Why apocalypse wont be now

We were not expecting it to be so silly, so sweet, and so sad. Capitalism requires this of us. This is because late capitalism has always been a death cult. There has been no vision, because these men never imagined the future beyond the image of themselves on top of the human heap, cast in gold.

For weeks, the speeches from podiums have suggested that a certain amount of brutal death is a reasonable price for other people to pay to protect the current financial system. The airwaves have been full of spineless right-wing zealots so focused on putting the win in social Darwinism that they keep accidentally saying the quiet bit out loud.

The quiet bit is this: To the rich and stupid, many of the economic measures necessary to stop this virus are so unthinkable that it would be preferable for millions to die. This is extravagantly wrong on more than just a moral level—forcing sick and contagious people back to work to save Wall Street puts all of us at risk.

It is not only easier for these overpromoted imbeciles to imagine the end of the world than a single restriction on capitalism—they would actively prefer it.

The right, of course, has never had a monopoly on catastrophist fever dreams. If you are really so keen to be punished, there are websites for that. Social democracy is being reinstated in a hurry, because—to paraphrase Mrs. Thatcher—there really is no alternative. In the US, states are scrambling to support the 3. Most of our collective postapocalyptic visions have in common the fantasy of the world becoming smaller.

Or your college debt. Or your neighbors. So is it helpful in this modern pandemic? The COVID pandemic and its social consequences are exposing the poverty of certain transhumanist visions of immortality. We are discovering that all the technology in the world does not make up for some of the simplest creaturely pleasures. Can we really engineer away the limitations of our biology without also forfeiting the joys of physical existence?

But what theological resources do we have for this season of dislocation, physical isolation and crisis for our faith communities? The Hebrew Bible can make some valuable contributions to this question. The world has been plunged into a state of uncertainty and fear by the coronavirus pandemic. Christians in the past were no strangers to epidemics of plague. While we all would do well to be familiar with the current state of coronavirus research, and to avoid both sensationalisers and scoffers, Christians in particular have a great deal to learn from Martin Luther — who himself endured a plague that struck Wittenberg in During these first days of the third decade of the twenty-first century, as we watch humans, animals, trees, insects, fungi, ecosystems, forests, rivers and on and on being killed, what word shall we reach for to name what is happening?

This is something more; this is the killing of everything. Negative theology calls everything into question, including itself. Rather than foreclosing creativity, negative theology encourages experimentation by rendering every attempt provisional, fungible and fresh. Negative political theology holds the potential to reframe debates over religion and politics, realism and idealism, optimism and pessimism, negation and relation.

Opinion Is this an Apocalypse? We certainly hope so — you should too Catherine Keller and John J. Why do we seem to want it to be the end of days, and to have the apocalypse, now? And wrong about it ending on at least six other dates in the s.

And also wrong about it ending at least two or three times every single decade until at least the s, with evidence of scores of other more sporadic global false alarms stretching right back to ancient Rome. But collectively it means that at any given time there is always a supposed terminal cataclysm just around the corner, causing distress to the gullible and vulnerable.

Why are we so determined to think our days are numbered, and so willing to bend the facts to fit our delusions? With potential sources of devastation ranging from interplanetary impacts to unstoppable pandemics, natural mega-disasters to unnatural alien invasions, global war to individual mad geniuses, there are almost endless endgame possibilities and lots of CGI fun to be had wreaking big screen havoc. After seeing or reading such tall tales does anyone watch the skies more carefully for hostile UFOs, or in any way worry more that the end is nigh?

We need "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society" in order to maintain a habitable planet, according to the climate scientists who wrote the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC report in And that is a dystopia that could end any time we want it to. Fortunately, it is possible to respond with action that leads to positive change.

That opportunity is presented to us every day. There are many inspiring examples of larger-scale systemic change already coming into being. The success of the Urgenda lawsuit in the Netherlands Read this explainer by Jelmer Mommers on the Dutch ruling linking climate action and human rights. Just two years ago, climate change was hardly mentioned in US politics. Puerto Ricans are now helping form similar community-building networks all around the world as a basis for a new kind of locally determined way of living.

Every day, there are people who gain greater awareness about the intersectional nature of our planetary emergency. A few months ago, during the height of the Australian wildfire crisis, the people of Hobart led a procession Watch this video of climate protesters in Tasmania.