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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Apocalypse not

Well, it was nice knowing you all.

I have it on good authority that today is the Rapture, wherein Jesus reappears on Earth, selects a few of the Righteous and Holy to ascend back into Heaven with him, and leaves the rest of us slobs down here to contend with the Four Apocalyptic Horsepersons, the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, the Star Wormwood, the Beast With Seven Heads and Ten Crowns, and various other special offers created for our edification by the God of Goodness and Mercy.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalpyse, by Viktor Vasnetsov (1887) [Image is in the Public Domain]

Which brings up a question I've always wondered about: why did the Beast have seven heads, but ten crowns?  It seems like logically, the head:crown ratio should be 1:1.  Did he wear seven of them at a time, and kept three in his closet as spares?  Did he stand in front of the mirror each morning, deciding which seven he was going to wear that day?  I remember as a child, reading the Bible, picturing him as wearing one crown each on six of his heads and the remaining four stacked up on one head, and that mental image bothered the hell out of me.  It just seemed unnecessarily asymmetrical.  I recall trying to figure out if there was a way to make it work out better, and the best I could do was two crowns on heads one, four, and seven, and a single crown on each of the remaining ones.

I was kind of a neurotic child, which probably isn't a surprise to anyone.

Anyhow, I said that I found out today is the Rapture from good authority, but that may have been a slight exaggeration.  The place I read about it was the New York Post, which ranks only slightly above The Weekly World News in credibility.  The Post was quoting one Pastor Joshua Mhlakela, who made the announcement a couple of weeks ago.  "The Rapture is upon us, whether you are ready or not," Mhlakela said.  "I saw Jesus sitting on his throne, and I could hear him saying very loud and clear, 'I am coming soon.'  He said to me, 'On the 23rd and 24th of September, I will come back to Earth.'"

The optimists amongst us might expect that Mhlakela would immediately be dismissed by everyone, given that Wikipedia has a list of 162 "failed apocalypse predictions," along with dozens more that are supposed to happen in the future.  You would think after 162 times that people ran around with signs saying, "REPENT NOW, THE WORLD ENDS TODAY," and the next day came and the world just kept loping along as usual, people would shrug and laugh about any future prognostications of catastrophe.

You would be wrong.

Mhlakela's YouTube video has gotten millions of views, and the comments are, for the most part, favorable. 

"My 10yr daughter dreamt of the rupture [sic] recently,” one commenter wrote.

Another one posted, "Wow, I can read people and Joshua is 100% telling the truth.  I never even listen to videos claiming visions, but God told me to watch this."

Yet another commented, "Last month I also had a vision, I dreamt I was dreaming… and the Lord appeared, telling me He is coming soon."

Well, last night I dreamed that I looked out of my office window, and there were a bunch of pterodactyls roosting in the walnut trees in our front yard, and I was afraid to let my dogs out to pee because I didn't want the pterodactyls to attack them.  So I don't know that dreams are necessarily a good guide to reality.

Or at least mine aren't.

What comes to mind with all this is the biblical passage from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 24, wherein we read, "Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven.  And then all the peoples of the Earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.  And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other...  But about that day or hour when all these things will happen no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

Note that the passage doesn't say, "... no one knows but only the Father and Pastor Joshua Mhlakela."

So I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief that Wednesday will dawn and we'll all still be here.  Of course, there is a downside to this, and that's... that we'll all still be here.  Because if you consider *gestures around vaguely at everything* the current situation down here on Earth is really fucking awful.  Maybe I should be rooting for Mhlakela, I dunno.

You know, I gotta wonder what sanctimonious hypocrites like Speaker of the House Mike Johnson would do if Jesus actually did come back.  "Yo, Mike," I can hear the Lord saying.  "What about that whole 'feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give the poor wanderer shelter' thing I commanded?  'Whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do unto me,' I believe were my exact words?  And there's also that thing about not bearing false witness."  *grabs him by the ear*  "Come with me, buddy, I think we need to have a 'little talk.'"

My guess is that for all of Johnson's pious praise-Jesus-ing, if that happened, he would piss his pants and then have a stroke.

So, yeah, at this point, bring on the Horsepersons.  I know as someone who's generally speaking an unbeliever, I'm kind of screwed either way, but at least watching the evangelicals scramble around trying to figure out how to account for their behavior over the last ten years would be entertaining as I'm waiting to be smited.

Smote?  Smitten?  Smoted?  Smoot?  Smot?  Smut?  I've never been entirely sure of what the correct participle is.

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Going to the dogs

Well, the Rapture happened again, and just like every other damn time, I got left behind.

At this point, I've kind of given up.  There's been, what?  Like two dozen Raptures in the past five years?  I beginning to think I'm not invited to the party.

Of course, it shouldn't be a shock, given my history.  I doubt I'll be headed to heaven unless I can somehow get there under cover of darkness via helicopter.  And even then, there's a 50/50 chance that God will smite the crap out of the chopper before we can land at the Holy Heliport.

So since I'm still stuck here on Earth and likely to be for a while, I suppose I should proceed on to looking at today's topic, which is: Dogman.

In one of those funny coincidences that would make some people think there's a Glitch in the Matrix, a couple of days ago a friend of mine (who is also a cryptid enthusiast) asked me if I'd ever heard of Dogman, and I said I had -- a long time ago -- but didn't know much of anything about him, and then the following day a post showed up on the delightfully weird JAMZA Online Forum talking about recent Dogman sightings in California.  The writer, Paul Dale Roberts, says he's an "Esoteric Detective" with Halo Paranormal Investigations, which is certainly an impressive job title.

