Sorry ain’t gonna cut it

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

I was going to write an editorial on this topic, but I figured this would be better to put my name on. (And by the way, yes, I write most of the editorials around here, but the newspaper’s “voice” is less … idiosyncratic than my own. Maybe.)

As I watch the bullshit going on around the world—riots over cartoons, Iran with The Bomb, the explanation for why Pat Robertson said what he did about Ariel Sharon’s recent stroke, the ascendancy of Hamas—you know, all this … stuff—I’m a bit nonplussed.

Honestly, from where I’m sitting, it looks like some groups genuinely believe the end times are upon us. And I’m not just talking, you know, the end of the world (as we know it), I’m talking Gabriel blowing his horn, Armageddon, the Rapture and Revelation.

We’re not the only culture with an end prediction; in fact, most cultures have an end myth. The Mayas, for example, using the most accurate non-technological calendar ever produced on this continent, predict the world will end on Dec. 23, 2012.

So, anyway, I’m not going to say the Mayas are right. I’m not going to say Pat Robertson is wrong. But I think you and I can agree on something: You can’t force God to do your bidding. That’s some monumental arrogance even to try. God’s not a garden where you put in the right soil, nutrients and water, and the seed is encouraged to grow. Nope, if you buy the argument, then the seed is in charge.

So when these idiots who spend their time trying to ignite a world war get one, and the Fertile Crescent is nuked into a sheet of glass, and there’s no horn sounded, but we’re left here with a world damaged beyond repair, just what the hell are our “leaders” going to say?

I mean, if there’s no Jerusalem, then isn’t Revelation rendered moot?

What will they say when their little fantasy of superiority—that they can bend God to their will—is proven beyond questioning to be false?