the Doomsday Clock

... or "Man is the only creature that knows it's going to die"

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After having had a rough day at work facing all kinds af peculiar phenomenons of mischief and misunderstandings I pick up the paperversion of Hufvudstadsbladet (major fennoswedish newspaper) and stumble into an article on religion and the effects religion has had - still has - on the very specific area where I was brought up. The article is a direct "offspring" from several other articles on the same issue, since a 25-30 year old event including pedophilia was recently brought into daylight within one of the strongest religious alignments of this region. The article in Hufvudstadsbladet twists all my senses and emotions to an extent I'm at first not fully aware of.

During my younger years I worked as a pastor of congregation for a while, ending in burn-out, and I have a tendency to become very sarcastic as soon as any kind of problem arises within religious associations. Always makes me feel like I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Anyway, as a perfect icing on my somewhat-hard-to-swallow-piece-of-intellectual-cake this afternoon... I find THIS at Pip's (no offense, mate!)

"Continuing tensions with Iran, the bad weather in Europe and especially the earthquake in Haiti will all be taken as 'end times' indicators," Guyatt, a history professor at the University of York, writes in an e-mail. "My guess is that [apocalyptic Christians] would happily move the clock forwards by a couple of minutes. The irony, of course, is that these guys -- unlike the atomic scientists -- are actually rooting for doomsday."

"Scientists seem to be driven by what's going on politically," says the site's founder, Todd Strandberg, who lives in Benton, Ark., calls himself an end-time believer and recalculates the index every Sunday based on man-made, natural and allegedly supernatural phenomena. "I suppose we tend to be the eternal pessimists because the Bible says it's going to get worse. So any time they move [the Doomsday Clock] back, the general reaction is scorn."

Ain't life grand! As long as it lasts, that is.
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