There'll Be No Doubt In Your Mind, You'll Believe Everything I'm Saying

X-Files Title Card (Season 1 DVD)

Contemporary events sometimes create a cinematic zeitgeist. After Hale-Bopp passed, Hollywood simultaneously gave us Armageddon and Deep Impact - both films about large objects from space on collision courses with Earth (but only one was any good, which I'll get to at some point). Looking back at the 70s we see a slew of thrillers about political intrigue, paranoia, and conspiracies all borne from the fallout of the Kennedy assassination, Watergate and the involvement of the military-industrial complex in the Vietnam War. Since the 70s, doubting the official line has never been more popular. The X-Files, inspired by those thrillers, prominently tapped into notions of government cover-up concerning UFOs and the existence of alien life. Today doubt knows no bounds, having mostly transformed into full conspiracy theorism. From 9/11 truthers to the birthers who continue to contest the validity of President Obama's nationality, these doubts form more of a dis-belief system than healthy scepticism. And yet in these incredulous times the incredible is accepted so long as it's from an alternative voice.

Trust's a tough thing to come by these days. Tell you what - Why don't you just trust in the Lord?
-R J MacReady, The Thing, 1982

Had it been the mainstream media hailing the end of the world, there would have been a fantastic inversion of the 2012 doomsday theories on par with climate-change denial. As it was, the rapture was being proclaimed by a fringe American Christian group headed by Harold Camping. As has been pointed out, any literate self-proclaimed Christian would have immediately recognised his prophecy as conflicting with Matthew 24:36. In the BBC World Service interview I heard (May 17th AM podcast), Camping contradicted himself within seconds - first saying the date was clear because the bible is "analytical" and "absolutely trustworthy" (being the engineering language of god), then saying it took him five years to figure it out because the bible is "very very difficult to understand because god has written it that way". On his incorrect 1994 prediction which he extrapolated from the Good Book, he offered this nugget - "there was a lot of the bible I had not time to go through yet." But this is not about the specifics of that incident. Point is, people will accept what they want to believe (especially after those beliefs are shattered) and/or will accept what they can easily debunk so long as those inaccuracies are spoken through a medium that confers a semblance of authority.

In my essay on Leninism I identified personality/control as the core problem in 20th century Marxism. Eugene Debs' quote about not leading people to paradise because they would just be led out by someone else is particularly apt in its religious language. It is the individual of rational mind that should read and understand their theology. Centralisation of power leads to personality cults because power-seekers naturally seek power - in that environment the worst form a scum on the top of society. The citizens of Oceania and cult members share circumstances. It is for these reasons that the denomination I'm most favourable toward are the (liberal) Quakers for their rejection of clergy and focus on the individuals' experience of their faith. What is termed by the Vatican 'secularisation' seems to be bringing Western/European Christianity closer to that personal model. The shift to 'non-practising' directly entails the extinction of the ruling religious class and the subsequent loss of authority is precisely why the (Catholic) church opposes this.

As for the rapture - Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, won't get fooled again. Hopefully.

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