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Question for messianic believers: And then what?

“An inch away, total darkness.”

Zen saying

"If you believe in judgment day, then I have to seriously question your judgment."

Bill Maher

“Prepare for tomorrow by doing your best today.”

Life’s Little Instruction Calendar, Volume V

Religious radio and TV are great sources of amusement for me. I love to watch the strutting, sweating televangelists spouting their childish BS to audiences beatifically smiling and swallowing it whole. As a student of public speaking, I appreciate their hypnotic cadences, effective use of repetition, and interactive, audience-involving speaking style (”Can I get an ‘amen’ on that?”). It’s not only good to know the adversary…it’s also fun. And a little unsettling to see how earnestly these people talk about (and to) their imaginary beings.

I’m also reminded of the extent to which religion traffics in the future: apocalypses, Second Coming, Judgment Days, Armageddon, rapture, end-times, Paradise, Valhalla, Messiahs, etc. It’s always about something that’s going to happen, must happen, and thus must be prepared for by every means, from asceticism to suicide.

That’s why, as a friend recently pointed out, you can “and then what?” believers into a brick wall.

Then what?

Once the ultimate desideratum is achieved…then what? As many skeptics have pointed out, the Christian heaven is vague and boring. An infinity of…what?

As for the Jews, once the Temple is rebuilt in Jerusalem and ALL 15 MILLION Jews return to Israel (it’ll be REALLY crowded)…then what? No driving is allowed on the Sabbath, so they all have to be able to WALK to Temple on Friday night and Saturday. A logistical nightmare.

Or the Messiah comes — and then what? He brings peace? How exactly does that happen? He distributes mass quantities of Valium or aromatherapy or cannabis, so that people turn on and chill out?

Peace is achieved by people not killing people. No Messiah required. It’s childish and humiliating to think we can’t do it ourselves. Also, a cop-out, justifying any religious absurdity or atrocity to promote the Coming.

Powerful story line

Religious BS merchants have to keep their flocks in line with a compelling story line, of which the worshippers are a part. It’s a powerful manipulative tool. Politicians use it too. Getting huge masses to abandon reason and become what one writer calls “mythic” and follow the story obediently…well, that’s a politician’s wet dream.

Better life on earth

All too often paradises are idealized versions of earthly life: no pain or suffering, which are devoutly to be desired — and worked for. The great 19th century skeptic/atheist Robert Ingersoll observed that hands that work are infinitely more valuable than hands that pray. If there’s to be a heaven, we must create it ourselves.

But OK, to each his own. If people need the delusional coping mechanism of religion, let them have it (but not in public) — and let them stop complaining about other people’s coping methods, from drugs to stock markets (or both).

Knowing nothing about the future

The future is far more elusive and beyond the reach of prophecy. Edgar Cayce, Nostradamus, The Mayans — none of them had a clue, and neither do we.

A lot of people want these prophecies to be true, so they twist and spin them until they are. You need a certain softness in the head, a willingness to believe, in order to spin the prophets’ vague predictions into a foretelling of contemporary events.

As Kierkegaard and other wise people have observed, life must be lived forward — but understood backward. Yet, as many others have noted, the seeds of future events can be seen, if only one knows where to look. The 9/11 Report makes it quite clear that the disaster could have been prevented, but too many government officials were criminally negligent.

An inch away, total darkness. History turns on the merest of circumstances.

A few guesses

Yet some predictions are, as sportswriters say, makable:

(1) Governments will continue to oppress people, grab wealth and power, and foment wars, because that is their nature. Corporations will do the first two of the above, because that is their nature.

(2) Burgeoning populations will fight over dwindling resources, prompting more conflict.

(3) Ethnic and tribal groups will continue to hate and persecute each other, as politicians and religious zealots perpetrate their myths, stories, and projected futures, to keep the masses in line. While large portions of the world quietly abandon religion, much larger portions still cling to it.

(4) Climate change will continue, with unpredictable results. Near term, nothing will replace the internal combustion engine. Auto races will continue merrily along. NASCAR racers get 4-5 miles/gallon.

(5) There will be another 9/11; the fanatics are bent on it.

(6) Whatever can be cloned, someone will clone it.

(7) The Cubs will not win a World Series.

That’s about all I’m willing to venture. The predictions are based on continuing (and apparently unstoppable) trends and on human nature, which does not change (much).

Preoccupation with prophecy and apocalypse seems to be rooted in a fear of living, a wish that all the confusion and suffering will end soon, swiftly, and gloriously (for believers). But despite many predictions and much preparation, The End doesn’t come, and the date requires constant postponement.

Humanists realize that no Messiah, no Rapture is going to come and take away their problems and suffering.

