Bunker Blog: 4 Time

Is time flat or cyclical?

Did time begin at a definite point and does it have a definite end?

Or is time a series of cycles? Should time be pictured as a revolving wheel?

How you answer these questions will define the perspective that you take toward eschatology. If you think of time as linear, then you believe that time had a beginning and it has an eventual end. If you think of time as cyclical, then the beginning is just a beginning.

Humans originally answered these questions by looking around them. They looked around and saw clear evidence that time was cyclical. The sun goes down, and comes back up. The rains of spring follow the snows of winter. The phases of the moon are predictably repetitive. That which is happening now, has happened before and will happen again.

So, it was easy for them to assume that time was a cycle - a series of infinite recurrences. Most people believed this way until a special group of people came along. The apocalyptic prophets. They were preachers with visions of the future. They spoke of doom and judgement, but also of restoration and justice.

Prophets  of the Apocalypse were from many different faiths. Prognosticators arose when people began to see the world from a cosmic perspective. They looked to the stars and saw doom or hope. They saw deities manipulating the gears of time. They wondered what lay ahead for their children, their children's children. What machinations did these gods and stars have in mind?

The history of Jewish people is full of sadness and tragedy. After the Golden age of King Solomon, the kingdom of Israel was constantly harried by troubles: civil war, invasion, and enslavement. This sadness and the longing for a brighter future gave us the Prophets.

At first, the Prophets warned the Hebrew people that their behavior would get them in trouble. The prophet Amos gave up farming to preach and warn the nation of the consequences of their bad behavior - judgement day was coming. Nobody listened. So, he went back to farming. Judgement Day came. The Northern Israelite were conquered by the Assyrian Empire. The region was depopulated and carried off to exile in Nineveh.

Jeremiah warned the leaders of  the Southern Kingdom. He wept and foretold their destruction. He pleaded with the leaders to not ally themselves with Egypt. They didn't listen.  The Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar rolled in, sacked Jerusalem, and took the population back to Babylon. Jeremiah was left to mourn over the ruins of the city.

Exile brought a whole new kind of prophesying. The Jewish people received a heavy dose of Persian influence while in captivity. They learned about the ardent monotheism of Zoroaster. The prophet Daniel was trained in Chaldean astrology. They learned concepts like paradise, hell, and a savior coming in the future. They incorporated these concepts into their faith. This caused them to see the stories of their origins in totally different ways.

They Hebrew people were exposed to the creation myths. Zoroastrianism's version of creation is that God created the known world in seven steps. He also created humanity, at first as an original couple. This couple were plagued by an powerful evil character attempting to mess up all that the God character had created.

Sound familiar?

The Book of Genesis specifically locates the Garden of Eden in Babylon.

The Jewish exiles had to re-interpret scripture. The End had already come. Their nation- the promised land - was gone. Their temple was gone. They now had to understand their circumstances from beyond their borders. Now, the prophets spoke of a supreme God that was not just the ruler of the Jewish people, but of all people. And this God would use the mighty rulers to restore Israel and dole out judgement upon the oppressors of the Jewish people.

The Prophets did not use clear or explicit language. Far from it. Instead, they used bizarre word pictures and metaphors. Their writings are chock full of symbology and coded references. Some of the passages border on nonsensical.  

The prophets now spoke about a future "End of Days" when God would put an end to all of the suffering and anguish that had befallen the oppressed. God would destroy the wicked and edify the wronged. Whoa to those who were on the wrong end of that continuum.

No longer was time a cycle (ashes to ashes, dust to dust). Time now had a definite beginning - God created the world in seven days. Time now had a definite end - the End of Days. Time was now linear.

The prophets became rabbis and the faith of the Jewish people continued to persist. The faith evolved under extraordinary circumstances. Through the many changes, they looked toward the future. They anticipated the arrival of the future savior - the Messiah. They looked forward to the End of Days and the restoration of the Promised Land.  Next Year, in Jerusalem.

Apocalyptic prophets followed, certainly. Eventually, the End of Days found its way into the theology of Christians. Oppressed and struggling with Roman persecution, early Christian writers identified Jesus as the Messiah. Like, the Hebrew prophets, they knew that God was the God of all nations and that history was pointed toward an edification of the Oppressed at the End of Days.

The new Christian prophets wrote in a style similar to the apocalyptic exiles. They used symbology, coded references, and strange word pictures. They openly mimicked the Prophets of exile and linked their message with the message of their predecessors. For them, time was absolutely linear and the end was near. It was very near.

