The puppetmasters

Well, Tuesday came and went, and no one got Raptured.

Not that I was expecting to go myself.  If anything, it was more likely the ground would open up and swallow me, kind of like what happened in Numbers chapter 16, wherein three guys named Korah, Dathan, and Abiram told Moses they were sick and tired of wandering around in the desert, and where was the Land of Milk and Honey they'd been promised, and anyway, who the hell put Moses in charge?  So there was an earthquake or something and the ground swallowed up not only the three loudmouthed dudes but their wives and kids and friends and domestic animals, which seems like overkill.  Literally.  Not surprising, really, because the God of the Old Testament was pretty free with the "Smite" function.  By one estimate I saw, according to the Bible God killed over two million people to Satan's ten, so I'm thinking maybe we got the whole good vs. evil thing backwards.

In any case, even that didn't happen on Tuesday, because here I am, unswallowed, as well as my wife and three dogs.  I haven't heard from my sons in a couple of days, but I'm assuming they're okay, too.  So all in all, it was an uneventful Tuesday.

The batting-zero stats of Rapture predictions from the past didn't stop people from completely falling for it yet again.  One woman sold all her belongings because she was convinced she wouldn't need them any more.  Another gave away her house -- like, signed over the deed and everything -- and at the time of the article (immediately pre-Rapture) was looking for someone to give her car to.  Another one donated her life savings, quit her job, and confessed to her husband that she was having an affair with a member of her church so she could "get right with God" before the Rapture happened -- and now is devastated because she's broke, jobless, and her husband is divorcing her.

It's hard to work up a lot of sympathy for these people, but at the same time, I have to place some of the blame on the people who brainwashed them.  No one gets to this advanced stage of gullibility unaided, you know?  Somewhere along the line, they were convinced to cede their own understanding to others -- and after that happens, you are putty in the hands of the delusional, power-hungry, and unscrupulous.

Which brings us to Peter Thiel.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Peter Thiel by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0]

You probably know that Thiel is a wildly rich venture capitalist, the founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and was the first outside investor in Facebook.  His current net worth is over twenty billion dollars, but the current wealth inequity in the world is such that even so, he's still not in the top one hundred richest people.  But the fact remains that he's crazy wealthy, and has used that wealth to influence politics.

It will come as no shock that he's a big supporter of Donald Trump.  But what you might not know is that he is also a religious loony.

I'm not saying that just because Thiel is religious and I'm not.  I have lots of friends who belong to religions of various sorts, and we by and large respect each other and each other's beliefs.  Thiel, on the other hand, is in a different category altogether.  To give one example, just last week he gave a talk as part of his "ACTS 17 Collective" ("ACTS" stands for "Acknowledging Christ in Technology and Society"), wherein he said that we can't regulate AI development and use because that's what Satan wants us to do -- "the Devil promises peace and safety by strangling technological progress with regulation."  Limiting AI, Thiel said, would "hasten the coming of the Antichrist."

Oh, and he's also said that environmental activist Greta Thunberg is the Antichrist.  Which is a little odd, because as far as I can tell she's already here, and has been for a while, and thus far hasn't done anything particularly Antichrist-ish.  But maybe there's some apocalyptic logic here that I'm not seeing.

Thiel is absolutely obsessed with one passage from the Bible, from 2 Thessalonians chapter 2:

Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.  He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things?  And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time.  For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.  And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.  The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works.  He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing.  They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.  For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

So what is that mysterious force that "holds back" the evil one, what St. Paul called the "κατέχων"?

Well, Thiel is, of course.  He and the techo-nirvana he is trying to create.  "[When the] Antichrist system collapses into Armageddon," religious commentator Michael Christensen writes, "only the few survive.  A techno-libertarian, [Thiel] entertains a kind of secular rapture: off-grid bunkers, floating cities or even planetary colonies.  In his apocalyptic vision, these survivalist escape hatches offer a way out of both collapse and tyranny—but only for the wealthy and well-prepared."

