One sign — and if you find the right corner of the internet, there are many, many signs — is that Monday’s total eclipse passes over a city with a portentous name: Rapture, Indiana.
It’s also “shocking,” according to a TikTokker with 2.4 million followers, that the eclipse crosses eight towns named “Nineveh,” the city of sin and vice in the Bible that the prophet Jonah was sent to warn of God’s wrath.
A pastor who streams live on YouTube points to a map with the eclipse’s path overlaid with the path of the last total eclipse to cross the U.S. — a big “X.” Or is it Tav, the final letter of the Hebrew alphabet?
For millions of people who plan on observing the total solar eclipse crossing North America on Monday, those two or three minutes will be purely astronomical: a chance to witness a lucky planetary alignment.
For some who belong to a ballooning movement within Christianity, the eclipse marks much more: a sign of the coming apocalypse, the end-times described in the Bible.
Such doomsaying is easy to dismiss as the fixation of a religious fringe, and this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that a significant astrological event draws out dark prophecies. The total eclipse in 2017 generated the same apocalyptic chatter.
The difference now, experts who monitor these groups say, is that this Christian movement has become enmeshed with an ascendant wing of far-right Conservative politics, rocket-boosted by a conspiracy culture, and herded by social media algorithms. Together, these forces have cultivated a cauldron of beliefs that represents a real threat to democracy, and will persist after the eclipse passes.
Bu hikaye Toronto Star dergisinin April 07, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Toronto Star dergisinin April 07, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Subscribe to Magzter GOLD to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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