Their message is clear. Get ready. the End could occur at any moment. The Messiah will return. The earth will burn. The dead will rise. Horrors will spread throughout the Earth as God renders judgement upon the sinful and unjust. Get ready. It is going to happen very very soon.

Over two millenia after the Apocalyptic Christian prophets, we're still waiting. Why? How do Christians explain that delay?

Bunker Blog: 3. Apocalyptic Gravedancing

So far, we have looked at some reasonable worries about The End. We have also examined some completely unreasonable ways of thinking about The End. Now, we turn to something all together different -

RELIGION

 Two asides:

One, When I say religion, I am going to be specifically referring to Christianity. This is a required by the limits of my own knowledge (all I know is Evangelical Christianity). This is also required since I think that much of the nonsense being pushed in the media about the current pandemic. I will try to do a post later with perspectives of other modern religions, but it will probably be worthless.

Also, we will also take a look at secular perspectives later. I am knee deep in some Heidegger right now. Once I figure out what the hell he was writing about, I will check back in.

 Social Media Chicken Littles

If you follow evangelical friends on social media, you may have come across a few biblical posts with dire warnings from the Bible. The COVID-19 pandemic has sent people diving for their bibles and looking for passages to explain our current crisis. Even Kourtney Kardashian chimed in with a reminder from 2 Chronicles -pay attention children.

In addition to crazy posts on social media, I have seen Bible verses quoted on news sites' comment sections, blog posts, and even in spots for  government feedback. Now, let's just take a minute and think of the type of person that decides to go on to a website and start copying and pasting Bible verses in the comment section. Yeah.

So, what has people so worked up?

Signs and Wonders

Many of us grew up inundated with this mentality. We gathered in churches multiple times a week and a preacher would tell us to interpret the signs all around us. He would tells us look out upon the world through the filter of scripture.

Let me tell you, those scriptures definitely affected the picture of the world that we saw. The coloration was darker, more foreboding, and full of potential destruction!  We would see evidence of the world hurtling toward destruction. The fabric of society was falling apart. The forces of Satan were conspiring against the Church of Christ and evil ran amok in the halls of power. Arrayed against us were principalities and demonic influences in high places.

In my last post, I mentioned how some people are drawn to conspiracies. Their minds translate the mysterious and the unknown in a way that stitches together different pieces of data and forms a picture that can only be understood via a particular key or code. Of course, the church provided this cypher. Bibles in hand, we sorted through the signs and wonders all around.   

Now, remember, this was our perspective when there was no pandemic! When stuff actually happens, we would get really crazy. During the days after September 11th, I was a young minister in training. The members at my church were concerned and prayerful. Their questions centered around End Times and assurances of personal salvation. Some people who were "saved" previous to those events, got "saved" all over again, just in case.

The point is, people have been primed. For years, some of us have heard constant exhortations to looks for "signs of the times". We should prepare ourselves for judgement of almighty God upon this Earth and the people therein.

Gravedancing 

 You may have noticed that it is not all doom and gloom from your fundamentalist friends and neighbors. They may seem quite excited for the End. In the midst of warnings about pale riders and brimstone storms, they may remind everybody about the glory of things to come.

This is not just grave dancing. This is the hope that we have been taught to maintain. The hope is rooted in the idea that Jesus will return and will not only bring judgement and devastation, but also rewards for the faithful.

Where did these strange ideas come from? What is the source for this perspective on the world? Well, some of  it comes from the Bible, for sure. However, the Bible has been jammed into a perspective and that perspective is extremely important in understanding the mindset of our apocalyptic friends.

I will try to trace some history in the next post.

Bunker Blog: 2. It is all a big conspiracy

There are plenty of perfectly reasonable things to fear. Essentially, human beings are already way out on a flimsy limb. Of course, we also have a saw and we are furiously attempting to cut that very limb.

Unreasonable

With all the things that a person could reasonably worry about, you'd think that would be enough. But, instead, we have decided to just make a bunch of things up to shroud the future in an even murkier fog.

Have you heard?

• COVID-19 is caused by 5G cell communications
• COVID-19 is a bioweapon that was developed by the Chinese government for the purpose of population control
• COVID-19 is a bioweapon that was developed in a Chinese lab secretly funded by US virologists
• COVID-19 was developed by the deep state and spread via aircraft contrails to destabilize the current US administration
• COVID-19 is a glorified flu bug that the media is sensationalizing to make the president look bad

 What is so appealing about conspiracy theories to so many people? This stuff spreads like wildfire.

