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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And Hey, Robert, I've got a question for you. Hit me.

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Speaker 1: Any time in your life have you ever had the

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Speaker 1: feeling the things are about to come to a very

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Speaker 1: serious conclusion? And I don't mean like the meeting you're

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Speaker 1: in right now, I mean the world. Did you ever

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Speaker 1: get that feeling like you're living in the end times?

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Speaker 1: This has got to be the last of days? No um.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes I feel I sometimes I wonder what if the

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Speaker 1: next moment is going to be the last moment? Like,

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Speaker 1: but it's always there's always going to be some sort

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Speaker 1: of harbinger of destruction, right, So I don't I look

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Speaker 1: up into the sky and think, Hey, what would it

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Speaker 1: be like to see the you know, civilization busting near earth,

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Speaker 1: object entering the atmosphere. I think about things like that,

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Speaker 1: but even then I'll have like a few more minutes

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Speaker 1: to process it. It all does have to come to

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Speaker 1: an end at some point, so it makes you wonder

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Speaker 1: if that end is near, And in fact, I think

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Speaker 1: some people have made statistical arguments that if you assume, okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm a random observer, not a privileged observer. Uh. The

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Speaker 1: the statistical argument is that humanity has got to be

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Speaker 1: ending pretty soon because if human if the human population

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Speaker 1: continues to grow, that many, many more randomly selected observers

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Speaker 1: will be among those born in the future than those

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Speaker 1: that are living you know, right now or have lived

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Speaker 1: in the past. And so if we you assume that

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Speaker 1: you are the middle of the road random observer and

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Speaker 1: not one of the tail end, then humanity has got

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Speaker 1: to end pretty soon. I don't really because I always

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Speaker 1: would think, well, if I'm not a privileged observer, why

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Speaker 1: do I get to live in the end times? Like,

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Speaker 1: surely I'm at least living in like the penultimate age

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Speaker 1: and on the ultimate age of man. Well, that instinct

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Speaker 1: of yours is I would say, fairly unique, because it

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Speaker 1: is very common for people to think that they are

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Speaker 1: living in a very privileged time. Have you noticed that? Yeah, well, no,

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Speaker 1: I think I'm living in a privileged time. I mean

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Speaker 1: compared with before. I don't mean materially privileged. I think

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Speaker 1: that's true too. I think we are some of the

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Speaker 1: luckiest people and the golden age of television, Joe, have

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Speaker 1: you seen these shows? Yeah, I'm assuming you're referring to

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Speaker 1: the fact that we can still get quantumly rerunning every

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Speaker 1: now and then. But but yeah, we're materially privileged. But

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Speaker 1: but I also mean privileged in terms of I happen

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Speaker 1: to be the person who's of the generation that's alive

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Speaker 1: when it all comes to the end. So today's episode

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Speaker 1: is going to be about the field of eschatology, which

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Speaker 1: is both theological and ostensibly secular, but it's the stuff

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Speaker 1: of the end of times. What what happens when there

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Speaker 1: is a conclusion to it all the either the end

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Speaker 1: of the human species or a very significant transition of

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Speaker 1: the human species into another kind of being, or a

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Speaker 1: very significant transition of the human species into a very

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Speaker 1: different kind of situation or station, either ushering in a

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Speaker 1: utopia that brings happiness and prosperity for all, or you know,

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Speaker 1: an apocalyptic vision. And we can get into what these

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Speaker 1: words mean in a minute, but that brings destruction and

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Speaker 1: calamity and uh, you know road warrior kind of stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's so much of it hinges on this

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Speaker 1: feeling that we're talking about, where it just it seems

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Speaker 1: like something's gotta give, something's gotta break, something's gotta change,

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Speaker 1: for better or worse. It it always takes me back

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Speaker 1: to to the Yates poem. Right, surely the second coming

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Speaker 1: is at hand. Surely something is about to get the

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Speaker 1: falcon cannot hear the falcon? Or man, something's going wrong? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: pasionate enthusiasm among the worst? Right, passion passionate intensity intensity? Yes,

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Speaker 1: that's even better. Yeah, what's the exact line. The the

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Speaker 1: best lack all conviction, and the worst are filled with

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Speaker 1: passionate intensity. I very often find that's true. You know,

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Speaker 1: some of the some of the best people I know

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Speaker 1: with the best opinions don't speak up that often. But man,

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Speaker 1: people who have bad opinions are allowed as heck, well,

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Speaker 1: they don't have to worry as much about saying the

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Speaker 1: wrong thing, do that. No, Well, I mean it helps

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Speaker 1: when you're never wrong. So let's let's let's get into

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Speaker 1: it here. Um. First of all, let's just talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit about basic human utopianism. You know, I want

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Speaker 1: to share a fact with you, Robert. I always assumed

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Speaker 1: that the you in the word utopia comes from the

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Speaker 1: Greek prefix meaning good, as in uh, you know euphoria,

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Speaker 1: the good feeling, but that is not actually where it

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Speaker 1: comes from too. So the title Utopia, of course, can

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Speaker 1: be traced back to Thomas Moore's book Utopia and this

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Speaker 1: sort of fictional but also philosophical treatise on what a

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Speaker 1: perfect society might look like. You could look at it

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Speaker 1: as a sort of update to Plato's Republic in a way,

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Speaker 1: or a laying out of the groundwork of you know,

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Speaker 1: how could we achieve a perfect world? And so if

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Speaker 1: utopia and that since had meant it had been the

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Speaker 1: way I understood it, it would have meant good place.

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Speaker 1: You know, utopia a good place. But the U is

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Speaker 1: not actually eu as in good place, but it's you

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Speaker 1: as in no place, because it didn't exist, right, Okay,

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Speaker 1: well that makes sense. Yeah, so I think that's something

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Speaker 1: that we should keep in mind. Going all the more reason,

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Speaker 1: I guess that Microsoft word is always telling me that

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Speaker 1: dystopia is not a word. Oh really, yeah, or at

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Speaker 1: least I get that. I get that correction all the time.

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Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, dystopia has come to have a meaning

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Speaker 1: for us as the opposite of utopia, as as a

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Speaker 1: dissident vision of the future. Right, But well, before we

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Speaker 1: get to dystopia, walk me through utopia, all right. So,

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Speaker 1: and really, in defining utopia, we essentially define dystopia human experiences.

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Speaker 1: Of course, you can think of it as the spark

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Speaker 1: on the line right between the expanse of the past

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Speaker 1: and the expanse of the future. It's like, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's like like a cartoon fuse to a bomb, right,

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Speaker 1: and we're just sparking along. And humans have thrived in

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Speaker 1: large part by their ability to perceive and mold that future.

