Armageddon

When it comes to the end of the world, at least in Biblical mythology, including prophecy, you get various buzz phrases like: Book of Revelation; the Apocalypse; Armageddon; the Second Coming; the End of Days, etc. There’s been more than just a minor industry spawned by this concept. So, we’ve had the hype, where’s the substance?

  

Biblical prophecy forecasts the end of the world, the end of days, doomsday, the apocalypse, Armageddon, call it what you will. Well, maybe yes, and maybe no. On the “yes” side of the fence are the true believers, the loony rightwing of the Christian faith.

It would seem that every time there is a natural disaster (even oil spills qualify), anywhere in the world, but especially in America, right-wing Christian fundamentalists and television evangelists jump for joy, do high fives and are more than happy to point out, even gleefully telling “I told you so”, and the more the destruction, the better the mayhem, the greater the death toll, the higher they jump, the happier they are and the more they rub their hands gleefully together. Why? It’s to them yet another sign that the end of days are near. Yet…

In mythology (or religious mythology) there really is no permanent end of the world. There’s always a rebirth, be it the Christian Armageddon or the Norse Ragnarok or within the Hindu mythology in India or even the various cyclic Mesoamerican cosmologies.

Take the Norse Ragnarok. The gods and the giants battle it out and the gods come out second best. But, there are survivors who start things up all over again. It’s reflected in the Richard Wagner conclusion to his epic four linked opera series “Der Ring Des Nibelungen”. The final opera, “Gotterdammerung” (“Twilight of the Gods”) ends with the destruction of the gods, but a rebirth and a new beginning. The very characters who started off the whole Ring Cycle are the very same and only survivors at the end. Will history repeat itself?

Take the Christian version: Well there’s no disputing the Biblical (tall) tales that ‘document’ some sort of domestic disagreement between ‘God’ and some sort of entity we call today ‘Satan’. If you believe those Biblical tall tales, the end result of that domestic dispute, Armageddon, isn’t in fact in dispute. There’s a decided element here of “This ain’t over till it’s over; this ain’t finished yet; I’ll be back”! However, when all is said and done, there will emerge from the ashes a new earth and a new heaven. Now we have the first fly in the ointment.

If you believe the Bible and the Book of Revelation, then you realise that Armageddon should have taken place over 1900 plus years ago, at least according to Jesus Christ. He said that the final battle between good (‘God’) and evil (‘Satan’) – I bet he was biased in deciding who was what – would take place within a generation or two of his utterances. So, if it took place way back then it took place off planet and out of human sight – a real life ‘Star Wars’. But if it hasn’t happened yet, assuming ‘God’ and ‘Satan’ are really real extraterrestrials instead of mythological entities, then it probably isn’t ever likely to. I mean you can only hold off a grudge match so long. Maybe they’ve kissed and made up, or…   

If God or His scribes wished to make crystal clear the ideas and events and chronology central to ‘the end of the world’, the Book of Revelation, Armageddon, the rapture, the second coming, etc., He or they failed – miserably. Any dozen Biblical scholars will give a dozen different interpretations of the ‘end of days’, from the literal to the metamorphic. The Book of Revelation, apparently that is, was intended for those of that era; that it was intended for generations far removed from those times is apparently not the case according to Biblical scholars. If you’re not going to make your point clear, well, what’s the point? How many hundreds upon hundreds of times have Biblical scholars prophesied the end of the world, or the end of days, or Armageddon, or the second coming, or final judgment (take your pick of relevant phrases) based on the Biblical verse? Well, we’re still here! We are indeed still here, so, so much for the reliability of The Bible, or God’s word, and/or the competence of so called Biblical experts. So, the next time some Bible-thumping fundamentalist tells you that the ‘end is nigh’, take said message with a proverbial grain of salt and don’t lose any sleep over it!

It wasn’t quite the end of the world, but the Biblical tale of the global flood is in fact global! Cultures from around the world tell similar tales to the Biblical flood. The argument is that therefore the story must be true as these diverse cultures had no contact with each other. My answer to that is related to bovine fertilizer! End of the world tales, or myths, the concept of Armageddon, punishing the wicked with total catastrophe was as common and popular then as now. We all love a good ‘end of the world’ story that has a moral attached. Alas, the choices or mechanisms available for said end of the world stories to myth makers’ way back then were rather limited. They had no knowledge of supernovae or gamma-ray bursts or massive solar flares or nuclear war and resulting holocausts or killer asteroids smacking into Planet Earth, etc. All they had to work with was the day-to-day sorts of routine natural events part and parcel of their daily lives. In fact, many tale-spinners might not have been familiar with, say, volcanoes, and while most relatively violent weather phenomena, like tornadoes, may be destructive, they aren’t destructive enough to wipe out the wicked that populate a wide area.  However, everyone would have experienced rain, heavy rain, even torrential rain say from hurricanes, etc. that resulted in minor flooding, or say witnessed storm surges from the sea that inundated the land, and/or witnessed rivers, ponds and lakes overflowing. It doesn’t take that much imagination to notch up minor real events, in the guise of storytelling, to mega disaster proportions. If it rains heavily for one day and there’s some local flooding, up the ante to 40 days. It’s difficult to imagine any storyteller from 5000 years ago coming up with any other sort of end of the world scenario!

The one point to the end of the world, mega disaster stories is that there must be at least one survivor to tell the tale! I gather in this case that includes survivors such as Noah and kin.
I have read of one other explanation for universal flood stories. If I recall correctly, a student of Freud came up with the idea that the tellers/inventors of flood tales got the idea from dreams in their sleep. And they dreamed the dream all because they were asleep with relatively full bladders. Personally, I think that’s a piss-weak explanation!

Now most of the end of the world prophecies tends to have religious overtones, as in Armageddon and the Biblical Book of Revelation. I’ve noted on the Internet one 54 year old Californian religious loony who is absolutely convinced he would be part of the rapture on the 21^st of May, 2011. That’s it – that’s the judgement day, the second coming of Christ, the end of the world as we know it. I predict that he was very disappointed when he woke up in his California abode on the 22^nd of May 2011 in a totally un-raptured state. I really shouldn’t single him out, it wasn’t he who came up with that date, yet still he got sucked into the frenzy. Over the millennium he’s but one of millions of loonies who got sucked into the end of the world frenzy!

It’s a pity that so many peoples’ lives are so miserable that they literally look forward to someone else (God or Jesus Christ) ending their mundane existence of everyday mortality and transporting them into another one of peaceful eternity, although who really knows, maybe it’s a case of going from the frying pan into the fire! 

However, there’s a dark side to the forces behind prophecy. The central focus, as always, is me, myself, and I. If you’re reading the astrology horoscope, what it predicts for your next door neighbour is probably of no consequence to you. However, if someone predicts that the world is about to go down the gurgler; that the end is neigh, well, you’re part of the world, so you’re heading down the gurgler too! Now that may, or may not, upset you. For religious reasons, many look forward to the world going down the gurgler, because that means that they, while going down the gurgler too, get deposited at the other end of the tube into an eternal paradise. Or so they believe. 

Unfortunately people who are suckered into believing that on such-and-such a date they, along with everybody else, are going to meet their maker, well that can have serious consequences. There are more than a handful of case studies which have shown that ordinary people, caught up in the end-of-the-world hype, lacking the qualities of logical and critical thinking, have sold off all their worldly goods, left their homes and families, to await the end – which never came. Some have banded together to form end-of-the-world doomsday cults which have required suicidal philosophies as the alleged end drew near. Human delusion can have tragic consequences.

