The Antichristian Phenomenon

This summer I have been taking a few classes at the Community College in my hometown, one of which was an online Macroeconomics course. A few of you who have been reading my personal blog as of late have read at least a portion of my recent bind in this class, but I think the general ACP readers will find interest in the full story, accounted in full and in order.

Most of us never really think much of the stories about teachers and professors espousing their religious beliefs and actively discriminating until it happens directly to you. I didn’t think it would happen, or could happen, and especially not in an economics course. Yet, here are the events…

In the online course, we have “forum” topics on which our responses are graded. Usually we had topics that tied current events with the module at hand, and it was no different for Module V. The topic was the North American Union and here was the prompt (professor’s “beautiful” formatting preserved):

This is our Discussion Board Topic for Module V, it is very provocative and those of you who like to Blog and get into conspiracy theories will love this. I once had a student ask me if I was on the grassy knoll when President Kennedy was assassinated. But remember one thing 20 years ago not many people in Europe foresaw the Euro. When the Berlin Wall collapsed it caught everybody by surprise. So you should never say never!!!

Maybe it hasn’t been mentioned in Ohio that much because, as some say, it’s just an urban legend in the making. There are no plans for a North American Union, the politicians and national media say. Yet, when I lived in Florida there was a great deal of talk about the North American Union and having just come back from Austin I heard the word Amero again.

Moreover, the very superhighway that only those pesky conspiracy nuts talk about was displayed on a Canadian government website until a few months ago. The graphic I saw has now been removed. It illustrated 10 lanes of superhighway and three railroad lines. And the planned superhighway is to eventually link the super-port at Lazaro Cardenas to Mexico City to Laredo to Kansas City (the I-35/I-29 corridor) and on to Winnipeg, Canada.

With the above thought in mind, what are your views on NAFTA, the proposed North American Union and a new currency called the Amero? Discuss the history of NAFTA and the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas. Are we trying to follow the European Union? Be as specific as possible!

Alright, straightforward enough, write about your opinion. Not much different than the other forum topics. I set this aside for a few days as I focused my energies on my Anatomy assignments. When I came back to it, there were already two responses, from a religious nut and the professor in response to her.

Religious nutter says:
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For me all this talk about NAFTA, the Free Trade Area of the America’s and the Amero are a signal that the end of the world is near. I am a conspiracy “nut” in a way and have been keeping tabs on a lot of this world organizing that has been going on. Because of my religion I believe all this uniting will lead to the end of the world. It has been shown to me that the antichrist wants to have seven or ten so-called “unions” to unite the world so he can rule over all. One currency, one leader, seven or ten underlings to lead these unions. In the bible it says that the mark of the beast will be fashioned on every person either on the forehead or the right hand, and I believe that mark is this new nano-chip that goes under the skin on the hand and holds all your information. It will do away with paper money, ID’s, credit cards, etc. All you would have to do is slide your hand under a laser and it is all there. Along with this of course is the fact that you cannot barter, buy, or sell, or do anything without this “chip”. But everyone who takes this will be doomed to fall with the antichrist. I believe we are in the end-of-days and every time I learn something else about countries united and a single currency and such, it just confirms what I have learned.
NAFTA is a result of a shrinking world and the combining of economies. It became effective in 1994 between USA, Canada, and Mexico and was created to remove barriers of foreign trade. I believe it did cause many job losses because of USA companies moving to Mexico to take advantage of the cheap labor, and environmental concerns still remain a major problem despite efforts to correct it. Overall, I don’t think it helped anybody that much.

The Amero is the proposed currency of this new union of the America’s and signifies a coming change in our part of the world. It represents everything I am against. We should not unite together into a union that is a copy of the EU. I mean you can just hear the similarity- euro and amero, American Union and European Union. So in a way it is a good thing for the saved because it means Jesus is coming back soon, but it is a very bad thing for the unbelievers because they will endure the Tribulation under the rule of the antichrist, which will be ten times worse than the plagues that Egypt endured. You have been so warned. Watch it come to life most likely in our lifetimes and remember this.
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Ha, great, a North American Union means Revelations is coming true. *yawn* Next! They’ve been claiming this for… HOW many years now? Though I do resent the fact that this nutjob ends her post in a “warning”. Admittedly, I think it was her final two sentences that initially fueled my response. Keep in mind, this is the FIRST post to the thread. It begins with the nuts coming out…

But then, the professor responds. I’m leaving out his relevant sentence about Ireland benefiting from the EU to focus on the contents of over half his post and changing her name for anonymity:
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We all know Jesus is coming again but it clearly states in the Bible that: “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24:36, NIV.) That is why I like to listen to Dr. Charles Stanley because he concentrates on how to follow God’s direction for our life while we are on this earth instead of wasting time looking for signs when Christ is coming again. I study history and there have been so many people predict when he is coming back and they have all been wrong. When all people have to do is read the Bible.

