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Longing for the Apocalypse

10/16/2013

30 Comments

 
Yesterday I wrote about the apparent glee with which ancient astronaut theorist, sexual fetishist, and murder victim Erik Poltorak seemed to long for the coming Day of Judgment when the aliens would punish humanity for its sins. This of course is not unique to Poltorak and has been a part and parcel of Western civilization since the apocalyptic cults of Judaism started prophesying the End Times. Nevertheless, we seem to be in another period of apocalyptic fantasizing, and once again this fills the hearts of believers with glee. Here is U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann telling an evangelical minister recently how she longs for the cleansing fires to burn across the earth:

I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the end times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s end times history. […] Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha Come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand.

Bachmann is referring to Mark 13, in which Jesus describes the coming of the End Times, when God will cause suffering unknown in human history, but which the “elect” will escape. In Mark 13:28-29 Jesus says that when the leaf is on the fig, you know summer is coming, thus when you see the signs of sin and suffering, so too is Jesus about to return to cleanse the earth with fire. Caring soul that she is, she rejoices at the “days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.”

Let’s pause here to note that the belief that we are currently living in the End of Days is not a mainstream Christian belief. Most Protestant denominations and the Catholic and Orthodox Churches do not support the idea that the world is currently ending.

I can’t fathom how anyone can lust for the violent end of everyone but themselves, but it has a long Christian tradition. It is a longstanding article of faith that the saints in heaven will rejoice in watching the suffering and torments of those in hell, which serves as their entertainment. Tertullian tells us as much in De Spectaculis (30), where he hopes that the sight “rouses me to exultation,” and Augustine affirms the same in his City of God (20.22), where the saints “witness the torments of the wicked” through inspired dreams. Thomas Aquinas, in fact, called it the summation of the saints’ perfect happiness in Summa Theologica (supplement to Part 3, 94.1): “Wherefore in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned.” It was like the Coliseum, only so much better because God, rather than Caesar, was in charge of the show.

Bachmann joins a long line of such Rapture-ready believers, from Joachim of Fiore to William Miller, from Jim Jones to David Koresh. What all have in common, of course, is that their predictions of the imminent end of the world all failed, including Jesus’ own prophecy that the End Times would occur in his disciples’ own lifetime (Mark 13:30). Yet today, thanks to both media coverage and the election of a large contingent of apocalyptic believers to high office, these kinds of extreme beliefs have rarely had a larger platform. Today one in four Americans seriously entertains the notion that Barack Obama is the Antichrist, according to a USA Today poll conducted last spring.

It’s funny, I suppose, that you don’t hear much about apocalyptic Zeus-ism. Few among the ancients begged their fellows to repent before Serapis or Nodens ended all life, or filled themselves with glee at the thought. The Norse perhaps came closest with Ragnarok, though it’s not clear that the Norse end times existed prior to contact with Christian apocalyptic beliefs. Other cultures had a concept of cyclical time, but usually this was so fantastically far into the future as to be of no practical day-to-day utility. It is Near Eastern monotheism that made the apocalypse a daily worry in the West.

But it isn’t limited to Christian believers: Witness the rise of the doomsday preppers, survivalists preparing for all manner of calamities, mostly tied to their belief in a pending global economic catastrophe. Further out on the extreme are those who gleefully ponder the so-called “zombie apocalypse,” when, as in the Christian and Islamic tradition, the dead reanimate, but this time as objects of horror rather than perfected beings. These people obsessively plan their strategies for survival and seem genuinely desirous of the complete collapse of civilization.

On the other extreme, ancient alien and UFO believers long for the alien apocalypse, when, as in the Christian tradition, the savior will ride in on a cloud (being a UFO, of course) and shoot dead all the sinners with divine laser beams. Then the aliens will rapture away the true believers through a wormhole to the Orion nebula, or whatever dimension Ancient Aliens is blathering on about that week. Giorgio Tsoukalos never seems more animated than when he tells viewers how the ancient gods plan to return. Many New Agers were certain, until the deadline passed, that the Age of Aquarius would dawn on December 21, 2012, and “energy” would transform the world. Scott Wolter wrote in Akhenaten to the Founding Fathers that he thinks the new age really did begin that day.

