Bruin Alliance of Skeptics and Secularists

Meeting discussion:

We watched a clip from Marjoe, an academy award winning documentary about former child minister Marjoe Gortner. He became a born-again preacher four years after he was born, apparently because he had been forced (physically) by his mother. This happened around 1950, but could people still pull it off today? A few people were quick to point out Jesus Camp as a modern example.

Sounds interesting, right? We’ll probably have a screening of Marjoe at a later point in time.

The main topic for this meeting was the endtimes. Of course the date everyone knows is December 21, 2012, the day when the Mayan Calendar ends. Because those Mayans sure knew a lot, especially about the 21^st century. Spencer note that the Mayans in fact did see their own endtimes—and they never saw it coming. But there are plenty of other predictions of the world’s demise. We got a bit into the Y2K bug and the zombie apocalypse, but the other really well-known endtimes prediction comes from the book of Revelations.

The basic storyline of Revelations, I’m told, is that the Anti-Christ first unites the Earth and creates a false religion. And then, a series of disasters occur! This should probably be interpreted in its historical context, but never mind that. Now we have a series of popular novels (as well as a movie and video game), called Left Behind, which is based loosely on Revelations. In Left Behind, suddenly all the born-again Christians (and none of those other kinds of Christians) disappear in the Rapture. Everyone else, left behind, either joins the Anti-Christ, or start fighting against the UN. Apparently, this story speaks to people. It speaks to Glenn Beck, who took perhaps legitimate fears about the bailout, and turned them into an outrageous argument relating to the endtimes.

For discussion, I asked the question, “Why does the belief in endtimes come up so often throughout history?” It’s not just the Christians who have had the belief, and not just in modern times. Perhaps it comes from the belief that things are just getting worse and worse, not like the good old days. Or, as Kevin suggested, it is to create fear, which can be used to control. It’s not necessarily malicious in intent; people simply want to be able to turn the world around. Someone else suggested that once you are afraid enough, you have the need to spread it around, causing a chain reaction. The Shrinking Penis panics in parts of Africa were cited as an example of this phenomenon.

And how can we argue against belief in the endtimes? Do we ask for a definitive date, and then wait it out? Do we point towards all the previous failed predictions? Wrong beliefs can be so resilient.