When YK2 was all the rage I was an MC for the First Night Celebration in
downtown Akron. At midnight they shoot off fireworks to mark the start of the New Year and my cousin and I stood in the Polsky’s Parking Deck both for the grand view and a quick escape. The place was absolutely packed even though it was frigid outside. One young man on the road below us was practically stripped though it was obvious he was also rather chemically protected against feeling the cold. Apparently if the machines of the world decided to rebel against us at the stroke of midnight for not enabling them to count higher than 1999 he wanted to go out in a black haze.
The
countdown began to the New Year and possible end of the world. A jet soared across the night sky. The blue lights of televisions and computer screens lit up various windows of the Mayflower apartment building nearby. The crowd yelled out, “10! 9! 8!” The excitement level was particularly tense this year. It was YK2 – people had bought provisions, purchased crank radios, and had plans in case the country went wild with looters. “3! 2! 1!” Fireworks lit up the sky. The plane didn’t fall. The blue monitors kept flickering away, and the lamp posts didn’t rip themselves up from the ground and start attacking us. I turned to my cousin and said, “Well THAT 
was disappointing.”
So I suppose you heard once again that the world is coming to an end. Apparently the Aztec calendar is coming to its completion which marks the end of life as we know it. I apologize for yawning at the prospect. I am tired of gearing up for the end of the world every couple of years. Of course it could happen. It might happen before you read the end of this sentence. Or this sentence fragment. Or this one. If you are still reading, chances are the end of the world has not taken place. Now, you could have fretted until you reached the end of each sentence worrying that the world might end. But would you be living if you were in constant fear that the world might end there? Or here?
And
to be quite truthful, as Christians we should not worry. The world is going to end for us whether it is actually the earth shaking us off or we get hit by a bus. The point is we are ready. Whatever. End or don’t end. We should neither fear death nor refuse to live. We are ready in any event and if we are here we have work to do – so BRING LIFE ON!
downtown Akron. At midnight they shoot off fireworks to mark the start of the New Year and my cousin and I stood in the Polsky’s Parking Deck both for the grand view and a quick escape. The place was absolutely packed even though it was frigid outside. One young man on the road below us was practically stripped though it was obvious he was also rather chemically protected against feeling the cold. Apparently if the machines of the world decided to rebel against us at the stroke of midnight for not enabling them to count higher than 1999 he wanted to go out in a black haze.The
countdown began to the New Year and possible end of the world. A jet soared across the night sky. The blue lights of televisions and computer screens lit up various windows of the Mayflower apartment building nearby. The crowd yelled out, “10! 9! 8!” The excitement level was particularly tense this year. It was YK2 – people had bought provisions, purchased crank radios, and had plans in case the country went wild with looters. “3! 2! 1!” Fireworks lit up the sky. The plane didn’t fall. The blue monitors kept flickering away, and the lamp posts didn’t rip themselves up from the ground and start attacking us. I turned to my cousin and said, “Well THAT 
was disappointing.”So I suppose you heard once again that the world is coming to an end. Apparently the Aztec calendar is coming to its completion which marks the end of life as we know it. I apologize for yawning at the prospect. I am tired of gearing up for the end of the world every couple of years. Of course it could happen. It might happen before you read the end of this sentence. Or this sentence fragment. Or this one. If you are still reading, chances are the end of the world has not taken place. Now, you could have fretted until you reached the end of each sentence worrying that the world might end. But would you be living if you were in constant fear that the world might end there? Or here?
And
to be quite truthful, as Christians we should not worry. The world is going to end for us whether it is actually the earth shaking us off or we get hit by a bus. The point is we are ready. Whatever. End or don’t end. We should neither fear death nor refuse to live. We are ready in any event and if we are here we have work to do – so BRING LIFE ON! 
8 comments:
Nice post. Very timely.
It's their prerogative if adults want to worry about such things, but it upsets me that TV and movies push such hysteria so much because it scares little kids. I remember much ado in grade school about the Jupiter Effect or environmentalists that would say we are going to run out of water in a few years. Kids take this stuff as gospel.
Jan. 1st, 1000 AD: Many Christians in Europe had predicted the end of the world on this date. As the date approached, Christian armies waged war against some of the Pagan countries in Northern Europe. The motivation was to convert them all to Christianity, by force if necessary, before Christ returned in the year 1000. Meanwhile, some Christians had given their possessions to the Church in anticipation of the end. Fortunately, the level of education was so low that many citizens were unaware of the year. They did not know enough to be afraid. Otherwise, the panic might have been far worse than it was. Unfortunately, when Jesus did not appear, the church did not return the gifts. Serious criticism of the Church followed. The Church reacted by exterminating some heretics. Agitation settled down quickly, as it later did in the year 2000.