But why now? Why is it that today apocalyptic ideology rings through the halls of Congress while twenty years ago it was a fringe belief that got one labeled a charlatan or a kook? We are not obviously in an apocalypse. Aside from the self-generated constitutional crises in Washington and the continued serious but not worst-ever economic downturn, by objective measures the world is safer than in decades past and life for the average non-elite individual is less harsh than it has ever been in most places. By most measures the crisis period between 1914 and 1945 was the closest humanity has come to a Biblical-style apocalypse, with its devastating wars, civilizational collapse, and plagues of locusts. The entire ruling elite of the pre-WWI world was swept from power, and with it the foundational political and social orders that had governed civilization in the West since the Middle Ages. We are still living in the aftermath, as the remains of the European imperial polities continue to break down into ever-smaller units, much as the Roman Empire broke into two halves and then innumerable petty fiefdoms.

But conditions after the attacks of September 11, 2001 seem to have unleashed new apocalyptic fervor (Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson famously blamed minority groups and abortionists for calling down God’s wrath), but that was too long ago to be the whole answer. By then, we had already blown through four alleged apocalypses in just two years—the Nostradamus “king of terror” prediction for July 1999, the predicted Second Coming of Jesus in 2000, the Y2K computer apocalypse, and the Great Pole Shift of May 5, 2000—all of which failed as prophecy despite various levels of professed belief from the general public.

I think a partial answer lies in a new NBC/Esquire survey released yesterday. This survey looked at the 51% of American who form the political center between the left and the right. (By definition, there is always a center between extremes, though the definition of extreme drifts across time.) It is something less than representative and also seems to systematically exclude the most economically disadvantaged, who tend to have more polarized politics. In the poll, almost two-thirds of those in the center (65%) said that the growing diversity of the American population “inspires in them no sense of hope in the future.” The same number also believe that the rights of America’s white majority are also being suppressed by laws protecting minorities. Additionally, 40% believe that racial tensions will lead to race-based violence. This so-called political center is 78% white, meaning that nearly everyone who holds the abovementioned views is also white. Economically, they also share the view that life is getting worse (84%), and things won’t get better (62%).

Therefore, at a minimum, we can cut the numbers in half as a minimum percentage of the overall population. That is still an exceedingly large number.

When traditional power structures are threatened, those losing power retreat into cultural revitalization movements, typically focused on repairing perceived supernatural connections to the divine, often by focusing on repentance and sin. The apocalyptic imagery currently on display seems to be part of the broader crisis of identity faced by some white Americans at the loss of traditional positions of privilege in the face of diversity.

I think this also goes a long way toward explaining the resurgent popularity of creationism, ancient astronauts, and pre-Columbian European colonization of America in the last decade or so, particularly among white Americans, who make up the vast majority of the audience for alternative history claims. Creationism and ancient aliens are two sides of the same coin, the desire to revitalize traditional religion and thus the social hierarchy supported by certain forms of religion as both natural and mandated by God or the gods. These ideas both gained significant traction in the socially turbulent 1960s but have only grown in popularity since 2001.

Diffusionism, too, supports traditional hierarchies by reinforcing white Americans’ primacy in the social order through appeal to the idea that white people have always been here—long before those interloping minorities. In this case, imaginary Templar, Welsh, Irish, or other colonies serve both as prior claim to America as a homeland and also as a fictive origin point for American civilization free from the taint of original sin—slavery. These pure white colonies did not have racial minorities and therefore wipe clean the slate by positing an alternative America based on perceived core American values: freedom, individualism, religious belief, and independence.

The audience for the History channel and H2 almost exactly overlaps the NBC/Esquire poll’s “new center” in demography (though skewing a bit older and more male); therefore, it is reasonable to assume that America Unearthed and Ancient Aliens viewers also share many of the same anxieties and fears about the racial diversity of America and take comfort in narratives that reinforce the idea that white Americans (perceived, I am sure, simply as “people like me” rather than in racial terms) did great things, had always ruled over this land, and always will.

At least until Jesus comes back to kill everyone who isn’t just like them.

