So this is the creepiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen:
Wait, not that. Sorry, got the image file names mixed up. I mean this:
It’s the context that makes it scary, so if you don’t recognize it, you won’t get it. Do you know what it is?
It could be some kind of plant life, maybe a network of roots or bulbs. It’s not. It looks more like they’re digging up the earth’s internal organs. It’s not that, either.
But knowing what it is, and understanding its nature, may be the key to understanding everything.
By the way, if you’re new here, you may want to start from the beginning.
So, those pics up there got me thinking about the end of the world.
I mentioned a few updates ago the whole thing with Israel, and why so many Americans are so adamant in their support. And I brought up something that is common knowledge in some parts of the country–but baffling and terrifying for the rest–which is that much of the support is due to the part Israel is supposed to play in the end-of-the-world scenario millions of Christians believe in. Here are some Jack Chick tracts on the subject, if you’re not familiar.
There are passages in the Bible that, if read from across the room while squinting, suggest that Israel will be the center of a world war that will trigger a string of supernatural events, including The Rapture (the instantaneous sucking of all Christians off the planet).
I was raised in a Pentecostal church where this was taught. When referring to the future, it was common for the pastor to always qualify it with, “If the lord has not called us all home by then.”
You might think this is a weird environment for a little kid to grow up in, hearing every week that at any moment all of the Christians could be instantly zapped off the earth as if in a mass alien abduction, so that the heathens below can then be subjected to seven years of plague and monstrocities feeding off their flesh…
…But as you know, I came out of it perfectly fine.
Anyway, I was pointed to this excellent blog that examines the popular “Left Behind” series of books (those books are marketed to that particular audience who’s always watching the horizon for the apocalypse). The blog is written by a Christian who seems intent on understanding the psychology of religious types who are obsessed with this concept of God figuratively tying the earth to the back of his pickup and dragging it down a gravel road.
The blogger seems to have arrived at the conclusion that the authors are simply projecting their own personality. That is, that they rearrange the scriptures to portray a violent and short-tempered God, because they themselves are violent and short-tempered.
And this got me thinking about sheep herding.
A popular author said that where you find communities full of short-tempered people, the kind who’ll draw a knife at the sound of a perceived insult, you find sheep herding in their past. Or some kind of herding. Even if it was dozens of generations ago.
Pic unrelated
The reason, he says, is because when you’re herding animals for your livelihood, there is no real way to protect them. Even a fence can be cut or climbed in seconds by a bunch of bandits. Within minutes they can run off with your only source of income, and you and your family will starve.
Your only protection, then, is your reputation. You have to establish yourself as a badass around town. You have to make people scared to even look at you or your sheep, to make women and children terrified to even use a corner of your property as a shortcut to get to a picnic. You have to make examples of people who cross you, you have to overreact, to use disproportionate response. You meet insults with violence, or even deadly force. You “defend your honor.”
And this attitude gets handed down through the generations, from father to son. Think about cowboys, and their herds of cattle, and how they’d shoot down men with six guns because they cheated at poker or questioned their mettle. Not many of us herd cattle these days, but that cowboy culture remains.
Now go to an online Bible and do a keyword search for “herd.” You get many, many results. How much of the Bible was written by herders? Did they project a herder’s hair-trigger, “insult me and I’ll smite you” attitude onto their God?
If you decide that there is a God, and if you then decide that this God must have the temperament of Tony Soprano, what does that say about you? When you look into the darkness and see a monster, are you describing the darkness, or yourself?
Maybe, just maybe, the face you put on God is the ultimate measure of what’s in your soul. If there is a Judgment Day, maybe this is what you get judged on.
And this got me thinking about ants.
Our creepy pictures up there are of an enormous ant hill. More of an underground city, really. Researchers will fill all of the tunnels and chambers with cement, so they can map out the system (the one in the pictures took an astonishing 20,000 pounds of cement to fill it all in). Then they digg out the dirt from around the tunnels, and what is left behind is mind-boggling.
Sure, there’s tunnels and chambers. Big fucking deal, right? But then they looked closer, and saw chimneys at the top of the compound, and realized they were made to circulate air through the network.