There are several downsides to end of the world prophecy. It’s not the same sort of harmless fun as consulting your daily horoscope in the paper. Firstly, there’s the letdown, trauma, disappointment, humiliation, etc. suffered by the true believers when their idiocy is revealed for the entire world to see. There’s the often bizarre behaviour of true believers before-the-fact – the break-up of family units, giving away all worldly goods and possessions, joining doomsday cults, sometimes to the tune of ritual suicides.

Then there’s the lack of moral, ethical, law and order constraints – I mean if you really wanted for once in your life to live the good life, the best foods, the best wines, the most expensive resorts, the best women money can buy, all the fantasy dreams of the great unwashed, and you truly believed you only had a week to go before The End, well there’s this bank down the road just begging to be robbed and a certain snooty little teller who’s been asking for an extra hole in her head right between the eyes – how dare she turn you down for a date – well, why not? You’re dead in a week anyway, so nothing much to lose is there?

Now extrapolate that up to a true believer who does hold some high position of real power. What if you could manipulate foreign policy in such a way as to ensure or bring forward Armageddon? Or, if the world’s going to end tomorrow anyway and you believe that with all your heart and soul that’s going to be the case, well you may as well press the nuclear button now. The leader of your most hated foreign power is laughing at your stupidity, so you’re going to want to make sure it’s doomsday for them too! 

There have been thousands of end of the word prophecies from the religious Armageddon as given in the Biblical Book of Revelation to predictions of alien invasions to nuclear suicide as per the “On the Beach” scenario or maybe some ‘the-sky-is-falling’ alarmist who’s convinced there’s an undetected and undetectable asteroid that’s heading our way – ground zero; target Earth.  It ain’t happened – the asteroid anyway – to us, but T-Rex would tell a different tale methinks. T-Rex aside, anyone who places any sort of faith that the next prophetic quack has got it right is in serious delusion. The odds favour the exact opposite. Mother Earth will go on her merry way for a long time yet. If you’re anxiously awaiting the rapture – well, be prepared to wait a lot longer.

The next predicted doomsday biggie is the 21^st of December 2012 for a whole potful of various reasons that’s relatively easy to find out about given hundreds of books, articles, Internet sites and blogs, DVDs, etc. all devoted to the subject. So, hands up please for all of you who have total conviction that the next end of the world prediction will bear fruit, 21 December 2012. Thought so!  Well, I’ll go on the record now as prophesizing that it’s going to be quite safe for you to plan your 2012 Christmas and post-Christmas activities and holidays and welcome in 2013 with the usual New Year antics we’ve all come to love and participate in. How so?

There’s one really main problem with end of the world prophecy, and it doesn’t matter a hoot what your ultimate source is that you base, or believe, the prophecy on – to date, 100% of all end of the world predictions have failed (that’s bloody obvious isn’t it? I mean we’re still here; we’re still standing)! If I’d received a fiver for each failed doomsday prediction, I, my bank manager and the tax man would all be happy little campers. A 100% failure record - that’s a pretty piss-poor track record, 100% opposite to science predicting a solar eclipse three decades down the track. Now if there have been just a handful of these the-end-is-nigh predictions, and I mean down to the exact day of the year, well that could easily be dismissed. However, when the absolute number of them, over the millennia, have been such that if you’d collected a fiver for every one, and that collection of fivers would make you one of the wealthiest persons on the planet, well you’ve have to conclude that there’s an awful lot of deluded people. A 100% track record of failure inspires bugger-all confidence that the next quack or gaggle of quacks that comes along with an ‘end-is-neigh’ sign can be taken seriously, such as the 21^st of May 2011 or the 21^st of December 2012.

Further reading: The end of the world in prophecy.  

Guyatt, Nicholas; Have A Nice Doomsday: Why Millions of Americans Are Looking Forward to the End of the World; Ebury Press, UK; 2007:

Kirsch, Jonathan; A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization; Harper-Collins, New York; 2006:

Price, Robert M.; The Paperback Apocalypse: How the Christian Church Was Left Behind; Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York; 2007:

Willis, Barbara & Willis, Jim; Armageddon Now: The End of the World A to Z; Visible Ink Press, Detroit, Michigan; 2006:

Those Tall Tales of Biblical Disasters: Part Two

Despite what you might hear in church, or view on Christian websites, the Bible isn’t all about those ten Godly commandments, loving your neighbour, doing onto others, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, truth,  justice and everlasting life. Star Wars aside, there’s a dark side to the Force. Even apart from hell, fire and brimstone and lots of sins and sinning, there’s much death and destruction all around. The Bible is full of tales of disasters that rival anything Mother Nature has conjured up. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

*Ten Disasters Rolled Into One: The Ten Plagues of Egypt (Exodus)

Despite there being no confirmation in ancient Egyptian historical records for these Biblical plagues, any of the first nine could have a natural explanation. I mean pestilences happen; ditto droughts/famine; locust swarms are hardly a novelty; even the Nile turning to blood can be seen to be just an ordinary toxic algae bloom – the ‘red tide’ common in other warm waters around the world, like the Gulf of Mexico.

The Tenth Plague however can not be attributed to a natural cause – death to all the Egyptian firstborn was literally a Deliberate Act of God; a deliberately calculated act of cold-blooded murder. Now, and most likely the case, it never happened and that’s supported by the fact that no such event is recorded in ancient Egyptian texts and it’s an event that can hardly have been unnoticed and been glossed over. If that’s so, then the related Passover celebration is a total fraud/fabrication. If on the other hand it happened as the Bible said it did, then God should be tried for crimes against humanity (specifically in this case crimes against the ancient Egyptian peoples), imprisoned for life with no hope of parole, since I assume He cannot be executed, though it would be justified, methinks.

*More Death by Drowning (Exodus)

To add insult to injury, I suppose one could also include the drowning of pharaoh’s army (Exodus) as a ‘natural’ disaster. There’s never an Ark around when you really need one! But gee whiz, gosh golly, guess what? Historians, and bookkeepers and accountants back in ancient Egypt somehow forgot to include the loss of all those chariots, horses and soldiers in their official inventories and recordkeeping. When you have that sort of appalling loss, scapegoats are found; heads roll. Alas, there’s also no record of any scapegoat or rolling heads over this unrecorded calamity. At least ancient Rome acknowledged that it lost their entire Ninth Legion, so something is screwy about Egyptian bookkeeping – or about the accounting in the Book of Exodus! 

*Your Numbers Are Up (Numbers)

If earthquakes and plagues (as in disease) are disasters, then the Book of Numbers is the place to find them (after Genesis and Exodus of course). There is dissention in the ranks of the Chosen People out there in the Sinai Wilderness and so there’s mutiny afoot and the Biblical equivalent of Captain Bligh (i.e. – God) will not be denied His wrath. The major mutiny ends with a bang and not a whimper. It ends when God kills thousands (14,700 – Numbers 16:49) of His Chosen People with a plague (love those germs) and a fiery earthquake (God’s hot to trot His shake, rattle and roll which kills another 250 - Numbers 16:32; 16:35 and 26:10) as punishment for rumblings in the ranks. Further on down the Wilderness track we have the episode of the ‘golden calf’ mark II (i.e. more idols; more idle worship). So God, knowing that His Chosen People didn’t build up sufficient immunity from His last bout of germ warfare, sends another – the local undertaker gets to bury another 24,000 Israelites (Numbers 25:9).