30 Comments
Martin J. Clemens link
10/16/2013 08:29:12 am

Wow...

I have nothing more eloquent than that to say about this. You just blew my mind (a simple task, I know, but still profound from the inside).

I had never considered the appeal of apocalyptic times in those terms. Thank you for the thought-food.

Reply
Thane
10/16/2013 09:35:25 am

"End-time-ism" isn't unique to Evangelical Christians. "Twelver" Shites are an apocolyptic sect in Islam and they pray for the return of the Madhi which will signal the "end-times".

There are doubtless other apocalyptic sects that are off-shoots of "mainline" religions as well as various cults. The challenge for those sects is access to mainstream media. In America, we focus on American sects especially in groups that are targets for ridicule for whatever reason. We really don't get much visibility of other groups from other areas around the world that have a focus on end-times expect when such a group may be involved in a horrific act of destruction. We don't know how much coverage by the media in their own cultures.

I would postulate that during times of economic crisis and political upheaval, people tend to feel less secure and grow to have a increasingly pessimistic view of the future. This tends to depress people and/ or enhance a sense of anxiety and so they turn to their belief system for some sense of hope. For the religious, they find it on their scriptures or in some offshoot or fringe element, for the non-religious, they cling ever more tightly to whatever "higher power" they embrace....whether it be aliens, extra-dimensional beings, big government, pure rationality, etc.

When the economy is good and peace rules the lands, such focus on end-times and other devastations practically disappear from society and such groups loose membership or it's members may still believe but aren't so openly ardent.

Reply
Thane
10/16/2013 09:36:45 am

Forgive the grammatical errors. I didn't proof-read before submitting...

Reply
Jason Colavito link
10/16/2013 10:04:50 am

Lots of groups have apocalyptic ideas. Marxism, in its way, was apocalyptic, too, in its idea that after the conflagration of the Revolution of the Proletariat history would come to an end. But as you note, today only one type of apocalyptic ranting regularly gets TV time.

Reply
Thane
10/16/2013 10:22:52 am

Ah yes, the destruction of the bourgeoisie partly through self-immolation and in conflict with the proletariat.

"In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat. " - Communist Manifesto

Mark L
10/18/2013 02:04:22 am

I think you're being a bit literal with those descriptions - the apocalypse described by Marxism (as rarely as the word was ever used) is getting rid of the power structures that have kept people poor and a tiny minority incredibly wealthy. It's worth repeating, but more people died during the filming of "October" than died during the actual October revolution.

Removing a grossly unfair social order and replacing it with one that has the majority's interests at heart is hardly the same as the unimaginable torture described by the Bible and other apocalyptic religious texts. I think, anyway, and that's the sort of socialism I believe in and work for.

Thane
10/16/2013 10:08:53 am

One other thing I wanted to mention is that the US is predominately White or White-identified.

From the CIA Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
white 79.96%, black 12.85%, Asian 4.43%, Amerindian and Alaska native 0.97%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.18%, two or more races 1.61% (July 2007 estimate)
note: a separate listing for Hispanic is not included because the US Census Bureau considers Hispanic to mean persons of Spanish/Hispanic/Latino origin including those of Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican Republic, Spanish, and Central or South American origin living in the US who may be of any race or ethnic group (white, black, Asian, etc.); about 15.1% of the total US
population is Hispanic

(Most people of Latin/Hispanic descent I know classify themselvs as White, as an FYI)

So, it's not surprising that the vast majority of people that make up the "center" are white.

In addition, depending on how questions are asked will skew responses. Laws that claim to protect minorities can be laws that disfranchise the majority or be perceived by the majority as unfair to their interests. This does not indicate hostility to the minority group. It only reveals a concern or belief that the majority feels itself to be disenfranchised.

Perceptions about growing diversity not inspiring hope can be a result of perceived cultural upheaval when the diversity that is covered in the media seems to emphasis people who wish to keep their own languages and cultures and not assimilate into the predominate culture. For example, there was a few years ago where a pro-illegal immigration group (it may have been La Raza) wanted there to be a Spanish language version of the national anthem. It seems to me to be just a ploy to gain some media coverage (which they got) but it did end up upsetting alot of people....including Hispanics I know who were deeply offended by the notion. I should add their families immigrated legally and have issue with those that don't. Obviously not a racial issue there but one about law and order and the right way to do things.