So they traced those down, and found that some chambers below were “gardens” of fungus to eat, others were full of rotting waste material. And they were all positioned by the ants so that the warm air coming off the rotting trash would create a convection current, the warm air rising up through the shafts, with vents positioned elsewhere to draw fresh air in to replace it.
This was designed by creatures that have brains the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
But it’s not just that they created this without having the ability to imagine or think (and we know they have neither). Go back to Jack Chick’s end of the world scenario, where all of the souls of the unbelievers are sucked off the earth. What happens to the body at that moment? It just slumps over, right? I mean, that’s what death is, isn’t it? The soul leaving the body?
But… ants don’t have souls at all. No religion thinks they do. And yet they built that fucking city. So… it sounds like you can get a lot done without a soul. It sounds like a soulless man could keep eating, and having sex, and raising kids, and going to work, and could even cooperate with others to build magnificent creations.
It sounds like if the soul was sucked out of the guy in the cubicle next to you, it would take you a really long fucking time to notice. Like maybe it wouldn’t be until you saw the deadness in his eyes as he nonchalantly pulls the guts out of your belly.
And this got me thinking about bees.
Specifically, the honey bees that live on bee farms. Because we humans are smarter than the bees, we’re able to trick them into spending their whole lives building hives and making honey, working tirelessly because their every impulse is telling them it’s necessary for their survival. Of course in reality, they’re building their hive inside a wooden box, and we’re going to take their honey from them and pour it on Kim Basinger on the floor of our kitchen.
So if there is a God or gods, how do we know we’re not their honey bees and that they’re not Mickey Rourke?
And this got me thinking about chili.
Do you know why jalapeno peppers are hot? It’s a defense mechanism, the burning sensation meant to discourage predators from eating them. We, because we are smarter than the peppers, chop them up and use their precious defense to make our chili spicy. Their desperate attempt to preserve their lives gives us an amusing sensation on our tongue.
So if humans have a soul, and if the gods are spirits, and if their whole ecosystem functions on this invisible, spiritual level where thoughts and dreams and ideas live… what if there is something humans generate at this spiritual level that the gods can use? What if human anxiety can be used as a condiment for their nachos?
And what if everything we do, everything that we think is for our own survival, is simply a means toward some frivolous end for the gods? The gods certainly wouldn’t feel bad about it; they’re as far above us as we are to the ants, and we certainly didn’t feel bad about drowning a whole city full of them with cement to make a YouTube video.
You know, the thing about the evangelicals up there and their Apocalypse, is that it appears some of them vote and act in such a way to intentionally bring it about. They believe Israel has to trigger World War 3, they believe that the heathens have to persecute them. The prophecy becomes self-fulfilling. And who’s to say some mischeivous spirit didn’t plant that idea in their collective consciousness specifically for that reason?
So if, hypothetically, you’re a writer or entertainer or work in the realm of selling ideas, and if you believe in the supernatural, you would have to–hypothetically–always be wondering if you weren’t being used as a tool, a means of manipulation by the gods to influence the mass of mens’ collective minds. How would you ever know? Even your suspicions themselves, or even those very concepts of what the gods/spirits/demons are, could be another level of their manipulation, specifically crafted by them to get an intended result, a container for you to stupidly build a bee hive in.
Right?
Anyway, on a totally, completely unrelated note, I turned in the final edits on John Dies at the End to the publisher just days ago.
What did I change during this latest (and last) editing process? Nothing major, just added some things. Wanted to hear more from Dr. Marconi, for instance. And answered some things fans had always asked about (ie, why in the course of this campaign to repel this extradimensional invasion did they abandon 80s power ballads as a weapon so quickly after it had proven effective).
We obviously also had to add in a few references to honor our product placement deal with Slim Jim brand beef jerky (as simple as renaming “Big Jim” Sullivan “Slim Jim” Sullivan) and we took out some references that now seem dated (ie Dave referring to John’s girlfriend Shaniqua as a “negress”).
I passed along to the printers the popular reader suggestion that the books be rigged so that when you open page 5 a little cardboard spider flies out at you on a spring. They’re worried about the printing costs so adding that may mean cutting the last chapter altogether. We’ll see.
