Last night I watched with horror Tony Robinson’s documentary on ‘End Timers’ – people who believed that the world is about to end in accordance with the book of revelation. It was an excellent, well rounded documentary, and a clear antidote to the other tripe usually on TV of a Saturday evening; what it exposed, however, horrified me.

It is deeply worrying that people actually believe this ‘end of the world’ garbage. After all, as Robinson pointed out towards the end of the programme, it was probably written on an island by a man whose intention was to write some anti-roman propaganda. However, some people still believe in it, as they believe in the story of creation over Evolution.

As with creationists, one’s first reaction is to dismiss such people as lunatics. However, while I am convinced of their abject stupidity, so much so that I want to go up to them and cry ‘it’s just a frikkin book!’, these people are too numerous to be ignored. Moreover, they seem to be in a position of power, especially with Bush in power in the u.s.

This is worrying. If you believe that the world is going to end soon, what’s the point in planting crops? More importantly, what’s the point of caring about the environment if you believe that global warming is just evidence of the coming apocalypse?

And here, I think, we get to the rub. Although Mr. Robinson does not say this in his programme, it seems obvious to me that such thinking plays straight into the hands of the petrochemical companies. With people thinking like this, they can have carte blanche to dig where they want. Indeed, one American on last nights programme said he was intending to dig under the holy land, claiming he had scripture backing him up.

Thus it is clear that, in America, we have a toxic mix of fundamentalism and oil: people are using religion for their own personal gain, using it to distort realty and make money. People are being manipulated, yet seem too arrogant and sure in their own narrow beliefs to notice. It is very very scary and something we should all be worried about.