The Four Horsemen

Christian eschatology is quite climactic and rather garish. In the Christians’ view of the End Times the world will be destroyed in a cataclysmic struggle between the nations and peoples of the world, with the very heavens, oceans, and lands of the Earth heaving in wrath, flood, and fire.

Amidst this carnage four avatars of doom and destruction are prophesied to ride forth – the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse: War, Death, Pestilence, and Famine.

War, Death, Famine, and Pestilence - The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse
A Classic Depiction Of The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse

This is certainly a romantic image for the end of our world, but find myself in doubt of its basic premise as to how the world will end. I do not think it will be these horsemen: War, Death, Pestilence, and Famine that ride forth on terrible steeds to destroy civilization.

More likely it seems to me that it will be the the surviving brothers of the late and not lamented nearly enough Common Sense that trumpet our doom. Those four harbingers of doom: I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I’m A Victim, already move amongst us.

We’ve little or no need for a Divine ending to our sad world. The heralds of destruction we will be slain by will be of our own making and our end will be slow and ignominious rather than the garish but somehow glorious ending predicted by the Christians.

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5 Responses to “The Four Horsemen”

  1. Tweets that mention The Four Horsemen | Reflections From a Murky Pond -- Topsy.com Says:

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  2. ichabod Says:

    Hi Jonolan;

    Revelations may be disputed on many levels. Even Jesus supposedly said “this generation shall not pass”.

    We all die sometime anyway. Somehow, I think this may be a self fulfilling prophecy which may come true. The Second World War taught us how massive a scale war can be. The wars since, improved the death capability.

    For the first time in history, mankind has enough killing instruments to annihilate a major portion of the human species in a fairly short period of time. Famine and pestilence may present the survivors with a major challenge.

    I am not a believer of fortune tellers, however enough people on this world believe the story to be true. Enough to make it true.

  3. guerillasocialwork Says:

    I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I’m A Victim. Well put. I work as a therapist for juvenile sexual offenders (as well as adults). These harbingers of doom are called “thinking errors” in my line of work. They transcend more than the criminal population, I’m afraid. I see this type of thinking everywhere I go. Lack of accountability and inability to delay instant gratification makes for a swift end.

  4. ichabod Says:

    Hi Jonolan;

    Greece is a prime example of what happens by bad thinking. Their Government has no money to operate, therefore the bailout, and the people are going on national strike, protesting cuts. If the bailout doesn’t happen, Greece defaults, where does the people think their country will get the coin to pay for their demands? They will have no income, period.

    The reason this is so scary, is that USA and other major countries are in the same boat as Greece, just not at a tipping point yet.

    This is a classic scenario that brought in WW11.

    Forced poverty.

  5. jonolan Says:

    Ichabod,

    True, our weapons have advanced a great deal and some of them are of devastating power. Yet their use at civilization ending levels would only be a result of the decay that had already happened.

    As you’ve pointed out, Greece is a prime example of this. Those Four Horseman: I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I’m A Victim are already riding through Greece and societal breakdown, violence, and soon possibly disease and starvation follow in their wake.

    guerillasocialwork,

    Thinking errors? Trust the psychologists to come up with a watered down, PC term like that. But then isn’t that just another example of I’m A Victim’s and Someone Else Is To Blame’s dark work?

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