Speaking of which, for the next update, I’ll have something that JDatE fans have been hounding me about for months.
Also, I would like to begin collecting some JDatE fan art. I get some from time to time but I’d like to really begin featuring it on the site. If you have art skills and have read the book, send your work to:
DavidWong@JohnDiesAtTheEnd.com.
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January 21st, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Here’s an idea that may be both sinister and trivial at the same time. Think about how creative human beings can be. What if the ‘honey’ being taken from us is all the credit for all the accomplishments we’ve made through history? ‘God’ or these gods in particular would be passing off the things we’ve done as his/their own to his/their buddies. But what if they’re all doing it? What prize to the winner? What fate of the loser?
January 21st, 2009 at 5:20 pm
so, you never did actually say what those things in the ant caves were, i wonder. also, the beehive metaphor caused my brain to spontaneously shit itself. mmmm, nachos. and…. negress?? i honestly have no memory of that.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:37 pm
I thought those were supposed to be the holes the ants had made filled in with cement. Right?
January 21st, 2009 at 5:48 pm
[...] David Wong, author of one of my favorite books of recent years, John Dies At The End, has a remarkable post up at his site. It’s about Israel and Xtian hopes for armageddon. And honey. And ants. And chili [...]
January 21st, 2009 at 7:16 pm
It’s funny how each person’s theological beliefs differ. Dave sure does have an interesting look on life. So, What if the ant’s innovation prove that they have a soul too, and not that a man can function without a soul? Mainstream Christianity believes that God made man to worship him, and animals to supplement man. So is faith God’s honey? If the ants do have a soul, and they were put in place to supplement man, then do all living things have a soul? What, then, is the purpose if the soul, if it is so universal among living things, and not exclusive to humans?
January 21st, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Mr. Wong, I see why you write horror.
I hope I taste delicious.
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:33 am
And THAT is why you’re everyone(here, at least) favorite writer Mr. Wong. That was truly, a “spontaneously mind-shitting” post…
On hindsight, I should’ve just said it was good.
Now, you mention fan art. I expect, no I demand that you ask Nedroid (http://nedroidcomics.livejournal.com/) again! Then we can only hope the internet is ready THIS time for so much awesomeness in only one place.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:27 am
I don’t think you’ve taken this far enough. Think about what you said – if people can do a lot without soul – what if the apocalypse has already happened – and everyone’s soul had been wiped? sure, it’s gonna take a while for all the horrors to take place, but who said there can’t be a middle stage where hoards of people will waste their time and cement on making YouTube videos?
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Excellent! Great presentation!
You know the common thread running through your examples is the presence of the fungi.
“When the young queen from one of these nests goes out to found a new colony, she has her infrabuccal pouch filled with the fungus on which the colony has lived for millions of years. After being fertilized, she seeks out a likely spot, grubs out a small chamber, and casts her wad of fungus out on the floor. As soon as the mold begins to grow from this pellet, she lays an egg or two, crushes these, and mixes them with the growing fungus. She also mixes her excrement with the compost… This is not done just casually and by chance, but deliberately and by intent.”
–Christensen, Molds and Man: An Introduction to the Fungi, Universtiy of Minn. Press, Minneapolis, 1963, p 72.
There are lots of examples of “smart” fungi throughout the animal kingdom.
Then there is the undisputed god of war,(one version) the amanita muscaria, held responsible by many researchers for religion in general.
And those herders are all walking through psilocybin pastures part of the time.
Just a coincidence? I think not.
more at:
http://geocities.com/hot4guano/otrhog/sacrifice.html#5
cheers,
jim
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:56 pm
This whole “beehives”-metaphor / living in a “glass container”-idea would be more like a relief if someday proven to be true. I for one would go like “Oh, so that’s it? That’s not too bad I suppose”. Sure would suck some magnum ass if we also found out that our “beekeeper” happened to be a gasoline-junkie, keeping the slowly leaking gasoline tank next to our hive. Smoking his “after sniff cigarette” while working.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Also, the Aztecs (I think) believed that the world ended in cycles, and it has happened several times before.
