Total eclipse of brain
I guess Mike Masterson has been hitting fringe Christian Internet sites again to come up with omens of impending doom for all morally reprobate Americans. This includes, I suppose, atheists, gays, transgenders, fornicators, drinkers, dancers, uppity minorities, Democrats, and anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the same set of superstitions as he does.
The omens in question are two eclipses, a magical seven years apart, whose paths of totality form a big X across the contiguous 48, having darkened numerous towns named Salem and Nineveh in the process. Alaska and Hawaii have apparently been spared judgment.
As if this were not enough, Masterson floats the hypothesis that the duration of totality (4 minutes, 28 seconds for the 2024 eclipse) points us to Jeremiah 4:28 “… and the heavens above shall grow dark.” Jeremiah was warning the Israelites of impending doom. But then all prophets warn of impending doom. It’s in the job description. There are plenty of other books of the Bible with a verse 4:28; what do those verses say? Anything particularly ominous?
Where to begin to unravel this Gordian Knot of magical-conspiratorial thinking? There will have been 68 total eclipses in the 21st century; NASA has precalculated their paths not only for the rest of the century, but also for the next 3,000 years. They will crisscross all parts of the world, their paths intersecting each other and darkening multiple towns with the same name.
By the way, Salem is among the most common town names in the U.S., so the probability that an eclipse path along the nation’s midsection would darken a few Salems is pretty high. As for Nineveh, there were two of them in the path of totality this week. There appear to be five Jonesboros, though. Any biblical significance there? Jonahboro maybe?
Critical thinking—as opposed to the magical kind—requires that we first examine known facts, rather than jump to conclusions based on a cherry-picked coincidence or two. The kind of thinking featured by Masterson reflects a level of superstition and ignorance worthy of a tribal witch doctor (or Marjorie Taylor Greene), not that of an educated journalist, writing at any time since the dawn of the Age of Reason.
But, speaking of prophecy, if the current nationwide eclipse of Reason lasts much longer, there will be plenty of doom to go around—and it will be of our own making, not God’s.
ALEX MIRONOFF
Fayetteville