Roberts explains that Dogman isn't a werewolf, because of the obvious dog vs. wolf distinction, but also because werewolves transform back into ordinary humans when the Moon isn't full, but Dogman is kinda stuck that way.  He talks as if Dogman is pretty terrifying, but the problem for me is, my experience of dogs is this:

This is Jethro, and the only things that would be justifiably afraid of Jethro are squeaky toys.  In his presence, squeaky toys labeled "Completely Indestructible!" last about three minutes, because that fuzzy little muzzle conceals the Jaws of Death.  But other than that, he's about as dangerous as a plush toy.  A cryptid with a human body and Jethro's head would elicit more laughter than fear.

Plus, Roberts also says that "all you have to do is clap, and Dogman runs away," which doesn't sound very threatening to me.

Still, a seven-foot-tall human/dog hybrid could be kind of alarming to run across unexpectedly.  Some of them, he says, have "glowing red eyes."  This phenomenon of glowing eyes is a pretty common trait in cryptids, which is something I've never understood.  I mean, reflective eyes, sure; a lot of animals have a tapetum, which is a reflective membrane at the back of the eyeball that is why deer's eyes shine in headlights.  But actually glowing?  Eyes receive light, they don't emit it.  What, are there little guys with flashlights in there, shining the beams out through the pupils whenever anyone comes close?

Be that as it may, Roberts proceeds to relate a number of incidents where people have seen Dogman.  Here's his own encounter:

I once saw a strange hunched-back dark green bi-pedal figure in Elk Grove [California, where several other sightings have taken place].  From the distance from where I was observing this strange sight, I was unable to make out what I was seeing.  I had to drive up closer, so I can identify this mysterious figure.  I discovered I was looking at a homeless person that was covered in a blanket.

Who, he admits rather reluctantly, had an ordinary human head. 

But other people have insisted they saw a giant guy with a dog's shaggy head, and from the sound of it they weren't anywhere near a convention of Furries at the time.  Apparently Dogman isn't a recent invention, either; the legend seems to have started in Wexford County, Michigan, where a report in 1887 describes a sighting by two lumberjacks.  This Dogman apparently had blue eyes, so that's kind of cool.

Because forewarned is forearmed, it's important to have a plan for if you ever run into Dogman.  (I mean, you can try clapping, but my guess is that won't work.)  So here's what you should do:

• Stare straight into his eyes, to establish dominance.
• Say, "Whoozagoodboy?"
• When Dogman, not knowing who the Good Boy is, looks confused, say, "YOU are!"
• Dogman will be so elated by this unexpected revelation that he will wag his tail excitedly.
• Reward him for being a Good Boy with ear skritches, and if you have any, a puppy biscuit.
• Dogman will then be your friend for life.

At least this technique works with Jethro.

Anyhow, that's our excursion into the World of the Weird for today.  On the other hand, the word "weird" describes the world as a whole pretty well, given the news lately, and Dogman is no more peculiar than, for example, Donald Trump claiming that the reason California has droughts is that people in Canada were incosiderate enough to turn off a giant faucet.  ("It's so big it takes a whole day to turn once!" he said.  And no, I didn't make any of that up.)  May as well have a look around the place, since I (and, I presume, you) missed the Rapture and are stuck here for the time being. 

At least until the next helicopter leaves for heaven.

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Awaiting angelic intervention

As I write this, I'm waiting for the Rapture (it was supposed to happen on Tuesday, but evidently got postponed a few days), so I figured to while away the time until the holy are bodily assumed into heaven and the rest of us slobs get visited by the Four Apocalyptic Horsepersons and the Scarlet Whore of Babylon and the Beast and various other special offers, I'd consider the question of how this stuff got included in the Bible in the first place.

The Book of Revelation is one of the parts of the Bible that some True Believers embrace enthusiastically, while if you ask others, they'll shift in their seats and laugh uncomfortably and mumble something about "symbolic... metaphors... not meant to be taken literally..." and then change the subject.  What's interesting, though, is that this is far from the weirdest piece of writing that was considered to be part of scripture.  Back in the fourth century, there were so many gospels and epistles and books and letters and assorted miscellany that church leaders finally had to hold a series of meetings to try to figure out what was canonical and what wasn't.

So they got together at the Council of Rome (382 C.E.), the Synod of Hippo (393 C.E.), and the Synod of Carthage (397 C.E.), and after that the Bible had something close to its current form.  (Interestingly, the idea that canon was established at the Council of Nicaea in 325 is a misconception; Nicaea had nothing to do with decisions about what was scripture and what wasn't, but was about the nature of the Trinity and how to determine the date for Easter.)  In any case, what's fascinating here is that the church fathers had their work cut out for them, because there were tons of manuscripts to sift through.

And when you start looking through the ones that didn't make the cut -- the ones now labeled "apocrypha" -- you find out that by comparison to some of them, the Book of Revelation comes across as blander than Fun With Dick and Jane.