Turning now to the New Testament...

*The Ultimate Mother of All Disasters: Armageddon or the Apocalypse of Revelation

Here we are presented with destruction on a massive scale; the end of days; the end of the world; more hell, fire and brimstone (cubed) all around. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Conquest (or Pestilence depending on interpretation), War, Famine and Death. This of course hasn’t happened yet (though it should have by roughly 100 CE according to Jesus), so it’s still in the ‘what if’ category, though actually I think that should read ‘iffy’ category. 

There are certainly potential natural scenarios that could easily mimic the Book of Revelation’s scenario, at least in terms of total firepower (or should that be Four Horsepower). Since this is near global destruction, we need something slightly bigger than a hurricane or an earthquake. All out nuclear or biological warfare might be a parallel, but then I’ve ruled out wars (and rumours of war) from the legit disaster category, though that might be little consolation if your city is nuked or if you’re infected deliberately with the bubonic plague. I’m thinking more along the lines here of an asteroid impact, as in the films “Armageddon” or “Deep Impact” (and a good dozen clones of these), though a good old nearby supernovae blast or gamma-ray burst would do the job nicely. Maybe there’s a Black Hole nearby which our solar system might be drifting towards. Gulp! In any event there’s a happy ending since out of the ashes the Phoenix (a new heaven and a new earth) will rise again.  

In conclusion, then as now, natural disasters inspire the creation of newer, better, bigger disasters: ten-fold the death count; twenty-fold the destruction. Of course this additional creation resides either in the land of pure fiction (browse your local DVD store and bookshop for examples), or at least as vastly embellished natural ones that actually happened, tales told well away from where they happened so no one’s the wiser. That F2 twister that passed several miles away from you now turns into an F5 that passed right overhead after several retellings!  

Since there is no supporting evidence for any of the Biblical disasters, I think it’s prudent to assign them to the category of, if not 100% fiction, then to the realm of greatly exaggerated campfire tall tales. As for Revelation, let’s just say that if it hasn’t happened by now, it’s not going to.

Six Impossible Godly Concepts: Part Two

We all like lists: The ten best this, the top dozen that; the five worst ranking next thing. That’s why the popularity of the Guinness Book of Records. In “Alice through the Looking Glass”, the White Queen believed in six impossible things before breakfast. Exactly what those impossible things were is not stated; perhaps they fell in the lap, not of the gods, but of God.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Impossibility Three: Is God All–Knowing?  Hardly! If God is all knowing, what’s the point in the whole creation business? There’s no fun or satisfaction to a creation if you know to the tiniest detail, exactly what will happen at each and every moment to everything, everyone, and everywhere. Would your life be worth living if at say age 10, you had absolute knowledge of the future and knew exactly what each and every future second would be like for you in advance? So God created Adam and Eve, but since God is alleged to be an all-knowing God, then He knew even then what would happen in the Garden of Eden, so why bother instructing Adam and Eve not to eat forbidden fruit? What would be the point? That’s why people don’t usually want to be told the resolution to a film they haven’t yet seen. If you’re told before-the-fact whodunit, why see the film or read the novel?

That applies equally to that final Biblical Book of Revelation. The Bible is God’s Holy Word. Revelation is therefore God’s Holy Word. Everything that is to come is spelt out in detail. The ending is not in doubt. How the ending is achieved is not in doubt. God knows all of this in advance. Satan, being a literate sort of entity, knows all of this as well. Therefore, what’s the point in enacting out the scenario? If everyone has to go through the fixed Revelation scenario, then that confirms everything is predestined and that there is no such thing as Free Will despite God’s utterances to the contrary. Just like in a novel or a film, the plot plays out the exact same each and every time. The characters have no choice but to follow the plot line – they have no Free Will.

Impossibility Four: Is God All-Powerful? Hardly! If God can not prevent evil, then God is not all powerful. If God can prevent evil, but chooses not to, then God is hardly benevolent (see Impossibility Two above). If God allows evil to exist in humans, and God created humans, then God must share some responsibility for that evil. It’s akin to parents having to shoulder responsibility if their child or children runs amuck.

God is not all-powerful since not even God can get around the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics, which states that it is impossible to know simultaneously any particle’s precise position and trajectory.

Presumably, God, like gravity, and anything comprised of mass and/or energy can’t operate at faster than light speed. If God wants to smite you down, and God is ten light-years away, then you’re safe for a decade before His bolt of lightning hits you.

If God exists in a physical location within the Universe, then God can’t know about an event until the light (or other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum; or gravity) from that event reaches God. Since light has a finite speed, God is in the ‘dark’ as it were until the light and information it contains reaches God. For example, if God is residing on Planet Earth, and for some reason our Sun goes supernova, God (as well as the rest of humanity) won’t know about it for other eight-plus minutes – the time it takes light to reach Earth from the Sun.

Not even God can change the past. I mean, there are any number of instances where to correct some mistake; it would have been easier to backtrack in time and undo something, like going back in time and posting a “No Trespassing: Keep Out: Serpents Will Be Shot On Sight: This Means You” sign at the entrance to the Garden of Eden.

Not even God can accomplish something that is self-contradictory, like creating a spherical cube or a cubical sphere! Not even God can draw more than one straight line between two points on a flat piece of paper.

If God is all-powerful, why did God need to rest on the 7^th day?

Impossibility Five: Is God A God for All People? If you believe the Bible, God has His Chosen People – the Hebrews. God has His Promised Land for His Chosen People. That Promised Land isn’t America (far less California) or Australia/New Zealand or Europe (with or without Great Britain) or Antarctica or Asia or Africa or Russia, etc. Those Chosen Peoples aren’t the Italians, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Aboriginals, the Amerindians, the Polynesians or the Turks, and especially not the Egyptians! The Promised Land is the Land of Canaan, now called Israel; The Chosen People are, obviously, the Israelites. In fact the Bible (King James Version) makes crystal clear, not once, but 201 times that God is the “God of Israel”. So, if you ain’t associated with God’s Chosen People and God’s Promised Land, it’s impossible to believe that you are one of those in God’s holy grace! In short, it’s safe to give God your Big Middle Finger, even both of them! 

Impossibility Six: God versus Intelligent Design? Do you need a hearing aid? Do you need glasses? Did you require your tonsils or appendix or wisdom teeth to be removed? Do you suffer from haemorrhoids or back problems?  Have your hips, knees, and ankles let you down? Do you suffer from baldness, tooth decay, arthritis, acne, colds, the flu, even cancer? Do you have issues with your sexuality or the functioning of your private parts? Do you suffer from mental illness? Who created the human species and therefore by definition created you? God, that’s who, created you! Who created your physiology and anatomy? Did I hear you say “God”? So who created all of your psychological, physiological and anatomical problems? Did I hear you say “God” again? Is this what you would consider Intelligent Design? I don’t think so! Did God fail Anatomy 101? I think so.

God does in fact have one ‘All’ quality. He’s an all-nothing. God, the supernatural deity, doesn’t exist. One line of evidence in support of that is that God hasn’t struck me down dead by lightning by writing and posting this! So you see, blasphemy is a victimless ‘crime’. And no, I don’t hate God. You can’t hate something that doesn’t exist.