There are so many facets to poll taking and how people's opinions can be misrepresented and/or misinterpreted, I put little stock in polls.

What's the saying?

There are Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.

Reply
Shane Sullivan
10/16/2013 02:41:07 pm

"Perceptions about growing diversity not inspiring hope can be a result of perceived cultural upheaval when the diversity that is covered in the media seems to emphasis people who wish to keep their own languages and cultures and not assimilate into the predominate culture."

The way “inspires in them no sense of hope in the future” is presented, it's hard to guess the exact nature of the question (I can't find a source for that quote)...honestly, my initial assumption was that it was an expression of apathy, not of opposition.

But I can only guess.

Jason Colavito link
10/16/2013 11:45:02 pm

Sorry, Shane, the quote about inspiring hope was from another report about the survey that was broadcast on TV. It was also on the front page of NBCNews.com for a bit, but I can't find the article again to link to it. You are right, though, that the presentation of that response was not clear enough to understand exactly what was meant by the answer. Regardless, though, the answer suggests a lack of enthusiasm.

Robin swope
10/16/2013 09:55:12 am

A clay tablet dated at 2800BC was found that has the inscription "Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common."~Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts

The Rapture is actually a fairly recent concept (18th Century) and mostly a theme of Evangelical and Fundamentalist circles. While the belief of an end of time Resurrection used to be a standard doctrine (and still is by mainline churches). Some Evangelical Denominations are very specific as to the Eschatology beliefs allowed to be supported by their pastors. While in my ordination meeting with The Christian and Missionary Alliance in the 90s I was asked my view on the end times. I told them I was a Pan-Tribulationist, which made some on the committee visibly upset (they are very much Fundamental Dispensationalists with a focus on pre-tribulation Rapture) They asked what I meant by that and I told them "It will all pan out in the end)". They were not amused.

The modern Evangelical Church is becoming the Medieval Catholic Church in so many ways. Dogmatically exclusive, politically leaning and full of extra Biblical superstitions and dogma.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
10/16/2013 10:01:17 am

Degeneration was certainly the governing ideology for most of antiquity--witness Hesiod's Ages of Man. But the polytheists were usually less enthusiastic about predicting the imminent end of all flesh, at least in their own lifetimes. I hate to say it, though, but several versions of the "tablet" you quoted are in existence, and standard sources say they are spurious and originated sometime around 1917.

Reply
Only Me
10/16/2013 10:08:24 am

As a Christian, I find anyone awaiting the end times with gleeful fervor, or the suffering of untold numbers of their fellow man to be music to the ears of the saints, quite frankly, fucking disgusting. Those stances fly in the face of the core tenets of Christianity: forgiveness, hope, salvation and mercy.

I know it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the bunch, but I sincerely hope, Jason, that you and others who visit here don't consider all Christians to be this messed up, in spite of your personal thoughts towards religion in general.

Reply
B L
10/17/2013 04:41:24 am

Agreed. Such thoughts have no place in Christianity. Broken down to it's essence Jesus taught the "golden rule". So, finding joy in the eternal suffering of others is the exact OPPOSITE of what Jesus wanted from us.

It is interesting to me that Jason would highlight the Christian faith in this blog, but chose to ignore modern Islamic extremism in his examples.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
10/17/2013 05:03:13 am

Islam has its apocalyptic sects, but Islamic extremism ("jihad") is tied to setting up an Islamic world government, not at bringing about the Judgment Day and the coming of the Mahdi. America does not really have an Islamic apocalyptic movement anywhere near commensurate with the Christian End Times media blitz. Therefore, it wasn't really relevant to this post.