People in Europe are literally burning down cell towers because they believe that advanced fifth generation (5G) cellular communications are causing COVID-19.

Why would people believe this garbage?

I'll give you three reasons, though the subject is complex. The reasons that I grabbed here will help us understand the more religious aspects - how the religious ideas develop and are accepted

1. Proportionality Bias

 To put it succinctly, proportionality bias is the innate belief that big events must be caused equally big events. Something that changed history must have been caused by something historically significant.

It is difficult for people with proportionality bias to fathom that the September 11th attacks were perpetrated by several dudes with box cutters and delusions. It is much more satisfying to see it as an "inside job", conjured by powerful and mysterious villains.

Even in small things we can experience proportionality bias. You are playing a board game, you need to roll a seven. You pick up the set of dice and gently blow on them, then use both hands to aggressively shake the dice. You toss the dice with a flair of the hand. When they stop rattling, voila: A seven!

Now did exhaling on a set of dice cause the seven? Did anything else you did change the outcome? No. The fact is that seven has a higher likelihood of occurring than any other number. But, we are not satisfied with dumb luck. We need the meaningful result to be caused by an equally meaningful cause.

2. Intentionality Bias

  Everything that happens, happens for a reason. There are no accidents. Intentionality  Bias is the human tendency to read into acts that are seemingly random.

Some people experience a natural occurrence, experience its reality, and move on. Others have need to see the reason for the occurrence and the meaning of the occurrence. They read intention and purpose into things that may or may not require such interpretation.

Now, this is a handy skill when dealing with people. Those who do not have intentionality bias can tend to be duped or misread social situations. To read into another person's intentions or motivations is a vital social skill for most people.

However, this bias can also cause us to completely misunderstand situations. For instance, I was in Grand Rapids last year, walking down a busy street. Some dude was walking toward me, staring at his phone. Collision. Apologies exchanged and on we went. But, I knew what was really going on. Within seconds of clearing the crash scene, I reached in my pocket. My wallet was still there. I've seen enough movies. I would not be victimized by a light fingered thief and his meet cute.

Did I read that situation correctly?

What about the person on TV news thanking god for the fact that the tornado had destroyed every house in their neighborhood but one - theirs?

"The twister blew apart my neighbors house, hopped up and over mine, and slammed apart my other neighbors house! Praise the Lord!"

You're cleaning out a closet. You move an old box and out falls a photograph. You pick it up and see the picture of a deceased relative. Suddenly, you realize what day it is. It is that same relative's birthday. Coincidence?

 Intentionality Bias may help us understand social situations, but they are a pretty bad way to understand a mechanical phenomenon. The tree that fell in the woods, just after you passed by probably wasn't being held up by a guardian angel. The phone call from a person who you were just thinking about was going to happen despite what you were thinking about. The white trails behind the jets far overhead have more to do with water vapors than the Deep State trying to sprinkle coronavirus on you. 

3. Pattern Searching 

Your brain is always working hard to make sense of all the stimulus around you. That sounds like a good thing and it is. Your brain is able to recognize patterns in the data that it is always collecting and then use those patterns to predict things to come.

If I gave you a series of numbers, your brain can find the pattern and predict what would happen if the series continues. 1331 1331 1331 1331 1331 ... You definitely can anticipate what will come next.

Our ancestors used this ability to anticipate the actions of predators and prey. They could avoid dangerous situations and discover advantageous opportunities. This constant search for patterns can also work against us. If you give the brain's pattern searching engine just a bit of a nudge, then an operatic masterpiece can turn into a song about how green chalk tastes like hippies:

Our pattern searching makes us really bad at some simple mathematics. If I flip a coin twenty times, and the coin lands tails twenty times in a row,  the twenty first coin flip is just as likely heads as it is tails. All the coin flips were 50/50. Whatever happened before has no bearing on the coin flip result. But, gamblers often bet on a "streak" and will bet that the pattern will continue. They are just as likely to see that heads is "due" and will bet the opposite of the pattern.

It is all dumb. It is still 50/50. Nothing is more or less likely to happen.