Biblical Doomsday: The End of Days

While many Biblical concepts resonate with the general public, one of the most interesting and personal concepts is the ‘End of Days’ prophecy and the Book of Revelation. Old Testament prophets predicted (speaking on behalf of God) gloom and doom. Jesus has been cited as a deity obsessed with the Apocalypse, forever preaching about the ‘End Times’. Over the following 2100 years, religious fundamentalists have followed suit, dragging the faithful along by their short and curly bits. It’s even spawned a minor publishing industry. Alas, it’s all bovine fertilizer.    

For religious reasons relating to the concept of ‘eternal life’, many look forward to the world going down the gurgler, because that means that they, while going down the gurgler too, get deposited at the other end of the tube into an eternal paradise. Or so they believe. 

It’s a pity that so many peoples’ lives are so miserable that they literally look forward to someone else (i.e. – God and/or Jesus Christ) ending their mundane existence of everyday mortality and transporting them into another one of peaceful eternity, although who really knows, maybe it’s a case of going from the frying pan into the fire, just in case they go south instead of north!  Regardless, the great unwashed get support in their beliefs from religious fundamentalists or evangelists and those obsessed with the ‘End Times’.

It would seem that every time there is a natural disaster (even oil spills qualify), anywhere in the world, but especially in America, right-wing Christian fundamentalists and televangelists jump for joy, do high fives and are more than happy to point out, even gleefully telling “I told you so”, and the more the destruction, the better the mayhem, the greater the death toll, the higher they jump, the happier they are and the more they rub their hands gleefully together. Why? It’s to them yet another Sign that the ‘End of Days’ are near. That’s quite apart from those wars and rumours of wars, etc.

Of course if our fundamentalists and television Bible thumpers had lived 500 years ago, or 1000 years ago, or 1500 years ago, they would have been strutting out the same old line, the same old hype, the same old gloom and doom (gloom and doom for the rest of us sinners that is).

How long can these televangelists go on playing the same old ‘End of Days’ song before credibility runs out? - Seemingly indefinitely if you’re already preaching to the converted and/or the gullible.  No doubt 500 years from now their descendents will be screaming out the same old tired ‘End Times’ tune.

Is the 'End of Days' prophecy really believable? When it comes to the Bible, for all the prophecies therein, and all the prophets that pontificated, there's only one prophecy that ultimately matters - the 'End of Days', the apocalypse, Armageddon, etc. There are only two points that need to be made here. The first point is that 100% of Biblical scholars, Christian fundamentalists, televangelists, even the great unwashed reading and interpreting the Bible, who have predicted the end of the world, have got it wrong!

This is more than just a tad relevant. 100% of all ‘End of Days’ prophecies, and there have been thousands of them, scholarly or otherwise; have failed to come to pass; so much for the Bible being the literal word of God; so much for spot-on Biblical accuracy. I hope all here-and-now Christian fundamentalists and especially those televangelists take note of this (not that they will of course).

100% is not a trivial percentage! 100% of all end-of-the-world predictions have failed (that’s bloody obvious isn’t it? I mean we’re still here; we’re still standing)! If I’d received a fiver for each failed ‘End of Days’ doomsday prediction, I, my bank manager and the tax man would all be happy little campers.

Despite endless predictions, the 'End of Days' has not happened. So, what are you to believe when the next soothsayer (Christian fundamentalist, televangelist, etc.) comes along and says on such-and-such a date Armageddon will arrive? My response would be a swift kick in their private parts!

The second point, for those who take the Bible literally, is that Jesus told any and all who would listen that there would be those hearing his utterings about the ‘End Times’ that those very ‘End Times’ would happen within their lifetime. Alas, there is no one alive today who heard Jesus speak, so Christ's own prophecy has to be graded as an "F". Now either J.C. hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about, or the ‘End of Days’ he thought was imminent has now been cancelled (2100 years on is a bit of a stretch to call it a mere postponement). IMHO, if it hasn’t happened by now, it’s not going to.

In short, if you are eagerly awaiting the apocalypse, have a good supply of reading material and DVDs on hand, because it's going to be a Very Long Wait! If you’re eagerly waiting for the ‘End of Days’, have a nice wait. The odds are greater you’ll find a pot-of-gold at the end of the rainbow first; but at least you’ll have something to do – search for the pot; spend the gold – while you wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, then wait some more. 

It's just plain impossible for any rational person, given the historical track record, to accept that the 'End of Days' is not only near-and-dear but will happen at all.

By the way neither the phrase “End of Days”, “Second Coming” nor the phrase “End Times” actually appear in the (King James Version) of the Bible. Neither does the word “doomsday” nor “apocalypse” though “Armageddon” makes a singular appearance. But least you think it’s safe to go back into the waters, the phrase “end of the world” appears frequently. Here’s but one example.

Matthew 24:3: And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

My response is to quote Gershwin and Heyward in “Porgy and Bess”: “It ain’t necessarily so, It ain’t necessarily so, De tings dat yo’ li’ble, To read in de Bible, It ain’t necessarily so.” Amen to that!

Prophecy: From Science to Superstition and Beyond

Prophecy tends to be the art or science of predicting events in advance, hence knowing in advance what the future will be or is likely to be. However, the art and the science of prophecy can be drastically in opposition to each other in terms of credibility and success.

Prophecy isn’t all balderdash. I make this prophecy that the Sun will rise tomorrow morning in New York City! I also make this prophecy that New York City will experience at least one thunderstorm between May and September 2011. Further, I’ll make another prophecy that there will be at least one murder in New York City in the month of June, 2011. But, if I make a prediction that aliens will invade New York City in 2011; some New Yorkers will experience the Biblical Rapture in 2011; or that planetary alignments suggest that 90% of couples living in Manhattan will divorce in 2011, well you’d call that balderdash. So, what’s the dividing line between making balderdash prophecy and making sensible predictions?

Scientifically Near Certain: Nothing is absolutely certain except death and taxes, thus the use of the word ‘near’. However, in this case, scientifically ‘near’ certain means 99.99999% certain. Examples of this sort of prophecy are the times of the rising and setting of the Sun, the Moon, the planets and stars; the rise and fall of the tides (time of high and low tides); lunar and solar eclipses decades in advance; and other predictable events of this nature in an ordered and clockwork Universe. There is no kudos or pats on the back given for soothsaying in this category. 

Scientifically Predictable (Statistically Probable): Not everything is predictable with near absolute certainty, even in science. Some patterns are a bit too chaotic to yield to absolutes. The classic case is the weather. I’ve known predictions of a 100% chance of rain when not a drop fell! However, that’s very rare. Still, it tends to be a chance of thunderstorms, or this or that. That applies to earthquake predictions and similar events. Science can predict with 100% certainty that you’re going to kick-the-bucket. However, the exact moment in nearly all cases is uncertain.  There is no kudos or pats on the back given for soothsaying in this category either. 

Educated Guesswork (But Still Statistically Probable): The shift here tends to be from the physical sciences to the social sciences. I mean predicting the stock market and commodity futures is not an exact science but still something that more often than not you’d better get right if you want to keep your job as a financial advisor! That applies in general to forecasting trends be it forecasting trends for governments, the public sector, or the private sector. There is no kudos or pats on the back given for soothsaying in this category either if you get it right, but expect a kick in the behind if you don’t. The general term here that applies is ‘futurology’. 

