Book: Apocalypse Pretty Soon

A 1999 book about doomsday cults, many of whom flourished just before the millennium.

Truly truly amazing, the horseshit some people will swallow.

The chapter I'm reading now, about survivalists and militias, is ass puckering.

The UFO cults and Christian end times prophets are staggeringly misguided but essentially harmless.

The "Patriots" on the other hand are INTENT on bringing about armed conflict, and that is bone-cold scary.

I don't really find the "militias" scary at all. They're just a bunch of childish, pathetic idiots playing soldier.

With whom are they intent on starting this armed conflict? The US military? A few spec ops or a dozen grunts could take them out during their coffee break and have time left for a half cup.

Imagine one of these groups decided to actually start something. Maybe attacked a small army base. All of the other groups would change their minds about the whole idea after seeing the outcome.

We're talking fleas and elephants here.

Two words: Timothy McVeigh.

Not what one would call an "armed conflict."

Damage was done, in the name of the cause.

Like Charles Manson, some of these people are intent on creating "trigger events" that lead to armed conflict.

I was sitting here wondering what the hell your statement meant, when the word none magically changed to some. Now it makes sense.

Yes, there will always be  insane people out there doing insane shit. With or without the militias.
I think the militias are less dangerous than Christianity.

Better armed.  Less numerous but more dangerous individually, perhaps. Our country ndoes not require sanity as a precondition to amassing an armory.

Sometimes Apple Spell Check is a royal pain in the rump.  It doesn't change the word until AFTER you hit send.

Yeah, it is the individual nut cases about which we should be concerned. They have always been with us and always will be.

But the idea that these so-called militias are any kind of effective military organizations is laughable.

I wouldn't say that the Christians are less-well-armed than the militias. The political influence of these nuts is a far more dangerous weapon than the Gun Club for Wackos and their bang bang toys.

My book makes the claim that Texas is home to more than its share of conspiracy theorists, survivalists, anti-government militias and self-appointed ROT (Republic of Texas) vigilantes. Of course Waco is considered Ground Zero by many of these folks.

Having spent just a little time in Texas, I can concur that there's something more than a little scary in the water down there.

Alex Heard wrote:

Carl Jung, who became interested in UFOs soon after the first reported sightings in 1947, argued that if UFOs were real -- he didn't come down either way, but he didn't rule it out -- the superiority of alien technology would make us feel like stunned aborigines in the face of a superior culture. O'Leary and Greer see it just the opposite. To them, science itself is the dream-killer. Having dominated this century, it has also left us marooned in a be cold and lonely place, where many forms of "magic" -- like the limitless possibilities of alternative science, not to mention the likely reality of higher powers and an afterlife -- are declared to be scientifically unorthodox and therefore impossible. In this myth, aliens and their technology represent a liberating force: if they're real, the joke is on the scientists. And if they come down, a New Age would begin, marked by spectacular technological leaps and an accompanying expansion of human consciousness.

Interesting. Science is a "dream-killer" because it disproves the existence of magic, yet the goal of alien contact is to advance scientific understanding.

Who are O'Leary and Greer?
The part of the paragraph about them is ridiculous: "likely reality of higher powers and an afterlife". Really? And what is "alternative science"? People who make these statements are to be listened to when discussing science? Hardly.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Interesting.  Science is a "dream-killer" because it disproves the existence of magic, yet the goal of alien contact is to advance scientific understanding.

I don't see any inconsistency in this, if that is what you are implying.


As to the "goal" of alien contact, I don't know where you got the idea that there is such a goal (except by groups of strange little people who gather in the desert occasionally), and where the goal is defined as increased scientific understanding.

Brian O'Leary

Steven M. Greer

They're a couple of froot loops.

Jung had some interesting insights. When you tell me that these people see things exactly the opposite way, I'm inclined to think they're exactly wrong.

I'm not advocating for the pro-UFO camp. Just reading the book.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Brian O'Leary

Steven M. Greer

They're a couple of froot loops.

It look like O'Leary had many good rational years behind him when he lost his mind. Greer has apparently always been wacko.

richard09 wrote:

Jung had some interesting insights. When you tell me that these people see things exactly the opposite way, I'm inclined to think they're exactly wrong.

The statement attributed to Jung about humans' reaction to amazing technology is one that is widely held and often said,

I didn't see the O'Leary/Greer text as being opposite to Jung - or opposite to anything. It made little sense. For example, if aliens are real, the joke is on the scientists. What the fuck does that mean?

Just a bit on the side: I ran across a document a few days ago that showed my grandfather was working at Roswell Air Base in the early 1940s. Wonder how many aliens he met there. Too late to ask him though, he died 55 years ago next Saturday.

"Early 1940s"? Probably not many -- they didn't land until 1947.

They weren't reported as seen until 1947. Maybe they were good hiders. Cloaking devices, eh?

Why did their domes of invisibility suddenly fail in 1947?

Well, that's obvious. They ran out of the fuel for it. Noseemeum is only available on their home planets.

Donald Trump was born June 14, 1946.

Coincidence?

Are you sure he was born?

Maybe he's a hybrid. That would explain so much - well, it would explain the hair.