By JOHN McCALLUM
Editor
Read or watch enough apocalyptic stuff and pretty soon you're seeing signs of the end of the world everywhere you look.
Threat of economic collapse, endless wars, natural disasters, dogs and cats living together in sin, man, Judgment Day must be right around the corner. Some people think it is and they've got a date – 2012.
Specifically Friday, Dec. 21, 2012, at least according to experts popping up on TV shows, movies and in books citing everyone and everything from the Mayans to Nostradamus, the Bible code, even Merlin as naming the date of our demise. Heck, if Gandalf the Grey from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy were real, he'd probably be listed as another source for prophesizing our impending day of doom.
By the way, I haven't seen the movie “2012.” I grew up in the age of Irwin Allen and have done my duty watching the whole Hollywood catastrophe shtick.
One can really get drawn into this “end of days” thing. It's not a new phenomenon of course. Mankind has been prophesizing its doom for centuries.
Through the years individuals have sold their worldly possessions and taken to the hills or taken after some alleged future-viewing charlatan in preparation for the end. That end is either the Biblical coming of the kingdom of God, or in the tragic case of the Heaven's Gate cult who committed mass suicide several years ago, the coming of the aliens to take them to eternal bliss via the Hale-Bopp comet.
Most of this stuff doesn't frighten me, and I fully expect to wake up and turn on my Christmas lights on the morning of Saturday, Dec. 22, 2012 and look out to see snow – or a brown lawn. There's not much we can do about an asteroid strike, a nearby gamma ray burst, or some mythical catastrophe stemming from the alignment of the sun, earth, moon and center of the galaxy other than say it was fun while it lasted.
It's like the bartender in Douglas Adam's book “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” when he's told by the alien Ford Prefect that the world is about to be blown up.
“I always thought we were supposed to put our head between our legs or something.”
“If you like,” Prefect said.
“Will it help?”
“No.”
What does scare me about end times talk is we are in a position to do it to ourselves. I'm not talking about nuclear weapons, although they could certainly play a part in any scenario.
I'm referring to people getting so caught up in the idea of the end of the world that they engage in activities to speed it along. The latest example of this is the recent arrest of members of the Christian militia – in my opinion that's an oxymoron – group, the Hutaree.
The Hutaree claim to be preparing for armed conflict with the Anti-Christ, and nine of their members apparently were stockpiling weapons and making plans to maybe hurry this up by instigating armed revolt against our federal government. They aren't the only ones actively involved in these activities either.
Frankly, we don't need the help. What we need is the opposite – the love, care and devotion in making this world a better place for everyone. Less animosity and more reciprocity of kindness and understanding which many people strive for every day.
But all of these plans can go for naught because of the self-absorbed focus of a few, such as Christian groups who actively finance and aid Israel's settlement of the West Bank in the hopes it will provoke a confrontation between the Jewish state and the Palestinians. Their goal is that this will eventually lead to Armageddon.
And that's the scary part, it just might. That would be something we brought on ourselves, and the good thing is we can do something about stopping it.
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