An Influential Psychosis

Anyone who believes the Christian Bible is boring has never read the Book of Revelation, the last canonical book of the New Testament. This is the part of the Bible based on prophesies of the last days of Earth. It's all about the second coming of Jesus, God's final judgment of humanity, and the apocalypse that destroys the Earth and condemns all non-believers to an eternity of suffering in Hell ... exciting stuff.

The Book of Revelation was written by somebody called "John of Patmos" (Patmos is an idyllic little Greek island situated in the Aegean sea), but nobody really knows exactly who John of Patmos was. All we know is that, for reasons never adequately explained, John was exiled to Patmos. It's quite clear though, from reading the book, that whoever he was, and for whatever reason he was exiled to Patmos, John was profoundly mentally ill and suffered from severe psychotic episodes. John's book is based entirely on two of these episodes, which clearly had a big impact on him. In the book he calls these psychotic episodes; "Visions" and relates how during these visions, first Jesus, and secondly God himself, appeared to him and told him some extremely scary stories.

At the time John wrote the Book of Revelations (somewhere between 60AD and 100AD) the science of Psychiatry was yet to be invented and it was not uncommon for the "visions" of psychotics to be misinterpreted as messages from the divine. Ironically, during the middle ages the reverse tended to be believed by Christians. Far from experiencing messages from God, people with a mental illness were considered to be "possessed" by Satan and were consequently imprisoned, tortured and frequently killed. In modern times, mentally ill people still experience scary episodes but thankfully we now have science, which attempts to explain these episodes in non-metaphysical terms and therefore help the sufferers progress to a less-scary place in life.

Despite the long litany of visions experienced by other mentally ill people throughout the ages since 100AD, for some reason not one of them ever joined the visions of John of Patmos in the Christian Bible as examples of God's Word.

Today, despite our understanding that visions such as those experienced by John of Patmos, are actually the result of an ill brain, there are many, many people who choose to believe the psychotic episodes described in the Book of Revelations represent a true and accurate prophesy from God Himself about actual events to come. A lot of these people believe the events described in Revelations are due to befall the current generation, and they are actively preparing for, and looking forward to the end of the world when they will be saved and taken to Heaven to live with their friend Jesus.

Despite being described by some commentators as a dangerous lunatic fringe, this movement of Apocalyptic Christians has been able to wield considerable political power in America and has been largely responsible for placing the current President in office and keeping him there for two terms. The reason they have chosen to support this particular president is because they believe he is one of them.

Though it has not been firmly established, it is the source of wide conjecture, that as a born-again Christian, George W. Bush is, in fact, also a believer in the impending Biblical apocalypse. He has often publicly identified with and shown strong support for the far Christian right and claims that God speaks both to him and through him. Since the failure and stagnation of his war on Iraq, Bush has turned his posturing to strengthening an enmity with all sworn enemies of Israel, most particularly Iran. Israel also happens to be the focal point of the final apocalyptic battle prophesied in Revelations. This battle occurs in a town called Megiddo, (the Hebrew Har-Megido, or Hill of Megiddo, became known as "Armageddon" in the modern Bible). Is it simply coincidence that America’s foreign policy under the current administration has consistently sought to increase the divide between Israel and its enemies?

Imagine for a moment the scenario where an insane, apocalypse-believing fundamentalist religious sect is allowed to significantly influence the foreign policy of a major military power. Imagine if control over the fate of the planet was handed over to a man who believed in, and actively looked forward to its destruction, in order that he and his brethren got to ascend to some fictional salvation?

Sounds scary doesn’t it? But we’d never be so stupid as to let something like that happen ‘round here, would we?

Sometimes the Glass Really IS Half-Empty

It's become fashionable these days for every self-appointed lay-philosopher to constantly remind us to be "glass-half-full people" rather than "glass-half-empty people". What this basically means is that we should suspend our critical faculties and pretend that garbage is actually gold so that everyone feels really good about themselves. This positive thinking idea has been with us for a number of decades. It seems to go in cycles and I fear we are currently experiencing a cyclic peak where, to express a critical, or "negative" opinion is as socially frowned-upon as smoking or eating carbohydrates. But there is an important place for critical thinking, particularly in the creative process. It helps filter out bad ideas and stops them from becoming bad things. A few days ago I was reminded of what can happen when bad ideas get mistaken for good ideas when I was unfortunate enough to catch the 1980 film: "Xanadu" on TV.

