Today I was in Barnes and Nobles (among other things), looking at a series of books on archaeology written by Graham Hancock. For those of you unfamiliar with Hancock's work, the essence of his perspective as an Egyptologist is as follows:
The Great Pyramids of Giza (and the Sphinx), as well as a number of other puzzling ancient landmarks around the world, signify a time when the Earth was (literally) deluged and laid waste by a massive (Earth-shattering) cataclysm. Furthermore, there is evidence, he believes, to suggest that the human race before this deluge was as technologically and scientifically advanced as ours--and that they understood the cataclysm that ended their civilization to be a periodical event affecting Earth's crust. (Those of you who have heard anything about the ancient civilizations of the Americas know where this is going . . . ) It is his hypothesis that these periodical shifts occur every 10,000 years or so, and that the next one is (drum roll, please) scheduled to occur on December 23, 2012.
Personally, I have no evidence to justify, corroborate, or disprove his claims (after all, I am not an archaeologist), but to me, this brings up a topic that seems to be an underlying pulse beat within my generation (and beyond): the end of the world.
The Christian Bible talks about the end of the world. And the Bibles of many other long-established religions also discuss it--some in more detail than others.
Personally, I have no well-defined views on the topic--but I do have this sense inside of me (that I can't explain) that the time of humanity's technological ascendancy on this planet is short. Perhaps it is time for whoever it was who put us here to give us all a collective ass-kicking for the way we have treated this world--our wars, our genetic tampering, our arrogant manipulation of the environment, and our wanton disrespect for ecological balance (to say nothing of human life). The book of Genesis says that the Flood God wrought upon the world was a result of mankind's corruption, wickedness, and violence (see Genesis 6:5-7, 11-13), and surely this describes us as well.
We have come up with more (and more efficient) ways of destroying each other during the past 200 years than in the preceding 2000--and human depravity doesn't seem to be on the wane anytime soon (witness the use of a perfectly innocent jumbo jet to do mass murder a few years ago, among many other things that have happened in the years before and since). If it isn't oil, it will be biological warfare, and if it isn't biological warfare, it will be the sky, and if it isn't the sky, it will be the massive "corrective" shifting of the tectonic plates to account for all the drilling, land-mining, tunneling, and nuclear testing we have done over the past few decades. And if all of those things don't do us in, it will be the wanton disparity between the richer and poorer nations of the world, a disparity that will not remain forever.
I don't pretend to have any idea of what's going to happen over the next 7 years, or even over the next 7 minutes. :) Perhaps we are living on borrowed time--and perhaps, as disappointing as it may be to some, we have nothing to fear.
All I know is that at any moment, and especially this moment, in human history, it is we who carry the seeds of our destruction--and, perhaps, of our salvation.
The Great Pyramids of Giza (and the Sphinx), as well as a number of other puzzling ancient landmarks around the world, signify a time when the Earth was (literally) deluged and laid waste by a massive (Earth-shattering) cataclysm. Furthermore, there is evidence, he believes, to suggest that the human race before this deluge was as technologically and scientifically advanced as ours--and that they understood the cataclysm that ended their civilization to be a periodical event affecting Earth's crust. (Those of you who have heard anything about the ancient civilizations of the Americas know where this is going . . . ) It is his hypothesis that these periodical shifts occur every 10,000 years or so, and that the next one is (drum roll, please) scheduled to occur on December 23, 2012.
Personally, I have no evidence to justify, corroborate, or disprove his claims (after all, I am not an archaeologist), but to me, this brings up a topic that seems to be an underlying pulse beat within my generation (and beyond): the end of the world.
The Christian Bible talks about the end of the world. And the Bibles of many other long-established religions also discuss it--some in more detail than others.
Personally, I have no well-defined views on the topic--but I do have this sense inside of me (that I can't explain) that the time of humanity's technological ascendancy on this planet is short. Perhaps it is time for whoever it was who put us here to give us all a collective ass-kicking for the way we have treated this world--our wars, our genetic tampering, our arrogant manipulation of the environment, and our wanton disrespect for ecological balance (to say nothing of human life). The book of Genesis says that the Flood God wrought upon the world was a result of mankind's corruption, wickedness, and violence (see Genesis 6:5-7, 11-13), and surely this describes us as well.
We have come up with more (and more efficient) ways of destroying each other during the past 200 years than in the preceding 2000--and human depravity doesn't seem to be on the wane anytime soon (witness the use of a perfectly innocent jumbo jet to do mass murder a few years ago, among many other things that have happened in the years before and since). If it isn't oil, it will be biological warfare, and if it isn't biological warfare, it will be the sky, and if it isn't the sky, it will be the massive "corrective" shifting of the tectonic plates to account for all the drilling, land-mining, tunneling, and nuclear testing we have done over the past few decades. And if all of those things don't do us in, it will be the wanton disparity between the richer and poorer nations of the world, a disparity that will not remain forever.
I don't pretend to have any idea of what's going to happen over the next 7 years, or even over the next 7 minutes. :) Perhaps we are living on borrowed time--and perhaps, as disappointing as it may be to some, we have nothing to fear.
All I know is that at any moment, and especially this moment, in human history, it is we who carry the seeds of our destruction--and, perhaps, of our salvation.
posted by Brian Bly at 4:34 PM
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