What's kind of terrifying about all this is how influential people like Thiel are.  His ACTS 17 Collective gatherings play to sold-out audiences.  His message, and that of others like him, then filters down to people like Pastor Joshua Mhlakela (the one who got the whole Rapture-Is-On-Tuesday thing started), and they then pass along their "repent or else!" fear-mongering to their followers.  It's why my lack of sympathy for the folks who bankrupted themselves because they figured they'd be Sitting At The Feet Of Jesus by Wednesday morning is tempered by, "... but was it really their fault?"  Sure, they should have learned some critical thinking skills, and been taught to sift fact from fiction.

But they weren't, for whatever reason.  And afterward, they were immersed in scary apocalyptic terror-talk day in, day out.  Who can blame them for eventually swallowing it whole?

It's easy for me, outside the system, to say the people who fell for Mhlakela's nonsense are just a bunch of fools.  But the truth is more nuanced than that, and a hell of a lot scarier.  Because brainwashing doesn't happen in a vacuum.

The puppetmasters behind it are almost always the powerful and rich -- who all too often not only get away with it, but profit mightily from it.  A terrified, brainwashed populace is easier to manipulate and extort.

Which exactly where people like Peter Thiel want us.

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Vote Tsipras for Antichrist!

As President Obama approaches the end of his second and final term, and has not taken away all of our guns, caused the downfall of America, turned us over to the Muslims, made us submit to the Mark of the Beast, or ushered in the End Times, it looks like we'll have to cast about to find out who will be the next candidate for being the Antichrist.  I mean, Obama has had a good six and a half years to bring forth the Beast With Seven Heads and the Scarlet Whore Of Babylon, and what do I see around me?  Same old, same old.

It's kind of disappointing, really.

I'm happy to say, though, that the ultra-religious wingnuts have a new focus for ranting.  Since Obama has proved himself woefully inadequate in the apocalypse department, it's nice that we have someone waiting in the wings.  His name is Alexios Tsipras, and he's the newly-elected Prime Minister of Greece.

Alexios Tsipras [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Admire the impressive new features of this latest incarnation of the Minion Of The Evil One:

• He is a self-proclaimed atheist, and instead of taking his oath of office in god's name, he "took it in his own name" (as the wingnuts are putting it; actually, he took a civil oath rather than a religious one).
• He is young and charismatic.
• He has already met with the Pope to discuss a peace deal for the Middle East.
• He is a Greek man of Jewish descent.
• He was born on July 28, 1974, which that year fell on the Tisha B’Av (9th of Av) on the Jewish calendar.  This is the day on which many Jewish calamities occurred, including the destruction of first and second temples and the eviction of Jews from England in the year 1290 and from Spain in 1492.

Says Terry James, over at Rapture Ready:

There has surfaced, in my view at least, an archetype of the leader to come who will be the first beast of Revelation 13.  This generation is not yet in the Tribulation, but is experiencing precursors to that last seven years that makes us know that a time of unprecedented troubles is just ahead.  Likewise, a leader has arisen from the area of the reviving Roman Empire, one whose emergence makes the observant Bible prophecy student suspect ever more assuredly that Antichrist is waiting in the shadows of the immediate future. 

Any such leader rising suddenly and dramatically out of the very nucleus of what was ancient Rome justifiably raises the eyebrows of Bible prophecy students.  The visible, physical reactions of those who have put him on his pedestal are quite interesting… glassy eyes filled with tears of joy, as they looked worshipfully at the man on whom they are hanging their hopes.  As a matter of fact, the slogan for [Tsipras's] campaign was “Hope is coming!” 

I think we are looking at an archetype of the man whose name will add up to six hundred, three score and six.

The problem is, Tsipras is hardly the first person who has been a contender for being the Antichrist.  Just in my lifetime, we've had:

• Pope John Paul I
• Pope John Paul II
• Pope Benedict XVI
• Pope Francis I
• Ayatollah Khomeini
• President Clinton
• Muammar Qaddafi
• King Juan Carlos of Spain
• Javier Solana (former Secretary General of both NATO and of the EU) 
• Prince Charles of England (who would be kind of a derpy Antichrist, if you ask me)
• Hafez al-Assad (former dictator of Syria)
• Mikhail Gorbachev
• Ronald Reagan

No, I'm not kidding about Reagan.  There were nutjobs during Reagan's presidency who seriously suggested he might be the Antichrist, mostly because each of the parts of his full name, Ronald Wilson Reagan, had six letters.  (Get it?  666?  Get it?)

