#2 "The Apocalypse" - Olivia

We’re not messing around folks.  Right off the bat, we’re going to talk about death and destruction.

Leave it to us to begin with ‘the end.'  Yes, the apocalypse. 

From what I’ve gathered, the apocalypse should be something like a flexible fruit pie recipe. Perhaps the seasonings differ a little, a little cinnamon here, a kiss of sugar there, but the fruit is the only real variable. 

While the apocalypse is all about the same basic idea, at least for cinematic depictions: some force of doom or destruction comes into play, terror ensues, chaos reigns, cue exit music. 

Bake all that at 350 degrees.  Serve with ice-cream.

However, I’m convinced that if the world is going to end, we are totally not going to see it coming.  People are going to worry about their dry-cleaning right up until there is nothing left we can do. 

I'm not here to prophecy doom.  Any speculation would ruin the surprise, if the world does indeed intend to end.  No, instead of guessing about exactly how the fat lady will sing, as it were, I want to suggest what I guess will be the best parts of the worst part.

I present to you ...

The Top Ten Best Things about the Apocalypse

1. The soundtrack to the apocalypse will be incredible.  
 Let's face it.  If thing's aren't looking good, everyone is going to be pumped with adrenaline.  And I'm gonna want to dance it out.  Like every good/extremely bad horror film, a Bee Gees "Stayin' Alive" is hopefully going to be refreshingly ironic.  Stay tuned for my own "apoca-mix."  (Question:  What would you listen to during the aftermath?)

2. You can wear whatever you want.
Congratulations, you no longer have to impress anyone.  If you're pajama clad in the worst way possible, it's all forgiven.  Even if you're wearing those shorts with the stains and the holes.  Even that over-sized tee shirt with the embarrassing pun on the front that you have no idea how it made it into your house, let alone your rotation ... you get the same understanding that hurricane victims get.  Plus, look what everyone else is wearing.   It might be fun to revisit old Halloween costumes.

3.  Now is your chance to use all those skills you've learned through video games. 
I have this strange feeling that gamers of all varieties are going to crawl out of their basements and have surprisingly valuable knowledge.  They may not have the incredible aim with a cross-bow in real life that they had in virtual reality, but I'll be darned if they don't try, or at the very least know how to load one.  I have no idea how different post-apocalyptic life will be compared to today, but I'm just going to assume that there will be plenty of opportunities for people to finally try what they've always pretended.

4. Your closet stash of Twinkies no longer seems like a bad idea.
Neither does your weird sword collection.  Your penchant for knitting, your back yard garden, your bizarrely trained pets, just may come in handy.  Even your decision to buy three hundred packages of toilet paper/ramen noodles/band-aids because they were selling them for a nickle a pop seems like a brilliant stroke of genius.  

5.  You will never be more creative in your life.  Ever. 
Everything you own will take on new purpose.   Those DIY-ers suddenly got nothin' on you.  Your tribe-mates will look at your fish-catching machine made of tongs, a business sock, and dental floss with the same awe you one had for the last five minutes of MacGyver.   You'll be ready if you and your people ever find a lake.  (People will begin doing crazy things for rolls of duct tape ... )

6. Social classes will be obsolete.
When no one has a paying job, no one cares what your last one was.  Suddenly, being a carpenter, a farmer, or a nurse is way cooler than being a poet, a computer-programmer, a DJ, or a banker.  Unfortunately, my job, giver of surveys over the phone, will never be cool.

7.  You finally have the time to _________.
Ok, this may not apply to everything on that list of yours.  You may or may not get to watch that movie in your Netflix queue.   There may or may not be Netflix anymore.  But!  Remember all those books you bought in the 90's?  That guitar your friend left?  That novel you were going to write?  Your time has finally come.

8.  You can stop worrying about French tests.
No one you know speaks French anymore!  You're home free, brotha!


9.  Every day is an adventure! 
Who knows what you'll get to do when the foundations of civilization are crumbling!  Hunting followed by scavenging?  Or maybe today you encounter new people?   Encounter a beast?  Either way, I'll bet every day is something new!

10.  The longer you live, the cooler your stories are going to be.  
And really, isn't that what it's all about anyway?

And I'm just going to put this out there now - if the apocalypse happens, as a general rule, just assume there will be a party at my house.  The party will last for no longer than 16 hours.  After that, you should, you know, probably find some shelter or something.

Bring your 'apoca-mixes'.

