"In the City of God there will be a great thunder, Two brothers torn apart by
Chaos, while the fortress endures, the great leader will succumb, The third big
war will begin when the big city is burning" - Nostradamus 1654
I can only hope that this horrible hoax, because that is what this alleged
quatrain from the "prophet" Nostradamus is, was perpetrated accidentally and not
by somebody taking advantage of or poking fun at the human tragedy that hit the
United States on September 11, 2001. Several other similar verses were released
over the Internet, and self-styled Nostradamus "expert" John Hogue immediately
took to the media for a special appearance on the Art Bell show commenting on
what Nostradamus "really" predicted. To decrease my faith in humankind even
further, my wife came home the other day from her job at the public library
telling me that all the books on Nostradamus are gone and the public still calls
for more.
It shouldn't take a course in critical thinking to realize that the
suspicious thing about prophecies (even those that are not actually written
after the fact) is that we realize what they were predicting only after the
events. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, but one could reasonably ask what is
the point of a prophecy that can only be understood when it's too late. The
interpretation of a single prophecy always depends upon what time the
interpretation is taking place, as the vague poetic lines are stretched and cut
to fit whatever has just happened or what seems likely to happen. So, rather
than coming to the true understanding of a prophecy, what we're really doing is
making it up out of thin air, just as the prophet did originally.
What good are psychics if they can't warn of specific, imminent danger? For
example, multimillionaire mind- and future-reader Sylvia Browne was on CNN's
Larry King Live just a few days before the terrorist attack. She wasted her
talent warning skeptic James Randi that he had something wrong in his left
ventricle (Randi is in good health, but it is also a good bet that an elderly
white American male will eventually have something wrong with his heart) instead
of warning everybody on live national TV of what was about to happen. It was her
chance to prove herself, and she blew it.
Of course, the true believer always has a ready answer: the point of the
prophecy is to make you realize the power of mystical and religious inspiration,
annihilate your pride in reason and open your heart to God, not merely to save
human lives.
And speaking of God, rabid Christian fundamentalist Jerry Falwell was also
out for publicity immediately after the tragedy. Was he praying for the victims
and offering spiritual guidance to the rest of the nation? No, he was busy
explaining why this all happened. According to this monster the reason all those
people died was twofold: First, evil exists (an observation about which one can
hardly disagree, although definitions of evil differ) and, second, God has
lifted his umbrella of protection and allowed the tragedy to occur. Apparently,
God lifted his protection because of too much secularism, not allowing kids to
pray or read the Bible in school (which is not true), and allowing porn on the
Web.
These statements are so outrageously stupid and offensive to the memory of
the people who died that you would expect them to be immediately chastised by
any reasonable Christian who was listening to Falwell's show. Alas, millions of
people are hooked on the words of a man whose worldview is similar to that of
the fringe religionists who rejoiced at the attack. It is frighteningly easy to
imagine someone prone to Falwell's thinking style becoming someone like bin
Laden under different historical circumstances. Falwell, after all, does want to
turn the United States into the Christian equivalent of Taliban Afghanistan.
This morning I was riding the bus to work and they were broadcasting a local
radio talk show where people were understandably upset at the events of the
previous days and were trying to come to grips with the surreal situation. I
imagine most of the callers had spent the previous Tuesday in a state of mind
similar to my own, shocked by the news, unable to fully comprehend the scope of
the tragedy or the sickness of the minds that planned it and carried it out in
cold blood. But of course most of the callers to the show went immediately
beyond the specific event to further-consciously or not-their religious agenda.
A typical comment was "we need to turn this nation to God."
Well, wake up people, this nation is turned to God. Constantly. God is all
over this nation, from the now ubiquitous signs on our highways to the highest
number and density of churches that ever occurred not only in the US but
probably in any other time or place in the world. Over 95% of the citizens of
the US profess belief in a personal God, and about half of them hold onto at
least some of the most fundamentalist views espoused by the innumerable sects
that have developed at an incredible pace over the last century. Why would God
"lift his umbrella" from one of the most adoring places on the whole planet?
More importantly, what kind of a horrible God allows thousands of innocent
people to be wiped out in an instant just because somebody posts pornographic
pictures on the Internet? Ah, but I forgot that this is the same sort of God
that told the Jews to exterminate entire races because they didn't please Him
enough, and added that they should slaughter their enemies' children and-for
good measure-rape their wives (see Genesis 34:13-29, Exodus 17:13, 32:27-29,
Numbers 16:27-33, 21:35, 31:17-28, Deuteronomy 2:33-34, 3:6, 7:2, 20:13-14, and
the list can go on and on). Is this the sort of God that our nation should turn
toward? I suggest instead that we try to nuke Him if we can find where in the
Hell He hides!
As the reader can see, this is an angry column. I rarely allow myself this
sort of unbridled frankness, but too much is too much even for somebody
attempting to style his life after the moderate advise of Epicurus. These people
must be stopped, and I'm not talking only about the Islamic fundamentalists, but
about any sort of fundamentalist-religious or not-who thinks he's got the answer
to all the world's problems, if only the world would submit to his iron-fisted
rule. It is time for all people of good will and good sense to say: Enough!
