People Who Believe In The Apocalypse Are Ruining the World
by Bryan Cain
There are a lot of people ruining the world for other people. They don’t give it the benefit of the doubt. Oil tycoons, Osama Bin Laden and Old Man Peters – my neighbor down the street who yells “faggot” at me when I jog by – are a few of these people. I would like to add people who believe in the apocalypse to the list. I’m sure the afore-mentioned oil tycoons and Osama Bin Ladens believe in the apocalypse already; so they make the ruining-the-world list twice. The apocalypse list contains the likes of Rick Perry, Fred Phelps and The Vatican in the west and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Muslim Brotherhood in the east, to name a pitiful few. It also contains a lot of every day Americans. People who believe in the apocalypse have given up on some, if not all, of the world, and are ruining it for everyone. Rather than give up on the world, humanity needs to give itself and the world the benefit of the doubt.
Society generally agrees that we owe people the benefit of the doubt. None of us want to be judged too early. The king became a leader when Geoffrey Rush looked past his stutter. Susan Boyle (marry me?) looks like a frog, but boy can she sing. Society was right to give Sean Paul the benefit of the doubt, though we now know he sucked. The golden rule tells us to do unto others as we would have done unto us, and so we expect other people to do the same in return. YOU want the benefit of the doubt. You, pretty girl, want the benefit of the doubt when a man isn’t sure if there are beautiful women with brains. You, Jersey Shore Guidouche, want the benefit of the doubt when a woman wonders if there can be a heart under all that spray-tan. You, Average Joe, want the benefit of the doubt when people wonder if you’re just an average Joe. We all want the benefit of the doubt, so we try to give it to others.
The world hangs in delicate balance. A lot of time it can seem like the world is a net negative. In the one hand you have love, beauty, justice, and Shakira, but in the other hand you have hate, greed, bought politicians, nuclear war, famine and AIDS in Africa, a divorce-rate >50%, fear, superstition, deceit, genocidal dictators, the Tea Party and Sean Paul. The negative can be over-whelming. We can’t conclusively know which side is winning the battle between good and evil; they both have powerful allies.
Good needs all the help it can get. We need to give other people the benefit of the doubt and we need to give humanity the benefit of the doubt. Right now, things like global warming and education aren’t a concern for those who believe in the apocalypse, because they are waiting for the end of humanity. They’re going to heaven; so F you to the rest of the planet. People who believe in the apocalypse are happy to live in their bubbles. As long as they don’t violate the ten commandments (too often), they figure they’ll be fine.
People who believe in the apocalypse don’t care if they’re wrong either. They can’t see the benefit of a world without heaven. Their clergy has destroyed their self-esteem. They’ve been told they are sinners: they can’t be good without God. The world has no meaning without God. That’s not true. You can be good without God. You control your own destiny. You’ve been given a set amount of time on Earth and you get to spend it as you please. The world has meaning. It has the meaning we give it. It has our friends and families. It has beauty and love. It has a place in this universe.
So please, people who believe in the apocalypse, get out of your bubbles. See the world as it is without the blinders of religion. The world needs help. It is not lost. The apocalypse is not a fore-gone conclusion. Humanity has the power to save itself and our planet. We don’t need anyone or anything else. Believe in that.