First, let's consider the Books of Enoch, of which there are three.  1 Enoch especially is a trip, and is also interesting because a lot of what angel enthusiasts chatter on about comes right from there.  You might not know that there are only five angels mentioned by name in the standard Bible -- three good guys, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, and two fallen angels, Lucifer and Abbadon.  That's it.  All the rest come from the apocrypha, or from People Making Shit Up, which even many religious people agree pretty much amounts to the same thing.

Another thing about 1 Enoch you might find entertaining is that this is also where most of the nonsense about the Nephilim comes from.  The Nephilim were created when angels came down to Earth and had lots of sex with human women, and the result was the women giving birth to babies who grew up into giant "men of renown."  The Nephilim get a passing, and rather vague, mention in Genesis 6 and Numbers 13, but 1 Enoch really gives details.  They were "three hundred ells tall" -- that'd be something on the order of two hundred meters -- and given to doing some seriously bad shit:

And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three hundred ells, [and] who consumed all the acquisitions of men.  And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind.  And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood.

So that's kind of nasty.  Fortunately, God commanded the unfallen angels -- the ones who hadn't been canoodling with human women -- to do battle with the Nephilim, and the Nephilim lost big time.  They were all cast into the fiery abyss, where they dwelleth lo unto this very day.

Then there's a weird passage about farm animals doing stuff:

And that sheep whose eyes were opened saw that ram, which was amongst the sheep, till it forsook its glory and began to butt those sheep, and trampled upon them, and behaved itself unseemly.  And the Lord of the sheep sent the lamb to another lamb and raised it to being a ram and leader of the sheep instead of that ram which had forsaken its glory...  And I saw that a great sword was given to the sheep, and the sheep proceeded against all the beasts of the field to slay them, and all the beasts and the birds of the heaven fled before their face.

Ha-ha, yeah... *shifts uncomfortably*  Metaphor... um... symbols...

But if you think that's weird, what's even wilder is what ultimately happens to Enoch.  A passage in 3 Enoch tells us that he's brought up to heaven, and transformed into the angel Metatron, in a process that sounds really fucking uncomfortable:

At once my flesh turned to flame, my sinews to blazing fire, my bones to juniper coals, my eyelashes to lightning flashes, my eyeballs to fiery torches, the hairs of my head to hot flames, all my limbs to wings of burning fire, and the substance of my body to blazing fire. On my right— those who cleave flames of fire—on my left—burning brands—round about me swept wind, tempest, and storm; and the roar of earthquake upon earthquake was before and behind me.

So when you think of Metatron, if you picture the kind, avuncular Derek Jacobi in Good Omens or the snide, wry, world-weary Alan Rickman in Dogma, you might want to revise that image.

And this is just the Books of Enoch.  If you want some even wackier stuff, check out the Gospel of Thomas, which recounts the childhood of Jesus and depicts him as some sort of super-powerful spoiled brat.  (Reading it made me wonder if this is where the expression "holy terror" comes from.)  Amongst many other atrocities, at age one Baby Jesus curses another kid and makes him "wither into a corpse." Later he kills a neighbor kid for spilling water he'd drawn up from a well, and offs a different kid for bumping into him.

When the neighbors complain, he strikes them blind.

The general impression is more gangsta rap than it is "holy infant, so tender and mild."

Then there's the Apocalypse of Ezra, in which God has an argument with the prophet Ezra wherein Ezra says that since God created the Apple and the Serpent, he's responsible for humanity becoming sinful, so he can't rightfully punish people for doing bad shit.  Which seems like a legit objection to me.  But God shows Ezra the fiery tortures of hell, and says, basically, "What now, Ezra?  Any other questions?" and Ezra says, "Oh, okay, I see your point" and the book ends with a score of God 1, Ezra 0.

In any case, what strikes me about all this is that when it came time to sift through all the hundreds of manuscripts and decide what was canonical and what wasn't, the decision wasn't made by any kind of holy agency.  It was just a bunch of guys arguing about it and finally whittling the list down by about half to what we have today.  (And there are still disagreements -- that's why the various Orthodox sects, Catholicism, and Protestant denominations all have a slightly different set of books in their bibles.)

Of course, the apologists say the decision was made by people who were divinely motivated.  As the Christian site Got Questions puts it, "There are no 'lost books' of the Bible, or books that were taken out of the Bible, or books missing from the Bible.  Every book that God intended to be in the Bible is in the Bible.  There are many legends and rumors of lost books of the Bible, but the books were not, in fact, lost.  Rather, they were rejected...  These books were not inspired by God."

So that's convenient.  Me, I find the whole thing bizarre and a little mystifying, which I suppose is unsurprising.

Anyhow, here I sit, drinking my coffee and waiting for the Rapture.  By the time y'all read this, it'll either have happened or it won't, so if I get Raptured I won't be around to read your comments.  (Admittedly, this is unlikely given my history, and if there was any doubt in the minds of the Heavenly Judges, the fact that I just wrote this post probably sealed the deal.)  If I'm still here, we'll see what's going on in the world.  My guess is that regardless, there won't be any angelic intervention by Enoch-Metatron or Gangsta Baby Jesus or anyone else, and we'll all just have to keep plodding forward as usual.

But if sheep start running around swinging swords, or whatnot, I'll happily eat my words.

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Rapture redux

If it hadn't been for a sharp-eyed loyal reader of Skeptophilia, I might well have missed the fact that the Rapture is going to happen next Tuesday.  Which would have sucked.  I hate it when the world ends and I only find out afterward.

