Christians. ~
It's interesting how there are signs of God and elements of Truth woven through culture and time, it's in Pagan lore, and it shows up in books by modern authors. There are elements of truth amongst the lies and confusion so prevalent in society.
I read an account of Ragnarok (The Twilight of the Gods), which is the tale of the end of the world in Norse mythology. Much of it was very similar to what has been told in The Bible and outlined in Heaven, by Timothy Keller. Ragnorak contains a fight between the gods where the world is destroyed. In the end though, the children of the gods survive and begin a new life in a beautiful fresh land. Ragnarok rightly states that the world will be destroyed and a new world created. However, instead of the children of the gods, the children of God will live there. (The children of God are those who believe in the saving power of Jesus' blood and adopted by God. "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! For that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him." I John 3:1)
There are some books that I wouldn't recommend, but yet point towards the existence of God and of sin by portraying what can happen when one lives without God, which is the reality of life for many, many people. Waterland asks over and over: "Why?" It shows clearly the results of sin and the barriers it creates and how actions build upon each other so that you reap what you sow. The main character asks "Why?" but he knew why. He knew the pain he, his wife, and his father (and others) faced was the result of the wrong he (and they) had done, and this truth is slowly untangled throughout the story.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is another. I only read the first few chapters but I was just now struck with an allegory in this book --which I did not expect as this book makes light of God and contains crass imagery and innuendos (which are why I didn't finish it). In the story, Planet Earth was destroyed and Arthur Dent is presumably the only human to escape. He didn't have any luggage, he didn't get to take anything with him. The author wrote that the knowledge of Earth was just something that existed in his memory. For example there was no place he could go to pull out a record and share the music of the Beattles with anyone. It was all gone. Like death and rebirth. None of your possessions come with you. But why was he the only human to survive the destruction of Earth? It wasn't by anything he did. His friend saved him. His friend was from another world who brought him along, Arthur Dent didn't do a thing, he just woke up inside an Alien spacecraft after the Earth was destroyed.
I believe the Earth will be destoyed. When people die, they take nothing with them, and the only thing that can save is Jesus. Fully God and fully man, he came from Heaven to Earth to save us from ourselves and from our sin, and our future home is in Heaven which will contain a new Earth, but this time there will be no sin and pain and suffering. Jesus is the friend who saves us.