And do you know what all of these guys have in common?  They were not the Antichrist.

The End Times crowd has had an exactly zero batting average, thus far.  And if you go back in history, you find that ever since apocalyptic prophecies became all the rage back in the 4th century, people have been going through conniptions trying to figure out (1) when it all was going to happen, and (2) the identities of the major players.  Yes, I know that "no one knows the hour," and all that sort of thing, but that hasn't slowed them down any.  They've also pointed their fingers at every single Pope since the Reformation, Charlemagne, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ivan the Terrible, Oliver Cromwell, Hitler, Mussolini, and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, the last-mentioned having the honor of being the only female Antichrist I'm aware of.

And still they've been wrong every time.

So I'm worried that Prime Minister Tsipras isn't going to be it, either.  Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of waiting.  Things have been a bit boring around here lately, so a good apocalypse could be kind of entertaining.  The Book of Revelation, which I've read in its entirety perhaps three or four times, has always seemed to me to be the product of a bad acid trip, and the events described therein certainly would be more fun than the boring litany of corrupt politicians and know-it-all talking heads who seem to make up most of the news, lately.

So I say: bring it on, Prime Minister Tsipras.  Let's see your guns, dude.  We've been disappointed about a thousand times already; don't make me add your name to the above list.

Time's wasting, Mr. President!

What is it about President Obama that has brought out the conspiracy wingnuts in droves?

Maybe it's just that I wasn't as aware of such things back then,  but I don't remember crazy conspiracy theories erupting around George W. Bush.  There were lots of people who suspected that he had that IQ of a baked ham, but you didn't hear the sort of loony claims that we're seeing with Obama.

Yes, I know he's African American, but can it really be that simple?  It's not like other African Americans are the targets of this sort of thing.  No one is saying, for example, that Kanye West is in league with the devil, except possibly Beck.  But being in league with the devil is only the beginning of what you hear, where Obama's concerned.  Being in league with the devil is mild.

Here's a sampler of some Obama conspiracy theories I found -- all from the last couple of days:

From a letter to the editor in the Davidson County (Tennessee) Dispatch:

God states that seven kings must come before the rise of the Antichrist. Revelations 17:10 says the seventh king will reign for a short amount of time. Is Barack Obama the seventh king? 

Obama's lifted sanctions off Iran with promises that a peace treaty will be made but does nothing to inspect Iran as they continue to make nuclear weapons. Does Obama already know Iran's actions and is helping Iran? God says Israel must be attacked by Iran to start a war between all nations before the Antichrist can rise to create a peace treaty between these nations. Everything God said is happening. The Lord can return for God's children at anytime.

From an article in The Daily Coin:

The ever encroaching police state, the fact that all financial markets, over the entire global, are rigged. Since when does the President come out and tell Congress that he needs omnipotent powers to continue to expand the wars of aggression? What next, maybe world war; cast a dragnet across the internet to begin scooping up owners of alternative news websites? Perhaps begin systemically killing the bankers in the back office with the codes and programs that run the derivatives markets and rig the equities markets?

From Family Research Council's commentator Craig James, in response to a caller who claimed that Obama was planning to stay in office for a third term, and using that term to convert all Americans to Islam:

Obama trying to stay in power for an illegal third term is a concern of mine.  I plan to pass a note along to [FRC President] Tony Perkins on how we could escape that. 

[A third term] would be horrible.  It’s not like we’d have Ronald Reagan staying in office for another year or so while we’re in a state of emergency.  It’s not like we’d have someone who really cares about you and me.  We’re talking about someone who is there in that office as the leader of the free world, the United States of America, who doesn’t get it.  That’s the concern.  It fires me up, the thought that the guy can stick around in that office beyond a year and three-quarters.  He’s got to be gone.  We will follow up on that.

