He will, several years later, he will be a prelude to a huge battle which will eventually
end up in the final battle between good and evil, at which point where the Antichrist
will be slain in front of a church, I think somewhere in the Middle East, could be Antioch,
and then the Lord comes down, or the angels of the Lord come down, carrying all sorts
of weird paraphernalia, lots of hardware, and they judge us all.
And the good ones are taken up, and the bad ones are thrown down.
I haven't got a hope.
Be very, very quiet.
I'm hunting heathens.
I'm hunting Christian soldiers, not shooting us to war.
Good day, how are you?
How are you, Andrew?
Oh, hey, hey, Mr. Carter.
Yes, sir.
That's very exciting.
Yes, what would you like to ask me?
I would like to ask you.
I think we're going this way.
Okay, why not?
Let's go.
Yes, okay.
Now, tell me, what does Revelation mean to you?
What does the book of Revelation mean to me?
Yeah, have you read it?
Yes, but not lately.
Yeah, and what's your memory of it?
Okay, well, it talks about a lot of far out creatures, like we're talking, I can't quite
exactly, sorry, but we're talking dudes with six horns on their head, and six heads on
their heads even, things like that, right?
And so it's pretty far out, and so beyond my comprehension.
But supposing I were to tell you that I had information that, in fact, the world would
be ending at about 10.15 tonight.
Let's not be too specific.
What, did you have an interview with God, or?
No, I would never claim to have an interview with God.
His secretary said I couldn't seem to mind that anyway.
What would you do with the rest of your life?
If I had to attend to tonight, I'd be hard at praying.
Praying for what, or praying to what?
Praying to God, praying for repentance, making sure everything's right between me and God,
and be ready to meet him at 10.16 after we finish here at 10.15.
People in uniform, my favorites, come with me.
Shit.
Like animals for dinner?
Yeah, just over there, thank you very much.
Everywhere you look, there are potential indicators of a world on the brink of total collapse.
For example, this Caltech sign is a pentagram, also the sign of the Antichrist.
Is it just coincidence that Caltech sells petrol and petrol comes from the Middle East,
reputed to be the site of Armageddon?
Some point to Kylie Minogue being the possible Antichrist.
According to the scriptures, the Antichrist will be initially well regarded by people of all nations,
including the Jews.
Kylie Minogue, the Antichrist will be human and very powerful.
Kylie again.
And the Antichrist will be able to work counterfeit miracles,
a perfect description, some would say, of Kylie's transformation from soapy actress to pop star.
And could her hit, Better the Devil You Know, be part of a worldwide brainwashing project?
Others still claim that the ABC is the Antichrist, or Auntie Christ,
and that all ABC programs contain backwards masking.
For instance, play this show backwards and you get an episode of The Big Gig.
You dig backwards and you get an episode of Couchmen.
And play Couchmen backwards and nobody notices.
Also, take a look at your ABC postcode in the capital city near you,
triple nine four, but turn it upside down and what do you get?
Six, six, six, and a kind of upside down cross with a spooky cup.
Some even say that David Hill himself is the Antichrist.
He's being a misspelling of hell and that the only way to stop this evil, evil man
is to stick your head out the window right now and shout,
I'm mad at Hill and I'm not going to take it anymore.
The theories abound.
In America, one man attacked the toilet belonging to the estate of Wilbur and Orville Wright,
the first men to fly, because he thought the feces of Orville actually meant the forces of evil.
In the middle of all this conjecture though, stands one man who's given us more detailed information
about the fate of our world than any other.
His name, Nostradamus, who although he died more than four centuries ago,
continues to astound us with the accuracy of his predictions.
Well, how did he do it and what manner of man was he?
We spoke to his last living relative now resident here in Sydney, Barry Nostradamus.
Barry, how are you?
Andrew, you've caught me.
Fine pet, fine.
Stay, stay there.
So Barry, you're the last living relative.
Chair, chair, Andrew.
Yeah, thank you.
You're the last living relative of Nostradamus.
Don't sit down, it's a gift. Don't sit on it, please.