Because, of course, the Day of Doom is very likely to come and go without fanfare, which is what's happened the previous 5,382,913 times they've predicted the Rapture or Armageddon or the Rise of the Antichrist or the Rivers Running Red With The Blood Of Unbelievers, or various other cheerful scenarios dreamed up for our edification by the God of Love.  Each time, I pop my popcorn, open a bottle of beer, get out my lawn chair...

... and nothing happens.

[Image courtesy of Pat Marvenko Smith via Flickr Creative Commons]

It's a pity, honestly.  I live in rural upstate New York, where if you are waiting for something exciting to happen, you're going to have a long wait.  Yesterday the news around here was dominated by the fact that the main highway through this area is going to be closed for a time for repaving, requiring a detour that will mean we are no longer in the Middle of Nowhere, we're in the Middle of Nowhere + two or three extra miles.  So I can say with some confidence that for most upstaters, if the Beast With Seven Heads And Ten Crowns showed up, we'd be thrilled to have something to alleviate the boredom.

Which brings up a question I've always wondered about, ever since I was a kid and first stumbled upon the bad acid trip that is the Book of Revelation; why would the Beast have three more crowns than he has heads?  To me, the crown-to-head ratio is most logically one-to-one.  Does he trade out crowns from day to day, and as he's getting ready for another busy day of terrorizing the populace, he stands there staring into his closet trying to pick out which ones he's going to wear?  Or does he have two crowns on three of his heads, and only one on the rest?  That's the way I recall picturing it, and it bothered the absolute hell out of me, because it seemed arbitrary and asymmetrical, and as a kid I was just the slightest bit tightly wound.  It was only later that I realized that I wasn't supposed to like the Beast, and if something about him grated on my nerves, that was probably all part of the Infernal Plan.

But I digress.

Anyhow, this time around, the Rapture has been predicted by a self-styled YouTube prophet who goes by the handle Generation2423.  He certainly seems sincere enough, but then, they all do, don't they?  Rapture prediction has been a game among that particular slice of the devout for centuries.  Generation2423, though, isn't generating the buzz that (for example) Harold Camping did, back in 2011.  Camping publicized the incipient End of the World so much he got a ton of people to do stuff like sell all their worldly goods and quit their jobs.  Then -- as it always does -- the day came and went, and everyone just went on loping about the place un-Raptured, doing their thing.  Undaunted, he rescheduled the Rapture for six months later, and that day too passed without any calamities.  Camping finally died two years afterward, disappointed to the last that he never got to enjoy seeing the Star Wormwood fall upon the rivers and lakes, and cause everyone who drinketh of the water to die in horrible agony.

Oh, what fun that would have been for him.

What's wryly amusing about all this is that the evangelicals who shriek the most loudly about the End Times are the same ones who claim to follow a man who is supposed to "come like a thief in the night" and who said "no one knoweth the day or the hour."  (Matthew 24:42-44)  The result is that they have about the same stealthiness level as these guys:

On the other hand, I have to admit that this time around, the lead-up to the big day has been a lot more subdued than usual.  Like I said, I damn near missed it.  Once alerted to what's coming, though, I did find a good bit about it online, especially on Reddit, Quora, and TikTok, and I did see a few people who found Generation2423's prediction genuinely scary.  One poor woman on TikTok said she was so terrified she felt nauseated, and was devastated she'd never get to see her kids grow up.  And I have to admit I felt a little sorry for her.

On the other hand, what always baffles me is the reaction of people like this after the prediction fails to pan out.  Because in a sane world, you'd think the True Believers would go, "Oh, what goobers we were to fall for such a ridiculous claim!  I shall learn some critical thinking skills right now!"  But that never happens.  Regular readers might recall that earlier this year, I wrote about the classic study done by psychologists Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, who back in 1954 infiltrated a doomsday cult.  When the predicted Day of Reckoning came, the cult members assembled in the home of the leader, praying like mad for fortitude to face the upcoming cataclysm.  At around 11:30 PM, the leader -- presumably concerned by the fact that all was quiet -- went into a back room, alone, to pray.  Then he came out just before midnight to announce the amazing news: God had told him he was rewarding their faithfulness and prayers by postponing the end of the world!

And there was much rejoicing.  Contrary to what you might expect, the result was that the cult members' belief became more fervent, because after all, how else could you explain the fact that their prayers had been granted?  Further illustrating the truth of the quote from Jonathan Swift: "You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into."

In any case, if you have plans for next Wednesday, I wouldn't worry about it.  Myself, I don't have any plans, but that's because I never do.  Assuming I'm still here Wednesday morning, I'm thinking I might head on down to Route 96 and see how the repaving is going.  That's about all the excitement I can handle.

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It's the end of the world, if you notice

I have commented more than once about my incredulity with regards to end-of-the-world predictions.  Despite the fact that to date, they have had a 100% failure rate, people of various stripes (usually of either the ultra-religious persuasion or the woo-woo conspiracy one) continue to say that not only is the world doomed, they know exactly when, how, and why.  (If you don't believe me, take a look at the Wikipedia page for apocalyptic predictions, which have occurred so often they had to break it down by century.)  