From conservative talk show host Michael Savage, who claims that Obama caused the measles outbreak:

I was asked about the origins of the measles outbreak in America and it’s pretty clear to me that it came in with the illegals.  We know that Obama committed a crime against humanity by dumping many, many, many, many ill people, mothers and children primarily, on us this summer unscreened, many of them brought in a killer virus, measles, tuberculosis and other illnesses. 

And all of these are just from the past couple of days.

What gets me about all of this is how these claims keep sprouting, like crabgrass in a garden, even though they never come true.  We've been hearing for years now about how Obama was the Antichrist (or some other wicked dude from the Book of Revelation), and that this means the End Times are imminent.  And lo, here the world still is, un-Ended.  We've heard over and over about how Obama wants to herd us all into FEMA camps and cut our heads off with guillotines, and we're all still running around with our heads firmly attached.  We've heard that Obama wants to silence people who dislike him by any means necessary up to and including assassination, and yet Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Alex Jones and Ann Coulter are still alive and kicking and spewing their rhetoric on a daily basis.

So if Obama is an evil mastermind, he's kind of an incompetent one, you know?  He's like one of those guys on Scooby Doo who has everyone convinced that there is a scary ghost haunting the carnival, and no one can figure it out except for a bunch of goofy teenagers, who unmask the ghost and it turns out to be the carnival owner, who would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for Those Meddling Fox News Commentators And Their Stupid Dog.

I'm kind of sick of waiting, frankly.  I mean, at this point I've been warned so many times that I'm ready for something to happen, and now's as good a time as any.  We're all snowbound, here in the Arctic tundra (a.k.a. upstate New York), and I'm feeling a little stir-crazy with the cabin fever.  Let's stir things up, okay, Mr. President?  Get together with your wicked Illuminati friends, and cast your spells to summon up Satan or whatever, and let 'er rip.  Because so far, you've kind of sucked at establishing a New World Order (or converting us all to Islam or bringing forth the Beast With Seven Heads, or whatever people think he's doing over there in the White House).  So far, you look pretty much like a typical politician, doing what politicians do.

And life can't be that prosaic, right?

Of course right.

Puppies from hell

Is it just me, or are the claims of the ultra-religious getting nuttier of late?

Maybe it's just because the craziest ones are the ones that get the most press, and I'm falling for some kind of media-driven dart-thrower's bias.  But consider -- just in the last couple of months, we've had the following:

• a pastor who claims to be able to exorcise demons via Skype, followed by;
• a Catholic priest who says that no, that's impossible, but he can exorcise demons without ever meeting the allegedly possessed individual;
• a guy who wants to be paid by the South African government because he believes his prayers kept the electricity going during the World Cup;
• some people who think that a supernova remnant that has been nicknamed "The Hand of God" is... actually the hand of god;
• some people who think that Siri is predicting the opening of the gates of hell, this coming July;
• and a guy who has founded a service to send explanatory emails to your loved ones if you're taken away during the Rapture.

Now, allow me to reiterate up front something that I've said many times, to wit: I know that there are reasonable, logical, and smart people who belong to all different sorts of religions.  I have a good many religious friends, and I respect their right to their views, just as they respect mine.  Put another way; just because I happen to be an atheist doesn't mean that I'm issuing some kind of indictment against the brains, rationality, or motives of all religious people.

But it does seem like the extreme wing of the religious world has shown increasing signs lately of the sort of comical wackiness that is really hard for me not to ridicule.  Or maybe I'm just noticing it more, I dunno.  But take, for example, William Tapley, self-proclaimed evangelist and End Times prophet who calls himself "the Third Eagle of the Apocalypse," and who seems to have spent considerable time doing sit-ups underneath parked cars.

Before I tell you about Tapley's latest pronouncement, it bears mention that he's been in the news before.  He's the one who said, back in 2011, that the decorations in the Denver International Airport were rife with "phallic symbols."  To me, most of what he claims are sexually suggestive designs just look like... random designs.  Tapley insists, though, that the Evil Male Genitalia are there, and that he has a "gift from god" that allows him to see penises where others don't.