For me?
Yes, feel free.
Oh, thank you.
You're the...
Ship, ship, Andrew.
No, no, no.
Man of quality.
I should have known, I should have known that.
Yes, you should.
Now, you're the last living relative of Nostradamus.
Did you inherit any of his extraordinary ability to predict the future?
From Uncle Nick?
Yes.
Oh yes, actually, he inherits the ability to predict the future,
say, five or six seconds from now, you know, in the future.
Really? Could you give us an example?
Sure.
Look out!
That's astounding.
Tell me, did Nostradamus actually predict anything that pertains to your family?
My family?
Yes.
You know, when he came to Aunt Esme's ward, you know,
he predicted the eruption of it in 1915.
It was untanning.
Really? Do you have a record of this?
Yes, I'll just put it on for you.
I see that one coming.
What use is your future?
My future?
Oh, I'm working on one.
His name, Fousey Watson, what were of a prediction, yeah.
Oh yeah, and what are you using for that, the stars?
No, no.
Are you cutting open a cat maybe using it?
No, no, no, no.
What about your uncle's quatrains?
No.
Well what, what?
This.
It's a washing machine.
It's a Simpson-Delphi automatic in a room.
Not only does it clean your whites, it's also a cleaning machine.
It can predict your future.
I predict in five minutes time you'll be chatting to a man in black.
Oh, don't you beware.
That's your big prediction, is it?
No, no, small potatoes.
I tell you what though, mate.
You come back here all about 20 minutes,
and I have a prediction of enormous proportions.
But how, how do you do it?
By studying the woodlands.
Oh, the master.
Nobody knows the identity of the man who wrote the Simpson-Delta automatic washing machine use and care guidebook.
Today we know him only as the mechanic.
When the mechanic wrote this outwardly unassuming little booklet in the late 1970s,
a time of ignorance and superstition in which people still worshiped the eagles,
few were to understand its real meaning.
Yet, amazingly, much of this extraordinary booklet remains to be satisfactorily translated.
You see, although written in modern English,
Doomsday scholars still disagree on its interpretation,
with words such as control knob, detergent and filter often the cause of keen debate.
The water level can be infinitely varied between low and high.
A reset position is provided to allow more water to be added if, after agitation has commenced,
you decide to add more clothes or that a higher level is necessary.
The message here is clear.
Water level refers to our oceans, and these can be infinitely varied between low and high.
In other words, this is a greenhouse effect warning, i.e. through our own actions,
we have the ability to control the level of the oceans.
Such ingenuity from a truly remarkable mind.
After all, who but the mechanic could have envisaged a decade as crazy as the 80s,
a decade that bought us Chernobyl?
Our house fuse has blown.
Check the power outlet with an advance you know is working.
Ben Johnson's drug-taking scandal.
Coloured fabrics should be tested for colourfastness.
Paul Keating's economic policies.
A high suds level is not necessarily an indication that the correct amount of detergent is being used.
And Bob Hawke's prime ministerial style.
When loaded, turn on the water tanks.
Fascinating stuff. But let's push on.
Our next guest is an eccentric, an insomniac, an egyptophile, an intellectual, a broadcaster, critic,
filmmaker, author and doyen of advertisers.
He also has a big staple in his tummy right there and his name is Philip Adams.
Hello, Andrew. How are you?
Hello, Philip. I'm very well, thank you.
Well, actually I'm not so well because I do hear the end of the world is upon us.
One lives in hope, my son.
Does one?
I hope it'll be as soon as possible.
That's a very pessimistic point of view, Philip.
Well, it's been a flop, hasn't it?
I mean basically the whole thing's been a terrible fader.
Evolution has led us to Darren Hinch.
There's a Middle Eastern war.
Television stations are in receivership and you can't get a plumber.
I mean basically I think the sooner the end comes the better.
Do you consider these all to be signs of the oncoming apocalypse?
I once had dinner with a whole lot of scientists in Canberra under a sort of a dome,
what was it, the Academy of Science, about a half a mile from Parliament House,
and it looked here really like the Last Supper.
