“NASA Predicts Collapse of Civilization”
This story went viral and so will continue to go viral via Facebook repackaged by the Facebook targeted virus makers. It gets hosed by more careful and less ambitious sources but the dynamic is instructive.
Who Do We Believe?
If NASA puts out a report like this, we listen. Contrary to rumors of its demise authority is not dead. We have an implicit and instinctive sense of who to listen to, who to pay attention to in many of our different social contexts. We have an active and hierarchical relational economy regardless of our egalitarian posings.
If NASA says that civilization will collapse in 15 years based on “scientific” models we pay attention. Their circle of influence is far broader than Harold Camping’s.
I first saw the Facebook viral piece via an atheist friend on Facebook. How did she read it? I can guess how she received Harold Camping’s warning a few years ago.
The End of the World As We Know It
When I was young I remember hearing older Christians say things like “I think Jesus will come again soon. I don’t imagine how much longer the world can go on.”
This was during the Cold War. As a boy I didn’t feel the same. I felt that things could keep going, they seemed to be going OK. I knew about the Cold War. I read stories on the US and Soviet stockpiles. I remember some dreams I had as a kid about “the bomb” hitting NYC and me figuring out (in my boyish imagination) how I’d respond to such a catastrophe. On the whole, however, apart from worrying that Jesus might come while I’m in the bath and having to meet him “in the air” in my birthday suit I was pretty relaxed about it. I even remember praying fervently for his return before book report due dates at school because I was so desperately behind. Continue reading