B L
10/18/2013 05:40:07 am

I don't know, Jason. While taking joy in the eternal suffering of sinners at some point in the future is no doubt appalling, it doesn't hold a candle to the joy taken by Muslim extremists worldwide who when infidels are wiped from the Earth in the name of Allah. I think the argument could be made that all of extreme Islam is an apocalyptic death cult.

kennethos
10/16/2013 02:26:55 pm

Jason:
It almost seems as if you're lumping in Michelle Bachmann's vision of the apocalypse with every other eschatological "fruit cake" out there, without delineating (putting in context) exactly what she means and how she's saying it. While I doubt I subscribe to anything near her particular view, I can't imagine that her view is anywhere near those of Koresh or Jones, et al, aside from sharing similarities in source material and possibly religious traditions. Some here may not agree with her politics, or religious views, but equating hers (as a visible example) with such extremes seems, well, extreme. In my understanding, those who hold to such views see the end of days as ending poverty, human suffering, pain, evil, etc., and bringing on perfection, eternal joy, and the like (granted, this is for the faithful, but still applies). I somehow doubt that when she's speaking to a minister, and perhaps being interviewed by a (potentially) sympathetic journalist, in her mind she's actually taking joy in the probable deaths of millions or billions of non-believers. (But then, this question wasn't asked; too many things are just assumed.) It's akin to asking a woman who's just given birth endless details about the difficulties of labor, in the face of a newborn baby.
My own view is that the gospel of Christ transforms people, and cultures, albeit over periods of time; it's not too far from some mainline and Catholic views. I can sympathize with Bachmann's longing and her views. Sadly, too many in the evangelical church are unaware of the recent history of the "rapture" view, and have lost sight of historical views, which I think are perhaps more orthodox.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
10/16/2013 11:41:48 pm

Evangelical end times claims discuss the rapture, the tribulation, and the reign of the Antichrist. One may have in one's mind the eventual reign of Christ and/or the New Jerusalem, but that means looking forward to the time when 75%+ of humanity will die painful, horrible deaths to get there.

Reply
The Other J.
10/16/2013 03:20:35 pm

Part of this seems to stem from the misconception that rights are a zero-sum game. Of course they're not, but someone had to convince a segment of the population that that's the case, and that can probably be traced back to the Civil Rights movement and the Southern Strategy. (And that has 19th century historical precedents with business owners spreading ethnic propaganda among black and European immigrant populations, in attempts to keep them from forming unions or any kind of unified labor force.)

In a lecture I once heard, the prof. discussed how Mircea Eliade, the Romanian sociologist of religion, had studied apocalyptic movements among a variety of religions. The thing he found was that there was never an apocalyptic moment and then not one; the end times were pretty much always going on in every major religion -- Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, etc. The qualifiers were the degree and scope of that end-times thinking. It may be a small fringe of a religion that believes we're at the end of the Kali Yuga, or a significant minority, or possibly a majority.

If you pull together enough political, economic and social crises into one moment and view them through a spiritual lens, you'll probably end up with more Michelle Bachmann's than not. Then there's the risk of it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

(I wish I knew where the Eliade study could be found; the prof. didn't cite which work it came from during the lecture, but he did expound on the implications. Is anyone else here familiar with it? In any case, the analysis always stuck with me.)

Reply
Varika
10/16/2013 03:26:17 pm

...personally, I think that BOREDOM is part of the equation. Being safe means that your life tends to be very routine--whatever that routine is. I'm not sure people so much revel in the idea of worldwide death as the idea of being the star of their own action movie. They'll have this awesome time being the Greatest Of The Greatest, and impressing Jesus with how awesomely pious and Crusader Against Sin they are (or whatever), and when that's done, they'll have all the wealth/women/fame/whatever they think Heaven is made of that they can stand.

When I was a teenager, I was part of a very short-lived little...I guess "cult" is the best word. There were three members, and we were convinced that we were going to play a role in the end of the world sometime "after" 2000 (this was in the 90s okay). Even when I had convinced myself--we had convinced each other--that we were going to die for this, to the point of having a very real emotional breakdown and needing counseling, the narrative in our heads was never that we were going to be canon-fodder or bystanders or helpless victims--it was ALWAYS that we were going to go down fighting. I see that same sort of narrative very obviously in the "survivalist" movement, and I really do suspect it's part of most if not all apocalyptic fantasies.

Reply
Gunn
10/17/2013 03:42:09 am

Apocalyptic fantasies or apocalyptic realities?