I’m thinking harvesting and growing seasons, here.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:14 am
Is it ok to coment on comments?
Well I just gotta say two things. One, insomniac’s link is disturblying interesting. Or Interestlying disturbing. English is not really my first language…
And second, Are you serious Bo? Did you clicked in the link about the beehive??? I would definetly be that Slow Stupid Bee, Doomed inside the jar by the SAME HIVE I’VE WORKED MY ASS OFF TO BUILD! Do you WANT to be DOOMED? I rather die in the arms of ignorancy, embraced by warm and cozy false hopes.
Not knowing I was being laugh at by forces too big for me to comprehend is just for the best.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:33 am
it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread it shall spread
January 24th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Must say Wong, that you are probably one of my favorite philosophers ever.
Indeed, I have done a lot of theological research (Not anything official), and I have found that somewhere, out there in the depths of it all, something got fucked up. Big time.
I relate the story to Hitler. Hitler was a talented painter, a devoted soldier, a writer, and a passionate speaker. Yet when you mention Hitler to anyone, he is instantly thought of as “That one evil dictator who killed all those people”.
But let’s expand this thought for a second. Hitler made millions suffer, either because of sexual preference, religious orientation, any nay-sayers, and indeed, anyone who he really didn’t like.
Talk to an extreme evangelical. They will tell you that God does the same things, only he is always portrayed as a good being. He is also all knowing, and all powerful.
If this is so, why does He create souls He knows are predestined for hell, when He was the one who set the laws of good and evil into place? If good and evil are co-Dependant, then wouldn’t this mean that based on this system, there would have to be evil souls in existence for the good ones to be? If so, then doesn’t this mean that the system not only creates hell bound souls, but is entirely reliant on them?
Yet God’s system is perfect, and he is all loving, even though by this logic, He would appear to be a bigger dick than even Hitler, as He was the one to create the infinitely suffering souls.
So why is it that we learn that Hitler was an evil man, yet a God doing similar acts is infinitely loving? Doesn’t this double standard corrupt our logic and create a bipolar moral compass?
BEFORE A SHIT STORM HITS MY POST, READ THE FOLLOWING DISCLAIMER!
Yes, I know the bible doesn’t say a lot of the stuff I mentioned. When I said I liked to do theological research, I realized that a 2000 year old book is not capable of worshiping, but people are, and that is who I decided to study.
Anyway Wong, Keep up the good work. Also, in that revelation picture, the head on the far right kinda looks like the lovable dictator I used in my example.
January 25th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
The way insects are hard coded to know how to build things like these ant hills is amazing; they really do have but a spec of a nervous system. It always makes me think of the cells in our bodies, how one cell is like one ant in an ant colony. Individually they are not terribly intelligent, or capable. But working together they are smart enough to make lungs, or ventilation ducts in dirt. In line with your analogy, our human consciousness is like the honey and our body’s cells are the bees.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:24 am
You were talking about how we’re above the ants and bees. This reminded me of how some ants raise aphids for the sweet honeydew they produce:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphid#Symbioses
So those ants themselves are also above other, lower animals. If so, let’s apply this to the god idea. Just like we’re above the ants who are above the aphids, who says there aren’t gods above the gods who are above us? Where does it end?
January 26th, 2009 at 2:55 am
hold on, who says ants don’t have souls? How would they know? For that matter, how do we know humans do have souls? What’s a soul do, anyway? What’s it for? Is it the thing that keeps you from ripping your cubical-neighbor’s intestines? Cause I’ve always blamed that mostly on culturally installed inhibitions, and the bluntness of my fingernails.
… I felt bad about the concrete. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be going so nuts from curiosity if I found a giant breathing anthill that I wouldn’t consider doing it.
I guess that makes me ant-Hitler. Or maybe ant-Mengele. Um, sorry?
January 26th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
You know as a Christian I should probably be really interested in debating some of your philosophies about God and such, but really all I want to do is go and visit that ant…city that they cemented. I feel bad for all the ants that are apparently trapped in there, but holy crap thats an awsome thing.
I’ve always heard ants compared to Rome and roman soldiers, though I’ve never seen one that looks like Ray Stephenson.