Don’s Response –

Since we’re still near the beginning of this weekly blogging routine we’re instituting for ourselves, the first thing I want to say (and I’ll do my best not to repeat this weekly) is just how amazing it is that you write so well.  Really, I know this isn’t actually a competition of who can write better, but dag, girl, cut your old man some slack.  That post was a comic tour de force, which I believe is the French expression for “look at these guns, will’ya?” while showing off your biceps.

When I think of the soundtrack for the end of the world, I can imagine nothing better than the opening credits of Stephen King’s The Stand with Blue Oyster Cult blasting out “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”  As I mentioned in my post, when the end of the world comes, I hope I go down quickly; I have no interest in either watching it happen or being one of the last remaining few.  When the apocalypse comes, I don’t expect there will be grand prizes for the ones who “Outwit, Outlast, Outplay.”    So, if I’m still around at the end of the last few notes of “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” go ahead and start REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” and I’ll do my best to check out before this song ends.

Because I’m the dad here, I’m going to invoke my parental prerogative and offer some fatherly advice (if it helps, imagine me in a cardigan and smoking a pipe while Nipper, the RCA terrier, stares vacantly at the Victorola), so here it is: “Don’t wait for the end of the world to do those things on your list!”  Seriously, it’s too bad that (not just you but) most of us feel as though we need some excuse to wear whatever we want, give up caring about social classes, or seek adventures.  I say don’t wait, go ahead now and use those skills garnered through video games, whatever they may be.   Although keeping a stash of Twinkies in the closet may attract cockroaches, I say go ahead and take that risk after all if there’s one thing I’ve learned from all the cinematic depictions of the end of the world, it’s that the cockroaches are going to make it even when we don’t.  Thus, even if the Twinkies go bad perhaps during those few weeks you expect to outlive the rest of us, you can feast on roaches.  As for me, if  I’ve got a choice between feasting on bugs or letting them feast on me, I guess I’d rather be the host than the guest at those dinners.

Speaking of cinematic depictions, don’t forget we’re yakking about “Remakes and Sequels” in this Sunday night’s blog.   I’ll bring the popcorn, and if you promise not to mention how I made you watch the Hanna Montana Concert film (you and your sister had been out wayyyy past curfew, I must add in my own defense) then I won’t mention how you made me sit through The Power Rangers Movie when you were eight.

#2 "The Apocalypse" -- Don

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.   -- Robert Frost

I have no idea how this particular topic came to rest at the top of our list of basically random writing selections, but I’m okay with it.  I guess if we want to start the blog off with a bang, yakking about how everything is going to end off with a bang is as good a topic as any other. 

I’ll take the risk of sounding cynical or aloof by just putting it straight out there that the end of the world is not a particularly big concern for me.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy enough with my life and if I live to be a hundred and the world’s still here, fine by me.  On the other hand, however, if the world were to end tomorrow, and everyone and everything I care about were laid to utter ruin, I don’t expect I would be too upset about it because it only figures that if the world is destroyed, I’m going to go along with it.  Furthermore, although I’m in no rush to shuffle off this moral coil, if the aliens land tomorrow, I sincerely hope they eat me first.  I’d volunteer for it.  Perhaps I’d taste just nasty enough for them to fly off in search of something a little less fatty and a bit more tender on some other planet, and I could then go down in the annals of history in addition to the anals of some aliens.

Traditionally, the phrase “The Apocalypse” comes from the last book of The New Testament, which is also known as The Book of Revelations.  In fact the word “apocalypse” comes from the ancient Greek meaning “revelation” or “the lifting of the veil.”  As far as I’m concerned, The Book of Revelations pretty much exemplifies everything that is wrong with Christianity.  First off, if you’ve ever read the text for yourself (and I have), you can’t help but notice that John’s explanation for how God plans to resolve everything is expressed in such vivid and complex imagery that I contend his fantastic, lurid, and rambling metaphors are beyond the capacity of anyone living today to really say what it’s actually supposed to refer to.  We are approaching a 2000 year distance from the context in which these images were first set down, and even if we were able to get into a time machine and speak with John face to face, I sincerely doubt that anyone could step into his dreamscape and understand exactly who or what he is referring to when he’s going on and on about such characters as “The Whore of Babylon” or those four weird creatures that were hovering around the throne of God.  Now I know there are scads of people who would like to claim that they know what all of the imagery means (a Harris Poll from this past spring showed that nearly a quarter of Republicans believe that President Obama is The Antichrist, a key figure of The Book of Revelations whose name when spelled in Hebrew is supposed to add up to 666 or 616 depending on which ancient manuscript you’re going by), but even if there were one person (or even a handful) of people who actually knew what it all meant, how would the rest of us know who we could trust in offering “the right” interpretation?  If you want a one sentence summary of my take on religion, it’s this:  I have plenty of faith in God, but I have excellent reasons to doubt all those people who make the claim they have God’s authority to speak on His account.