Myself, I don't think that's anything I'd brag about.

But now, he's come up with something even wackier than Devil Dongs Over Denver.  Ready?

Okay, you know the adorable Budweiser commercial, featured on the Superbowl, that showed a cute yellow lab puppy who keeps running away to go back and visit his buddy the Clydesdale horse?  Of course you do.  The YouTube video has gotten over 38 million hits, and that's not counting the people who saw it during the game.

Not what it appears to be, says Tapley.  The commercial...

... is a warning of the imminent apocalypse, as foretold in the Book of Revelation.

The puppy represents the Antichrist, Tapley said, in his own video, which is linked in this story that appeared over at ALWire.   Note that the puppy came from "Warm Springs Puppy Adoption;" "Warm Springs," Tapley said, refers to "the Lake of Fire" where all of the unbelievers will end up burning for eternity.  (He doesn't specify what the "puppy adoption" part represents.)

Fig. 1: Evil Satan-Spawn from the Maw of Hell.  Don't let the fuzzy widdle face fool you.  [image courtesy of PharaohHound and the Wikimedia Commons]

Here's the direct quote, which I swear I am not making up:  "(Hell) is where our puppy dog comes from. … But this puppy dog is more than a cute, warm, fuzzy animal.  He is a symbol of the Antichrist."

Yup.  Right.  And I suppose this is a symbol of the Beast With Seven Heads:

 Fig. 2:  Looking into the mesmeric depth of his eyes is placing your immortal soul at risk!  [image courtesy of Nicholas Suzor and the Wikimedia Commons]

Okay, look.  I know that, to some extent, this is going for the low-hanging fruit.  But still; there are people out there who believe this stuff.  And they vote.  Despite the fact that you'd think that anyone this insane would not be allowed outside unsupervised.

On the other hand, maybe we could look upon this as movement in the right direction.  Perhaps enough people are recognizing the inherent craziness of the far reaches of the religious worldview that it's forcing the remaining adherents further out into the ozone layer.   Maybe this outburst of lunacy is just growth pains, as humanity progresses on its way to adopting a more reasonable outlook.

Or maybe Tapley is just a raving whackmobile.  I suppose that's just as likely.

The trials and tribulations of Pope Francis

I have it on good authority that the new pope, Francis I, is either a spy in league with extraterrestrials, or else is an emissary of the Antichrist who will oversee the destruction of Rome.  Or possibly both at the same time.  It's hard to tell, frankly, because my source for this, an article called "Pope Francis: His Jesuitical, Extraterrestrial, 'False Prophet,' and Political Identities," doesn't seem all that certain itself.

And I have to admit that "good authority" may be a bit of an exaggeration, here.  This article was authored by none other than Alfred Lambremont Webre, who has previously claimed that President Obama has visited Mars, that the Earth would be bombarded by "fourth dimensional energy" on November 11, 2011 resulting in all of us being able to engage in "fourth dimensional sex," and that there is a brown dwarf star on the way that will reach its closest approach this year in July and which will trigger "massive electrical discharges" that will result in a catastrophic flood.  (None of us can see the approach of the star except for Alfred, apparently, because the government is hiding its approach from us with chemtrails.  He himself saw it using a "chronovisor," which is a machine that allows him to see the future.)

So, as you can see, he's not exactly the most credible witness right from the get-go.  Be that as it may, let's give him a chance, and hear what he has to say in his rambling diatribe.  Um, article.

Well, first, we have the obvious relevance of the date Pope Francis was elected:

March 13, 2013, the date of Pope Francis I nomination, was the 16th anniversary of the Phoenix Light, a massive space craft that overflew Phoenix, AZ. on March 13, 1997. March 13, 1997 is a significant event in the Exopolitical community that follows the Extraterrestrial presence on Earth.