We were arranged along a long table and they were very, very top scientists.
So I posed them the question of how will the world end?
And they all had a very passionate opinion.
They all agreed that nuclear war was a fur fit,
that even if one and a quarter million Hiroshima bombs went off,
that really wouldn't be that much of a problem.
No, it wouldn't.
But finally they all settled on greenhouse.
And in fact it was the first time I ever heard mention of the greenhouse effect.
They were talking about how every day in every lab in the world
the carbon dioxide levels go up and up and up.
And they were calculating a temperature on this planet of 300, 400 degrees
within a century at the time.
So it sounds like it's going to be hot.
You used to be the chairman for the Commission for the Future.
Did you guys read Nostradamus?
I resigned when I realized there wasn't one.
I left it to Robin Williams. He's a fool who believes there may be a tomorrow.
Well, he does make up for that sort of thing.
What a silly person, isn't he, really?
Did you read Nostradamus as a guide? Was that a starting point for the Commission?
When the Paul Drain program went on first, Drain by Name, Drain by Nature,
and caused a lot of terror in the community,
Barry James and I demanded right of reply, so they let us come on them,
and discounted.
When I saw it again, I thought, he must be right.
And I, of course, he was a relative.
Really?
I believe you'll get another theory in this program, but he wasn't.
In fact, Nostral's Adams, he was my great-great-grandfather.
I see. So you...
And it became over the years Nostradamus through sloppy...
This is extraordinary.
We've actually discovered two relatives, including the great prophet Nostradamus.
Who could have told that? Probably him.
I visited his house only a few weeks ago in Salon.
And would you believe Nostradamus...
I love it when this guy named Nostradamus is just great.
Nostradamus' house is between a laundromat and a travel agent's.
He predicted that.
The 55th Quartrain.
And the spinning tumblers shall be unto one who prophesies.
I thought that was a reference to Lotto, you see.
You're very flippant about this, Philip.
I mean, you come in here...
We've got to laugh at your terrors.
When you do die, what do you think's going to happen? To you, that is, not to us.
Well, to be serious, to be serious.
I know exactly what it's like.
Smells like, tastes like, feels like.
Because all you've got to do is think back before you were born.
It's exactly the same as that.
You just aren't around.
Nothing.
Sure? Yeah, positive.
Doesn't worry you, would it? He said with rising doubt.
Did your parents have any religious background?
My father, in fact, was a Christian minister,
which gave me... put me off to a flying start, didn't it?
I mean, I had a virgin therapy from the cradle.
A virgin therapy?
No, no, no, no.
And if your father's retelling all this claptrap,
you're off to a great start to be an atheist, aren't you?
Well, when did you decide it was claptrap?
Three. I was three, I think.
He was leaning over the...
He was leaning over the cot, worrying about this child there,
and I blew him a raspberry and said it was all rubbish.
And then you actually were debating Hasidic law at the time?
No, he was a congregational.
He wasn't a rabbi.
I mean, you're far more disturbing than I am,
and far more disturbed, for that matter.
True.
But you're the one with the suppository microphone.
Well, actually, the truth is I'm not quite right now, Philip.
People would see that there is, in fact,
a tube running from the back of you way out there...
And that's my colostomy bag.
I didn't want to bring it into the set.
I mean, here you are, one of Australia's towering intellects,
and you're putting forward very fast...
Oh, you wanted that, Philip Adams.
Yes, oh, sorry. We've got the wrong one.
You don't believe in death.
I do believe in death, and I wanted to have a medium life.
You don't believe in life?
Particularly to you.
My lawyers will take note of that.
This is enough reason to destroy the world.
I think what with the gay lesbian Mardi Gras
and Andrew Denton, it's time for at least Sydney to be wiped out.
I'm with Fred.
This is one of the most tragic interviews I've ever participated in,
living proof of the crushing weight of the generation gap.
Philip Adams, let's get it.
Getting back to the number of the beast, or 666 for a moment,
although the Bible says it will be on the head of a man who will be the Antichrist,
there are those who believe that perhaps it doesn't apply to just one person.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that 666 stands for the United Nations,
who incidentally just passed Resolution No. 666.