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Speaker 1: All right. We developed new ways of doing this, doing

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Speaker 1: the things we always did, hunting, farm and crafting, as

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Speaker 1: well as the ways we think about the world, cosmology, society, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: And so we think of human existence. If we think

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Speaker 1: of human existence, has this spark upon the fuse of time,

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Speaker 1: we judge the soon to ignite, and the igniting based

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Speaker 1: on the charred and flaming remnants of what proceeded is

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Speaker 1: and we we we come to look beyond and imagine

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Speaker 1: near and far futures on this very line. And so

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Speaker 1: humans across cultures and times have sought to radically trams

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Speaker 1: formed their existence socially, bodily, technologically, etcetera. All as ares

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Speaker 1: a ways to try and and better ourselves and better

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Speaker 1: the way that we live on this world. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think that's true. And of course, if you look at

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Speaker 1: the basic human project of civilization as one that tends

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Speaker 1: towards creating a better life for all of us, it's

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Speaker 1: easy to look at that and conclude, well, than a

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Speaker 1: successful execution of this project would end in utopia. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's kind of like the it's it's the notion

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Speaker 1: that if a city is essentially engineering engineering exercise, there

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Speaker 1: should be some idealized version of the city that we're

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Speaker 1: aspiring to. I mean, eventually we can get there. In

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Speaker 1: this case, you know, the city is not just a

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Speaker 1: literal city, but the city is the model for the

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Speaker 1: you know, all things civilization. Now, I would argue, I

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Speaker 1: think that one reason we sense attention here, Like you

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Speaker 1: might say, well, I don't expect us to ever reach utopia,

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Speaker 1: but I do advocate civilization continuing to try to improve

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Speaker 1: the lives of everyone for as long as possible. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Doesn't that seem a contradiction. I would say that the

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Speaker 1: main contradiction lies in the incoherence of the idea of perfection.

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Speaker 1: You can't create a perfect society, because that idea doesn't

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Speaker 1: make sense. They are inherent tensions in society. People want

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Speaker 1: different things, and so there there is no such thing

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Speaker 1: as a perfect society for everyone. Yeah. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: could make this more or less idealized building in which

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Speaker 1: people are going to live and work. But then what

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Speaker 1: are you gonna set the thermostat to right? Because some

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Speaker 1: people are gonna be too hot, some people are gonna

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Speaker 1: be too cold some people what people want to wear

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Speaker 1: a hoodie in the office. Some people want to sit

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Speaker 1: there and sweat. Now, one way you could get out

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Speaker 1: of this bind is by saying, you know, this project

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Speaker 1: of continually trying to improve human civilization is going to

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Speaker 1: be cut short, and it is going to be cut

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Speaker 1: short by supernatural forces. So you're talking about a an

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Speaker 1: apocalypse of spiritual apocalypse, Yes, and I think it is

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Speaker 1: very worth mentioning something about the etymology here. The word apocalypse. Now,

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Speaker 1: the word apocalypse originally did not mean mad max uh.

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Speaker 1: It originally meant an unveiling or a revelation. So, for instance,

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Speaker 1: the Book of Revelation in the Bible in the New

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Speaker 1: Testament is sometimes known as the apocalypse of John. Means

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Speaker 1: the same thing the Revelation to John John wrote down,

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Speaker 1: so it's vision that he had all these cryptic things

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Speaker 1: that are playing out at the end of time exactly.

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Speaker 1: So a revelation it could reveal knowledge, visions, understanding, or

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Speaker 1: very often predictions about the future. And I think because

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Speaker 1: of associations with predictions about the future and the Book

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Speaker 1: of Revelation itself, the word apocalypse is a word that

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Speaker 1: has come to be associated with end to times events,

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Speaker 1: either the end of the world, the end of humanity,

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Speaker 1: or some radical change in station and the fortune of humankind.

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Speaker 1: And we should go ahead and say when you use

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Speaker 1: the word apocalypse, that changes usually for the worst. Right.

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Speaker 1: People don't usually say apocalypse in a positive way, like

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Speaker 1: there will be an apocalypse and will it will lead

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Speaker 1: to utopia, which is interesting considering the fact that the

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Speaker 1: the origin of the word stems from a story that

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Speaker 1: is supposedly about the the victory of the eventual victory

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Speaker 1: of all things good overall things evil. Right. Yeah, there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of different Christian visions of the end times,

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Speaker 1: and we'll talk about them in this episode today, but

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Speaker 1: they typically involve both very negative events and ultimately a

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Speaker 1: perfectly positive event but so the popular version of apocalypse. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we we associate with kind of post apocalyptic movies. Again,

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Speaker 1: The Road Warrior perfect example, great movie. Human civilization as

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Speaker 1: we formerly know it has ended and everything has just

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Speaker 1: gone to hell. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold right,

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Speaker 1: and you need guzzline. So it's also worth stressing here

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Speaker 1: that plenty of religions do not depend on such a

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Speaker 1: linear time frame right. Instead have a sickle coal and

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Speaker 1: certainly we see this in the older religions, the pre

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Speaker 1: Christian religions. Plenty of religions are more concerned with cosmological

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Speaker 1: origins underlying everyday reality and less of any notion on ending.

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Speaker 1: So for in for example, for example, in Hinduism, the

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Speaker 1: universe is continually created, preserve, destroyed, and created again. It's

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Speaker 1: an endless cycle, and the process of creation moves and

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Speaker 1: these large overarching cycles, and each cycle has four great

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Speaker 1: um epochs of time. The concept of reincarnation works alongside this,

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Speaker 1: as life flows into life, flows into life. I like

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Speaker 1: this because it mirrors some different hypotheses about the ultimate

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Speaker 1: nature of the universe. Now we don't know yet what

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Speaker 1: the ultimate nature of the universe is, but there are

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Speaker 1: some cosmological models in which, for example, our local universe

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Speaker 1: maybe a bouncing universe where it it collapses into a

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Speaker 1: singularity and then re explodes back into a universe with

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Speaker 1: distributed matter and energy all over the place, or event

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Speaker 1: like a bounty house where it's it's inflated in the

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Speaker 1: morning and then nipuke in it all day described that

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Speaker 1: with chlorox bleach and deflated the evening. Yes, it is

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Speaker 1: kind of like that too, But there is another apocalyptic

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Speaker 1: spiritual event that I wanted to call attention to just

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Speaker 1: because it's so cool. I can't pretend to understand it

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Speaker 1: all that well because it's Norse mythology, and Norse mythology,

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Speaker 1: I feel like is is a more impenetrable to the

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Speaker 1: outsider type of mythology than things like Greek mythology or

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Speaker 1: do you find that too. There's I mean, I feel

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Speaker 1: like I can get it a lot more when I

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Speaker 1: listened to death Metal. Okay, I think that's that's how

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Speaker 1: I tend to try and process it. Think of like

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Speaker 1: extreme survivalist situations, uh, and the and the and the