As far as why this occurs -- why repeated failure doesn't make the true believers say, "Well, I guess that claim was a bunch of bullshit, then" -- there are a variety of reasons.  One is a sort of specialized version of the backfire effect, which occurs when evidence against a claim you believe strongly leaves you believing it even more strongly.  Way back in 1954 psychologists Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter infiltrated a doomsday cult, and in fact Festinger was with the cult on the day they'd claimed the world was going to end.  When 11:30 PM rolled around and nothing much was happening, the leader of the cult went into seclusion.  A little after midnight she returned with the joyous news that the cult's devotion and prayers had averted the disaster, and god had decided to spare the world, solely because of their fidelity.

Hallelujah!  We better keep praying, then!

(Note bene: The whole incident, and the analysis of the phenomenon by Festinger et al., is the subject of the fascinating book When Prophecy Fails.)

Despite this, the repeated failure of an apocalyptic prophecy can cause your followers to lose faith eventually, as evangelical preacher Harold Camping found out.  So the people who believe this stuff often have to engage in some fancy footwork after the appointed day and hour arrive, and nothing happens other than the usual nonsense.

Take, for example, the much-publicized "Mayan apocalypse" on December 21, 2012 that allegedly was predicted by ancient Mayan texts (it wasn't) and was going to herald worldwide natural disasters (it didn't).  The True Believers mostly retreated in disarray when December 22 dawned, as well they should have.  My wife and I threw a "Welcoming In The Apocalypse" costume party on the evening of December 21 (I went as a zombie, which I felt was fitting given the theme), and I have to admit to some disappointment when the hour of midnight struck and we were all still there.  But it turns out that not all of the Mayan apocalyptoids disappeared after the prediction failed; one of them, one Nick Hinton, says actually the end of the world did happen, as advertised...

... but no one noticed.

Hinton's argument, such as it is, starts with a bit of puzzling over why you never hear people talking about the 2012 apocalypse any more.  (Apparently "it didn't happen" isn't a sufficient reason.)  Hinton finds this highly peculiar, and points out that this was the year CERN fired up the Large Hadron Collider and discovered the Higgs boson, and that this can't possibly be a coincidence.  He wonders if this event destroyed the universe and/or created a black hole, and then "sucked us in" without our being aware of it.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Lucas Taylor / CERN, CMS Higgs-event, CC BY-SA 3.0]

Me, I think I'd notice if I got sucked into a black hole.  They're kind of violent places, as I described a recent post about Sagittarius A* and the unpleasant process called "spaghettification."   But Hinton isn't nearly done with his explanation.  He writes:

There's the old cliché argument that "nothing has felt right" since 2012.  I agree with this...  [E]ver since then the world seems to descend more and more into chaos each day.  Time even feels faster.  There's some sort of calamity happening almost daily.  Mass shootings only stay in the headlines for like 12 hours now.  Did we all die and go to Hell?...  Like I've said, I think we live in a series of simulations.  Perhaps the universe was destroyed by CERN and our collective consciousness was moved into a parallel universe next door.  It would be *almost* identical.

Of course, this is a brilliant opportunity to bring out the Mandela effect, about which I've written before.  The idea of the Mandela effect is that people remember various stuff differently (such as whether Nelson Mandela died in prison, whether it's "Looney Tunes" or "Loony Tunes" and "The Berenstein Bears" or "The Berenstain Bears," and so forth), and the reason for this is not that people's memories in general suck, but that there are alternate universes where these different versions occur and people slip back and forth between them.

All of which makes me want to take Ockham's Razor and slit my wrists with it.

What I find intriguing about Hinton's explanation is not all the stuff about CERN, though, but his arguing that the prediction didn't fail because he was wrong, but that the world ended and seven-billion-plus people didn't even notice.  Having written here at Skeptophilia for over twelve years, I'm under no illusions about the general intelligence level of humanity, but for fuck's sake, we're not that unobservant.  And even if somehow CERN did create an alternate universe, why would it affect almost nothing except for things like the spelling of Saturday morning cartoon titles?

So this is taking the backfire effect and raising it to the level of performance art.  This is saying that it is more likely that the entire population of the Earth was unaware of a universe-ending catastrophe than it is that you're simply wrong.

Which is so hubristic that it's kind of impressive.

But I better wind this up, because I've got to prepare myself for the next end of the world, which (according to Messiah Foundation International, which I have to admit sounds pretty impressive) is going to occur in January of 2026.  This only gives us all a bit shy of three years to get ready, so I really should get cracking on my next novel.  And if that apocalypse doesn't pan out, evangelical Christian lunatic Kent Hovind says not to worry, the Rapture is happening in 2028, we're sure this time, cross our hearts and hope to be assumed bodily into heaven.

So many apocalypses, so little time.

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Apocalypse yesterday

I find it simultaneously amusing and terrifying how steeped in self-delusion some folks are.

Now, it's not that I think I'm always right, or free from biases.  Those of you who are regular readers of Skeptophilia will no doubt be aware of my opinion of the accuracy with which our brains function; I'm no more immune to getting things wrong than anyone is.  But still, one thing the scientific, rationalistic point of view does have is a clear protocol for figuring out when you are wrong.  At that point, you have no choice but to reconsider the theory in question.

But some people work the whole thing backwards.  It brings to mind the wonderful quote from Doctor Who in the episode "The Hand of Fear," in which the Fourth Doctor says, "The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: they don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views."

And at that point their altered facts, miraculously enough, always seem to support their model.  So without any apparent realization that they've just committed circular reasoning, they announce that their claim is vindicated.

