On April 8th, 2024, an eclipse will happen. What should you expect to happen?
Gaze Upon Thy Destruction! Don’t Actually Do That…
by Mike C Goodwin | Staff Writer | Eternal Affairs Media
Every so often, the swirling mass of celestial bodies goes ahead and lines up in a way that sparks the imagination. As with most things we think about long enough, that imagination turns to abject horror and doom at just what the order of those bodies portends. People take these things seriously enough that the fear of an upcoming apocalypse once caused a man to axe-murder his family.
So, before you head to the hardware store to pick up the Family Reaper 9000, let’s take a look at just what is expected to occur.
On April 8th, 2024, an eclipse will happen. Now, on its own, this is usually an event that is welcomed with a little fanfare by space nerds, and of course journalists who have nothing better to write about but need to justify their paycheck (Hi! I’m professional writer Mike Goodwin, thank you for reading!) They tend to pass with little to no repercussions and we all go back to our lives. Except of course that one goober who stared into the giant fireball glare, and we all get a reminder not to do that.
Unfortunately for us, it’s 2024, and the Chinese Communist Party exists. Or to be more precise, a company named ByteDance does.
Perhaps I should elaborate.
Social media, in this case TikTok, happily broadcasted a man claiming that the path of the eclipse would run through eight different cities that share a common name in the United States. Other than neat coincidence, what was the significance? There has to be a hundred Springfields, right? Well, the city in question is called Nineveh.
A city God was going to destroy.
Because he’s not without mercy, God sent Jonah to warn the people of Nineveh to repent. He promptly went the other way and was eaten by a whale. Long story short, he learned his lesson and warned the people. They observed an eclipse, repented, God called off the firestorm, and all was good again.
Well, the TikTok post claims we, as Americans, are ripe for a strike from the almighty due to our sinful ways, and there are signs that prove this. One of them being the eight cities sharing a name with the Biblical one. This has led people to fear that humanity is in peril, and it’s time to dust off the ol’ Good Book and hit your knees. As is usually the case, the post is wrong, leading the usual suspects (the same fake mockingbird journalists who spread the post to begin with,) to mock and deride anyone who took it seriously.
This begs the question, why? Why do normal, rational individuals even give these ramblings even a moment’s notice? Well, let’s just consider the following coincidences that all surround this event.
Well, firstly, the path of this eclipse crosses the path of a previous one. While this is not unheard of, it is unusual. Where is the path crossed? An area by Southern Illinois called “Little Egypt.” To be more precise, it’s Carbondale, Illinois. Getting this name supposedly from mountains that resembled the pyramids of Egypt, the fertile soil, and later as the final obstacle on the Underground Railroad, Carbondale got its nickname. So, when one considers Biblical prophecy, anything even remotely associated with Egypt just might perk up some ears.
Don’t worry, it gets better.
NASA is going to launch a few rockets into the Moon’s shadow during this event. Their name? APEP. While an acronym for Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path, it shares a name with Apep, an Egyptian snake god of chaos, darkness, and disorder, who is an enemy of light. Again, this isn’t conclusive evidence of anything, but it is a bit weird.
The Cern Hadron Collider (which has a level of speculation all its own) was planned to be running at the time of the eclipse as well. Want to spark some folks to be a little creeped out? Fire up a colossal structure that fires particles at each other at the speed of light. Oh, and it led to the discovery of the Higgs boson particle. Hey, neat little piece of trivia, it’s also known as “The God Particle.”
What about signs? Why would anyone conclude the end is nigh?
Certainly, in Biblical times there were prophecies, warnings, and events that clued people in that it was time to maybe cut out the shenanigans. Well, let’s take a look around the globe…
How about a plague? Yup, the plague is still around. Every so often there’s an outbreak of the little bug that wiped out a third of Europe. A plague certainly fits within the domain of the “Wrath of God.” Let’s throw in the reemergence of quiet a few oldies but goodies. The mumps, measles, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, and even, and I kid you not, the whooping cough are all back and on the rise. When combined with the recent pandemic of completely unknown origins known as Covid 19, it’s understandable to see why people might be a little trigger happy on the “Oh Crap, It’s A Plague!” state of mind. Chuck that feeling on a horse and call him Pestilence and we’re off to the races. If that’s not good enough, how about locusts? Well, cicadas to be precise. We’re in for a rare double brood of the little fellas. Billions of butt-ugly little cretins, just itching to give us all the willies.