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Speaker 1: resulting pantheon of gods, the resulting time frame of events

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Speaker 1: that would that would shape that and be shaped by that. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: in that popular sense of apocalyptic, Norse mythology has some

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Speaker 1: great apocalyptic events that they've got Ragnarok and it's this

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Speaker 1: epic escottological battle involving God's monsters, chaos. There's this disastrous

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Speaker 1: cataclysmic winter, the mountains crumble, this giant sea serpent comes

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Speaker 1: up and spits venom over all the earth and poisons

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Speaker 1: the waters, and there's this huge slog down, bloody battle

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Speaker 1: where most of the gods get killed. Uh, it's brutal,

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Speaker 1: but hey, it would be an extreme bummer of a

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Speaker 1: religion that just ends with a cataclysmic disaster for everyone

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Speaker 1: and has nothing positive to come of it. So so

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Speaker 1: many religions also sort of have spiritual utopias in their

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Speaker 1: scatological framework, right, that the end times will result in

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Speaker 1: some kind of very positive situation for many people at least,

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Speaker 1: that's right now. Obviously we're gonna get to Christian models

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Speaker 1: here in a minute, but before we get there, I

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Speaker 1: want to just touch base on on some Buddhist ideas here.

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Speaker 1: So there's a recurring theme in Hinduism and Buddhism that

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Speaker 1: one may escape the endless psychle of death and rebirth

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Speaker 1: the wheel of sam Sara and attain liberation. Um. And

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Speaker 1: you can interpret such liberation as it's as its own

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Speaker 1: form of ending or perfection even but it's also kind

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Speaker 1: of a it's a form of escape or form of

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Speaker 1: ending that can be acquired at any point along the line.

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Speaker 1: So there's not you don't have to wait till the

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Speaker 1: end times or some distant future to attain liberation to

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Speaker 1: reach nirvana. So the inner journey as opposed to a

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Speaker 1: physical world journey asynchronous timelines. That being said, Um, there

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Speaker 1: is a pretty cool um idea out there, and that

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Speaker 1: is the belief system within Buddhism. Uh. That's a millennial

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Speaker 1: Buddhist in particular. Uh. They have this uh, this character

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Speaker 1: known as my Trea, and my Trea is the Bodhisattva,

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Speaker 1: the being, an enlightenment of the future who will arrive

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Speaker 1: on Earth. Generally, I've seen some numbers thrown out there,

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Speaker 1: but just it's gonna be a long time in the future.

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Speaker 1: Try no, Robert, you have a number on our notes. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I have a number, and this is a this one

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Speaker 1: comes from a from my belief Japanese model. There's a

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Speaker 1: sect of Buddhist monks. They're are devoted to my trio

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Speaker 1: and I and I forgive me, I do not recall

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Speaker 1: the Japanese name from my trio off the top of

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Speaker 1: my head. But it is what five billion years in

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Speaker 1: the future. My reading that those are a lot of zeros.

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Speaker 1: Uh No, that would be five trilli, five trillion, six

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Speaker 1: hundred and seventy billion years. So it's no way sixties seven, yeah,

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Speaker 1: six hundred and seventy billion years. It's a colossal number.

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Speaker 1: And it's from that this would be this is gonna

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Speaker 1: be like a far future time when people live to

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Speaker 1: incredible ages. I want to say eighty thousand years old,

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Speaker 1: So huge numbers involved here, and my trio would be

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Speaker 1: the ultimate successor to our current Buddha. Um Sharda got him,

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Speaker 1: got him a Buddha and uh this Buddha will achieve

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Speaker 1: complete enlightenment and teach pure dharma here on earth. And

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Speaker 1: I just want to read a quick quote. This is

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Speaker 1: from book of my Trea, The Future Buddha by Alan

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Speaker 1: Spenberg says quote, the prospect of a future Buddha, yet

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Speaker 1: another in the long line of Buddhas, offers an attractive possibility.

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Speaker 1: Although liberation from suffering is possible for anyone at any time.

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Speaker 1: According to Buddhist those being fortunate enough to live at

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Speaker 1: a time when a Buddha is active in the world

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Speaker 1: are far more likely to realize the arduous goal of

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Speaker 1: bringing all craving to cessation. Though perhaps initially a minor

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Speaker 1: figure in the early Buddhist tradition, my Trea thus comes

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Speaker 1: to represent a hope for the future, a time when

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Speaker 1: all human beings could once again enjoy the spiritual and

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Speaker 1: physical environment most favorable to enlightenment and the release from

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Speaker 1: worldly suffering. I think that's fascinating because the very positive

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Speaker 1: situation here, that the utopia that's being brought about isn't

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Speaker 1: one necessarily of material fulfillment, but one of the realization

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Speaker 1: of the lack of necessity for material fulfillment. Very often,

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Speaker 1: when you see like a heaven or just any kind

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Speaker 1: of very positive, spiritually imagined future situation, people people speak

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Speaker 1: of material comforts. Yeah. Yeah, And indeed this, uh, this

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Speaker 1: particular idea, I guess would only entail material comforts and

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Speaker 1: insofar as they enable you to seek in or enlightenment

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Speaker 1: and realize that you don't need material coming rights. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So a lot of what we're gonna be talking about

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Speaker 1: in this episode is not just spiritual, religious supernatural frameworks

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Speaker 1: for eschatology, but actually secular and very often scientific or

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Speaker 1: technological frameworks for eschatology. And there are just like we

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Speaker 1: talked about religious apocalypses and religious future utopias, there are

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Speaker 1: secular apocalypses and secular future utopias. Yeah. And I think

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Speaker 1: the fascinating thing here and and and something preving to

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Speaker 1: keep in mind as we we play with this topic

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Speaker 1: here today is that there's so much shared um circuitry

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Speaker 1: involved both ideas. So you know, it's it's easy for

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Speaker 1: for for an atheist to stand on one side and

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Speaker 1: scoff at some of these spiritual ideas of utopia and

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Speaker 1: salvation and destruction. But when you break it down, how

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Speaker 1: different is the underlying experience of those ideas? How different

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Speaker 1: is that from some of these secular ideas we're discussing. Now, Well,

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Speaker 1: that's a good question. I think we should discuss them

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Speaker 1: and explore. Well, as far as secular apocalypses go, we

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Speaker 1: really only don't even have to to mention many of them.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're pretty obvious. The idea of nuclear annihilation

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Speaker 1: of global cataclysm green Goo, greg Goo. Um, I don't

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Speaker 1: even know if this one is a thing, but I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna go and say it. Brown goo, who knows? Um singularity?