Others think it stands for the British House of Commons,
which has 658 members and eight full-time staff, totally and all, you guessed it, 666.
Did you order the one back?
Yes, thanks, just with the others. Thank you.
Others still think that the B on our bank card,
which is often printed in three colours, is a computer, 666.
Doubly disturbing when you realise that according to Revelations 13, 17,
the beast will have control over our currency.
Me? Well, I think it's possible to go about the whole thing in a much more scientific manner.
Observe. 666A, A for Antichrist.
Should I check the mail? Ah, it's hot. Let's go inside.
Hello. Hello. Oh, hello. Hi.
Andrew Depp, ABC Television. How are you? Nice to see you.
Good, Andrew, nice to see you. Nice to see you too.
Look, it's a difficult question. I have to ask you, is the Prince of All Darkness here?
She's just out the back of the room. She is?
This is the Prince of All Darkness.
Pleasure to meet you. And I see you've got a cloven hoof.
That's correct. This is two cloven hooves, in fact.
Look, I can walk around in this too, if you like.
I don't wish to question anybody's historical accuracy here,
but the Prince of Darkness is supposed to be a man.
Well, we'd like to be a friend.
Oh, sorry. No, come on, please.
If I just pop through?
I suspect this man here, brandishing, brandishing totems of the Church,
is in fact the Antichrist.
Tommy, what's your background? How old are you?
About 7,000 years, I think.
7,000 years? Well, that's not a clue.
Let me see now. Do you lust after virgins at all?
Yes.
That's something more like it.
Let me just take your temperature for a minute.
Very hot, very, very hot.
Tommy, if I were to go like this to you, what would your reaction be?
I think we've done a move-over of a kind affair.
We're hot!
Flat 6, number 66.
Hello?
Yes, can I help you? Can I help you?
Yes, I wondered if you could tell me who lives in flat 6, number 66.
Oh, yeah, the son of Perdition, the Antichrist himself.
You're from the television, are you?
Yes, yes.
Are you a kinch?
No, no.
Kind affair?
ABC.
Oh, ABC.
You said the Antichrist lives in there?
Yes, he's about to renew his lease.
Well, we in the block aren't too happy about it.
He was very nice when he first arrived.
Everyone really liked him, even the Goldbergs at number 8.
You could talk to him about anything, you know, politics, religion, bestiality,
but he hangs around with a very rough crowd.
But how do you know he's the Antichrist?
Well, in the middle of the night I have often been woken up.
I open the door, there's a knock, and there's this thing standing there
that looks like it's come from the deepest part of the pit of hell,
and it just goes, the beast!
Do I look like the son of Perdition? No, number 6.
So this guy's actually a troublemaker?
Oh, a definite troublemaker.
I'm of the belief that he's actually right now working on plunging the entire globe
into a fiery conflict that will consume all humanity.
Well, haven't you thought to call the police?
Oh, no. No, I don't want to cause any trouble.
There's a lady on shore, all that glitters is gold.
She's buying the stairway to heaven.
When she gets there, she knows if the stores are all closed.
With a word, she can get what she came for.
She's buying the stairway to heaven.
There's a sign on the wall, but she wants to be sure,
because you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings,
sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder, it makes me wonder.
It's whispered that soon, if we all come attuned,
the Bible will lead us to reason.
A new day will dawn for those who stand long.
The forest will echo with laughter.
Yeah, it makes me wonder, it makes me wonder.
If there's a bustle in your head's road, don't be alarmed.
It's just a sprinkling for the May Queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run,
there's still time to change the road you're on.
And as we wind on down the road, our shadows taller than our souls.
There was a lady we all know, who shines white light on what's to show.
And if you live so very hard, that she won't come to you at last,
when all's done is won and won is won, till the end runs out to run.
It seems my inner state of mind to have won.
The Australian doors with their version of some obscure Jim Morrison lyrics
found at the bottom of his bathtub.
