Politics and The Apocalypse

Tales of the A.I induced apocalypse seem to have come and gone.  The president seems to have put the final shovel of dirt on that grave last weekend.  No one cares about climate change much anymore.  Funny how that talk waxes and wanes with opportunities to put socialist policies into place.  So, what’s the catastrophe selling industry supposed to do?   Why up the ante – of course.

Here you go:

Earth’s life-support systems are failing, scientists have warned – with seven out of nine key indicators now in the ‘danger zone’.

A coalition of 60 scientists analysed a range of measures including climate change, change in biosphere integrity and freshwater change.

They said that of the nine ‘planetary boundaries’ that allow life on our planet to flourish, seven were at the worst levels since the survey started nearly two decades ago.

Yeah – that’s the ticket.  Bluff ’em.  Go all in.  I’m thinking the AI apocalypse stood a batter chance.  I really hate to break it to the doomsayers out there, but you lost all credibility for a couple of generations with covid.  You got no shot.

Back when the AI apocalypse was all we could talk about, I wrote:

As long as there have been people there has been the belief that our total and complete annihilation was just around the corner – and yet here we are.  But over these millennia there has been a change in that conviction.  You can see it in the list I just presented if you are astute.  For thousands of years of man’s existence, those visions of an apocalypse represented the judgement of God, or “the gods” if that is your bent.  But sometime, really just in the last couple hundred years, the apocalypse became no longer the product of deific judgement and morphed into some sort of self-destruction.

I went on to briefly look at how that illustrates how we have ever so slowly taken God off the throne and put ourselves on it.  Yesterday I wrote about dying churches, arguing more or less the same thing.  All these thoughts crossed my mind when I encountered this story about a reasonable pastor destroying the absolutely nutty James Talarico (senatorial candidate – TX – Democrat) who, as a Presbyterian seminarian, claims Biblical authority for some of his most outrageous positions.

The difference between the two men’s approach to the Bible is quite stark.  Talarico approaches the Bible looking for justification for his positions.  His interlocutor is trying to figure out what the Bible is trying to tell us.  Talarico, once again, places man in the preeminent position, while the other gentleman seeks God’s wisdom – submitting to God.  Yes, the Presbyterian church that Talarico claims such spiritual authority from is one of those rapidly dying churches.  Coincidence?  I think not.

The time has come to consider our fears of a self-destructive apocalypse for what they truly are – a portend of the world without God, or at least where we subjugate God to filling our desires instead of seeking His desires.  These apocalyptic visions keep driving us to solve our own problems.  Maybe they should drive us to seek God’s wisdom.

The leftover pile is small this week

CNN has a meltdown every time Trump does anything.  This is not news.

When California really, really gets under your skin.