Prophecy in General: Let’s just say that if you throw enough darts at a dartboard, even blindfolded, sooner or later you’ll hit the bullseye. Now just publicise that, and pat yourself on the back for your skill, but conveniently don’t tell anyone about, and forget about, all the misses! That dartboard scenario, or analogy, just about sums up the bona fides of the soothsaying profession, IMHO.

Now don’t quote me Nostradamus as (an example) of a spot-on soothsayer. His verses are quite vague. Not once does he state explicitly that on such-and-such a date, at such-and-such a place, such-and-such an unexpected event will take place. Many historical events have been, sort of, linked to one or more of his various verses, but always after-the-fact, as in gee-whiz, this event might just about fit if you stretch the meaning of this bit and ignore that bit. Translated, nobody before-the-fact saw a clear cut prophecy of his of the rise of Nazi Germany and Hitler; the assassination of JFK; the Moon landings; the events of 9/11. Of course it all became crystal clear that he indeed foretold those events – it’s obvious to blind Freddy exactly what certain verses meant, but only as interpreted after the events happened. That’s a cheat! It’s a cheat given his after-the-fact track record according to his followers’ is100%; his before-the-fact track record from a more sceptical point of view is 0%.

Personal Prophecy: When it comes down to the nitty-gritty of prophecy, we’re not usually that concerned about predictions of a solar eclipse three decades off; or even the odds that a tornado will hit us next month, or will our portfolio double or half its value over the next week. Acts of God are acts of God and we’re pretty helpless in the face of Mother Nature; portfolios, if you take the long term view, usually deliver the goods. However, we are greatly concerned with the more immediate if mundane things in our day-to-day lives: today’s success, today’s money, today’s health, today’s power, today’s love, today’s whatever, etc.  That’s why you get daily horoscopes (though you can get weekly, monthly and yearly ones too, all equally as vague in that they seem to apply to nearly anyone, anytime).

And so in order to assist our expectations of obtaining the good things in our immediate ‘now’, well wouldn’t it be nice for some powers-that-be to tell us in advance what’s coming on down the track that’s liable to have a bearing on those personal good vs. bad facets? That is, if we knew in advance of the fact, some knowledge that we could use to our advantage to maximise the good and minimise the bad, well who wouldn’t? And so, there’s a flourishing industry in astrology/horoscopes; the reading of tea leaves & chicken entrails; caressing crystal balls; using ouija boards, and any other means to get the inside tract on making today a better day. And with such expectations, like with the dartboard, you’ll tend to remember the rare spot-on bullseye hits, precisely because they are so few and far between. All the misses you easily forget because they’re so common and so prevalent. 

Of course all this sort of personal prophecy is pure nonsense. It’s harmless fun unless you actually base your day-to-day life, behaviour, decision-making, etc. around them. I’m pretty sure that 99% of people, who consult the astrology column in their daily paper, know full well that what they read there is just vague and general so as to have no real practical and specific application to their personal calling-of-the-shots today. It’s a daily 10 second diversion that’s a bit of fun. Still, it’s a rather sad reflection on how nonsensical superstition, even in the enlightened 21^st Century, can still be viable enough for people who know better (but don’t care) to actual earn a living by pulling the wool over the eyes of the great unwashed. But that’s nothing compared to the wool pulling by religion.

End of the World Prophecy: However, there’s a dark side to the forces behind prophecy. The central focus, as always, is me, myself, and I. If you’re reading the astrology horoscope, what it predicts for your next door neighbour is probably of no consequence to you. However, if someone predicts that the world is about to go down the gurgler; that the end is neigh, well, you’re part of the world, so you’re heading down the gurgler too! Now that may, or may not, upset you. For religious reasons, many look forward to the world going down the gurgler, because that means that they, while going down the gurgler too, get deposited at the other end of the tube into an eternal paradise. Or so they believe. 

There’s one really main problem with end-of-the-world prophecy, and it doesn’t matter a hoot what you’re ultimate source is that you base, or believe, the prophecy on – to date, 100% of all end-of-the-world predictions have failed (that’s bloody obvious isn’t it? I mean we’re still here; we’re still standing)! If I’d received a fiver for each failed doomsday prediction, I, my bank manager and the tax man would all be happy little campers. A 100% failure record - that’s a pretty piss-poor track record, 100% opposite to science predicting a solar eclipse three decades down the track. Now if there have been just a handful of these the-end-is-neigh predictions, and I mean down to the exact day of the year, well that could easily be dismissed. However, when the absolute number of them, over the millennia, have been such that if you’d collected a fiver for every one, and that collection of fivers would make you one of the wealthiest persons on the planet, well you’ve have to conclude that there’s an awful lot of deluded people. A 100% track record of failure inspires bugger-all confidence that the next quack or gaggle of quacks that comes along with an ‘end-is-neigh’ sign can be taken seriously, such as the 21^st of May 2011 or the 21^st of December 2012 (see below).

Unfortunately people who are suckered into believing that on such-and-such a date they, along with everybody else, are going to meet their maker, well that can have serious consequences. There are more than a handful of case studies which have shown that ordinary people, caught up in the end-of-the-world hype, lacking the qualities of logical and critical thinking, have sold off all their worldly goods, left their homes and families, to await the end – which never came. Some have banded together to form end-of-the-world doomsday cults which have required suicidal philosophies as the alleged end drew near. Human delusion can have tragic consequences.

Most end-of-the-world prophecies tend to have religious overtones, as in Armageddon and the Biblical Book of Revelation. I’ve noted on the Internet one 54 year old Californian religious loony who is absolutely convinced he will be part of The Rapture on the 21^st of May, 2011. That’s it – that’s the Judgement Day, the Second Coming of Christ, the end-of-the-world as we know it. I predict that he will be very disappointed when he wakes up in his California abode on the 22^nd of May 2011 in a totally un-Raptured state. I really shouldn’t single him out, it wasn’t he who came up with that date, yet still he got sucked into the frenzy. Over the millennium he’s but one of millions of loonies who got sucked into the-end-of-the-world frenzy!

It’s a pity that so many peoples’ lives are so miserable that they literally look forward to someone else (i.e. – God or J.C.) ending their mundane existence of everyday mortality and transporting them into another one of peaceful eternity, although who really knows, maybe it’s a case of going from the frying pan into the fire! 

But say now, what if you absolutely and firmly believed that within three days the entire world was history. What sort of constraints, the kind normal society places on you, would now have an impact? Probably none. I mean if the end was neigh, what constraints would stop you from stealing, rioting, or murder? Well, let’s face facts, there wouldn’t be any. Now, what if a significant percentage of the population believed that? What might happen? Mob rule? Total anarchy? Rioting in the streets? The total breakdown of society and society’s rule of law and order? All that and more? What if you had an absolute dictatorial ruler who believed that? Why wouldn’t that leader, who say hated this other nation for whatever religious or ideological reason(s) decide that’s there’s nothing to lose now by pressing the nuclear button.

Let me repeat – there have been thousands of end-of-the-word prophecies from the religious Armageddon as given in the Biblical book of Revelation to predictions of alien invasions to nuclear suicide as per the “On the Beach” scenario or maybe some ‘the-sky-is-falling’ alarmist who’s convinced there’s an undetected and undetectable asteroid that’s heading our way – ground zero; target Earth.  It ain’t happened – the asteroid anyway – to us, but T-Rex would tell a different tale methinks. T-Rex aside, anyone who places any sort of faith that the next prophetic quack has got it right is in serious delusion. The odds favour the exact opposite. Mother Earth will go on her merry way for a long time yet. If you’re anxiously awaiting The Rapture – well, be prepared to wait a lot longer.