Note: I am aware of the separation of church and state. It was first introduced into this country by Roger Williams. But I am just responding to Nutter’s comment.

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He also included a picture of Dr. Charles Stanley above this section. This is the SECOND post of the thread. Things are not starting out well. I realized that I had to formulate my response as fast as possible to try and stop this nonsense from getting out of hand with a bit of Anath-fire and logic. My thoughts behind my post were primarily to answer the prompt and address the irrational idiocy of Nutjob and the Prof to expose it as the irrationality it was. Basing opinions of economic policy on shaky “prophecy”? Incredibly irrational, and a dangerous move that could have devastating effects if utilized by government officials. I attempted to use a tone that was authoritative but at the same time reasonable. Here is my response:

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I apologize in advance for length and breaking Godwin’s Law with my first post.

This is the video I found from doing my response paper on NAFTA, or more specically, SuperNAFTA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmp2XHgXkvU

Marcy Kaptur (OUR congresswoman) has a graphic of the superhighway and is talking about the plans for it and jobs that have moved down to Mexico. At this time there really is not enough information as citizens to have an opinion on the project–if it exists!! As citizens of a representative democracy we should have information on what our government is planning to do– the right hand SHOULD know what the left is doing. Maybe SuperNAFTA and the highway are just rumors, but maybe not. If not, I resent the secrecy surrounding the project.

I am not totally opposed to a North American Union. The European Union seems to be working out pretty well, the Euro is currently stronger than the Dollar! My Austrian room mate’s parents send him just a few Euros a month, and they exchange into a lot more dollars! Originally they were worried about how they’d pay for his schooling in the states, now they have more than enough (and probably secretly hope our economy gets worse). NAFTA and other trade pacts have problems, there is no denying that. We have not yet worked out the kinks. First we need to convince companies that it is beneficial to operate within the United States, and then further, that it is beneficial to operate within a Union. Perhaps the perceived advantage of Mexico will greatly lessen if Mexico is connected with the United States in an economic and legislative way.

Also, greater unification of nations and continents allow us to collaboratively apply our efforts to projects that no single nation could finance and operate, such as the International Space Station. Additionally, there are researchers on the ISS working actively towards figuring out if colonization and terraforming of Mars is possible, and it’s looking promising. Yes, this talk has been going on for years, more in the public’s imagination than on the desks of researchers, but we are reaching technological levels to be able to seriously consider making these things realities. But how could humans ever hope to spread to the stars if we can’t at least partially unify on this single planet?

Unfortunately here we start reaching sticky ground with the religious–specifically Christians, who, as Julie brought up, see the unification of nations as heralding the second coming of the Christian savior, Yeshua, due to a book of prophecy that the Council of Nicea included at the end of their Bible. Basically since its penmanship, groups of people have been trying unsuccessfully to apply its prophecy, but it suffers from the faults of other prophetic works such as Nostradamus–it only works in retrospect.

We can say now that Nostradamus “predicted Hitler” through a couple verses that allegedly reference his place of birth, or a tyrannical leader that killed many. The connection, however, did not arise until significantly after the fact. Was Hitler really the leader Nostradamus predicted? Maybe, maybe not. Prophecy is ultimately self-fufiling in the sense that in retrospect, humans can make connections that are not necessarily there so that prophetic accounts fit their worldview. Any reading of Christian footnotes in the Tanakh proves this, as they relate verses and stories out of the original Jewish context to fit their view of Yeshua as the Son of God (which also was not determined until Nicea). Also, there are interest groups that will see a prophecy and find a way to work towards its fulfillment. I can imagine that once enough people claim that Revelations is coming true, someone will work towards making the Russians angry at the Middle East, take a hammer (or many bombs) to the Wailing Wall, and so on, in the name of the prophecy. We’ll also get a number of Antichrists named (think of how many “Antichrists” there have been already…) and every subsequent epidemic or natural disaster that 10 years ago would have been treated as what they were will become a “holy plague”. And so on. Yet I doubt it will be a case of Revelations coming “true” as it will be a case of self fulfilling prophecies and wishful thinking.