Perhaps you remember the whole nonsense ten years ago about the Rapture, that came into the news largely because of the late Harold Camping, extremist religious wingnut extraordinaire.  Camping, you might recall, announced a date for the Rapture, and stated his case so vehemently that more than one of his followers sold all of their belongings and gave away the proceeds, or else used the money to purchase billboard space to warn the rest of us that the End Was Near.  The day before the Day, many of them bid tearful farewells to their loved ones, promising to say a good word in Jesus's ear on their behalf after all the dust settled.

Then, the next day, nothing happened.

So Camping revised his prediction to a new date, six months later.  This time he was right, he said, cross his heart and hope to vanish.  But once again, the faithful stayed put on Earth, and worse still, the Antichrist never showed.  So Camping closed up shop, and two years later, died of a stroke at the ripe old age of 92, disappointed to the last that he hadn't lived to see the Rivers Running Red With The Blood Of Unbelievers.  What fun that would have been!

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Viktor Vasnetsov (1887)  [Image is in the Public Domain]

You'd think that sort of failure record (100%) would be a little discouraging to the faithful, wouldn't you?  We keep having predictions of the End Times, and the world refuses to cooperate, and end already.  No Beasts appear, no Antichrist, no Seven Seals; everything just kind of keeps loping along as usual.  Eventually, you'd think people would say, "Hey, you know what?  Maybe we need to reconsider all of this apocalyptic stuff, because so far, it's running a zero batting average."

But no.  They'd never let a little thing like no results change their minds.  And now we have a guy who takes the alter-the-facts approach and pushes it to its ultimate endpoint: he says that the Rapture did too happen, and if you didn't notice, it was your own damn fault.

I'm not making this up.  According to the website Now the End Begins, the holy actually did get Raptured.  Millions are missing, the site says:

Well, we told you it was coming.  Perhaps you were a casual reader of this site, but never got really involved, "too many religious nuts" you said.  Maybe you had a family member who would plead with you night after night to "get right" with Jesus before His return.  "Nah, never happen", you said, "people been saying that for ever. Nonsense!".  But, it wasn't nonsense, was it?  Turns out the religious nuts were right after all.  The Rapture of the Church actually happened.  Now we are gone, and you remain.  Left behind.  I can only imagine the shock - terror - panic - and questions that must be running through your head right now.  My heart breaks for you, and that's why I made this page, to get you through what the Bible calls the time of Jacob's Trouble, the Great Tribulation, and it's moments away from starting.  Are YOU ready?

I... what?

What do you mean "we are gone?"  If you're gone, who is writing for and maintaining the site?  Are you suggesting that Heaven has WiFi and a fast internet connection?  Is the server hosted by the Lord of Hosts?  What do you do if Christ wants to use the Holy Computer while you're updating the website?  Do you tell him, "I'm sorry, Jesus, but you'll have to surf the web another time?"

But my main objection is, if all of those people really had disappeared, don't you think someone would have noticed by now?  Sure, the website tells us.  We all did notice.  And apparently, we're all pretty puzzled about it:

And that's exactly what just happened, and where we have now gone.  Oh, knowing the media as I do, I am sure that there are many attempts to explain it - UFO's, alien abductions, a harmonic convergence, a government program, FEMA camps, cosmic shift, worm holes, and the list goes on and on.  But none of those explainations [sic] really satisfy you, do they?  I mean, it's hundreds upon hundreds of millions of people, right?  Could any one government, no matter how corrupt, really process that many people in the "blink of an eye".  No, they could not.  You know better than that.

I do?  I mean, yes, of course I do.  I'd never fall for the media telling me that hundreds of millions of people were sucked into a wormhole!  That'd just be silly!  I'll believe instead that hundreds of millions of people vanished, and no one has mentioned it in the media at all!

Because, of course, the teensy little problem with all of this is that everyone seems to kind of... still be here.  While I understand that given the circles I travel in, it's understandable that none of my immediate friends and family were Bodily Assumed Into Heaven, you'd think that at least one or two casual acquaintances would be amongst the hundreds of millions who were holy enough to be Raptured.  Strange to say, I haven't noticed anyone in my community vanishing lately.  I really don't think that I'd have missed something like that.  There are even a few I can think of that I'd be happy enough to wave goodbye to, as they floated off into the sky, but no such luck.

The rest of the site consists of suggestions about what to do now that we've been Left Behind (number one piece of advice: don't accept the Mark of the Beast).  But all of that really pales by comparison to the opening bits, wherein they tell us that the Rapture happened while we were otherwise occupied, and we Ungodly Types have yet to notice.

I've said before about the extremely religious that they'll never let a little thing like facts stand in the way of their beliefs, but this may be the best example yet.  The whole thing reminded me of the words of George Aiken, Republican senator from Vermont, who said, when it became obvious that the United States was losing the Vietnam War, "The best policy is to declare victory and leave."  Or in this case, don't let the fact that the Rapture didn't happen interfere with your conviction that the Rapture has actually happened.

Bringing to mind a final quote, this one from George Orwell's 1984: "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your own eyes and ears.  It was their final, most essential command."