Well, we didn't have much luck door knocking the beast,
so we thought what we'd do now is try and phone him up.
And I must warn you at home, please don't try this.
Your meddling with powers is greater than you, probably greater than telecom.
What we're doing here is we're dialing area code 666, number 666.
Let's see how we go.
Is it through?
You have dialed the number of the beast.
Sorry, but there's not a soul around.
Ah, well, the gods don't seem to be on our side tonight,
so let's see how Barry's going.
Barry Nostradamus, your prediction, please.
Yeah, yeah, look at that.
It's Mr. Packer.
He's going to fall off the horse and, whoa, the tick has gone.
No, no, actually, Barry, that's already happened.
What we were hoping for was something that hasn't happened yet.
Hasn't happened yet?
What, you want something, whoo, you want something from the, whoa, from the front?
From the future.
Ha, well, that's quite a concept.
That's a bit, whoa.
Well, I'll tell you what, you give me, give me 10, 15 minutes
and you get back here.
A big prediction.
Oh, don't you worry about that now.
Fantastic.
Barry Nostradamus, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm going to go on the case, mate, don't you worry.
While it may be a mystery for some, for others,
the future is just a place where they work.
Our next guest is a man who regularly clocks on
where others clock off.
He's the incoming chairman of the Commission for the Future.
Will you please welcome Robin Williams.
APPLAUSE
Obviously, this is going to be an interview full of confrontation, Robin.
No.
Oh, good.
Tell me, what is the Commission for the Future?
It's something that Barry Jones invented very wisely
a long time ago, in 1985, actually.
He thought of it in 1666.
But the idea was that instead of our floundering around all the time,
just lurching from one change or catastrophe or something to the next,
we should discuss the future and plan it and choose our own future.
The whole point about the Commission is you don't see the future
as something like America coming towards Columbus,
which you sort of ram into and cope with later.
So we get to choose which catastrophe we're going to hit.
With any luck, we avoid them.
And get hit by one we didn't expect.
Perhaps not.
How accurately can we predict the future?
We can hardly predict it accurately at all.
In fact, science looks very stupid when it tries to predict the future.
But you can get some ideas of mishaps that could occur.
For instance, I think it was earlier this year,
there was a very large object came within, well, vanishing distance of the Earth.
I mean, very close in astronomical terms, which means, I don't know,
several million miles away.
And if it had been nudged a little closer, like a comet could have.
I mean, they've often hit in the past, 65 million years ago,
apparently the thing that wiped out the dinosaurs is said to have been
a very large lump that hit the Earth and changed the climate.
So there are a number of things that could happen.
There's one other small catastrophe that we might start worrying about now,
although it may take four or seven billion years to happen.
And that's the sun going out.
Where?
It won't quite go out that way.
It'll just become very large, blow itself up, and then become very small
and produce, unfortunately, not enough heat for us.
What's your personal opinion of Nostradamus?
Not him as a man, you didn't know him, obviously, Barry Jones.
Philip Adams, you mean?
Oh, no, not all Philip Adams for that matter.
Well, Nostradamus, I think it's Piffle.
Mind you, the Simpson washing machine was very convincing.
I can tell your clothes have a sort of apocalyptic ring to them.
But you can get cleaned off in the Simpson Delta automatic.
Really?
Do you discount God and final judgment as a possible ending?
I find it very difficult to understand what's meant by it.
I had the same sort of problem as Philip Adams except the other way round.
No, you haven't.
No, not quite.
You see, the difference between myself and Philip, I've actually died.
I've actually been there.
And it was quite strange that nothing happened.
There's a film called Flatliners which tries to suggest that you'll go up in the sky with dogs
and float around and have sexual dreams and naughty bits.
It doesn't quite happen.
It doesn't even happen in life, I can assure you.
So you don't expect there will be any sort of Armageddon or coming of the Lord?
I don't know whether you realise this, but Bob Hawke since 1983 has regularly been in touch with the deity.
At first it was funny enough...
Mr Packer? Yes, I've seen pictures of them together.
Not quite.
All the other day.
This is God.