Surely though, sickness and disease are commonplace in the world. Well, how about we throw in another horseman of the apocalypse. War. Certainly, seems to be quite a bit of that as of late as well. Russia in Ukraine, China eyeing Taiwan, Israel in Gaza, and a variety of other conflicts that don’t make the nightly news. While the world is almost always in a state of conflict, three of the nations I just mentioned are nuclear powers. Three. While these may seem regional, Russia considers NATO to be interfering in the conflict. By supplying arms, money, aid, and logistical support, it’s very easy to see how this situation could spiral out of control. As for China? As of late, China has been expanding territorial claims to the South China Sea, staking claims to islands with military installations. This puts China in direct control of one of the most vital trade routes in the world. Add to that, taking Taiwan, a stated goal of China, would ensure their supremacy in the tech sector. Most all silicon chips are manufactured in Taiwan. Successful annexation would put China at the head of manufacturing and distribution of a vital component for everything from guided missiles to cell phones. Does anyone honestly think that if China launched an invasion, the world would not react? Hearing any hooves yet?
How about a snack, feeling hungry? You ain’t alone. An estimated 350 million people (roughly the population of the United States) exist in a state of famine. In one of the most extreme periods of famine in the modern era, variables such as fuel cost and availability, regional conflict (horsemen tend to travel together,) government mismanagement, corruption, and financial crises have all helped create an environment ripe for famine. With so many different outbreaks of food instability, aid organizations are stretched thin with budgets still rebounding from Covid-19 expenditures.
The final old boy? Death. People die every day from a variety of causes. Everything from eating gas station sushi to slipping in the shower has the potential to ensure each day is our last. Death is all around us. From mundane crimes to horrendous tragedies, every day we are bombarded by signs of our mortality. It only stands to reason that people would think that we are in dire times.
Are we truly in such dire times? Has our sin become simply too much? Well, to someone of a more libertarian outlook, maybe not. A more liberal person may think we are in a new age of reason and tolerance. To them, nothing is wrong except for what they read on X (formerly Twitter,) that morning, probably involving a certain chosen president…
To a morally upstanding person? Look at the world from their perspective: Children are being mutilated under the guise of gender affirming care. Men and women are considered interchangeable. Child sacrifice under the guise of a woman’s right to choose has claimed 1,000,000 lives last year alone. Church attendance is down, Hollywood celebrates excess and degeneracy, all the while to a soundtrack of music that celebrates the self and all the depravity that entails.
I’m not saying these views are correct and I’m not saying they aren’t (angering half my audience is not wise,) but the important thing is that THEY believe these things. Now you throw in NASA “Snake God Rockets” being fired into the sun while the Hadron Collider does stuff, we thought the Death Star did, while we dance our way into Sodam, all the while the sky blackens? I don’t blame them for getting a little itchy.
We live in uncertain times. We seek to explain the horrors we see while trying to cling to the beauty. We need there to be meaning and a promise that things are under some sort of direction, no matter how terrifying. We seek out these things because our world has been chaotic since its creation. Anyone who isn’t a little unbalanced by now simply hasn’t been paying attention.
In all actuality, nothing will happen. The sky will darken, as it has many times before, and it’ll pass. The people that push this doomsday scenario will not apologize afterward, and we’ll move on, as we always do. So, live your life. Pray, if you do, as normally as you do, let’s not but the Almighty with a barrage of doomed wailing. Hug your parents (provided they’re alive, I don’t want to hear about any of you being arrested at a graveyard with a shovel,) and have a sub-par burger.
If you are a believer? Take heart in the fact that the Bible itself tells us that the day and time of His return will be unknown. There is no cheat code that will let us know exactly when it’s time to make our peace with our creator, so we should live every day like it is that day of judgement (by this I mean live well and righteously, not maxing out your credit cards and gorging on pizza.) God will never abandon you once you are with him. Times will be rough, being faithful has never been easy, but they will never be more than you can handle when you are with him. Our struggles with life rarely end so dramatically.
That being said, if Moloch appears, laughing maniacally, when the eclipse refuses to end? I got dibs on the first open confessional.
I recommend you do the same.
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