The 21^st of May 2011 aside, the next predicted doomsday biggie is the 21^st of December 2012 for a whole potful of various reasons that’s relatively easy to find out about given hundreds of books, articles, Internet sites and blogs, DVDs, etc. all devoted to the subject. Well, I’ll go on the record now as prophesizing that it’s going to be quite safe for you to plan your 2012 Christmas and post-Christmas activities and holidays and welcome in 2013 with the usual New Year antics we’ve all come to love and participate in.  

Now, to end on a downbeat note, let’s return to scientific prophecy. Our world will end! That’s 100% certain! At the very least it will end when the lifespan of our parent star, the Sun, ends. Just like your car has a limited supply of fuel in its gas tank, so too our Sun has a limited supply of fuel that keeps it burning forever. When the Sun exhausts its fuel, well you can kiss life on Planet Earth goodbye. However, least I scare you into losing a good night’s sleep, that’s still some roughly five billion years in the future, or so modern astronomical prophecy dictates. Even if that’s off by 10%, well that still gives you plenty of time to enjoy the good life, including a good night’s sleep. 

Further reading:

Guyatt, Nicholas; Have A Nice Doomsday: Why Millions of Americans Are Looking Forward to the End of the World; Ebury Press, UK; 2007:

Kirsch, Jonathan; A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization; Harper-Collins, New York; 2006:

Price, Robert M.; The Paperback Apocalypse: How the Christian Church Was Left Behind; Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York; 2007:

Willis, Barbara & Willis, Jim; Armageddon Now: The End of the World A to Z; Visible Ink Press, Detroit, Michigan; 2006:

Extraterrestrial Angels: Part Two

My philosophy tends to be that behind every mountain of mythology lies a molehill of reality. It’s just a matter of trying to figure out what that hidden needle-in-a-haystack reality might be without access to the actual needle. Take the case of angels. I think a better reality would have them as angelic extraterrestrials relative to the mythological ‘winged’ entities that really aren’t represented as such (winged, that is) in the Bible and similar texts.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

One of the numerous aspects dealing with angels is that they have a hierarchy – not all angels are equal in rank and status.

From the First Sphere come the Seraphim. You have apparently someone called the Metatron, an angel who acts as the ‘voice of God’, a scribe, and is the tallest and greatest of the lot. ‘He’s’ sort of the chief cook and bottle washer in Heaven’s highest level.

From the Second Sphere you have the governor or watcher angels who, well, as your typically obedient angels just sort of watch over humanity in general. However, disguised as men, they associated with humans in an all too human manner. According to Enoch, and Genesis 6,  those “sons of God” or “sons of Heaven”  (angels) got a tad horny and mated with human females (the “daughters of men”) producing the Nephilim, those giants back on the Earth in those ancient days! Perhaps the watcher angels watched a tad more closely than they should have! Could an angel really be a ‘peeping Tom’?

Lastly, from the Third Sphere, those messenger and battle ready angels. The best known of the lot are the archangels who are very high-ranking angels indeed, starting with Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, but followed by Uriel, Simiel, Orifiel and Zachariel.

Then there are the ‘fallen angels’ who were court-martialed and stripped of their status and rank. They play no real role in this discussion and thus are of no further concern to us.

Now not all monotheistic religious denominations embrace or adopt all of the above hierarchy. Maybe there should be a theological equivalent of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle well known in quantum physics. Let’s call it by a rather unimaginative phrase the ‘Religious Uncertainty Principle’. That’s a truism in that no two monotheistic religious denominations agree on everything which alone makes supernatural theology a bit suspect considering the alleged importance of a supernatural deity.  

In fact, you’d think the deity in question, and we all know who I’m referring to here (three letters starting with ‘G’), would take steps to clarify things. I mean if there are a dozen biographies written about you out there for sale on the market, and they all differ in key details about your life, wouldn’t you go ‘on the record’ and sort things out? 

Anyway, the upshot is that angels have a hierarchy and ranks and various jobs and responsibilities which are the sorts of things you’d expect if angels were really crew on an ET vessel that came to Earth a few thousand years ago. The parallel with crewing any navy ship or those spaceships depicted in “Star Trek” are clear-cut.    

Now what about the cherubim (mentioned above) that are depicted in the Bible; depicted with wings?

The cherubim (singular is cherub) are actually Assyrian in origin. They were depicted as enormous eagle-winged beings with the bodies of lions though usually with human heads (lammasu) or human heads and the bodies of bulls (shedu). Even though they were depicted as guardians, they don’t sound very Biblically angelic to me! However, it was these beasties, a composite of some things human and wings that morphed into the stereotyped image of an angel. However, cherubim are named as such in the Bible and the image is anything but traditionally angelic. 

They seemed however to have shape-shifted from their Assyrian image just a bit and taken on a different persona in the Bible, especially prominent in the Old Testament.

The definitive book in the Bible on cherubim is the Book of Ezekiel, mainly the first and tenth chapter. The prophet Ezekiel describes cherubim as a tetrad of living creatures, each having four faces: of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. They are said to have the stature and hands of a man, feet of a calf, and four wings each. Two of the wings extended upward, while the other two stretched downward and covered the creatures themselves. In the Christian New Testament similar beings are mentioned in the fourth chapter of the Book of Revelation. Just to further distance cherubim from traditional angels, the cherubim’s wings are multi-eyed – no doubt that’s all the better to see you with I guess.

If you check out Chapter Six of 1 Kings (King James Version), you’ll find that cherubs have a wingspan of 10 cubits, and a height of 10 cubits, at least I gather that must be their real life size since Solomon manufactured two of them, I assume on a one-to-one scale. The whole story is repeated in the third chapter of 2 Chronicles by the way. Now a cubit is roughly 18 to 22 inches; say 20 inches on average. So our model cherub is 200 inches tall; ditto the wingspan. That’s a tad over 16 ½ feet! Well, the Assyrians did say their versions were enormous!

You’ll also find several references to someone hitching a ride on a flying cherub (2 Samuel 22:11 and Psalm 18:10). At over 16 feet, well that sounds plausible.

Somewhat related are the Seraphim, but instead of four wings they have six wings (Isaiah 6:2). That’s again rather un-angelic appearing. I’ve mentioned one already, Metatron; the other suspect is called Seraphiel, who apparently had the head of an eagle (akin perhaps to the Egyptian god Horus who had a falcon head placed on a human body or Seker with a hawk’s head or Thoth who had the head of an ibis). Apparently there are two more Seraphim as well, and all four keep God in good company 24/7. Nice work if you can get it!

I think we can agree that there is no similarity between your ingrained image of a Biblical angel (with or without wings) and the cherubim.

Relation between fairies and cherubim:  In modern English the word cherub is sometimes used for what are strictly putti, baby or toddler angels, or winged children in fact, mainly shown in works of art. Sort of like our current images of Eros or Cupid but without the bow and arrows! So we have another shape-shift and another quite different persona from that in the Bible or Assyria. In this case the cherubs appear to have some sort of kinship with the fairy-folk. Check out images of fairies and they are, though not childlike, tend to be small and winged.