It was in the beginning him phoning to get her advice, but then later it became the other way round.
And only last week, funnily enough there was a conversation that went something like this,
God said, well we've got, Prime Minister, some good news and some bad news.
Which would you like first?
And the Prime Minister said, well, give me the bad news first.
And she said, well, the world will end on the 31st of December 1990.
And he said, does this mean I won't have a historic fifth term?
She said, I'm terribly sorry, Prime Minister, you will not have a historic fifth term.
And he said, well, what's the good news?
And she said, well, no child in Australia will be living in poverty in 1991.
I'm sure you'll have an extraordinary grasp of our future and the functioning of the world.
It's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you very much.
Andrew?
Yes.
Thank you.
Without doubt the most chilling part of the Simpson Delta Automatic Washing Machine
Use and Care Guide book are its predictions for the possible fate of mankind.
Contained in the legendary refrain ten, the machine stops.
Did you wrap the clothes around the agitator?
If so, they will not circulate freely and possibly cause the motor to overheat.
Translation.
Are too many people gathered round a warmongering dictator, the agitator?
If so, the hearts of many will be stopped.
They will not circulate freely.
And it would possibly cause all people, the motor, to hurt forever.
Overheat. Over meaning ever. Heat is believed to be a type overheard.
In fact, it's common practice for Simpson washing machine manuals to be partly printed in reverse
so more customers have to call Simpson tradespeople.
Did you use the recommended wash temperature?
Translation? No idea what this means.
But it does sound grim and we'd be foolish to ignore it.
After all, despite what he saw, the mechanic only wanted from life what we all want.
A cleaner, brighter, fluffier future that doesn't smell and with the skid marks on the inside.
His guidance we may one day achieve.
The most famous prophecies about the end of the world are in the last book of the New Testament,
Revelation, an account of a vision by the Apostle John.
It's an extraordinary piece of writing full of bizarre creatures and surprising detail
such as the fact that God has seven golden lampstands.
But for me the most amazing revelation is John's description of heaven
which has God on a throne surrounded by four creatures who spend all day and all night of all eternity praising him.
And every time they praise him, 24 elders on 24 thrones around God's throne
throw themselves on the ground and praise him also.
Which begs the question, why does God need all this praising?
Is he insecure? And if so, what about?
If he is insecure, should he really be running the universe?
Personally I prefer someone with a slightly better self-concept
which is, I suppose, just the sort of cynicism you'd expect from someone who doesn't have any faith.
Others do of course and who's to say which one of us may be right?
With me now are three people of different faiths, Lorraine Marphy Williams who is a filmmaker
and regarded in the Aboriginal community as a teacher and medicine woman,
Priya who teaches at the North Sydney Hari Krishna Temple and Robert Forsythe, an Anglican chaplain at Sydney University.
Welcome to you all.
Thank you.
If I could ask each of you to respond briefly to this opening question, starting with you Robert, your time starts now.
How near are we to the end of the world?
The brief answer, Andrew, is I haven't the faintest idea and despite what you've been showing tonight
I don't think the Bible would help us to know either.
Alright, we'll get back to that, Priya.
Well, according to the Vedic scriptures the conception of time is quite different.
So in the Vedas it says that there is a cycle of time.
So we're going through different ages.
There's a cycle and the cycle is broken up into four specific parts.
And now we're in the last stage of that cycle which is the age of iron.
So that age started 5,000 years ago and it's predicted to last 427,000 years.
And at the end of that, then there's a minor annihilation.
So we've got a minor annihilation.
That's your company.
I've got a long way to go.
Yes, Lorraine?
I can't really talk from a Western point of view, if you know what I mean.
Well, talk from your point of view.
Well, yes, from a totally cultural point of view because see,
we've only been in contact with a Western world for 200 years.
And what great years they've been, eh?
Well, here on Earth we believe you can make heaven for yourself
or you could make a hell for yourself.
A hell is when you war amongst one another,
there's disease and there's famine and there's killing
and there's diseases, all that sort of thing.
That is our belief of a hell that we create,
human beings create for themselves here on Earth.
