My Apocalypse

My Share in the Apocalypse

The New Testament says, more or less, in Revelations, that there will be "abominations and desolation" at the end times. I do not necessarily agree that the "end times" means the end of the physical world, and I definitely do not agree that a mystical creator God will impose the anticipated "punishment" of volcanoes, storms, floods, fires, riots, and brutal wars and famine and disease and starvation. All of this may come, and if it does come, with some predictability, it will all be the result of human behavior, human incompetence. No intervention by an omnipotent God is required.

I see the abominations and desolation during my lifetime. World War II involved human behavior, from the center of Christian Civilization, that was more destructive, sadistically violent and evil than that ever produced by "savages" or "barbarians" in times past. But that is the more obvious self-destructive behavior of the human character. There is a process that has been going on since the 1920's that is more subtle, but getting less subtle as time goes on. We humans have a habit of underestimating the respectability of Nature. We repeatedly conclude, due to our biological defects of narcissism and anthropormorphism, that we can improve on Nature, make things better than the natural world made them.

Adolph Hitler was not the sole inventor of moronic, simplistic genetics. In the United States of America, in the 1930's, the State of Vermont and possibly other states adopted a policy of preventing mentally retarded adults (now called "learning-impaired") from bearing children. Although this recommendation may have had some basis in good intentions, it was not sound scientifically, because the majority of mentally retarded children do not suffer mental deficiencies for genetic reasons. The more common causes of learning impairments are oxygen deprivation at birth, disease, and traumatic head injuries in infancy. Even poisoning and malnutrition are major causes. Lead poisoning in children has been one of the most widespread causes of brain damage that causes learning disabilities. At about that same period, during the 1930's and 1940's, the technological wizards of the West discovered "imitations" and substitutes for natural products. A famous one is nylon for silk, then margarine for butter, saccharin for sugar, then hydrogenated palm oil in place of real peanut butter, "American" cheese. These wonders were followed quickly by intensive breeding of plants and animals. Cows were fed hormones and other chemicals so that they would grow larger utters (mammary glands) and produce more milk. Wheat was bred, and then genetically modified in order to produce larger yields per acre. All this went well with the "agricultural miracle," which never was really an agricultural miracle because is was driven by hydro-carbon fueled machines and hydro-carbon based fertilizers.

So, we had more to eat, and we grew proud of our ability to make synthetic rubber and synthetic leather and synthetic everything. Then the age of synthetics developed quickly into the age of genetic modification. We were so proud that we did not have to take the decades or years to test successive generations in the natural environment. We could change the genes mechanically, make a new plant or animal by "genetic design." It all sounds pretty wonderful, but it is all the likely cause of the abominations and desolation, which are already here. Many people, including myself, have discovered that they are "lactose intolerant" and "gluten intolerant." The word "intolerant" is the new euphemistic word to replace "allergic" because allergic sounds like a victim of circumstance, and those who have been making the world of synthetics want to blame the victim. The problem is that when we say "gluten intolerant" it sounds almost like there is something wrong with the person, even morally wrong, because they are "intolerant." This is so similar to replacing "mentally retarded" with "learning impaired" by people who apparently do not know that the ability to learn is fundamental to the human identity. To say that a person is "learning impaired" is not truly less offensive than "mentally retarded" because to say that a person's ability to learn is "impaired" or to imply that a person cannot learn from experience, is like saying that they do not reach the line that makes an animal human. What kind of a human being are you if you cannot learn from experience? Do you step in the same hole every day? "Mentally retarded" means there is a problem with my brain. "Learning impaired" means there is a problem with my soul.

The reason people are "gluten intolerant" is most likely because the wheat has been changed genetically enough so that it is now different from the wheat that humans have consumed for the previous ten thousand years. So I am not really allergic to wheat, not to natural wheat, but I am "intolerant" of the new wheat, the "better" wheat that was invented by scientists who believe they know better than Nature how to make useful things. The milk is different. Women's breasts are larger in the West and everywhere that people have adopted Western foods and Western chemical and industrial agriculture. The argument that hormones given to cows to make their "breasts" bigger will have no effect on the other mammals (human men and women) who drink the milk, is one of the most UN-scientific arguments one can conceive. It is in fact the direct opposite of science, which tells us that if you add a chemical to a closed system, that system is changed. It is the same as the atmosphere. We cannot add carbon-dioxide to the atmosphere and then argue that the carbon-dioxide will stay in one restricted location.