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Speaker 1: Um I I love our Scott Baker's idea of a

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Speaker 1: semantic apocalypse, which one is that semantic apocalypse is basically

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Speaker 1: just the death of meaning. Where we reach this point

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Speaker 1: from where we have a certain neuroscientific understanding of the

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Speaker 1: human experience, and uh, we realize that all human consciousness

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Speaker 1: is a coin trick, and we explain the coin trick.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of a Nietzsche in despair. Well, all of

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Speaker 1: those are possible things that people could predict happening, you know.

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Speaker 1: So you've got green goo, gray goo. You know, people

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Speaker 1: talking about nanotechnology or something that could take over the world.

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Speaker 1: We don't even have that kind of nanotechnology yet and

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Speaker 1: maybe we never could. Uh, it could just be something

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Speaker 1: impossible that people are dreaming up. But on the other hand, ultimately,

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Speaker 1: if we assume that our current understanding of physics is

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Speaker 1: basically correct, and we think it probably is, I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot we don't know, but what we do

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Speaker 1: know we're pretty confident about, and that the laws of

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Speaker 1: physics don't change with time. Our scientific picture of the

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Speaker 1: universe does very firmly predict one type of scaton that

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Speaker 1: is unsurvivable. Right, And I want to read a say,

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Speaker 1: action from a book I've been reading. Actually, it's a

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Speaker 1: book by the physicist Sean Carroll called The Big Picture,

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Speaker 1: and he's talking about the physical cosmological model of what's

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Speaker 1: going to happen to the universe after a while. So

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Speaker 1: he talks about the accelerating expansion of the universe, and

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Speaker 1: that's fueled by the pull of vacuum energy, you know,

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Speaker 1: the energy out there that's causing the galaxies to expand

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Speaker 1: farther and farther apart. Uh, And that all tells us

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Speaker 1: more or less what's going to happen, he writes, quote,

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Speaker 1: it's possible, and in some sense would be simplest for

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Speaker 1: the accelerated expansion to simply continue without end. That leads

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Speaker 1: to a somewhat lonely future for our universe. Right now,

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Speaker 1: the night sky is alive with brightly shining stars and

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Speaker 1: galaxies that can't last forever. Stars use up their fuel

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Speaker 1: and will eventually fade to black. Astronomers estimate that the

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Speaker 1: last dim star will wink out around one quadrillion or

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Speaker 1: ten to the fifteen years from now. That's well, that's

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Speaker 1: well after the age of my Trea. Yeah, good to know. Yeah, though,

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Speaker 1: who knows how long my Treia lives. Throwing that out there,

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Speaker 1: my Trea could could have something to say about these

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Speaker 1: stars burning up all their fuel. But anyway, Carol continues.

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Speaker 1: By then, other galaxies will have moved far away, and

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Speaker 1: our local group of galaxies will be populated by planets,

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Speaker 1: dead stars, and black holes. One by one, those planets

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Speaker 1: and dead stars will fall into the black holes, which

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Speaker 1: in turn will join into one supermassive black hole. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: as Stephen Hawking taught us, even those black holes will evaporate.

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Speaker 1: After about one google or tend to the one hundred years,

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Speaker 1: all of the black holes in our observable universe will

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Speaker 1: have evaporated into a thin mist of particles, which will

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Speaker 1: grow more and more dilute as space continues to expand.

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Speaker 1: The end result of this are most likely scenario for

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Speaker 1: the future of the universe is nothing but cold empty space,

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Speaker 1: which will last literally forever. Well that's um, that's nice

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Speaker 1: and dark, but literally and figuratively Yeah, but then again,

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Speaker 1: it sounds like that mist of particles. That sounds kind

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Speaker 1: of refreshing, yeah, I mean, but also it's you're dealing

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Speaker 1: with such a long period of time here, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of it's kind of like the idea of the humanless universal,

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Speaker 1: lifeless universe. It's really more just return to normal normalcy

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Speaker 1: in the universe, right, I mean, we were not around

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Speaker 1: for ages and ages and ages for the vast majority

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Speaker 1: of cosmological time. So what's it mattered that we're not

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Speaker 1: going to survive in the long run either. Well, I'm

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Speaker 1: just trying to offer an example of how you don't

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Speaker 1: have to get far out into left field with crazy

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Speaker 1: technological predictions in order to say that at some point

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Speaker 1: there will be an end. There will be an endpoint

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Speaker 1: to humanity. Uh that you know, it's it's hard to

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Speaker 1: survive the energy evaporation death of the universe unless in

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Speaker 1: a post in my tray a world we have figured

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Speaker 1: out ways technologically to escape into alternate universes. So true,

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Speaker 1: in those doors to alternate universes, maybe our salvation, but

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Speaker 1: you might not have to walk through a door to

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Speaker 1: reach a very different kind of world that might be

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Speaker 1: much better than the one we have, because there are

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Speaker 1: also secular visions of utopias right there, most certainly are

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Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be heaven. It can be we

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Speaker 1: can make heaven here on earth, according to some people. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, in a way, a lot of these remind

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Speaker 1: me of the my Trea vision, the idea that you're

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Speaker 1: gonna you're gonna have a world where people are gonna

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Speaker 1: be able to find peace. Um. So we have various

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Speaker 1: models from this, I mean, some of the ones that

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Speaker 1: are more scientifically based. We have various ideas about what

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Speaker 1: a post scarcity society might be, transhumanist existence, um, the

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Speaker 1: the the essential Star Trek model of life on Earth,

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Speaker 1: right where everybody's gotten to the point where we get along.

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Speaker 1: We have technology that we have holio decks, and we

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Speaker 1: have machines that will just create whatever food we need

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Speaker 1: on demand, new ages of human consciousness. Um than various

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Speaker 1: positive spins on the technological singularity. Yeah. Now, if you

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Speaker 1: don't know that much about the singularity, or even if

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Speaker 1: you do, we're gonna be talking about that at more

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Speaker 1: length later on, and how that fits into ideas of

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Speaker 1: religious eschatology. And then of course there are so many

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Speaker 1: different secular models of utopia that are that are that

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Speaker 1: are based on how we can build a better society

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Speaker 1: um various utopian cults, various utopian mindsets that have been

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Speaker 1: thrown out, their new political models, ways of organizing ourselves,

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Speaker 1: ways of building that better city that rely less on

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Speaker 1: technology and more on simply the ordering of ourselves and

425
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:44,359
Speaker 1: the ordering of the inner self. Alright, we're gonna take

426
00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 1: a quick break, and when we come back, we will

427
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 1: explore the Christian rapture. All right, we're back to wrap

428
00:24:57,359 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 1: about the Christian Rapture. I wonder if there has been

429
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: any Christian hip hop that has expressly concerned itself with

430
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 1: the rapture. I would love to hear about it. Quite

431
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 1: sure that has happened. Well, you know there's that Blondie song, right, rapture?

432
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:13,320
Speaker 1: Is that about the Rapture? No? I don't think so.