Jason, you and Scott Wolter share a peculiar similarity of going on the offensive against Jesus. At which point do you suppose your viewpoints will become defensive?

You should try better to understand why people become spiritual before you cast your broad net of judgments upon them. You are brushing aside the total past human experience with the supernatural in your attempts to be a pure skeptic.

You mock prophecy, yet prophecy is the basis for Christian belief in the upcoming end of days. I take no joy in what is to come, yet I am told to rejoice, that my redemption is drawing near. You have twisted this around on a political lightening rod to reveal an evil within good, where there is none. The Dear Lady was not rejoicing in upcoming pain and suffering. You shallowly misunderstood her, which begs the question: how could this possibly happen?

Right, not all Christians believe in a rapture, either. Probably most do, even though the word isn't in the Bible. The Bible speaks of a bad period of time coming, an apocalypse, an Armageddon, and then a period of peace. Where, exactly, is the rapture? It is difficult to find and place.

My only suggestion is to try and be ready for what's fast approaching. Call it survivalist, call it foolishness. What? Mankind has always been preoccupied with preparing for the future. Throw in some seemingly very realistic unfolding prophecy, and we seem to have reason for concern. Going green will help, but it won't stop God's Word from unfolding before our eyes.

Jason, you have the stench of doubt on your hands. You're not very good at politics or religion. Your bias is too dreadfully clear and it's my own opinion--concerning religion, that you should stick with bashing Wolter over his bloodline theology. Otherwise, it's the stench of Diablo, as with Bush II.

You could always look for the good and find it, and then compare the bad to the good, but why do God any favors, right?

Was life worth creating? Is life worth living? Will good finally prevail over evil? Will there eventually be peace on a new Earth? All yes's, I choose to presuppose. As a non-fool, I have a right to say these things, on-subject, when you AGAIN choose to attack my Friend and His friends, and His friends' friends....

Reality is as Reality does.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
10/17/2013 03:57:34 am

So, let me get this straight: Even though I say that most Protestants and the Catholic and Orthodox Churches don't subscribe to this view, and even though Jesus himself tells his followers that no one will know the day or the hour, I am somehow anti-Christian for pointing out that there is no evidence we are currently in the Apocalypse? You're welcome to go prepare yourself for Armageddon, but Jesus told you that you can't know when it will happen, and he warned you that false prophets would tell you that it's coming.

The Rapture is a recent development, confined mostly to evangelicals. Catholics and Orthodox don't believe in it, nor most Protestants.

Reply
Gunn
10/17/2013 01:55:35 pm

I guess we misunderstood one another, as we are in agreement that there is no evidence we are currently in the Apocalypse. I was speaking about future events, not current events. Prophesy is different. Prophesy is unfolding and current, but not the Apocalypse. The two are separate issues, except that the Apocalypse is prophesied to occur.

I'm just left to wonder what will happen to the Dome on the Rock. Will it be destroyed, or built around...absorbed? Is there room for it and the new Temple both? Jesus will return to a new Temple, so we should keep our eye on that piece of real estate, as a future sign and prophesy to unfold. People, there is still time for personal improvements before the Apocalypse...and don't count too much on a Rapture. Maybe instead, we'll see thousands of little green trucks with red stars on them.

I think most Protestants do believe in a Rapture, an escaping of the worst to come. In fact, a popular minister, Pastor Murray, comes under constant attack for not believing in and teaching the Rapture.

No one knows the day or hour, Jason, but we see the seasons. We are actually told to look at the sky...not for aliens, but rather for prophesied signs. I just recently mentioned the Four Blood Moons, for instance.

I don't presume to speak for anyone here, including Christians. As with both history and alternative history, there is plenty of room for speculation in religion, too. You are correct about one thing, Jason: "Straight is the way, and narrow the gate." Don't ask me why it's this way. Maybe God's looking for the cream of the crop, faith-wise. Maybe He decided to not give up on we humans, after all. Maybe there's something to redeem in some of us, as we really are a sorry lot, aren't we?

Bill
10/17/2013 06:45:02 am

I see you're still trying to speak for all Christians.

