The Apocalypse is Now!

“When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, 'There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and lowering.' You know then how to discern the face of the sky, and can you not know the signs of the times?”Matthew 16:2-4

Today I read yet another story about the grim news of climate change. I am not waiting for an Apocalypse because there can be little doubt now that the Apocalypse of Selfishness of which I have written is the Apocalypse of Now. The changes in climate that herald a drastic change in the Earth's climate that has welcomed humanity are now accelerating at an unprecedented rate and severity.

In Scripture Christ mocked those who could not see the signs of what was happening. Are the Climate Change Deniers guilty of the same shortsightedness and is the result going to be an ever acerbating destruction of humanities' habitat?

When I read and hear the rhetoric of the Republican candidates for President (all of them) I am reminding what Jefferson wrote:

"I tremble for my county, when I reflect that God is just." Make that tremble for the world. Of course the irony is that slaveholder Jefferson never acted personally to alleviate the evil that brought the greatest destruction in his country's history.

Yet, in three months we will be celebrating another holiday: Easter. It is the hope of Resurrection that fueled the growth of Christianity but Pope Francis has recognized that God's mercy and forgiveness is not just for those baptized Christians. It is for all humanity. There is always hope for survival, if not for the entirety of humanity, at least for each and every of humanities' members. Let us pray Francis is right.

Read and weep: "Climate Change Across the Map" NY Times 12/31/2015  p. 1
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http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2015_01_01_archive.html

Rachel Maddow nails it

Obama has always been an eloquent speaker with the ability to explain complex issues. He is a world leader in sounding the alarm on the issue of client change. However, sometimes he talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk. Two examples: Shell giving license to drill in the Arctic and his reticence to bit the bullet on the Keystone Pipeline.

Among the facts about the Keystone are these: It is designed to transmit oil wrenched from tar sands in Canada to refineries in Texas for export internationally. It's a lose lose proposition.

Last week on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow really nailed it and came-up with an alternative job producing program which would solve an enormous environmental crisis, create jobs and make every one safer: upgrade and revitalize existing pipeline and transmission facilities for oil (i.e. railroads) the aged condition of which is currently causing death and pollution.

Win win. We create jobs and ameliorate, if not totally cure, the environmental disaster of current oil transmission whether by railroad or pipeline.

John Klotz

This is not a book promo but is you are interested:

http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-coming-of-quantum-christ-has-arrived.html

Apocalypse Now

For most of my life, from time to time, I have seen cartoons in magazines satirizing street corner prophets of an apocalypse. The usual caricature is of a scruffy man, in a shabby robe with a long scraggly beard carrying a sign which reads "The End is Near" or some such.

Well, it's early morning and I am not carrying a placard as I start this piece. I am in a robe (bath) but I don't have a long beard although I am as of yet unshaven. I don't have a placard but I do have a blog and a computer. However, I have just read a piece on the web from the morning New York Times by Thomas Friedman, and so here's my message: "The End is Near."

Four years ago I began work on my book The Coming of the Quantum Christ. At the very end of my introduction, I described Science as being both Christ and Anti-Christ and raised the question of whether the scientific study of the Shroud of Turin could be the "Coming of a Quantum Christ." It was a rhetorical question. By the time I got to Chapter 17 of the book in the spring of 2014, the question was no longer rhetorical because there was in 2014 a flood of scientific reports from a wide variety of sources that climate change was real and its devastating effects were already being felt in a multitude of places. Time is running out.

Today, as I read Friedman's article my conclusion is that while time may not have completely run out, the end is fast approaching. I crammed a great deal into Chapter 17 because the principal focus of the Quantum Christ is the authenticity of the Shroud and, if authentic, its meaning. One of the items I touched on in that chapter was the claim that climate change was causing war. Some are dubious. Be dubious no more.

Friedman's Time's piece is dealing with the unprecedented heat wave that has struck the Middle East this year with a heat index as high as 163°. Millennia old sources of water are drying-up and disappearing. Governments in Iraq and Iran, among others, seem to be powerless. Electricity, and thus air conditioning, is rationed.

I am not a fundamentalist Christian. If anything, I guess I am a disciple of paleontologist and Jesuit priest Peirre Teilhard de Chardin. To a certain extent so too is Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and, I surmise, Francis, the first Jesuit Pope.

Michelle Bachman is a former member of Congress, briefly a 2012 candidate for President, and professed fundamentalist Christian. In a radio interview last April, she rejoiced that Obama was actually bringing on the "End of Times" [the Apocalypse] and what a privilege it was to be alive at this moment.

Needless to say, I am not as "rapturous" as Ms. Bachman about the onset of the Apocalypse. I do believe that Pope Francis is a prophet of apocalypse and is endeavoring to avoid it. His prophecy Laudato Si is addressed not only to Roman Catholics but to all humanity. His message has reached, and been embraced by some fundamentalists, Jewish rabbis, Buddhists and humanists.  On Tuesday, August 18, Islamic leaders from 20 countries after a two day symposium issued an Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change.

Echoing Pope Francis prophetic Laudato Si but placing it in an Islamic context it began:

"God – Whom we know as Allah – has created the universe in all its diversity, richness and vitality: the stars, the sun and moon, the earth and all its communities of living beings. All these reflect and manifest the boundless glory and mercy of their Creator. All created beings by nature serve and glorify their Maker, all bow to their Lord’s will. We human beings are created to serve the Lord of all beings, to work the greatest good we can for all the species, individuals, and generations of God’s creatures."

To my fundamentalist brothers and sisters in Christianity: Do not rejoice in "End of Times" but continue to ameliorate the miseries visited on humanity with the self sacrifices that so many of you have demonstrated. The message of our Gospel is that ultimately we will be judged not by what we do for ourselves but what we do for our neighbors who are in need. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Christ made clear that helping those in need was not limited to co-religionists. Our "neighbor" is all humanity.

JFK said in 1961 "on this Earth, God's work must truly be our own." Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar some 400 years before: "The fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves." I take my prophets and prophecies where I find them.

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This post is not intended as a sales pitch for Quantum Christ, but if you are interested in Quantum Christ check out http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-coming-of-quantum-christ-has-arrived.html