We had a true scientist speak up when Rachel Carson pointed to the fact that songbirds were in decline because DDT, a wonder insecticide (a chemical substitute for natural insect repellents) caused a deficiency in the birds' ability to secrete a sufficiently tough calcium egg shell. Then the abominations rolled out faster: thalidomide babies with flippers in place of arms, people's lives ruined first by Valium and then thorazine and then Ritalin, Prozac and Zoloft. There's a chemical for every occasion. Since drugs are the key to happiness, let's prescribe for ourselves: airplane glue, LSD, enhanced super-marijuana, cocaine, heroin, spray can accelerants. Then the industrialists want to corrupt the free market by enlisting the government to support the totally absurd argument that a genetically modified vegetable of grain, or meat, is the same as the previous product of nature. How obviously hypocritical and what blatant evil. Do the industrialists tell their stockholders that they invested millions of dollars to develop a product that is "exactly the same" as the product of ten years ago? What kind of business practice is that? No, the product is not the same. It cannot be the same. And if one supports a free market system, the product that has been changed genetically must be identified as a changed product. This is essentially the same as the boxed-cereal maker advertising that their junky crumbles are now "new" because they are filled with chocolate. They want to emphasize that change.

Then we have an increase in autism, possibly due to mercury in foods or in vaccinations. And then we have what looks to me like an increase in homosexuality. No, I do not believe it is simply "safer to come out." Why should we have an increase in homosexuality? Because we have an increase of chemical hormone disruptors in our foods, cleaning products, and possibly in home furnishing products such as carpets, chairs, desks, tables and numerous plastic products. This means that if you are proud that you have "come-out" as gay or lesbian, you might have your pride diminished if an honest scientist could show that you were not given your sexual identity by Nature, but rather by Dupont, General Electric, Monsanto and Ortho. Yes, by your friendly neighborhood chemical engineer.

I belong to the cholesterol club. I am told that cholesterol, an organic chemical that is not only necessary for life but is an essential component of the brain, is too high in my blood. And this is, of course, a problem of genetic heritage. In other words, I have a genetic defect that causes cholesterol to clog my arteries. But you know, maybe it is not a natural genetic problem. Maybe some chemical that was introduced into the environment by the genetic wizards caused this. Maybe it was because my mother used saccharin to "lose weight." Or maybe because she was poor and bought a lot of cheaper synthetic furniture, and she covered everything with plastic covers for "cleanliness" which was, for her, next to godliness. But, making everything cleaner with invented chemicals might be closer to death than to God. Before the tidal wave of chemical cleaners, people could clean their homes with soap and vinegar, and after a period of disease in the home, or a long winter, cleaning with turpentine was more than adequate.

This then is my share in the apocalypse. I have food "intolerances" and cholesterol clogs my arteries. If the human race does survive the "end times" of self-destruction by incompetence, this will all be cleared up. It will become as clear as a cloudless sky, that all of these abominations, and the global warming and seas rising and mass extinctions, and famine, drought, violence and starvation, and the loss of civilization, would have been prevented if humans really had a brain. This is my share thus far: food allergies and clogged arteries, all "genetic" because my body cannot adjust to all of the synthetics that have been invented by the chemists. But this might be just the few remaining years of relative comfort. The extended outcomes of genetically modifying everything may yet catch me in the worst of the end times. Maybe I will by dying slowly of thirst, and a teenager will come by, slice my throat and drink my blood. Then it will be all over for me, and that unlucky teenager will get my genes in their hasty beverage. The abominations and desolation include surprises, one of which is that an organism can be changed genetically during its lifetime. Genetic change does not happen only at conception. Whether we say "mentally retarded" or "learning impaired" does not change the reality behind the words: we do not learn from experience, and that is the definition of an idiot. Like I said in another essay on my website, we are not "homo sapiens" or "wise ape." We are "fire monkey," because the true core of our species nature is that we play with fire.