Jerusalem, Israel -- Apocalyptic cults are at odds over how to proceed following the arrest of several millennialist Christians for conspiring to commit terrorist acts during 1999 to hasten the second coming of Jesus. Two distinct opinions have emerged.
The less popular view is that the arrest was a divine sign that 1999 is too early to begin violence and that the end of the millennium will actually occur at the end of the year 2000. Next year, these so-called True Millennialists contend, is the correct time to kill for Christ, and they have put their plans on hold until then.
True Millennialist clergy claim support for their revised dating from an unlikely source: infidel science fiction novelist Arthur C. Clarke who recently said, "Because the Western calendar starts with Year 1 and not Year 0, the 21st century and Third Millennium do not begin until January 1, 2001."
However, orthodox apocalyptic sects reject Clarke's opinion and continue to expect "End Times" to begin by the year 2000. "Satan speaks with Clarke's voice," said Ida Nough, leader of the Sacred Sacrifice warriors. "True believers are wary and skeptical of such clear reason. It is a tool of the Devil used to undermine faith. We trust only the holy numerology."
She was referring to the fact that 1999 contains 999, which is a thinly veiled 666 -- the mark of the Beast, the Antichrist. Nough said the failure of this numerological proof in previous Beast years -- 666, 999 and 1666 -- just makes it all the more likely this time. "Also, 1998 is 3 times 666, so the signs of the Antichrist are building momentum," she added.
Nothing Central to Religion
Ironically, dispassionate students of the world's various theological infestations also acknowledge that millennial religious anxiety is rooted in numerology. Dr. Catherine Freeman, a cultural anthropologist affiliated with the Prometheus Institute, explained that the cluster of zeros in millennial years is to blame.
"The number 2000 has three zeros, and since religion is a delusion that fills a real nothing with a make-believe something, when confronted by the huge nothing of 000, the conditioned religious mind fills it with make-believe," Freeman said. "Nothing is central to religion. It is a decorated vacuum."
According to Freeman, whether a particular cult schedules the apocalypse for the start or finish of the year 2000 is just another typical example of arbitrary religious timing, like which day of the week is Sabbath or when what can't be eaten or how the calendar divides months and years.
Psychiatrist Dr. Frank Crane frames the fanatic obsession with nothing in a more general context. "The underlying rationale of both millennialist positions, and indeed any belief in supernatural phenomena, is fear of nothing. Medically, the condition of reacting fearfully to voids or emptiness is called kenophobia."
Crane's research revealed that the most common reflexive defense used by kenophobics is to imagine elaborate things to fill the void -- the more intense the fear of the void, the more elaborate the imagined replacement. "I also found that the behaviour exhibited toward the filled void was often very complex," he said. "This serves to enhance the reality of the illusion."
Crane agrees with Freeman that apocalyptic cults are simply extending the illusion to the year 2000, a strong symbol of the dreaded nothing, and violence is necessary to enhance its reality: praise nothing, love nothing, worship nothing, kill for nothing.