Amen.
Well said, Father. The end will come, one way or another, for each of us - but it's what's on the *other* side that counts in the end!
no, lol, its what counts on this side! We can't be sure there is an afterlife b/c no one has seen nor come back from said afterlife.
This certain belief in an afterlife stems from mans innate fear of death. Sure it sounds great to everyone that they could live forever, but this is merely wishful thinking. Believing that you might go to Hell is the means by which the Church enslaves you. They order you to follow ten rules set by "God", they order you to restrain your innate sexual behavior, they tell you that you live under the totalitarian regime of this "God" who watches you day and night and will commit you to everlasting Hell for even thinking the wrong things. Never does the Church give you a choice. Nothing is your decision, you are merely a cog in the machine. People must realize that they have a CHOICE. A Man Chooses, A Slave Obeys!! Now ask yourself, are you a man or a slave?
Not quite right about no one returning from the afterlife; it seems to me that's what Easter is all about, but we can leave that for another day.
I am not a man, but I am an adult (woman) and I choose GOD. I choose God because I want to spend the rest of my life - on this side AND the other - with the greatest Love of my life. I choose to obey in this life because serving my Love gives me greater pleasure than serving myself.
If you are right, Atlas, and I am wrong, neither of us will ever know. But if I am right...I will pray for your conversion of heart so that you, too, may enjoy eternity.
Linda
To start off, Linda, Easter evolved from a Pagan ritual that celebrated the return of the Sun at the winter solstice. On December 22nd, the days stop getting shorter, it remains in the same spot in the sky for three days (the Sun is Dead), then on December 25th, the Winter Solstice, the Sun Rises and brings with it the coming of Spring and New Life. Christianity overtly stole this ritual from the Sol Invictus and Mithraism. In fact, Constantine the Great was an official member of Sol Invictus and is believed to have spliced the Early Christian cult, Mithraism and the Sol Invictus Cult.
Secondly, It matters not if I'm wrong, 'cause the "All-Loving" God will toss me to eternal wrath pain and suffering (which to me is a bit excessive, but hey, u gotta kill non-believers somehow I guess). The thing is what if YOU'RE wrong and you devoted your life to faith in that which is not their. I don't mean to be a prick, but I mean, WHY do u irrationally believe their is a God and WHY do people not see that Evolution is a Fact? Or that condoms actually DO significantly stop the spread of AIDS? WHY? Because your preist or pope said so? What grants them such power to determine what is right and wrong? They are in no way greater than you or me. They have no right to tell you what is Right. This is what confuses me so! Do you follow priests b/c you likie being told what to do? Then you are nothing more but a slave. If this is the life you want, fine, just tell me why you do not want to make life choices for yourself. Why do you take the easy way out? If their was a God, then why does he not answer amputees who wish to regain their limbs. Some sadistic plan? Or does he just ignore amputees?
Finally, here's something to ponder:
Imagine you're in a room, and you see a computer. The computer tells you somewhere outside this room, their is a cube. Then asks, what's in this cube? You cannot answer this question, for you do not know if the box is empty or solid. You can however say what is not in the box, like, the temperature of 4:00pm or a bed made of sleep or Mars. None of these could be in the box.
Now imagine our Universe, an old book tells you that somewhere outside this Universe their is an inaccesable realm of existence. Now what's in this existence? A divine being? no. For u can list countless impossible beings (ex:omniscient being capable of choice/non-spatial, omnipresent being/an all-loving omnipotent being that allows eternal agony) you can NOT, with certainty, claim what is in this realm. Any attempt to argue that their is a divine being in this realm of existence is either an argument for the impossible and/or the unknowable.
Greetings Altlas,
I must say you stick to it! But I must say I appreciate anyone who would go into the frey and keep coming back for more!
You raise some interesting points above but they are straw men. It is so easy to build a straw man and then tear him down. It would be like me saying, "Atheism creates depressed criminals. So don't be athiests!" Then I could bring up statistics that say how many people who commit suicide are athiests, how many criminals were atheitic when they commited their crimes . . . but that would be misleading and unfair in turn. So - Maybe next Wednesday or Thursday we will pick the questions up again.
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