Or that the movie Armageddon happened nowhere near the place in Israel.
Not really, that would be conflating any and all revelations with one specific one from the Christian bible. But I am not Christian, and think it would be ill-advised for those who understand neither the mythos nor the lexikos to coopt its general use. Just like I have no incentive to force “vision” to refer only to “the vision of Saint Jerome” - because that would make normal daily communication stilted and awkward. YMMV
And besides being IMO lexically dubious usage, I still assert that its use here lends dignity and grandeur to genocide, if perhaps inadvertently.
Hmm, what is language but a means to express emotional response to stimuli? The ship has sailed; common usage of the word Apocalypse is understood to mean a calamity - human-caused or otherwise - that would devastate the population and leave ruins across the globe.
Not unlike what I wish upon Canon for their terrible printer drivers.
Edit:
I personally keep out of calamity threads, but this thread seems useful for members to keep track of humanity’s dangerous Tapdance on the prepice of self a destruction. Documenting and commenting on current events is useful, I think.
I dunno, colleague. Could be there’s more than one person seeing “dignity and grandeur” applied to nuclear-powered genocide hereabouts, but I suspect it might only be you. It’s not like it’s a particularly evocative term in any positive fashion, unless one enjoys the dignified silence of blasted landscapes littered with scorched corpses.
If you’re speaking Greek, I agree. The Greek word, used in an English context, however, is generally used to refer to a specific revelation, (or rather, Revelation). And, generally, used without awareness of the original Greek meaning.
Words change meaning when they change languages. The word “caution” comes from the Latin for “take heed.” In English, “caution” means “take heed, I warn you of danger.” In French, it means, “take heed, I guarantee this.”
You use the word “astounding” in a context with no relation to thunder. You use the word “cancer” for something with no relation to a crab. You use “coopt” to mean something the exact opposite of “choose together.” And that’s just examples from your last two posts in this topic.
“Apocalypse,” in Greek, means exactly what you say it does. In English, though, it has come to have a different meaning than it did in its original language, just as “cancer” has.
Note to self if/when I get cancer: Tell people I’m going into an intensive round of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery because I have a bad case of crabs.
So, of course no love from me for prescription of English word use based on languages far removed from contemporary English. I mean, really, who does that help?
But I would give this: I’m glad it’s not hereabouts, but there are a lot of people who treat apocalypses with a lot more dignity than they would a long series of cruel deaths, even if that’s all they actually mean. I think maybe it’s some mix of these:
…or maybe I just like posting comics but they don’t actually work in lieu of making a coherent point. I sure hope not.
But for whatever reason, the attitude is often thus: the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million a statistic, the death of nearly everyone a spectacle almost to be hoped for. Not to everybody, but definitely for too many with too much influence.
An etymology I appreciate is that rabies is Latin for rage. Because when you tell people, at first they’re all “ha, infected with rage is how they describe zombies in that one movie, that’s funny” – but then when you think about it, it’s nothing funny at all, that’s exactly what rabies is actually like.
Turkey bombing the Kurdish fighters is one of the most destabilizing things in that region, along with the current situation in Israel and Palestine. And the religious right is actively pushing this instability because they think the end of the world will bring Jesus and the destruction of all of us who don’t fit their ideal (which is much of humanity). It’s a scary time. I’m actually surprised they only moved the doomsday clock to 2 minutes to midnight, frankly.
I would hope that if Jesus came back, he would take all of us and leave the right wing nut jobs behind. When they ask why, he just says “You didn’t get it”.
I mean, I suspect if that was all a thing, that’s exactly what would happen, actually?
More on the Erdogan regime’s invasion of Rojava:
Did you notice that the latest “best places to live worldwide” just came out and Chicago was at the very top of the list?
Our water comes straight from the largest freshwater system in the world. We’re well-positioned for the coming climate apocalypse.
Canada really needs to start building defenses, cuz I know y’all will come for our water eventually!! Freeze it! Send it secretly to space!!
The Great Lakes Compact was the first defensive step. Escalation of defensive measures will depend upon extant threats to our waters. 