When you combine pattern searching with proportionality bias and intentionality bias, you can quickly get an overheated brain. Take that same brain and unleash it on a newspaper. It will come up with all kinds of disproportions, intentions, and patterns.

On days that Garfield eats lasagna, a homicide occurs. Coincidence?

Or, what if you have been told all your life that the End is near. What if you had been told that when you see certain things start to happen, then you could be assured that you were living in the final days of the human race. All of a sudden, the things that you see happening in the world everyday seem less random, and more significant. They seem more ominous.

What if the events of the world were caused by powerful forces and comprehensible only for those with the secret knowledge?

I've got to admit, that is an appealing way to look at the world.

A common 20th century adage is less appealing:  "Life is just one damned thing after another."

The pattern-seeking, proportion and intention biased mind is more satisfied with a story about cosmic forces manipulating the events of our lives. We prefer this to one damned thing after another. So, the story - complex and unlikely as it is - pulls us in. It changes our perspective. It gives us something to believe in.

Bunker Blog: 1. Reasonable Ways to Die

There are a lot of justifications for thinking apocalyptically - to believe that the world is ending. Some justifications are entirely reasonable. Others are most certainly unreasonable. And then, there are those justifications that are down right religious.

The Reasonable

There are good reasons to believe that the end is nigh. I mean, look around.

A whole generation of Americans grew up learning about the advantages of fallout shelters. US propaganda taught families how to hide during times of atomic war. Bert the Turtle taught kids how to "Duck and Cover" when the bombs were inbound.

That was then, and this is now. The great political leaders of our time have taken advantage of the opportunity presented by the end of the Cold War to actually make the Earth a more dangerous place. We are now closer than ever to committing mutual suicide via nuclear weapons. It would take one small mistake or one monumental misunderstanding to decimate the human population and could alter the face of the earth.

The Doomsday Clock is now measured in seconds. 

There almost 14000 nuclear weapons across the world. Nine or ten countries now have nuclear weapons. Two of these hate each other enough to use them (India and Pakistan). One country - China - is just beginning to stockpile and has aggressive ambitions for their region. The old nuclear club members are, of course, the US and Russia. These old hands have a tendency to accidentally go boom (Russia) and sometimes forget where they left their nukes (US has lost at least six).

Oh, and lets not forget: North Korea controls 20-30 nukes.     

Nuclear Apocalypse is just one of the perfectly reasonable things to worry about. History has shown that threats to humanity can come from all sorts of different things and are reasonable to consider.

Disease. We are currently in the midst of a pandemic that we will overcome. This disease is a naturally occurring instance of a virus jumping species. It will be difficult to overcome, but it is survivable. What happens, though, when the big one gets loose? What if it is not natural? What happens when some man-made horror show gets loose and we find ourselves smack in the middle The Stand?

Climate change. Scientist refer to this brief geological era in which we find ourselves as the "Anthropocene Epoch". They say this because we are living in a time where human beings are the most important change agents affecting the climate and the health of the Earth. Unfortunately, we're kind of dirty and gross and we have somehow managed to give our planet one hell of a fever.

Ecology. Even if we don't manage to boil the oceans, the mismanagement of our environment could kill us. Rampant, poorly planned exploitation of the Earth's resources are already destroying economies and cultures across the world. Doubling down on this madness will continue to tilt things toward destruction. We are already in the midst of mass extinction event that could took us down with it.

Natural Disaster. The universe may just get sick of us. There is all kinds of ways that nature can kill us. Super volcanoes, solar flares,  asteroid impact, magnetic polar flip, geomagnetic disturbances... There is plenty to worry about. 

There are plenty of things that could end the world, without making things up.

Next time: making things up

Bunker Blog: Notes from Underground

4.12.2020 Somewhere in Michigan, USA

The virus has continued to spread. 

I am underground, waiting for whatever comes next.

It has been 10 days since my last human contact. 

Who knows what is happening above me, in the world. 


 Actually, I am underground. I am in my basement office, bored. I actually haven't seen any friends, in person, in over a week. It's called isolation and we are using isolation to combat a deadly virus. I am writing this on Easter Sunday and the United States is still grappling with an outbreak of COVID-19. This is life in quarantine.

But, it is actually not so bad! I've got my family. We go for hikes, play board games, watch movies. You know what? It is actually quite nice! As strange as it is to say, I have sort of enjoyed this whole experience so far.

I am one of the lucky ones.