Furthermore, I argue that even if we are unable to connect the dots and make reasonable conjectures regarding what the metaphors in The Book of Revelations refer to (if anything specifically at all, really), the underlying rhetoric of the narrative completely undermines its own authenticity. The underlying message of “The Apocalypse” is that eventually God gets fed up with the human race and throws everything He’s got left in his toolbox at our ultimate and supreme annihilation.  According to the story, while God is massacring the rest of humanity with The Four Horsemen (Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death), a small minority of the human race (made up of the diehard faithful) is spared by floating up into the sky to meet Jesus in the clouds.

The rhetorical engine, then, of the machinery that drives this Biblical narrative is fueled by fear and selfishness.  In other words, the point of the story is to motivate people to trust in the authority of the ones who are telling (or retelling) the story out of their audience’s desire to avoid the threat of Hell and to secure the reward of Heaven.  It’s not for the faithful few who get swept up in the nick of time to spend any time worrying about the eternal sufferings of those who get left behind; that’s none of their concern – after all, those poor suckers had their chance to accept what they were being told and they turned it down, right?  Unfortunately, this argument melts when the reader insists upon a reasonable God instead of one who is merely angry and fed up with it all.  Here’s how:  if God is more intelligent than I am (and there’s no doubt about that), then He would certainly understand what is perfectly clear to me – that there’s a vital difference between a reason to believe something and a motive to believe something.  If (for example) you believe the brakes are beginning to fail on your car, you then have an excellent motive to believe that your car’s brakes will last until payday (when you can afford then to get them fixed), but you do not have a good reason to believe that your car’s brakes will last until payday because there is simply no relationship between the physics of your car’s brakes and the amount of money you have in your bank account.  In short, threats and rewards are excellent motives to believe, but they are irrelevant as reasons to believe.  Thus, when authorities use threats of punishment or bribes of rewards to induce belief, they are employing an illogical and (I argue) immoral form of argument.  Since I expect God is both reasonable and moral, I don’t expect He would authorize anyone speaking on His behalf (as if an omnipotent deity would need someone to speak on His behalf anyway) to use such underhanded tactics as to scare people into believing in such a shady and nefarious form of authority.   Thus, I conclude I’d rather put my faith in the benevolence of a God who, if He had something to tell me, would do it, rather than trust in those who, to secure their power over of the people who can’t recognize the difference between a motive and a reason, would portray God as the ultimate boogeyman as a means of distracting others from noticing their lack of credibility.

Olivia says:
Ah yes, good old Revelations.  You would bring that to the table in round one.  


This is how I feel about it:
I'm not bothered by the complex imagery of John.  
I'm not disturbed by the message.   


The Bible, or really, any experience that persuades our belief, is a story of oppositions.  That said, I don't believe that the sides are separated into God's tolerance vs. us.  As you pointed out, "apocalypse" is described as the "lifting of the veil" or "revelation" which at least to me, suggests significant change.  And while I don't feel like God is getting out his super massive pink eraser in this scenario,  there could be some serious remodeling.  


Beyond the complex imagery or intent of the message, the nut you'd have me crack is why one would either submit to being 'frightened' or 'bribed' into believing something.  


Let me assure you, my beliefs are not cultivated by either 'motive'.  Frankly, (as you know) those motives do not work well in terms of long term conviction.  


My beliefs are founded on what I feel is a more substantial reasoning:  experience.  


When I am presented with information, I can immediately choose to believe it or discard it.  Experience has taught me to consider my source, the effect of the message, the likelihood of truth based on what I already know.  Or, instead of basing my belief completely on assumption, I can search it out myself. 


The culmination of my experience is what feeds and grows my faith.  


I know now that if I am unsure in something, I can ask God.  I know this from my experience.  


The same applies in regards to the words of others.  "But why wouldn't God just tell me?"  Maybe He did.  Maybe you were playing Mario.  Or maybe, just maybe, He is speaking to someone who can share a message effectively.  Or someone who is ready.  Or someone who is listening.  


But when you hear that message, it is your responsibility to discern if it is true.  Not out of fear, or reward, but because you should genuinely desire the truth.  


No one is asked to believe blindly.  As you suggested, that is foolishness.  


That's just what I believe.  
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(On your alien scenario: What if the aliens come and eat you first, and then decide that you were tentacle-lickin' good, then what?  Then, what?!)