433
00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:16,400
Speaker 1: But it's very weird, is that the one? I think

434
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:18,720
Speaker 1: that's the one about the man for Mars. He's eating

435
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:22,640
Speaker 1: cars and now he goes out and needs guitars. I'm

436
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 1: not sure which which part of the back book of

437
00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:28,399
Speaker 1: Revelation she's referring to there. The Book of Revelation is

438
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,240
Speaker 1: full of wonderfully strange imagry, and that would that would

439
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:35,159
Speaker 1: fit right in actually, But okay, so the Christian rapture,

440
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:38,800
Speaker 1: I wanna just put you in a scenario. You're on

441
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:41,439
Speaker 1: a plane. There may or may not be snakes on

442
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:45,879
Speaker 1: the plane, doesn't matter either way. Suddenly many people on

443
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 1: the plane have disappeared, possibly including the pilot and co pilot,

444
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 1: but thankfully for you this time, not the pilot and

445
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 1: co pilot. Right, is this a Langaliers thing? No, but

446
00:25:57,640 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 1: I am describing a scene from a popular novel, and

447
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 1: we'll get to that in just a minute. So the

448
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 1: people are gone where you would have normally found them. Uh,

449
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:07,679
Speaker 1: instead of people sitting in their seats eating bags of

450
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:12,680
Speaker 1: peanuts watching Terminator Genesis, Uh, you find little piles of clothes.

451
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 1: And a friend of mine. This is a funny Ones

452
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:17,159
Speaker 1: actually told me that he watched a low budget Christian

453
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:20,919
Speaker 1: apocalypse movie in which there's this this scene happens, people

454
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:23,640
Speaker 1: disappear in their clothes are left behind. But he says

455
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: that the clothes were not only empty, but neatly starched

456
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:29,159
Speaker 1: and folded, and in some shots you could see that

457
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 1: they still had price tags attached to them. But anyway,

458
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: people start screaming, wailing, where did their loved Ones go

459
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 1: and at first it's a mystery, but then uh, it

460
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:43,119
Speaker 1: gradually becomes a parent that what the people who disappeared

461
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 1: had in common was their firm belief in Jesus Christ.

462
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:49,400
Speaker 1: And this is this is a scene from Left Behind,

463
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:53,360
Speaker 1: a popular work of Christian schatological fantasy fiction by Tim

464
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 1: Lahay and Jerry B. Jenkins. You've probably heard of this before, Robert,

465
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 1: I assume you're pretty familiar with Left Behind. Yes, I

466
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:03,399
Speaker 1: am familiar with Left Behind, though though I have to

467
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 1: say I don't think it really picked up steam in

468
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: the church community. I was a part of as like

469
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: as a as a kid and junior high in high

470
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:15,879
Speaker 1: school student. Until after I was kind of, um, you know,

471
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:20,119
Speaker 1: after I was less active in that community where we

472
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 1: were more into uh, this present darkness by I think

473
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: it's frank And that essentially was kind of the whole

474
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,359
Speaker 1: series of books that had to do a spiritual warfare.

475
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: So it was more concerned with the idea that kind

476
00:27:31,760 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 1: of a screw tape scenario was always playing out all

477
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:38,159
Speaker 1: around us. And then there are angels and demons like

478
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:41,479
Speaker 1: duking it out for your mind and your Yeah, so

479
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:42,919
Speaker 1: that was big. I think those came out in like

480
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:46,640
Speaker 1: eighty five. Initially, and Left Behind the first Left Behind

481
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 1: book came out in nine, so I think it was out,

482
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: but it was just really beginning to build steam. Okay, Well,

483
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:56,439
Speaker 1: so this scenario I've described and Left Behind this is

484
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 1: it is part of a work of Christian fantasy fiction.

485
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,400
Speaker 1: But the idea is not just something that the author's

486
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 1: dreamed up. It's been a popular element of Christian eschatology

487
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:10,439
Speaker 1: for many years. So where does this idea of the

488
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 1: rapture come from? That this is the rapture? People are

489
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 1: are they disappear? They've been raptured up. So I would

490
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 1: say it's a complex doctrine with varying theological interpretations, but

491
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 1: the general rapture belief is usually linked most directly to

492
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:31,159
Speaker 1: a passage in First Thessalonians chapter four, where where the

493
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 1: author of the letter, presumed to be Paul, rights for

494
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout,

495
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: with the voice of the archangel and with the trump

496
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

497
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 1: Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught

498
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:50,360
Speaker 1: up together with them in the clouds to meet the

499
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with

500
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 1: the Lord, wherefore comfort one another with these words. So

501
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: technically the rapture is that actually people often use the

502
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: rapture as a term to signify the Christian escaton that

503
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:06,320
Speaker 1: you know, the end of days, but it's actually just

504
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: one event, uh, sort of a moment from this whole

505
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 1: complex system of Christian eschatology. But the idea is that

506
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: upon the moment of the earthly return of Christ, dead

507
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: Christians will be resurrected and living Christians will be miraculously

508
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: sucked up into the sky to meet the Lord, who

509
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: is presumably descending from above at the same moment. But

510
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: there are some elements of Christian eschatology that match very

511
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 1: much what we were talking about earlier with the idea

512
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 1: of of apocalypses and and utopias. So I mean, because

513
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 1: that sounds like an apocalypse for for pretty much everybody,

514
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:45,240
Speaker 1: Like that's going to end the work day, no matter,

515
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:48,239
Speaker 1: no matter what. Yeah, it's always it's always played for

516
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 1: horror in the Christian apocalypse movies, right, you know, people

517
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:55,959
Speaker 1: people start screaming, they don't know what's happened. It is, uh,

518
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: I guess it is assumed to be a very positive

519
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: event for the people who have been wrapp p sured,

520
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:02,440
Speaker 1: But for those left on earth it is not a

521
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: very positive event. Now this is my own two sense,

522
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:07,360
Speaker 1: but I wonder, I wonder if that the rapture narrative

523
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: as it's been popularized, uh in current society, if it

524
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: speaks to a desire for a kind of public, passive,

525
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 1: aggressive rectification of faith, you know, in an age of

526
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 1: perceived marginalization of traditional ridgious beliefs. So you get, you

527
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 1: get liberation from a weary world with just a hint

528
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: of a middle finger to those that are left behind

529
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 1: it didn't who didn't believe in what you believed and

530
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 1: didn't have the same faith that you had. What you

531
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 1: know is arguably a better moral stance than fantasies of health,

532
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:41,800
Speaker 1: fire and an eternal torment for those who don't agree

533
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 1: with you. But still, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't try

534
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 1: to psycho and I'm sure everybody's got different attitudes toward it,

535
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 1: but I'm sure for some people there is an element

536
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:51,960
Speaker 1: of that that's kind of like I'm out of here,

537
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: So yeah, you know, I suck it. And today we're

538
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 1: gonna be focusing on what would be called Christian futurists.