Then there are ‘guardian angels’. However, IMHO, the concept of a ‘guardian angel’ is seriously flawed. First off, if we each have a ‘guarding angel’ looking over us, and as the human population keeps doing it’s “be fruitful and multiply” bit, where do all the ever required additional ‘guardian angels’ come from? Do they just materialise out of thin air? And secondly, if they exist, then they are doing a lousy piss-weak job of being a true guardian. I mean you still have bad luck, misfortunes, failures, accidents, illnesses and you still ultimately end up kicking-the-bucket. If a child of two say dies of cancer (or for any other reason), do the parents really believe there was a so-called ‘guardian angel’ looking after their kid? Do you believe it?  

Conclusions: The traditional images of your typical run-of-the-mill angel are as phoney as a three-dollar bill. That’s because despite the multi-thousands of depictions available on the market that you can consult, they do not agree with what should be the ultimate image source – the Bible. So, though the Bible is a mythological mountain, there’s still that damn really real molehill to be accounted for. So, we have wingless angels. If you don’t care for that molehill (and probably extraterrestrial) accounting, then be prepared to explain how angels can go up-the-down-staircase (and vice versa) without wings – well maybe they hitched rides on the cherubim! Then again, maybe not as that’s just too Monty Python for comfort. Aerial vehicles in a time when there aren’t (or shouldn’t be) aerial vehicles are a plausible (extraterrestrial) alternative.   

Anything humanoid with wings (cherubim or fairies or related) is clearly a mythological mountain with more likely as not an extraterrestrial molehill hiding behind that mythological mountain. Supernatural just doesn’t cut the mustard.

And so-called ‘guardian angels’ are just wishful thinking. There’s no reference to them at all in the King James Version of the Bible. In fact, the word “guardian” doesn’t rate a mention. While some angels as depicted in the Bible allegedly look after selected individuals at selected times at the behest of God, that’s a far cry from the belief that God sends an angelic spirit to watch over every individual 24/7. In fact the concept of guardian angels isn’t consistently believed or upheld in Christian thought as an article of any sort of faith.

Finally we see some commonalities between the polytheistic religions of ancient Egypt (bird-headed humanoids), ancient Greece and Rome (cherubs like Cupid/Eros), the ancient Assyrians (cherubim) and the wee-folk (fairies) of the pagan Celtic religions, all with the monotheistic Bible. People who put their religious money on monotheism, based on say the Bible, obviously also believe that polytheism is pure mythology. Monotheism is factual reality; polytheism is pure fiction. Yet, those who profess the reality of monotheism based on the Bible, had better think twice about polytheism, as that very book confirms the factual reality of polytheism as well. As demonstrated here, if you believe one you have to accept the other. Of course all this monotheistic versus polytheistic bullshit can be unified by resorting to a terrestrial presence of a multiracial or more likely as not multi-species of extraterrestrials.  

Doomsday: The End of the World in Art, Science, Mythology and Prophecy: Part One

The end of the world has been a popular theme in the arts (film, literature, etc.) as we’re no doubt aware. It’s also been a popular theme in science, in mythology, in religion, in prophecy, and so on. The fascination with the end of the world theme is that while unlikely (in your lifetime), it’s plausible as the dinosaurs found out 65 million years ago. So, in the short term, in your lifetime, is it likely, and if so, what’s the means of delivery?

I’d better start by defining exactly what I have in mind with the phrase ‘the end of the world’ as ‘the end’ can take several forms.

Firstly though to the time it takes for an the end of the world event: A real end of the world scenario will be a short term event, lasting from mere seconds (say a gamma ray burster) to several months (say a pandemic, all out nuclear war, a super-volcano). I’m not talking multi-decades to centuries here as per global warming and rising sea levels or the coming of the next Ice Age.

The End of the World = the Destruction of Planet Earth (“When Worlds Collide” scenarios). That is, Planet Earth and obviously all and sundry on same go down the gurgler.

The End of the World = the Destruction of All Life on Planet Earth – a sterile Earth. Planet Earth survives, to a greater or lesser extent, but nothing biological survives.

The End of the World = the Elimination of All Human Beings on Planet Earth (“On the Beach” related scenarios). Planet Earth and most life forms, excluding humans, survive. Now the survivors might amount to only bacteria, cockroaches and rats, but all that matters here is that 100% of all members of the human species are no more. Welcome to Planet Earth: Human Population Zero.

The End of the World = Drastic Alterations to the Status Quo of Human Beings on Planet Earth. There’s drastic chance of ending humanity, but ultimately not enough to wipe us all off the floor. 

I think for most of the populace, the ‘end of the world’ means the demise of the majority of the human population, excluding them of course. In other words, it’s akin to the “drastic alterations of the status quo of human beings on Planet Earth”. It’s ‘Armageddon’, ‘the apocalypse’, the ‘end of days’, the ‘second coming’, ‘the rapture’, or, stripped of any religious connotation, some sort of nuclear war, global pandemic, a combination of nasties caused by global warming, an asteroid strike that cataclysmic but not too cataclysmic, say it only wipes out 99.9% of humanity – that still leaves some six million odd bods and sods inhabiting the globe. Heck, with that number of survivors coupled with a ‘be fruitful and multiply’ scenario, Planet Earth will again be overpopulated with human beings pretty quick-smart. I mean we lost millions in WWII, but still the population expanded. 

The End of the World in the Arts: A whole book could be written (and probably has been) on the end of the world theme in the movies and in literature, especially the science-fiction of the last 150 years or so. If someone can envision doomsday by one means or another, it’s been turned into a film or a TV series or a novel or short story, sometimes with, sometimes without, a happy ending. The end of the world theme in the arts might not be as popular as romantic fiction or crime fiction or even westerns, but it forms a pretty solid subgenre block of the overall disaster film or novel nevertheless.

The End of the World in Mythology/Religion: In mythology (or religion) there is no permanent end of the world. There’s always a rebirth, be it the Christian Armageddon or the Norse Ragnarok or within the Hindu mythology in India or even the various cyclic Mesoamerican cosmologies.

Take the Christian version: Well there’s no disputing the Biblical (tall) tales that ‘document’ some sort of domestic disagreement between ‘God’ and some sort of entity we call today ‘Satan’. If you believe those Biblical tall tales, the end result of that domestic dispute, Armageddon, isn’t in fact in dispute. There’s a decided element here of “This ain’t over till it’s over; this ain’t finished yet; I’ll be back”! However, if you believe the Bible and the Book of Revelation, then you realise that Armageddon should have taken place over 1900 plus years ago, at least according to Jesus Christ. He said that the final battle between good (‘God’) and evil (‘Satan’) – I bet he was biased in deciding who was what – would take place within a generation or two of his utterances. So, if it took place way back then it took place off planet and out of human sight – a real life ‘Star Wars’. But if it hasn’t happened yet, assuming ‘God’ and ‘Satan’ are really real extraterrestrials instead of mythological entities, then it probably isn’t ever likely to. I mean you can only hold off a grudge match so long. Maybe they’ve kissed and made up, or…   

If God or His scribes wished to make crystal clear the ideas and events and chronology central to ‘the end of the world’, Revelations, Armageddon, the Rapture, the Second Coming, etc., He or they failed – miserably. Any dozen Biblical scholars will give a dozen different interpretations of the ‘end of days’, from the literal to the metamorphic. The Book of Revelations, apparently that is, was intended for those of that era; that it was intended for generations far removed from those times is apparently not the case according to Biblical scholars. If you’re not going to make your point clear, well, what’s the point? How many hundreds upon hundreds of times have Biblical scholars prophesied the end of the world, or the end of days, or Armageddon, or the Second Coming, or Final Judgment (take your pick of relevant phrases) based on the Biblical verse? Well, we’re still here! We are indeed still here, so, so much for the reliability of The Bible, or God’s word, and/or the competence of so called Biblical experts. So, the next time some Bible-thumping Fundamentalist tells you that the ‘end is nigh’, take said message with a proverbial grain of salt and don’t lose any sleep over it!