Me, I'm just going to do what the world does, namely, keep moseying along and not worry about it.  Even if the UltraChristian crowd is right, I'm pretty certain to be Left Behind anyhow, a possibility that doesn't scare me much.  I've read the Book of Revelation more than once, and I have to point out that whatever else you can say about it, the apocalypse sounds interesting.  There's the Scarlet Whore of Babylon and the Beast with Seven Heads and the Star Wormwood and the Four Apocalyptic Horsepersons and various other special offers from the God of Love and Mercy, any one of which would certainly alleviate the boredom around here.  So if the Rapture really has already happened, let's get this apocalyptic ball rolling, okay, people?  The End Times are a-wastin'.

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One of the most devastating psychological diagnoses is schizophrenia.  United by the common characteristic of "loss of touch with reality," this phrase belies how horrible the various kinds of schizophrenia are, both for the sufferers and their families.  Immersed in a pseudo-reality where the voices, hallucinations, and perceptions created by their minds seem as vivid as the actual reality around them, schizophrenics live in a terrifying world where they literally can't tell their own imaginings from what they're really seeing and hearing.

The origins of schizophrenia are still poorly understood, and largely because of a lack of knowledge of its causes, treatment and prognosis are iffy at best.  But much of what we know about this horrible disorder comes from families where it seems to be common -- where, apparently, there is a genetic predisposition for the psychosis that is schizophrenia's most frightening characteristic.

One of the first studies of this kind was of the Galvin family of Colorado, who had ten children born between 1945 and 1965 of whom six eventually were diagnosed as schizophrenic.  This tragic situation is the subject of the riveting book Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, by Robert Kolker.  Kolker looks at the study done by the National Institute of Health of the Galvin family, which provided the first insight into the genetic basis of schizophrenia, but along the way gives us a touching and compassionate view of a family devastated by this mysterious disease.  It's brilliant reading, and leaves you with a greater understanding of the impact of psychiatric illness -- and hope for a future where this diagnosis has better options for treatment.

[Note: if you purchase this book from the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

 

Post-apocalyptic pet care

The American public has quite a taste for the dire predictions from the Book of Revelation.  Consider, for example, the 2014 Rapture-based movie Left Behind starring Nicolas Cage.  Cage plays a character called "Rayford Steele," meaning that he is of course the action hero, similar to David Ryder in Space Mutiny, whose many names are chronicled in this not-to-be-missed montage courtesy of Mystery Science Theater 3000.  (You should watch this right now.  Seriously.  However, don't try to drink anything while doing so.  You have been warned.)

But unfortunately, the critics weren't exactly enamored of Left Behind.  It ran at an abysmal 2% approval rating at the site Rotten Tomatoes, which is the lowest I can ever recall seeing.  Here are a few of my favorite reviews:

• Left Behind is one of those films so deeply, fundamentally terrible that it feels unwittingly high-concept.
• Aside from [its] faulty conceit, the movie, on a pure thriller level, is a massive collection of awkward, poorly written character moments and supposedly spectacular set pieces that are stretched far too thin.
• Score one for Satan.

And the best one of all:

• I can't wait for Nic Cage to explain THIS one to God on Judgment Day.

But the fact remains that a sizable number of Americans believe that this movie is reflective of reality, and that it is accurate in concept if not in the exact details.  Sooner or later, probably sooner, the holy will be assumed bodily up into heaven, leaving the rest of us poor slobs to duke it out down here, not to mention contending with the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, the Four Apocalyptic Horsepersons, the Beast With Seven Heads and Ten Crowns, and other special offers.

But this does raise certain inevitable theological quandaries.  What about innocents who are caught up, all unwary, in the whole end-of-the-world free-for-all?  It hardly seems fair that the sins of us Bad Guys should be visited upon individuals who don't really deserve it, like little infidel children and so on.

And it's not just the kids, you know.  What about the pets?  Well, at least that we can do something about, at least if you believe the efforts of Lansing, Michigan True Believer Sharon Moss and her unbelieving best friend Carol, who have founded a company called "After the Rapture Pet Care."

Guinness looks a little worried about the issue, doesn't he?  He shouldn't fret.  There's no chance his owners are gonna end up getting Raptured.

While I was reading this, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop -- for there to be some sort of "We're kidding!" announcement, or at least an admission that it was a money-making enterprise by some scheming atheists trying to bamboozle (and simultaneously make fun of) gullible Christians.  But apparently, this thing is for real.  For a "small fee" (I think a ten-dollar registration charge is all it takes, although I could be misreading the fine print), holy individuals will be paired up with "nice non-Christians" who are willing to take and care for any Left Behind Pets.  Right from their website:

When all the Christians on the planet disappear, there will certainly be massive confusion.  However, the majority of people will still be on earth, and communications will be their first priority to maintain.  Therefore, I believe it will not be a problem to coordinate activities to rescue and care for your pets.  As far as the data about all registered pets, it is located on Google servers (the most secure servers in the world) as well as our own server in Lansing, Michigan (away from political and military hot spots to minimize chance of destruction if there is a post-Rapture war).  The non-Christian administrators assigned to coordinate our efforts after we’re gone are also located in multiple locations, all with log in information.

You can even purchase a stylish "After the Rapture Pet Care Volunteer Pet Caregiver" t-shirt for only $38.

Although the thought crosses my mind: wouldn't wearing such a t-shirt identify you as a sinner?  After all, if you sign up to take care of Raptured people's pets, it's pretty much equivalent to admitting you're one of the lost.  I'd wear one just for fun, and also because I don't think anyone has any particular questions about my status apropos of the Last Judgment, but I'm not forking over $38 to do it.