539
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: These are people who think biblical prophecies are going to

540
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 1: be fulfilled sometime in the future. There are also other

541
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 1: types of people who interpret the Bible differently, their pretorics,

542
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 1: who believe that these prophecies were fulfilled during the events

543
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 1: described in the New Testament, or in the early years

544
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: of the Church or sometime in the past. Uh. They're

545
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: also those who believe it's all a bit metaphorical. Really,

546
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 1: but there are very few broad concepts and distinctions in

547
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 1: Christian futurists eschatological thinking that that we can relate to

548
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: in this episode. So one is this big, the big event,

549
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 1: the main show, the second coming of Christ. So Christians

550
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:37,600
Speaker 1: believe that that Jesus Christ was martyred, rose from the dead,

551
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: ascended to heaven, and at some point after his ascension

552
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 1: as described in the Bible, Christ will return to Earth

553
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 1: or perhaps in some sense has already returned literal or metaphorical,

554
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 1: but in any case, he comes back, and he's not

555
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: here just to visit. There's some schatological purpose to his return,

556
00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: and there are different views on what that is, but

557
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: usually it involved some sort of putting the hammer down,

558
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: like there is an act of final judgment, Jesus is

559
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 1: back in this time. It's personal. Yeah, But then there's

560
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: this concept of the tribulation. So many Christians also believe

561
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: that immediately before the second Coming of Christ, there will

562
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 1: be a time of great suffering. You know, it's often

563
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: described as war, persecution, hardship, hunger, pain, disease, destruction, and

564
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 1: this very bad period, this road warrior period, as as

565
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: you might want to associate it, is known as the tribulation.

566
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 1: This is your apocalyptic aspect. And in the pop culture

567
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 1: since the term it's it's about as close as Christianity

568
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 1: gets to full road warrior. In a way, you can

569
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: think of it as kind of like the fattening of

570
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 1: the pig for for for slaughter. Right, If you think

571
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: of of hardship and warfare and human suffering is kind

572
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: of like the fertile soil from which you know, faith

573
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:56,719
Speaker 1: and especially like strong faith can emerge, then that's uh

574
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:00,240
Speaker 1: that that's kind of how sometimes interpret this vision. And

575
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,959
Speaker 1: I think that's actually a concept you see throughout the

576
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:06,719
Speaker 1: theological history of Christianity. There there's very much emphasis on

577
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: hardship causing people to strengthen their their faith or their

578
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 1: or their religious character. But so where does this idea

579
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: of the tribulation comes from. It comes from the preaching

580
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 1: of Jesus, essentially in the Book of Matthew, for example,

581
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 1: and he's talking about right before the Son of Man returns.

582
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 1: He says, for then shall be great tribulations such as

583
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: was not since the beginning of the world to this time,

584
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: no nor ever shall be and except those days should

585
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 1: be shortened. There should no flesh be saved, but for

586
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: the elect sake, those days shall be shortened. So something's

587
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 1: gonna gonna cut off the tribulation. What's going to happen?

588
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:48,719
Speaker 1: What will it be shortened by? Well, perhaps it is

589
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: the millennium. This is another concept from Christians chatology, and

590
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 1: it's a period of utopian rule on earth where Christ

591
00:33:56,040 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 1: himself or Christian goodness generally will rule for the earth

592
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 1: for one thousand years. So sometimes this is interpreted as

593
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:07,280
Speaker 1: a long period of time represented metaphorically by the idea

594
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:10,400
Speaker 1: of a thousand years. Sometimes it's literally a thousand years.

595
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:13,879
Speaker 1: But this comes primarily from the Book of Revelation, chapter twenty,

596
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 1: in which it said that those who have been martyred

597
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:18,960
Speaker 1: for not having taken the mark of the beast on

598
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: their hands or their foreheads will be resurrected and rule

599
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 1: with Christ for a thousand years now. There are tons

600
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: of different ways that you can put all these concepts together.

601
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 1: They're there are different ideas about in what order they come.

602
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:36,000
Speaker 1: Their pre millennialists who think that Christ's second coming will

603
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 1: happen right before the millennium begins. There are post millennialists

604
00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 1: who think that Christ's second coming and final judgment will

605
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 1: happen at the end of the millennium. And they're also

606
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 1: among the pre millennialists. Some who think the rapture is

607
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 1: going to happen before the tribulation, in the middle of

608
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: the tribulation, or that the rapture won't literally happen at all.

609
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 1: So so there's a great diversity of opinion. I don't

610
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 1: want to represent them as all thinking the same thing.

611
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 1: And of course I should also stress that there are

612
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 1: plenty of Christians who don't really buy into any of

613
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: this end times framework. You know, they're a millennialists that

614
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 1: they're not they're not looking forward to any kind of

615
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:15,279
Speaker 1: apocalypse or utopia on Earth in any sense. Yeah, I mean,

616
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 1: you know, obviously it's going to vary from from sec

617
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:22,440
Speaker 1: to sect, from individual to individual. But it's I think

618
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:25,239
Speaker 1: it's definitely hard to argue that at the at the

619
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 1: end of the date, is anything that occurs in like

620
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 1: a book of revelation. Is anything concerning the end times

621
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:36,239
Speaker 1: really affect your day to date a much? You know? Yeah, um, well,

622
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 1: I know it might. It might. And I want to

623
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: make a case actually why some people would say that

624
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:46,480
Speaker 1: belief in the end time, whether religious or secular, does

625
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 1: actually affect the way we live our lives. Well, I

626
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 1: guess it depends on when you were you're throwing out

627
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:54,760
Speaker 1: that end time, when you're throwing out that cataclysmic event,

628
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 1: when you're throwing out that utopia, if you think it's

629
00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 1: gonna occur near enough in the future that you can

630
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: actively structure your life in accordance to it, I mean

631
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 1: that's one thing. Well that that is a point that

632
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 1: will be echoed by somebody I want to quote in

633
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:13,400
Speaker 1: a bit. Okay, okay, So, Robert, we we've talked about utopias, apocalypse,

634
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,719
Speaker 1: is the the end times? The schatological views of of

635
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:20,600
Speaker 1: what's coming down the road, how soon it's coming, and

636
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:22,320
Speaker 1: is it gonna be good or is it going to

637
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:25,600
Speaker 1: be bad? But these ideas are not, of course limited

638
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 1: to religious believers, right right, Yeah, We've had plenty of

639
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 1: concepts that have been thrown out there in terms in

640
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: terms of uh, you know, secular utopia, even a scientific utopia.