Now the Biblical tale of the global flood is in fact global! Cultures from around the world tell similar tales to the Biblical flood. The argument is that therefore the story must be true as these diverse cultures had no contact with each other. My answer to that is related to bovine fertilizer! End of the world tales, or myths, the concept of Armageddon, punishing the wicked with total catastrophe was as common and popular then as now. We all love a good ‘end of the world’ story that has a moral attached. Alas, the choices or mechanisms available for said end of the world stories to myth makers’ way back then were rather limited. They had no knowledge of supernovae or gamma-ray bursts or massive solar flares or nuclear war and resulting holocausts or killer asteroids smacking into Planet Earth, etc. All they had to work with was the day-to-day sorts of routine natural events part and parcel of their daily lives. In fact, many tale-spinners might not have been familiar with, say, volcanoes, and while most relatively violent weather phenomena, like tornadoes, may be destructive, they aren’t destructive enough to wipe out the wicked that populate a wide area.  However, everyone would have experienced rain, heavy rain, even torrential rain say from hurricanes, etc. that resulted in minor flooding, or say witnessed storm surges from the sea that inundated the land, and/or witnessed rivers, ponds and lakes overflowing. It doesn’t take that much imagination to notch up minor real events, in the guise of story telling, to mega disaster proportions. If it rains heavily for one day and there’s some local flooding, up the ante to 40 days. It’s difficult to imagine any story teller from 5000 years ago coming up with any other sort of end of the world scenario!

The one point to the end of the world, mega disaster stories is that there must be at least one survivor to tell the tale! I gather in this case that includes survivors such as Noah and kin.
I have read of one other explanation for universal flood stories. If I recall correctly, a student of Freud came up with the idea that the tellers/inventors of flood tales got the idea from dreams in their sleep. And they dreamed the dream all because they were asleep with relatively full bladders. Personally, I think that’s a piss-weak explanation!

Then there’s the Norse Ragnarok. The gods and the giants battle it out and the gods come out second best. But, there are survivors who start things up all over again. It’s reflected in the Richard Wagner conclusion to his epic four linked opera series “Der Ring Des Nibelungen”. The final opera, “Gotterdammerung” (“Twilight of the Gods”) ends with the destruction of the gods, but a rebirth and a new beginning. The very characters who started off the whole Ring Cycle are the very same and only survivors at the end. Will history repeat itself?

To be continued…

The End of Days: Cancelled Due To Unforseen Circumstances: Part Two

The End of Days should have happened a long, long time ago, 80 generations ago in fact – if it were to happen at all. They didn’t end, though many hope, pray and predict they still will. I say they won’t. Why? Nearly all the players have exited stage left - and right. So, it’s not the end of days that’s coming, rather the twilight of the gods that have come, with just a mere handful around now. We call them the ‘Greys’.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

5) End of the World: When it comes to the end of the world, at least in Biblical mythology, you get various buzz phrases like: Book of Revelation; the Apocalypse; Armageddon; the Second Coming; the End of Days, etc. There’s been more than just a minor industry spawned by this concept. So, we’ve had the hype, where’s the substance?

Alas, no substance, because the end of the world (according to Biblical mythology) won’t happen IMHO due to unforseen circumstances beyond God’s (and the gods) control.

Jesus Christ (hereafter J.C.) said those End of Days (the end of the world as we knew it) would occur within the lifetime of those he spoke to. Here are some relevant quotes from the King James Version of the Bible that verifies Jesus stating that many of those hearing his words would be alive to see the End of Days and his Second Coming: Note: [PL] equals Punch Line.

Mark 9: 1

[PL] 1: And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.

Mark 13: 23-30

23: But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things.

24: But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,

25: And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.

26: And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.

27: And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

28: Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:

29: So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.

[PL] 30:  Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.

Mark 14: 62

[PL] 62: And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Matthew 16: 27-28

27: For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

[PL] 28: Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

Matthew 24: 29-34

29: Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

30: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

31: And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

32: Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:

33: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

[PL] 34: Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

Now either J.C. hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about, or the End of Days he thought was imminent has now been cancelled (2000 years on is a bit of a stretch to call it a mere postponement). IMHO, if it hasn’t happened by now, it’s not going to.

Finally, and more than just a tad relevant, 100% of all End of Days prophecies, and there have been thousands of them, scholarly or otherwise; have failed to come to pass; so much for the Bible being the literal word of God; so much for spot-on Biblical accuracy. I hope all Fundamentalists and especially those TV Evangelists take note of this (not that they will of course).

6) Oops – Those End of Days Cancelled: The Gods Leave, Never to Return: The players have left (or been taken off) the field – that’s the unforseen circumstances bit that J.C. didn’t hit upon. Okay, the players left the field, they vowed to return, they haven’t returned; the field is well and truly covered in weeds by now, if not built over for a high-rise or two. So, what went so horribly wrong? Well here’s my take on things given my initial premise that the gods aren’t gods but extraterrestrials behaving badly, very badly.

That being the case, I surmise that God and crew along with most of the other polytheistic gods who’s behaviour wasn’t all that much better, were recalled back to home base, relieved of duty and made to ‘please explain’ their gross violations of whatever version of a Prime Directive they have. Since no amount of explaining will convincingly explain away their atrocities on our home planet, they have now been subjected to whatever justice system these extraterrestrials have – at best imprisoned (or equivalent); at worst, executed. If the latter, “good riddance to bad rubbish” applies. 

That recall (or forced removal) probably happened shortly after J.C.;s demise. J.C. seems to be the last of our deities. Before J.C. we were awash with deities, thousands and thousands of them – Polynesia; Asia; North, South and Mesoamerica; the Norse counties; as well as the Greek/Roman pantheon we know so well. Only Antarctica was deity free, though I’ve yet to double-check that with the native penguins. Then they all went away, probably kicking and screaming. At least to the best of my knowledge there have been no verified or historically confirmed sightings of any deities in the past 2000 years, though they used to be commonplace and walked (and raped and pillaged and strutted their bloodthirsty stuff) among men (and women).

7) Modern Times: Fast forward to modern times and we find that there are still a few of these pseudo-deities hanging around our turf – we call them the ‘Greys’ and atrocities are still being committed. There’s animal abuse and kidnapping and all sorts of unauthorised medical experimentation (i.e. livestock mutilations and alien abductions). These relatively minor atrocities (not real violations of their Prime Directive) are probably and conveniently overlooked by those alien powers-that-be on the grounds that they need some sort of presence here; an alien spy network is in order and in their interests in order to keep tabs on us least one day we unexpectedly pay them a visit and return their favours – revenge will be sweet. Meantime…

Conclusion: If you’re eagerly waiting for the End of Days, have a nice wait. The odds are greater you’ll find a pot-of-gold at the end of the rainbow first; but at least you’ll have something to do – search for the pot; spend the gold – while you wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, then wait some more.