Perhaps in time, as the Messiah does not come and the world does not end, more and more people will abandon all the end-times and Armageddon stories, grow up, and realize that the outcomes in (1)-(7) are the responsibility of humans and humans alone (with some luck). I'm not optimistic. But for good or ill, we make our own futures.

Tags: Day, Judgment, Messiah, Rapture, end-times, religion

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Comment by Alan Perlman on June 20, 2012 at 7:51pm: PS. to Mike: Of course you could be a televangelist. All it takes is the balls to earnestly promote fantasy and ask for money. Promise them salvation. The lines are so simple you could learn them in an evening. After that, it's all just riffing...and packaging - the right music and TV background set for your Blessed Ministry...and you're off and running. Required: lots of wind, loud speaking voice, ability to fake sincerity.

Comment by Loren Miller on June 20, 2012 at 3:00pm: Thanks, Alan. Must confess, I've read neither Mencken nor Ingersoll, and I suppose at some point I should pick up both. I HAVE read Heinlein, who was quite aware of Mencken, so maybe I get that from ol' Bob. As for Messr. Ingersoll, I've seen my share of his quotes about here and elsewhere.

And all of a sudden, I'm reminded, perhaps oddly, of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, where "V'GER" wants to destroy the human population of the Earth, because they interfere with the response of "The Creator." Those christian sects who wish to bring about the second coming act as though they want to clear the decks in the same manner, as though THEY need to set the initial conditions for the return of their deity / savior. Umm ... guys? Your savior is supposedly omnipotent; since WHEN should he need any HELP?!?

Yeah, I know, I'm using logic and they don't. I guess we all have our bears to cross ... or something like that!

Comment by Alan Perlman on June 20, 2012 at 2:45pm: Loren...well-said. That sounded like Ingersoll or Mencken. WHY can't they each harbor their own fantasies together and in private, instead of murdering other people for theirs? If your belief is right, then your savior will come, and you're home free. No need to kill people who believe otherwise - they're going to hell. The Bible and Quran are too primitive to admit this basic principle.

Comment by Alan Perlman on June 20, 2012 at 2:39pm: Thanks, Michael...Even in heaven the press is left wing - LOL.

This just goes to show they don't think about the content of the afterlife. Interestingly in Christian iconography, hell was depicted with much more ghastly detail than heaven -- like the Midle Ages, but much worse. Mostly they think it's "none of the hassles or pains of this life." For many, that's enough, although one writer to Abby feared that she would have to live with relatives she hated, as if it's a hotel/resort kind of thing.

The Muslim version is a garden with flowing milk, honey, wine, and water. (BTW, the 72 virgins may have been a mistranslation of "white grapes" -- WHAT a bummer!). Hell, you can get all of those things at a Hyatt-Regency or a 7-11. But the shittier his/her life, the less the believer needs a clear picture of Paradise. Just "not here."

My last wife, a New Ager, told me of an astral world transcending time and space and physicality, such that I could jam with jazz greats of the past, with no instruments! Now that's worth dying for!

Comment by Michael OL on June 20, 2012 at 11:58am: Messianic claims have the convenient advantage that no predictive veracity is really required. "The Future" can be 5 minutes from now, or 5 billion years. Because it's always in the future, the lack of any observable evidence of an apocalypse, can never disprove that the big event is just around the corner.

One religionist view is that heaven/afterlife so radically transforms the lucky fellow/gal who gets there, that it is pointless to attempt to conceptualize what heaven would be like. It is just assumed without any description. If, for example, your body becomes so altered that you can absorb energy without having to consume any food or drink, then presumably there would not be any toilets in heaven, or janitors to clean them. Of course, this means that newspapers and magazines would have to be read in different circumstances, but because all media is left-wing godless, there probably would be no periodical literature in heaven either.

In any case, the point is that the goalposts can always be moved, so no factual evidence offered as refutation can ever dent the majesty of the religious message.

So - do you think that I'd be a successful televangelist?

Comment by Loren Miller on June 20, 2012 at 10:47am: And then what?

And THEN ... the pissing match REALLY begins ... between the catholics and the evangelicals, between eastern and Russian orthodox, between this baptist, that baptist, and the OTHER baptist, never mind JW's, SDA's and any other branch of christ-inanity you care to imagine. They'll all duke it out for the right to say, 'I'm right and EVERYONE ELSE is WRONG."

And, regardless of who wins, he'll be just as dead when he dies as everyone else who died before him, nor will any god be waiting to receive this Pyrrhic victor into his arms. The whole matter will be as pointless as the non-existent god they all worshiped.

All for the madness of a superstitious belief.