January 27th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
And this got me thinking about what a fat gay douchebag Dave is for reviving my childhood phobia of ants.
Now I won’t be able to sleep tonight. Thanks a lot, you jerk.
January 29th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Connect the dots, people! The ants actually built the city with only one purpose: so scientists could pour concrete in it! Think about it! The tunnels go DOWN whereas most ant tunnels usually go UP (to worship the sun), and what goes down when it’s poured into something: CONCRETE!! Coincidence?
We’re being bamboozled by the very fluids we pour!
Great piece, DW!
January 29th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Rrinman, you’re fucking stupid. Everyone knows ants don’t worship the sun but the moon. I don’t know how you can confuse those two.
January 30th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Been down this road before… One of the secret tenets of the Church of the Subgenius was that Earth was in fact a Pain Farm, seeded by JHVH-1 to provide a steady supply of human anguish to certain unspeakable, ancient entities. Like some kind of metaphysical meth lab for an extradimensional gang of Lovecraftian junkies.
Seems about as likely to be true as any other religious claim I’ve heard. More so, really.
January 30th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Good sir, I am willing to admit that our understanding of the religious belief system of the ant is in its infancy. However, the centrality of the sun is undisputed. The lunar cycle only determines whether an ant is born left-footed or right-footed. Antology 101. I urge you to study up! And I’ll refer to you as a stupidhead for not having done so before challening me.
January 31st, 2009 at 1:42 am
Hey Bnakao! I’m not saying I WANT to be doomed, I’m just saying that I’d PREFER this kind of “prophecy” to be proven true before any of the other crazy ol’ religious doomsday prophecies you hear about these days.
January 31st, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Oh, you know… That’s the problem with prophecies. You never have ENOUGH proof. You won’t know if they’re true until we’re swimming on concrete. Unfortunatly, not enough of them comes with expiration dates. We’re all just waiting for the savior, for the apocalypse, for a change, and waiting and waiting. Things happen. Many people feel compeled to put reasons, motives behind occurances – usually single and simple reasons. It’s easy to shoehorn some old prophecy whenever big things happens.
Who didn’t see people calling Obama the devil or comparing him to jesus?
February 1st, 2009 at 3:51 am
Yeah, well, one doesn’t have to worry too much I guess. Anyone who truly believes in a prophecy must, supposedly, be aware of the fact that you won’t know for sure until it eventually smacks you right in the face. True or not, it’s a fun topic to reflect upon. I suppose it’s just a matter of how you prefer to perceive your own reality; what makes sense to you. Some say Obama is the Devil and some say he’s Jesus, some say he’s black while I think he’s rather brownish.
February 11th, 2009 at 3:50 am
If we are in some sort of “ant farm” type deal, then someone’s been slacking on the job. Our tank needs to be cleaned. But on a more serious note, this reminds me quite a bit about a short story I read for my Russian Culture class, coincidently around the same time I read John Dies at the End (or is it?), that deals with the issue of a “tank world.” It’s titled Hermit and Six Toes, it was written by a Russian author named Victor Pelevin. My explanations tend to stink, and I know I could never do it justice, especially in a short comment post window. So if you feel like it, look for a compilation of his stories in a book called The Blue Lantern, or perhaps you can find Hermit and Six Toes online.
February 11th, 2009 at 4:12 am
For the record, that little girl is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve witnessed the atrocity that is Manos the Hand of Fate.
February 12th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
The thing about us being manipulated is that if suddenly stopped producing whatever the so called “manipulators” profit off of, they’ll either destroy us or force us to make it. If they force us, that means something big will happen to shake things up. Is there a pattern in human history where we get to far from one thing only to snap back to the “set path” we had before?
February 17th, 2009 at 6:37 am
We could already be being forced but just not know it yet…
February 17th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
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June 8th, 2009 at 4:50 am
Xoldersister Says: Is there a pattern in human history where we get to far from one thing only to snap back to the “set path” we had before?
Yes, it’s called Peace and War.
Gods must be seasoning their nachos with murdered people’s soul. Delicious, delicious murdered flavoured nachos.
World War is like graduation of Chrismas office party or something.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:51 pm
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