641
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 1: I mean you can, if you you can trace fictionalized

642
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 1: versions of this journey all the way back to the

643
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:44,879
Speaker 1: epic of Gilgamesh, humanity's earliest surviving piece of literature, dating

644
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,839
Speaker 1: back to the second millennium BC, in which are our

645
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: hero wants the secret of immortality and failing that, realizes

646
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: that the greatest naim is to just build a city,

647
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 1: just building an awesome city instead, and then that's even

648
00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 1: you know that that's also really hard work. Well there

649
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 1: that project of civilization, right yeah, But but even in

650
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:04,440
Speaker 1: just the e a good Google mess, we see that

651
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 1: quest for more life and a better system for living

652
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:12,320
Speaker 1: as a people. Now, um, I was reading a wonderful

653
00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:16,279
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve article from James J. Hughes titled the

654
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 1: Politics of trans human Humanism and the Techno Millennial Imagination

655
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 1: sixty six through uh, and he traces trans humanism and

656
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: trans humanist thought back to into the European Enlightenment in

657
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds. Now sorry to interrupt, but you and

658
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:36,399
Speaker 1: Christian did an episode about trans humanism recently, right, Yeah,

659
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:38,359
Speaker 1: we we may have done a couple of them now

660
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:40,480
Speaker 1: that I think about it. Um, well, it's kind of

661
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 1: been a summer of trans humanism, if you will. So

662
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:46,080
Speaker 1: we you know, talked that we did an episode that

663
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: was devoted to just the general idea of trans humanism

664
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:51,840
Speaker 1: and some of the different sects of trans humanism that

665
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:53,759
Speaker 1: are present in the world. But can you give us

666
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: a one sentence digest basically that through science and technology

667
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:03,319
Speaker 1: we can create a better expression of the human form

668
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 1: and or human society, so we can we can live longer,

669
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:10,720
Speaker 1: we can live happier, we can And this is where

670
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:13,399
Speaker 1: that the definition varies because you have you have some

671
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 1: people whose idea of trans humanism is far more individual based.

672
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,440
Speaker 1: So it's like, hey, some people are gonna live forever

673
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 1: and have spaceships and that's great. Other people are gonna say, well,

674
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 1: we're not really transhumanist unless everybody can live forever and

675
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 1: everybody has access to spaceships, and you've solved some of

676
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:34,879
Speaker 1: these other problems. So it gets, it gets, it turns

677
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:37,839
Speaker 1: into a mire rather quickly, right, But it's the idea

678
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: of transcending the human animal and well, so do you

679
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,840
Speaker 1: want to transcend into the species level or just modify

680
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:47,439
Speaker 1: your own body to transcend your birth nature. Yeah, it's

681
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:49,400
Speaker 1: kind of the same idea that you see with your

682
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 1: topian models in general, where people will say, hey, this

683
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:55,160
Speaker 1: is where we are now, this is where we would

684
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: like to be, and then in addition to squabbles about

685
00:38:59,239 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 1: where you want to go, there's the inevitable problem of

686
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:04,280
Speaker 1: how you get there. Okay, But back to James Hughes,

687
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:08,319
Speaker 1: what's his argument? Okay, So he says that a lot

688
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:10,759
Speaker 1: of transumutism dates back to the European Enlightenment of the

689
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:16,440
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds, which allowed the same millennialist dreams we've discussed

690
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:21,360
Speaker 1: in religious terms. Uh, these aspirations to grow, to grow

691
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: who we are, but instead of doing it on you know,

692
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:27,880
Speaker 1: based on faith, based on the divine intervention or some

693
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:30,040
Speaker 1: other model. It's it all has to do with reason

694
00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: and science and technology. So machines will free us from

695
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 1: our labor, medicine will rid us of disease, and peace

696
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:39,720
Speaker 1: will wash across the land. It's a basic enlightenment tenants

697
00:39:39,719 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 1: there um and of course some help also acknowledge that

698
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 1: we might have some of the Enlightenment thinkers said, okay,

699
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:47,880
Speaker 1: we might have to also fight a whole bunch of

700
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:50,239
Speaker 1: awful wars. Really there, Yeah, so we might have to

701
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:54,239
Speaker 1: go through a tribulation. Yeah, exactly to the millennium. And

702
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 1: in generally the details of the ascension, the science of

703
00:39:57,000 --> 00:39:59,880
Speaker 1: the rapture, if you will, is ever varied, argued, and

704
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 1: and sometimes glossed over all altogether. Um. But Hughes says, quote,

705
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:08,800
Speaker 1: it was in this stew of often contradictory ideas about

706
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:12,880
Speaker 1: the nature of progress that modern techno millennialism was forged.

707
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 1: And you have a number of individuals, early individuals who

708
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 1: are getting involved in these ideas m Benjamin Franklin, William Godwin,

709
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:26,120
Speaker 1: or just two that argue that humans would eventually conquer oppression, inequality, disease,

710
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 1: and death. Um. What about did Tero ditto is interesting?

711
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 1: Um seventeen sixty nine. Uh. In his work, UH, the

712
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:39,759
Speaker 1: alan Bert's Dream proposed that human brains might be taken

713
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:43,360
Speaker 1: apart and then put back together, that intelligent animals and

714
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 1: animal human hybrids might be possible. And this one's the

715
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 1: big kicker. Sophisticated machines might have mine. Oh I'm gonna

716
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:52,920
Speaker 1: talk about that in a minute, because there is plenty

717
00:40:53,000 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: of artificial intelligence eschatology now, the post enlightenment quest for

718
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:06,240
Speaker 1: better life, for utopia even um, obviously we could spend

719
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:09,880
Speaker 1: multiple podcasts if we wanted to just talking about that,

720
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 1: all the the individual expressions of this, uh of this,

721
00:41:14,160 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 1: this this grasping. But in short, you see a number

722
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:20,840
Speaker 1: of different social movements, right, you see you see everything

723
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 1: from anarchism and liberalism, social democracy, Marxist lenin Leninism, fat fascism, etcetera. Right,

724
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:31,359
Speaker 1: all these different models of this is what we need

725
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:33,759
Speaker 1: to do. This is how we need to reorganize ourselves.

726
00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:37,399
Speaker 1: Cast out the old, embrace the new, and we're gonna

727
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 1: be better for it. And of course none of them

728
00:41:41,160 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 1: really worked out quite as intended, even the ones that

729
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 1: arguably worked, Right, Well, what's your beef with social democracy? No?

730
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 1: I love social democracy, but uh, let's just say that

731
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:57,800
Speaker 1: we're done always we're still working out the kinks. Yeah,

732
00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: I can see that. And of course we would be

733
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: remiss if we didn't mention eugenics, right, I mean, that's

734
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 1: a utopian vision that's now widely regarded as a as

735
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 1: an utterly bankrupt and evil idea. Yeah, it's and it's

736
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 1: fascinating because in a post it's like a postar in

737
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 1: a post oar winning world eugenics. If you strip away

738
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: all the horrible things that came out of it, if

739
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: you just like, basically, if you stripped the meat off

740
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: of the carcass of eugenics and you just look at

741
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 1: the bones, you can say, well, that seems to make

742
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:34,320
Speaker 1: a certain amount of sense, right treat you know, basically,

743
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: selectively breed humanity to improve the expression of the human species.