While ultimately it is irrelevant what a specific person or group believes about the supernatural, it will become a problem when these beliefs hinder progress and natural progression, or cause harm to others. From what I can see, the movement towards continental and regional Unions and pacts is a sort of cultural evolution. We began as tribes, banded together in small city-states, began to follow law in the Code of Hammurabi, then became greater nations, empires, Unions, then perhaps we will move towards a planetary government, interplanetary Unions, inter-galactic Unions, and so on. In each of these steps, and potential subsequent steps (depending on what the future holds) we have had and will have access to greater collective wealth and resources. Technology and collective knowledge grows exponentially with each stage, and we can see the potential of unified nations with the ISS, and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC)! This change may be strongly resisted at first, but overall, I think it is a good thing. Money is a real issue when it comes to large scale production, but with multiple nations involved, things like the LHC become a reality. We may now be able to find out whether or not the some of the classical models of physics (specifically those formulated under the assumption of the existence of the Higgs Boson, which should appear immediately in the collider) hold water under an objective testing, probe the depths of the matter/antimatter relationship, as well as dark matter, and perhaps discover empirical experimental evidence for Quantum Mechanics and/or String Theory, both of which exist in the realm of pure mathematics currently. Is this not exhilarating? The LHC is scheduled to open very soon–the first proton beam is scheduled for September 10! Isn’t discovering the true nature of the universe, unveiling the secrets of the stars and black holes, and potentially being able to move off the planet and preserve our race in the advent of a catastrophe important enough to band together? Or will we ultimately schism in the face of opposing “beliefs”?

As an irreligious freethinker, I have no fear of the Tribulation. I doubt it will ever occur, and if it does it will change nothing. The advancement of knowledge and growth as a species is far more important, and provides us a goal to work towards, rather than repenting and cowering in fear from a wrathful God… who may not even be there.
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As I hit submit, I couldn’t imagine what the professor, or any of the students, could come up with to refute this. I addressed the topic, and expanded upon it to include responses to other posts. If I actually failed in my goal, please let me know.

I expected in the very least, a reasoned reply against mine, or agreeing with part and not agreeing with other parts, with explanation. In retrospect, I’m not sure why I expected this, because the Professor rarely made very good on topic responses to any post made by anybody. Usually it took a bit of time to get a response from him too, but here we go, just five hours later, he responds (changed real name to pseudonym and preserved his horrific formatting. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was seriously editing his posts, after all…):

Hi Anath,

I sat for three hours on the runway in Austin because they would not let us take off because of major thunderstorms in Atlanta. Then once we took off and we finally got to Atlanta we circled that airport for another two hours waiting for an opening. So much for human progress when Mother Nature decides to intervene! Hey Anath have you ever heard of the Titanic???? Remember they said it could not sink, so much for human progress.

But pay no attention to me I am like Richard Nixon, I like to take the knife and stick it in and twist it.

Shit, really? You mean somehow you stuck a knife in my points?? Even if we try to look at this metaphorically, I fail to see how he addressed my post or its contents at ALL. Humans can’t control the weather? ORLY I had no idea? We’ll get back to this though, lets look at a few things occurring parallel to this… “reply”.

First, the Nutjob responded to the Professor, but not to me:

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I’m sorry if i tried to turn this into a religious debate. I just couldn’t resist. I didn’t mean for it to come out as a prediction of when Jesus is coming back. I guess I’ll try to stick to economics. I really don’t know how it will affect us, but if we are following in the footsteps of the EU then maybe it will help us grow economically. Either it will help or it will not help. Either way it will probably happen sooner or later anyways.

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and he responded to her (again removing the on-topic mini-paragraph to focus on the topic at hand):

I did not think that at all, in fact you bring up one of the more important debates in Christianity.