But if you're interested, you can also get mugs, bumper stickers, and totes.  Me, I'm gonna save my money.  Certain as I am that I'll still be around should the Rapture actually happen, I have no particular desire to look after pets left behind by the pious.  I already have two dogs whose capacity for bringing chaos and filth into the house is unparalleled, and frankly, that's about all I can handle.

On the other hand, if there's anyone who is wondering what will happen to their collection of classic sports cars After the Rapture, and wants someone to be ready to step in, I'm happy to help.  Selfless, that's me.

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This week's Skeptophilia book-of-the-week is for people who are fascinated with the latest research on our universe, but are a little daunted by the technical aspects: Space at the Speed of Light: The History of 14 Billion Years for People Short on Time by Oxford University astrophysicist Becky Smethurst.

A whirlwind tour of the most recent discoveries from the depths of space -- and I do mean recent, because it was only released a couple of weeks ago -- Smethurst's book is a delightful voyage into the workings of some of the strangest objects we know of -- quasars, black holes, neutron stars, pulsars, blazars, gamma-ray bursters, and many others.  Presented in a way that's scientifically accurate but still accessible to the layperson, it will give you an understanding of what we know about the events of the last 13.8 billion years, and the ultimate fate of the universe in the next few billions.  If you have a fascination for what's up there in the night sky, this book is for you!

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Post-Rapture checklist

For those of you who are, like me, evil, sinful unbelievers who are doomed to the fiery furnace for all eternity, I have some good news:

A Michigan pastor has created a checklist of all the things we should do when we miss the Rapture.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Personally, I think this is pretty considerate of him.  After all, he's going to be long gone, floating up to heaven to sit forever in the Fields of Lilies, which sounds to me like a good way to have a serious attack of pollen allergy.  Be that as it may, Pastor Dave Williams, of Mount Hope Church in Lansing, Michigan, has provided us non-lily-sitters with some guidelines of what we should do when all of the holy people evaporate.

So, with no further ado:

1. Do not believe the explanations given by the secular media.

Well, most of the people of Pastor Williams's stripe already don't, so this one is a bit of a no-brainer.  The idea, apparently, is not to buy it when the mainstream media says the vanished folks have been "beamed to some interplanetary spaceship to be reprogrammed."  Which doesn't sound like something the mainstream media would claim, although in an extreme case like the Rapture, it's hard to know what they'd say.

2. Get rid of your cell phone.

I guess the government left behind is going to be made up of Not Nice People, and they might use your cell phone to track you.  Why they'd be after you, since you're one of the evil people who didn't get Raptured, I don't know.

3. Do not kill yourself. 

Which is good advice under most circumstances.

4. Repent immediately and make your peace with God.

I guess the message here is that it's not too late to reserve yourself a place amongst the lilies, even if you didn't get Raptured.  I have a hard time imagining myself changing my mind to the extent that I'll make up for all of my years of godlessness, but you never know what someone might do in extremis.  Guess I'll have to wait and see on that one.

5. Make sure you have a printed Bible.

Got that one covered.  Actually I have several -- different translations, mostly.  One of them is a bible given to me by my grandmother at my confirmation into the Catholic church, which I remember mostly because of the horrifying illustrations of the Maccabees getting various body parts lopped off.  The pictures were supposed to be edifying -- I think the message is, "Look how holy these people were, hanging on to their religion even when they were being gruesomely tortured" -- but the message I got from it was, "If anyone ever threatened to cut my hands off and rip my tongue out, I'd drop my religion like a hot potato."  Hell, I figure if under #4 above I can still make up for it, I'll be okay regardless.

6. Leave your home and get away from the cities, especially big cities.

A non-issue for me, since I live so far out in the sticks my nearest neighbors are cows.  I guess this makes sense, though, as based on Stephen King's The Stand, wherein a few survivors of the Superflu got stuck in Manhattan, and ended up having to walk in the dark through the Lincoln Tunnel which at the time was clogged with wrecked cars and decomposing bodies, a scene that still haunts my nightmares.

7. Pray to God to help you and give you strength.

Cf. #4 above.

8. Don't go to church.

The idea apparently is that any church you go to post-Rapture has some problems, given that they didn't get Raptured themselves.  Again, this one isn't a problem in my case.  If a bunch of the people on Earth suddenly vanished, I highly doubt the first thing I'd do is turn to my wife and say, "Hey, I know.  Let's take in a mass."

9. Get a small, self-powered radio.

That way you can keep abreast of further fun developments, such as the appearance of the Beast and the Rivers Running Red With The Blood Of Unbelievers.  Although you'd think you wouldn't need a radio to tell you all that.  It doesn't sound like something that would escape notice, frankly.

10. Keep praying for your loved ones who are unbelievers.

"Your prayers may be the key to seen your loved ones after this period of supreme agony is over," Pastor Williams tells us.  Which sounds good, at least the "seeing your loved ones" part, even though I'm not looking forward to the "supreme agony" part so much.

And last:

11. Leave copies of this list for as many people as you can.

At least by this post I am doing my part in that regard.

So there you have it.  A handy checklist for all of us damned folks to follow.  Me, I'm not losing any sleep over it, because people like Pastor Williams have been predicting the Rapture for decades, and here we all still are.  Also, I figure that since the evangelicals have gone all gaga over Donald Trump, maybe the Antichrist will be more my type in any case.