Xanadu is the worst film ever made; a crudely hacked-together mish-mash of disparate, transitory, early 80's popular culture concepts washed over with a lurid flouro sheen of crappy special effects and set to the most appalling soundtrack ever conceived. There were numerous opportunities during the gestation of this project where, had anyone utilised their critical faculties, the entire thing could have been canned, but instead the optimists had their day and the world is a poorer place as a result.

Xanadu casts Olivia Newton-John as a roller-skating Goddess from mythical Olympus, who becomes the romantic interest of a dispirited young commercial artist (Micheal Beck - don't worry, you're not supposed to have heard of him), who assists Gene Kelly, a clarinet-playing ex-businessman, to manifest his dream of creating the Xanadu night club, which in true 80's fashion ends up being a huge disco roller-rink. All of this is set to a sound track by ELO, who, despite a remarkable run of hits during the 70's, were by this stage well and truly on their own critical and commercial downward spiral.

Now, you can just imagine the glass-half-full thinking behind all this: "It'll be great: it's got magic (everyone loves magic), it's got roller-skating (everyone loves roller-skating), it's got Livvy (she was great in Grease) - It's got ELO (biggest selling UK act of the late 70's), and if all that doesn't work, it's even got Gene Kelly to dazzle up the dance numbers". Under the impressive weight of all these positive factors, no-one ever bothered considering that:

a) Olivia Newton-John couldn't look less like a Goddess from Olympus if she tried;
b) Neither she, nor Michael Beck could roller skate to save their lives;
c) Dance numbers on roller skates are a stupid idea anyway;
c) Gene Kelly was just shy of 70 and, it's fair to say, had committed his best work to celluloid at least 20 years earlier;
d) ELO sucked, and
e) The story was completely and utterly stupid.

Xanadu is a potent example of how we all need to be constantly on our guard against positive thinking, particularly in times when it seems everyone else is seeing the glass as half-full. Imagine, for example, how many thousands of Iraqi and American lives could have been spared if, during the patriotic fervor of pre-war 2002, more key decision makers had utilised their critical faculties and dared to point out that: "hey, maybe this isn't such a great idea after all".

If Xanadu is to have any value at all, at least let it stand as a reminder, that sometimes the glass really is half-empty.

Drought Solution #1: Attack India !!

Why? Because they've got what we want ... Water. In Brisbane at the moment, the ongoing drought and resultant Level 5 water restrictions mean we can't water our gardens, wash our cars or fill up our swimming pools. We're now restricted to 4 minute showers and being encouraged to install water-saving devices and even rain-water tanks, though how a rainwater tank is supposed to help anyone when it never rains is beyond me. Any civilised inhabitant of 21st century Earth will agree this situation is completely unacceptable. Clearly something needs to be done, but our elected decision-makers are wasting time, Dilly Dallying about, arguing the relative economics of recycling sewerage, diverting reservoirs and desalinating sea water, when the real answer to the problem is staring us all in the face. WAR !!

One of the great attributes of the Human species is its ability to accumulate wisdom by learning from the past, and if there's one lesson the past has taught us it is surely that when we want something we should make war on our neighbors and simply take it from them. In recent times America has reminded us of the wisdom of this strategy by declaring war on Iraq because they wanted more oil, but this war was only the most recent in a proud tradition of wars waged on countries that have stuff we want. In the past, the stuff people wanted was often land. Land is good because the more you own, the more socially adequate you feel. So if, for whatever reason, you feel inadequate (eg; small penis, no friends, stupid) you can accumulate land and feel really tough, especially if you accumulated it by killing other humans.

In the 21st century, water has become an important and valuable resource. My local petrol station charges me about $1.25 for a litre of petrol, but a litre bottle of drinking water costs nearly twice as much. We in Australia need water. India has lots of water. Cherrapunji in India holds the world record for the highest rainfall ever recorded with 26,461mm in 1 year. Measured in another way, Mt Waialeale in Hawaii has the highest average annual rainfall with 11,680mm, but we can't attack America because they're much tougher than us. We'd end up with egg on our face. This is another lesson history has taught us; make sure, before you attack another country, that you can actually win, otherwise you will end up with egg on your face, and we Australians can't afford to get egg on our face because we don't have any water to wash it off.