Ok, so you’ll support the nutjob who agrees with your view, fine. Lets see what else is going on, as there has been another response… I’m going to remove the relevant points for this guy, because he was reasonable enough to let his religious convictions take the backburner and actually talked about the topic. Unfortunately, he still contributed to the idiocy, and the professor’s response to him provoked part of my next post. He says (formatting preserved):
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I am going to try to stick to the main topic with this post, although I am also a Christian with firm beliefs the classroom is about economics. Both topics are of an interest to me and it is sometimes hard to keep on one without involving the other…It is debatable though on how we got to this point to begin with. We however create our own problems. The issue of trade and a uniformed world is not a new topic. One of the oldest if not the oldest historical documents tells us of what took place during a similar incident. In Genesis 11, you can find a very similar story. The outcome was never expected. However, it was documented because it affected people in a unique way. This unfolded as trades and associations escalated toward the east. Here we are in a similar but not exact position. I think we will always be looking for ways to save a dollar. We usually have to sacrifice a few important things to achieve this. We must be cautious on what we give up.

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Great, now we’re talking about the Tower of Babel. Again, lets not promote potentially positive economic policy because some nutters several thousand years ago made up a story advising against it. Not to mention, he is 100% incorrect in his assertion that the OT is even “one of the oldest” historical documents. There are hundreds of documents that predate the Bible, but this is outside the scope of the class and not my place to address. THIS ignorance is why I will fight to the death for separation of Church and State. Anyway, the professor responds.

He addresses the on-topic parts of the post very well, then shoots himself in the foot with his last sentence:

You make a key point about Genesis 11 and I believe it is this: Progress is not bad but it is the worship of progress, the arrogance of progress that is wrong. That is what I was trying to state in some of my comments above.

I presume that the “comments above” was really just his response to me about the Titanic and the fact that humans can’t control the weather because at this time he’d only had a handful of responses. I would like to think that in my post, I did not portray the idea of “worshiping” progress; I brought up advancements in conjunction with unified governments that could then afford greater feats economically. Maybe this did not come across? You’ll have to tell me, I suppose.

I thought about the parallel events for a while and formulated a response. I tried to keep it civil but focused, and diffuse the effects of the points with smiley faces to indicate that I was trying to reach a level of understanding and acknowledgment instead of flaming and fighting for argument’s sake. My response:

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For every large project that fails, there are dozens that succeed. You never hear about them, though, because they don’t make headlines.
Good example is recent space travel. If anyone can name 5 flights in the last 10 years that were successful and what they accomplished offhand, I would commend them. But everyone knows the Challenger and the Columbia. Similarly, everyone knows the Titanic, but ask them to name just three other vessels in successful operation in the same time frame and they will come up blank… without Google of course.

And humans never claimed to be able to control the weather. Just as we probably will never be able to break the barrier on the speed of light… But you never know, right! ;D

Though I don’t want you to get the wrong idea as you seem to have in another post; I’m not talking about “progress worship” but rather, if we have a clear opportunity to move forward and create the greatest good for the greatest number (utilitarian in me coming out), and we refuse to knowingly and irrationally, that is silly. I actually do not believe that “progress” in the sense you refer to it is possible, I was using the word more to mean “development” and “change” and “advancement” as in a “progression”, not the abstract, warm-and-fuzzy, humanistic “progress”. I think you kinda missed with the knife, did you actually read everything I wrote?

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After the “titanic” response, I wasn’t sure what to expect with this. Would he even respond at all? This one took him a full day to respond, as thus:

Hi Anath,

That is a great argument. But why not apply it to economics. I have traveled to Europe many times and have seen for the most part that the European Union has worked. Now apply that to NAFTA or the proposed North American Union or to APEC. In other words, stick to economics and to solid facts. As an example, after NAFTA Ohio has lost about 300,000 manufacturing jobs. But in Flordia it has created some jobs and it has even created some jobs in the Mahoning Valley. You start discussing the Council of Nicea and Nostradamus, and this is fine but what about the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund or Adam Smith who advocated Free Trade. You are getting off track. And remember NAFTA was passed with a large bipartisan support by both Republicans and Democrats.