Reply
Gunn
10/17/2013 01:58:09 pm

Bill, I see you're still trying to make me speak for all Christians. Forget about it, dude. Check yourself. Get down and give me about forty.

Bill
10/17/2013 11:48:51 pm

Since you're the one that keeps using phrases like "Christians believe" in the absolute with no qualifiers, it seems safe to assume you feel we all share your worldview.

Gunn
10/18/2013 04:14:15 am

I have no illusions about other people sharing my world view. I have never tried to be a Pied Piper, and most everything is still a mystery to me. We both know that everyone will eventually speak only for themselves. I will show what little light I have, on a hill. The light doesn't reach into the darkest corners of this blog. I have no illusions, except for my few imaginary friends. Bill, won't you be my neighbor?

pat link
10/21/2013 08:52:08 am

I note God is referred to as 'He', as Christian religious doctrine is the centre of this discussion, one assumes this 'god' is extracted from the Christian bible, with Jesus being his only son?

Please clarify your understanding of the 'god', or 'God', and if you are in fact referring to the biblical 'god' who bribed, terrorised, manipulated the people, encouraging the annihilation of one tribe by another. In addition, the biblical 'god' who was sorry he had created mankind and attempted to remove them by drowning them.

This is all so very confusing as he displayed very human attributes - anger, jealousy, favouritism etc etc. - Your understanding of 'god' OR 'God' please?

Gunn
10/22/2013 07:42:39 am

First, you explain in what way we might have been created in the image of God. Speak in spiritual and/or emotional terms, please, avoiding--for the time being--any sexual parts.

Sean
10/17/2013 11:02:47 pm

I can't help but wonder if a rise in apocalyptic thinking, both secular and religious, is partly the result of modern media. As you point out, for a lot of people the modern world is a lot more peaceful and safer than it used to be; but modern communications and a 24-hour news cycle mean that a lot of the suffering and danger than happens is much more accessible to people than it once was.

In the UK, for example, the prevalence of murder and violent crime has been declining for some time, but the majority of people believe the exact opposite. Official crime statistics are dismissed as the police fudging numbers to make themselves look good. If you point out that the figures come not from the police but from the British Crime Survey, which is based on interviews with a random population sample, people will dismiss this because the sample is too small; or because they think people would lie so as not to admit to being victimised.

Ten news stories about brutal rapes or murders have far more visceral impact than dry statistics about overall trends, and with modern news any particularly gruesome story can instantly become global knowledge.

Reply
Gunn
10/18/2013 04:27:27 am

In the UK, there are enough cameras to record every angle of being victimized. But what good are pictures in stopping the immediate violence at hand?

In the USA, cameras alone will never replace guns in the game of self-defense. What lessons do we learn from school shootings, for instance? Here in MN, after a shooting several years ago, the aftermath was that the school hired an armed guard. Life and death are circles, as we learn.

What is to stop the UK from becoming tyrannical in the future? Cameras?

(Sorry for the tone; this was not meant to be personal.)

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          • On Isis and Osiris
          • Famine Stela
          • Old Egyptian Chronicle
          • The Book of Sothis
          • Horapollo
          • Al-Maqrizi's King List
        • Teshub and the Dragon
        • Hermetica >
          • The Three Hermeses
          • Kore Kosmou
          • Corpus Hermeticum
          • The Asclepius
          • The Emerald Tablet
          • Hermetic Fragments
          • Prologue to the Kyranides
          • The Secret of Creation
          • Ancient Alphabets Explained
          • Prologue to Ibn Umayl's Silvery Water
          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
          • Aurora of the Philosophers
        • Hesiod's Theogony
        • Periplus of Hanno
        • Ctesias' Indica
        • Sanchuniathon
        • Sima Qian
        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Byzantine World Chronicle
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Atlantis as Biblical History
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          • Atlantis and Nimrod
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and Hanno's Periplus
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
          • Amazing New Light (Hoax)
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
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        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • History of Paleontology
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • America Known to the Ancients
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Remarkable Discoveries Within the Sphinx (Hoax)
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • The Shaver Mystery >
          • Lovecraft and the Deros
          • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • CIA Search for the Ark of the Covenant
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • The Fall of the Sky
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Poltergeist UFOs
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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