744
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 1: It's something that that sounds fine until you think about process, right,

745
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:48,719
Speaker 1: you know, so what is the process of doing that? Well,

746
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:53,360
Speaker 1: that requires either killing people who you think harbor less

747
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:57,239
Speaker 1: desirable genes or not allowing them to breed, or not

748
00:42:57,320 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 1: allowing them to breed at the same rate as people

749
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 1: who you think possessed desirable genes. Also in the process

750
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:06,560
Speaker 1: is the idea of selection. Who gets to pick which

751
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:09,399
Speaker 1: genes are desirable. Some people might think, well, it's not

752
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 1: just genes that prevent certain diseases and make people live

753
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:15,400
Speaker 1: longer and stuff like that. Some people might think that

754
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 1: certain uh, you know, continental origins are more preferable than others,

755
00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 1: and so you get into really nasty territory. But I

756
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 1: think what's interesting here is that eugenics is really not

757
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:31,799
Speaker 1: that different from the idea of the Christian rapture, right,

758
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 1: because then in eugenics, it's basically this idea that selected

759
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 1: races and gene lineages are going to be lifted up

760
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 1: and essentially the rest are doomed. So it's an it's

761
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 1: an an elevation. It's an ascension of certain models of

762
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: humanity in the same way that a Christian rapture means

763
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 1: the elevation and survival of certain very particular modes of

764
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: human thought, faith, and reason. Well, yeah, this does sort

765
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: of highlight that they're they're very different ways of thinking

766
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 1: about out the idea of of utopia and apocalypse at

767
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 1: the end of times? Is it egalitarian in nature? Like?

768
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 1: Does does the destruction that's coming or the great blessing

769
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 1: that's coming apply to everyone or does it only apply

770
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:16,839
Speaker 1: to some One person's utopia is another person's apocalypse? Right?

771
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: It could be very much and often within the same system.

772
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: Is now fast forward a bit, skip over a lot

773
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:25,160
Speaker 1: of stuff, and you kind of get to our what

774
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:27,960
Speaker 1: can we condemn eugenics? And move on. Yeah. Yeah, having

775
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:31,240
Speaker 1: condemned eugenics and moving moving on, we get into another

776
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:34,880
Speaker 1: area here, uh, certainly into more of our current transhumanist

777
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 1: ideas and a lot of the fascinating material that we've

778
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: even discussed on the show about genetic engineering, genetic manipulation

779
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:46,799
Speaker 1: UM that are in many ways not that different from

780
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:49,919
Speaker 1: some some some of the goals and aspirations of eugenics,

781
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:56,480
Speaker 1: but achieved or potentially achieved through you know, far less

782
00:44:56,520 --> 00:45:01,319
Speaker 1: morally reprehensible. Means, the idea of simply selecting how genes

783
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 1: are expressed in our children, creating genetically modified UM expressions

784
00:45:09,120 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: that are more ideal without actively harming anybody. Okay, so yeah,

785
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 1: it's essentially taking the core nut of eugenics but applying

786
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:24,279
Speaker 1: it in an individual consent level and saying we're not

787
00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:27,480
Speaker 1: killing anybody or telling anybody they can't breed. Yeah. And

788
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:29,799
Speaker 1: on top of this, we have you know, various other

789
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 1: models of transhumanist um ascension, right, technological augmentation, cyborgs, virtual worlds,

790
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:41,279
Speaker 1: space exploration, colonization, because let's remember you on a lot

791
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:44,840
Speaker 1: of the ideas of exploration and particularly colonization of other worlds,

792
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:47,359
Speaker 1: it's about the long term survival of human race, right.

793
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 1: And in fact, there's a there's a two twelve book

794
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 1: that came out from Corey dr Ow and Charles Stross

795
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 1: titled The Rapture of the Nerds, which which I have

796
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:02,279
Speaker 1: not read some interesting things about it, but it's it

797
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:04,480
Speaker 1: is in effect that that term is referring to a

798
00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:07,960
Speaker 1: trans humanist elevation of at least certain individuals and some

799
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:10,480
Speaker 1: of the problems that occur there. Yeah, well, I mean,

800
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:14,880
Speaker 1: I certainly I don't know to what extent this makes

801
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 1: the idea of trans humanism religious in nature. And that's

802
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 1: something we can talk about, is you know, to what

803
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 1: extent does a similarity to a religious idea make an

804
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:26,799
Speaker 1: idea of religious I don't know if I would say

805
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:29,799
Speaker 1: trans humanism is a religion or not. You might be

806
00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 1: able to make that argument, But in any case, I

807
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 1: I do see parallels to, for example, the idea in

808
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 1: Christianity of resurrection bodies, you know, the idea that those

809
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:41,359
Speaker 1: who are dead in Christ upon Christ's return will be

810
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:44,719
Speaker 1: resurrected in in bodies made of like a like a

811
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:49,040
Speaker 1: better spiritual material. It sounds a lot like trans human

812
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 1: body modification to me, Like you have your body remade

813
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:54,439
Speaker 1: in a way that will never age, will never die,

814
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 1: will somehow still be you, but won't be that crappy

815
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:00,759
Speaker 1: body you had before. Yeah, don't think it's so much

816
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:03,759
Speaker 1: that the trans humanism is religious in nature. But some

817
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:06,239
Speaker 1: of these religious models we've been discussing, they share the

818
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:11,200
Speaker 1: same energy as as trans humanism, Like they're similar fears,

819
00:47:11,560 --> 00:47:15,359
Speaker 1: similar aspirations about who we are and where we're going.

820
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:19,600
Speaker 1: All right, everybody, We actually have much more on this topic,

821
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:22,960
Speaker 1: but we went so long we're splitting it into two episodes,

822
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 1: So come back next time and we will continue this

823
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 1: discussion of of rapture, trans humanism, utopianism, and then of

824
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:35,879
Speaker 1: course how we as humans deal with these these prophecies,

825
00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:39,480
Speaker 1: both secular and spiritual, when they do not come to pass.

826
00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:42,279
Speaker 1: In the meantime, reach out to us on all the

827
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: normal platforms. You'll find us a Stuff to Bow your

828
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. You'll find us on Facebook and Twitter

829
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: as well as Tumbler and Instagram, and if you want

830
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 1: to email us you can do so. As always that

831
00:47:51,960 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 1: blow the mind at how stup works dot com for

832
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:06,400
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it

833
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com