SIGH. Well, at least he tried? I’m just not sure what he did try. “Why not apply it to economics”??? Wasn’t that what my entire post (or most of it) was about? Then he goes on “What about this, and that? and this? and that?” My post was several pages long, did he really expect me to include EVERYTHING? Plus, hte WTO and IMF were outside the scope of what I wanted to discuss with my post. Thomas Jefferson might have been more on track. Then he brings up the fact that NAFTA had bipartisan support, as though he is disagreeing with something I said. Maybe I’m biased as the author of the post, but do you see political parties mentioned anywhere? I didn’t think so.

Additionally, lets see this, he says “You are getting off-track”. Mmm ok, maybe, but lets look up a little bit and there’s his response to the original Nutjob, telling her that he did not think she was off-topic spouting about Jesus, and supporting her. Also let’s note that he calls a reference to Genesis 11 a “key point”. So lets get this straight, when we support the Christian View, we are ON TOPIC, and when we don’t we are OFF? Fuck, maybe I should start getting “on topic” then!!

I let this boil a couple days. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a response, and was exasperated. After I received a poor grade for module IV analysis questions in this time frame, I began to wonder if my grade was on the line for my views. His “comments” on my analysis questions displayed an incredible lack of reading comprehension and lack of knowledge of the definition of “assume”, as well as put words in my mouth for several answers. It seemed ironic that this arose in the midst of the forum argument, and was very discouraging, especially since up to this point, I had received decent grades. Could he be reading my work under colored lenses now? It seemed likely, but I couldn’t let that affect anything. I had to make a final response in the forum, even if he never responded, so that when he docked the grade for my module V forum post, I had a block of text to reference and argue him with.

Here is what I wrote:
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Professor, if you re-read my argument you will see that I did apply it to the economic situation. I stated my views, that I would approve of a North American Union, and stated the reasons, that it was working in Europe and that with a greater budget we could fund greater projects as CERN has with the LHC. If these are not applied economically, I am not sure what you are looking for. I responded fully to the original prompt.

I went off on a slight religious diversion in direct response to the first post, of a person who believed in prophecy. As the barrier between church and state crumbles and cracks between the current administration and potential subsequent ones, I warn that we must be vigilant against allowing ourselves to blur the lines between beneficial government and economic policy and superstition. The reason I brought up Nostradamus and Nicea was an example illustrating why we should not build policy based on prophecy–we should not form or not-form a union based on what it says in a book selected for a collection 2000 years ago. We need to do what is sound ECONOMICALLY and what is the greatest good for the greatest number (here comes my inner utilitarian again :P), NOT what satisfies a religious belief. Whether you or I agree or disagree with this belief, or whether or not it is true is irrelevant. If it inhibits growth (i.e. Sharia law in a secular state), it is harmful and should not be included when considering policy.

Who passed NAFTA at this point is irrelevant. It originally had bipartisan support, it probably still does, but policies change. SuperNAFTA is not NAFTA, and the add-ons and such may or may not have been approved by everyone. I personally have no ties with any party, being an independent moderate, and I did not bring up any political parties in my post. I take issues by issues, not by party lines.
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As predicted, I did not get a response to this, and since the class is officially over now, I doubt I will ever get a response. I hope that he read it, and comprehended at least part of it.

My final grade for these forum posts was 43/50 or an 86% “B”. Previously, I had earned nothing less than a 48/50 or 96% “A”. At face value, five points is nothing, even if it does mean a full letter grade. It seems silly to me to make a big deal over five points on a single assignment… not enough to make an official complaint over… but I did leave the class with a very bitter taste in my mouth. Behavior like this should not be encouraged of college professors, even if it is “just” a community college, but its hard to use my numbers as support of an argument. An office would laugh me out, complaining that I got a “B” instead of an “A” on a 50 point assignment, that didn’t affect my overall grade in the long run. But it isn’t the numbers I care about, it has never been. Its the fact that the professor conducted himself unprofessionally, and blatantly played favorites in an issue that should have been irrelevant to the class at hand. If I had been the one to bring up the issue, and haphazardly Christian-bash, then I would be at fault, but I didn’t. I responded to the previous posts, his points, and the topic. While I played my role as student and skeptic, he did not play his role as professor, and should be dealt with accordingly.

Unfortunately, we’re talking about a “college” who actively passed around a petition to ban the teaching of Evolution in Biology class. I doubt that even if I were to submit an official complaint, anything would come of it. I need to get back to Boston… NOW.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Culture, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.