 People in health care are struggling to keep up with an outbreak that preys on the lungs and kills indiscriminately. They are forced to give help to people without the resources they need and they are fearful about their capabilities. That fear is real.

First responders all over the world go to emergencies, fearful of what horrors they may breathing while rendering aid. That fear is real.

 People are frightened all over this planet, praying for the pandemic to end, hoping that they and their loved ones will survive. That fear is real.

There are a lot of people who are scared of something all together different: the Apocalypse. Is that fear real? Is there reason to believe that this current crisis will bring the world, as we know it, to a halt?

While I'm quarantined for the next few weeks, I will be trying to sketch out some of the ideas behind this belief. Mostly, I will be focusing on Christian ideas of End Times, but we will also touch on futurology and some secular beliefs about the fate of our species.

I think that we will find that there is something within our human condition that is weirdly drawn to doomsday scenarios. When that draw is combined with religious fervor and spiritual schematics, it can be an intoxicating poison.

I should say that there are genuine existential threats to the world. There are wrongs that we should be actively trying to right. There are messes of our own creation that we need to clean up. There are problems in this world that can end it.

The question is, how can we think about these things with sober clarity, instead of paranoid hysteria? I think the best answer is to get our history straight, which I will be trying to do, with your help.

So, where is this world headed? What do people believe and project about the End of the World?

I hope you can spare some of your isolation time to explore this topic with me.

BUNKER BLOG 1 Reasonable

BUNKER BLOG 2 - Unreasonable

BUNKER BLOG 3  - Religious

Resurrection Day

On this Easter Sunday, I am reading portions of JR Daniel Kirk's wonderful and exhaustive A Man Attested by God. The book is a scholarly argument for the emphasis put on the humanity of Jesus by the writers of the Synoptic gospels.

Resurrection is usually a celebration of the divinity of Jesus: The conquering god, resplendent in power, tramples death itself. Messiah Jesus is revealed to the world as Almighty God. Divinity is proven. Alleluia! 

That is not the story of Scripture. The story of Resurrection, is a story about the Son of Man. It is the story of a man who appeared so divine that Mary Magdelene mistook him for a gardener! He said "Hi" to the women that came to perform burial and told them to stop grabbing his feet.

The resurrected Jesus walked with a few disciples on the Road to Emmaus. They ticked him off so much that he insulted them and lectured them. He was hungry enough to be talked into a meal. They didn't even realize that it was him until he blessed the meal and broke the bread. When he appeared to them later in Luke 24, he challenged them to touch him. He ordered them to see his flesh and blood, his hands and feet.

He was also still hungry. He ate some fish.

Here was a celebration of Immanuel - God is with us. He is with us so much that he is one of us. God had become so human that he died. God had become so human that even in conquering death, he had the dirty hands of a gardener and the famished stomach of a weary traveler. 

Like much of the Gospels, the Resurrection story presents no insecurity about Christ's divinity. It goes out of its way to be a human story. A wild and crazy story, but still a human story. In this human story we can find ourselves. Its a story about injustice and corruption. It is a story about tragedy and death. It is a story about the grief of those who loved someone who has died. It is a story about reunification. It is a story about confusion and shame when a tomb is found empty.

There is plenty of theologizing occurring on this Resurrection Day. But today, I'm reading the story as it is and letting it wash over me. I am not looking for truth. I am looking for myself.

We do not need to engage in a free-ranging investigation to seek out and construct who and what God truly is, and who and what man truly is, but only to read the truth about both where it resides, namely, in the fullness of their togetherness, their covenant which proclaims itself in Jesus Christ.

- Karl Barth

credit: https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/

Jeremiah 5.1 Ideological Annexation

Jeremiah's Temple Sermon

Chapters 7 and 8 bring us Jeremiah's Temple Sermon. He stands in the gates of the temple and commits treason.

The monarchy had managed to co opt the theology of the Temple. The predominant teaching at that time was that the great Covenant was unconditional. God would love the people of Judah, no matter what. It did not matter what they did. It did not matter how unfaithful the people were. God was unchanging in his dedication to them.

Does this sound familiar? Of course it does. Such preaching is common today: it does not matter what you do, God loves you.

On its face, there is really no problem with this theology, this teaching. Doesn't it portray a loving, dedicated deity? Yes, but love and dedication should never be a precursor to predatory behavior or self destruction - Jeremiah accuses the people of both.

Love and Peace? Great! But beware the one gathering crowds with these words while holding a gun.