Don't expect me to believe that's a coincidence.  Alfred either.  You just know that the College of Cardinals was sitting there, on the first day of the conclave, and one of them said, "Hang on... let's wait till tomorrow to decide.  Because then we'll be voting him in on the sixteenth anniversary of a random UFO sighting.  That will send a message, won't it?"  And all of the other cardinals said, "Amen, Your Holy Eminence, that sounds like a dandy idea."

Then, we have a bit about the "Prophecies of St. Malachy," about which I've previously written.  The last pope in the prophecies was one "Petrus Romanus" (Peter the Roman), who was supposed to be the Antichrist's right-hand man, and was going to be in charge of the church during the Tribulation.  So, there's lots of speculation as to whether Pope Francis is actually Petrus Romanus, even though he's not really Peter from Rome, he's Jorge from Argentina.  But hey, close enough, right?  After all, Alfred doesn't even touch on a much greater likelihood, which is that Pope Francis is actually George Bluth from Arrested Development:

Then we have a long, confusing bit about how Pope Francis, in his previous life as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, was a Jesuit.  First of all, the Jesuits are somehow connected with research into extraterrestrials, so that's significant.  Don't ask me how.  Secondly, we all know how the Jesuits are an evil secret organization bent on world domination.  Alfred then tells us all about the "Jesuit Oath," which includes the following lovely passage:

[I] declare and swear that His Holiness, the Pope, is Christ's Vice-Regent and is the true and only head of the Catholic or Universal Church throughout the earth; and that by the virtue of the keys of binding and loosing given to His Holiness by my Saviour, Jesus Christ, he hath power to depose heretical Kings, Princes, States, Commonwealths, and Governments, and they may be safely destroyed. Therefore to the utmost of my power I will defend this doctrine and His Holiness's right and custom against all usurpers of the heretical or Protestant authority whatever, especially the Lutheran Church of Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and the now pretended authority and Churches of England and Scotland, and the branches of same now established in Ireland and on the continent of America and elsewhere and all adherents in regard that they may be usurped and heretical, opposing the sacred Mother Church of Rome. I do now denounce and disown any allegiance as due to any heretical king, prince or State, named Protestant or Liberal, or obedience to any of their laws, magistrates or officers. I do further declare the doctrine of the Churches of England and Scotland of the Calvinists, Huguenots, and others of the name of Protestants or Masons to be damnable, and they themselves to be damned who will not forsake the same.

The problem is, the "Jesuit Oath" is a hoax.  It was a bit of anti-Catholic vitriol passed around by Protestant fear-mongers in the early 20th century (the same era that produced the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion).  So, really, these two pieces of nasty nonsense constitute two of the first-ever-recorded conspiracy theories.  The evil Catholics are trying to destroy the world!  No, wait, it's the Jews!  No, wait, its both!

In any case, the whole thing is wrapped up with aliens, somehow.  In a passage that should be enshrined forever in the Annals of WTF, Alfred writes:

One hermeneutical interpretation would have "the dragon" of the Book of Revelations identified as "Extraterrestrial civilizations that the False Prophet (putatively Pope Francis I) promotes to humanity. This role of a Jesuit Pope, promoting "Official ET Disclosure" along with other major institutions such as the United Nations and the major space-faring and extraterrestrial knowledgeable nations such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and China, would certainly fulfill one dystopian view of extraterrestrial "Disclosure", that of a false flag extraterrestrial invasion such as was predicted by Dr. Wernher von Btraun [sic] on his death bed and related to Disclosure Project witness Dr. Carol Rosin.

Oh.  Okay.  What?

So.  Anyway.  I know that regular readers of this blog know me well enough to realize that I'm very far from a Catholic apologist.  I think a lot of the Vatican's policies are repressive, backwards, and medieval, and there's no indication that Pope Francis is anything but a party liner in this regard.  And there are, apparently, some questions to be asked about the new pope's past, especially his alleged complicity with abuses by the military junta that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983.  But other than that -- for cryin' in the sink, leave the poor guy alone.  He's barely had a chance to do anything yet, good or bad.  It seems a little premature to conclude that he's going to sell us out to the extraterrestrials.  Or the Antichrist.  Or the evil Jesuits.  Or whoever.  My guess is that he'll just continue the same policies of the last pope, pretty much, and things will go on in the church as they always have.

