January 2012
48 posts
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Salem Kirban's apocalypse illustrations
Via SFWeekly’s Alan Scherstuhl, “Salem Kirban’s 1970 Photos of the Apocalypse Include a Giant Christbot“—because you just can’t beat a giant Christbot—is, fittingly enough, included in the ”Studies in Crap” blog.
Kirban was a snake-oil salesmen who found his calling in Bible prophecy books. Schertstuhl ran across a paperback copy of...
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"The species formerly known as human has pissed...
From “Apocalypse Already,” by Clarke Cooper, writing on HiLoBrow:
But now look. Something went wrong — I’m not sure — somehow, in these last few years, everything went… flat, and our screaming plunge towards Doomsday leveled out into Dante’s Steam Train at Six Flags over Hell. Where once we had War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death to contend with, now there’s Limited Engagement,...
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Literary apocalypse
Cross-posted from Bibliolatry.
Two fairly recent books—both of which are generating a good amount of buzz—take on the “end of the world” fascination (including the variation that involves zombies) with a more literary twist. The first, by Colson Whitehead, might be considered a straight-up zombie novel—except that it isn’t. In Zone One, Whitehead (the author of...
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"Strange sounds" and the apocalypse
There are a number of stories circulating right now about “strange sounds” being heard, and attributing them to either experiments being conducted by HAARP (the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program), about which there exist an abundance of conspiracy theories, or that the “sounds” are actually the Lord’s trumpets announcing Armageddon. Of course, one report...
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“In the case of the [Tim] LaHaye endorsement, the idea is that [Newt] Gingrich is...”
– Deanne Stillman, “California and the Rapture-Ready Candidacy of Newt Gingrich,” via Truthdig.
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The way Hitchens described the writing style of...
Yeah, sometimes Christopher Hitchens just nailed it.
thatbeardedatheist:
[Speaking on religions constantly writing about the apocalypse] to the best selling pulp fiction Left Behind series, which ostensibly authored by Tim LeHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, was apparently generated by the old expedient of letting two orangutans loose upon a word processor.
Oh my god, it’s just fucking gold....
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Top 25 Theories On How The World Will End |... →
Great graphic representation of some of the predicted end-of-the-world scenarios.
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““Those who took [Tim] LaHaye seriously in 1982 would have been surprised...”
– Fred Clark at Slacktivist, “Tim LaHaye gets apocalyptic in backing Newt Gingrich.”
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Crackpot end of the world theories
From UGO, this list of 11 Crackpot End of the World Theories.
Of course, our old friend Harold Camping is on the list, but he’s at the very end. That’s because a prediction of the Rapture and Armageddon isn’t nearly as crackpot as some of the others.
We’ve also got the guy who predicted a new ice age beginning in 2000 (nope, didn’t happen). Then there’s...
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Preparing for the apocalypse: "It's a ton of fun"
Yes, we should all be light-hearted and excited about getting ready for humanity’s end. After all, it’s at least as big an event as, say, a tailgate party or a Fourth of July barbecue.
Well, maybe it’s more along the lines of an intellectual exercise for people who are interested in ways to preserve culture and human knowledge in what are bound to be very difficult times ahead.
...
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/inb4everything: The 5 Most Likely Causes of the... →
inb4everything:
1. After being buried at sea and exposed to the nuclear radiation at the bottom of it, Osama bin Laden returns as a zombie. He bombs America, and by extension, the rest of the world since America is the best country.
2. We learn that the dinosaurs weren’t actually wiped out, but instead got…
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“Always deny the apocalypse. Because you’ll usually be right, and when you’re...”
– Charlie McDonnell (via thecuriouscheshirecat)
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"The Rapture is for ninnies"
The SF Chronicle’s Mark Morford—always good for an iconoclastic laugh—wrote about the Rapture in his column on Wednesday:
Verily, from the Mayans to the Greeks, the pagans to the nutball evangelicals, New Age hippies to the witches of Burning Man, every tribe has their ache for transformation, for a final, orgasmic release into the Great Void. Right now it’s freshly...
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How apocalypse-belief harms others
And this is where apocalypse-believers do the most damage: to their children. A moving essay from Ex-Christians.net, “Waiting for the Apocalypse”:
Years of warnings from preachers, family members and every other adult I trusted left me unable to believe anything but this: the world was ending any day; it was only a matter of time. I kept my fears to myself and accepted that my life...
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Why do we love apocalypse?
This very thoughtful and bookish, literary essay by Daniel Baird is in the January/February 2012 issue of The Walrus.
“Apocalypse Soon”:
The difficulty with prophecies — whether based on passages from the Bible or ancient calendars, on solid climate science and economics or the visions of the Mongolian shamans Lawrence E. Joseph visited while researching his books — is that they are...
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Save the planet. Recycle.
In fact, CRACKED offers 10 great books on surviving Y2K that can be recycled to prepare for the 2012 apocalypse:
10 Real Survival Guides For One Very Fake Apocalypse
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Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve gets better... →
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Jeffs' apocalypse prophecy and FLDS shake-up
dWith all the attention going toward the so-called Mayan apocalypse, let’s not lose sight of the fundy Mormon apocalypse: Jailed Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) prophet Warren Jeffs has predicted the destruction of the world by a god who is very displeased at his incarceration for child rape.
What’s more, in preparation for this apocalypse, Jeffs has...
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Because scaring little kids is SUCH a good way to...
Via the Daily Mail in the UK (and if I’m not mistaken, that’s one of Satan’s—I mean Rupert Murdoch’s—tabloids) comes this story of a religious education teacher in Italy who terrified the five- and six-year-olds in her class with a graphic description of the Apocalypse from the book of Revelation. She was suspended by her school, but supported by Pope Benedict...
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Some sanity--and facts--about the Mayan Long Count...
Yeah, it’s not as much fun as predicting the end of the world, but it is interesting. This comes from the Ottawa Citizen in Canada.
So what exactly was written in the final eight glyphs on Tortuguero Monument 6?
The Maya recorded that on Dec. 21, 2012 the 13th baktun will end. Bolon Yokte’, a god of transition associated with the ending of time periods, will witness the ceremonies...
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ipowder asked: Man has always shown inconsistencies in anything from prophecies to the weather to politics and to medicine. Jumping the gun at times maybe from inaccurate advice, information, or even deception. We see that in politics, government, countries, and in medicine. We probably have to go back just before the inaccuracies took place and sort out the flaws/mistakes so that it's accordance to the...
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I don't see why everyone is tweaking out about the...
Now, here’s a sensible attitude.
the-sputnik-complex:
The epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows takes place in 2017 so all will clearly be well.
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This is enraging ... but there is a solution
I’m watching CNN’s “special report” on the rumors and fears about 2012 as an apocalyptic date, and I’m rapidly losing my temper.
What a piece of crap.
Rather than examine the misinformation, hype and fearmongering in a reasonable manner, they’re just profiling people’s fears and acting as if they’re somehow rational. Yes, they’re using...