So, anyway, I'm willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt for the time being.  And given that I'm an atheist, I think that's pretty generous, don't you?

A linguistic analysis of the Antichrist

Despite the fact that I scour the internet daily for weird news, sometimes I miss good ones.   I try not to fret about these oversights, however -- because one characteristic of woo-woos is that they never, ever let a claim die.  So if I miss a crazy, outlandish story, no worries; it'll be back.

Again and again and again.

One such bizarre claim, that I missed on its first go-round but which is recently repeating its circuit of ultra-religious right wingers (I've seen it posted on Facebook twice in the last week), is a story that contends that Jesus actually revealed the name of the Antichrist in the bible.  Never mind that wackos who are way too fond of the Book of Revelation have tried before to pin that title on various world leaders; Mikhail Gorbachev, Pope Benedict XVI, the Emperor Nero, and Ronald Reagan, for example, all had their supporters as being Satan's Right-hand Man.  (As for Reagan, his candidacy came about when someone noticed that his first, middle, and last names all had six letters -- 666, get it?  But my vote goes for Pope Benedict, who looks just like Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars.  I mean, can't you just picture him throwing lightning from his fingertips, and vaporizing protesters who support marriage equality, all the while cackling maniacally?)

But they're not the ones that the End Times crowd are after these days.  The whole thing apparently started with a 2009 YouTube video that claimed that the biblical passage "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from the heavens" (Luke 10:18) was actually encoding the real name of the Antichrist.  Here's the excerpt that's been making the rounds recently:

When I started doing a little research, I found the Greek word for 'lightning' is 'astrape,' and the Hebrew equivalent is 'baraq.'  I thought that was fascinating...  And I wondered what the word 'heights’ is, and I looked it up in the dictionary, and it’s 'bamah...'  If spoken by a Jewish rabbi today, influenced by the poetry of Isaiah, he would say these words in Hebrew … 'I saw Satan as Baraq Ubamah.'

 Righty-o.  Obama is the Antichrist.  Not that we have any kind of political agenda here, of course.

The only problem is, don't use a linguistic argument when there are lots of linguists around who are smarter than you are.  An expert in Hebrew and Aramaic, Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, weighed in on the contention in an article in Salon, and he said that there are several problems with it.  First, Ehrenkrantz says, the Hebrew root "bamah" doesn't mean "heights" as in "heavens," it means "heights" as in "hills."  Sticking a "u-" prefix on the word is consistent with Hebrew morphology, but doing that alters stops to continuants -- in this case, changing the /b/ to a /v/.  So, it would be "uvamah," not "ubamah."  And even so, the "u-" doesn't mean "from," it means "and."  So "baraq uvamah" means "lightning and hills."

The actual phrase "from the heavens," Ehrenkrantz says, should be "min ha-shamayim."  So the passage "lightning from the heavens" would be "baraq min ha-shamayim."  Which doesn't sound like much of anything except Hebrew.

Couple that with the fact that Obama's first name, Barack, does come from an Aramaic root, but it isn't "baraq," it's "barak," which means "blessing."  It's a cognate to the more common name Baruch.  So, if you're really trying to pull some apocalyptic linguistic analysis on the president's name, you would probably be more justified in concluding that Obama was sent to Earth by god as a blessing, and is undoubtedly going to kick some satanic ass while he's here.

Because the problem with twiddling around with language is that two can always play that game.  Linguistic coincidences and peculiarities in word root structure abound.  So let's have some fun, okay?  Let's start with the Hebrew word "rosh," which means "head, chief, or leader."  ("Rosh Hashanah" means "head of the year.")  And we all know the Latin word "limbo," the ablative form of "limbus," meaning "the edge, or outer circle, of hell."  So:  "the chieftain of the outer reaches of hell" would be "Rosh Limbo."

Hey, maybe this stuff works, after all.