Or someone else can create it for you.
Or somebody else can create it for us.
Let's not get back to Western civilization, shall we?
Robert, although you can't say when the world's going to end,
do you have a picture of how it will end?
Well, let me tell you why I know that I can't know when it will end.
Jesus said this, he said,
Of that day and that hour no one knows,
not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
So anybody who comes along today saying they know when,
he will come again in glory, knows more than the Son of God.
And no one here does that.
So that's why I know that no one can know
and all the fear is just a sign, I think,
of where we are at the moment in our society
and not reflecting the true situation as we stand waiting
for what I believe is a real return of Jesus at the end of the age.
Why do you think some people look for Armageddon?
I think they look for Armageddon because they are scared stiff
and the Bible is full of the most incredible pictures
you've said in the book of Revelation.
It's like a book of cartoons.
John has vision of what will be.
He's not literally seeing what will be.
That's ridiculous.
It sounds to me from what you say that they are a bit misleading.
They are misleading if you try
and think they are some kind of travel guide
or some kind of a simplistic future account.
Nobody can take them, literally.
They weren't meant by God to be taken, literally.
It's foolhardy to take them, literally.
You mentioned this beast. You said the Antichrist.
There is a beast coming out of the sea with a number, a human number 666.
It was written at a time when Christians were suffering great persecution
in what today is Turkey, then called Asia,
and a lot of the imagery is to do with the Roman Empire's attack
upon believing Christians in the first century.
And you can't just apply it as though tomorrow morning we'll wake up
and there will be a large beast coming out off Bondi Beach
with a number on its head.
That's misunderstanding the Bible.
Damn, all the news crews will be there in a flash.
Yes, that's true.
How about you? What happens, what do you believe happens after we die?
Is there a heaven or a hell?
Well, we believe in the science of reincarnation
that ultimately we are spirit souls inhabiting this material body
just like you drive your car.
You drive your car and when you jump out of the car,
the car doesn't go by itself.
What becomes of we atheists?
Even though one might turn his back on God,
and God being your own messable father,
he'll not reject that person just like a mischievous son.
He might say, you know, Dad, forget it, I'm going to go my own way.
But still the father will feel for him
and will always think about the son.
Cut off my allowance for eternity.
Yeah.
So we'll always have an opportunity to get God's mercy.
God is very merciful.
The whole concept of God is that he's your loving father.
So even though we might turn our back, there's no end to God's mercy.
So even though you might be a hardened atheist,
you'll still get another chance.
But we shouldn't wait around this place too long.
An example can be given, just like when someone might go to the bathroom.
One should do their business and get out.
So similarly, when we come to this material world,
we should do our business and then get out, not wait around too long.
That's a very interesting metaphor.
It's been fascinating talking to all of you.
We do have to end there.
Robert, Priya, Murphy, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you all.
And our time is counting down now,
so I think we'd better just check and see if Barry's got his big prediction together.
MUSIC
Barry Noftredama's time is almost up.
Your prediction, please.
Yes, well, I predict the world is going to end.
Oh, really? And when?
Yes, well, it'll be on a Monday.
It'll be a Monday about 10.50.
Yes, it'll be on the 12th of November, 1990.
But that's today. That's now.
Well, we've got a couple of minutes, you know.
Oh, look, there's one survivor here.
He's got four matching eyes and a body that glows,
and a ridiculous number of pets.
That's right.
CHEERING
The world is about to end, and there will be only one survivor, me.
For I am not Ned Wordner,
visitor to your planet from a faraway civilization of chat show hosts.
My mission here has been twofold.
To collect two of every Earth creature, except spiders, which I hate.
To write this out.
And two, to teach you Earthly people the universal message of peace
and the greeting of love, which, as you know,
is putting a condom on a microphone with your mouth.
But you have failed to learn this lesson, and so your planet must die.
But before I go, Earth people, know this, for I have heard it asked often.
Yes, there is other life in the universe, but no, none of it is intelligent,
for we are all chat show hosts.
With the exception of a small galaxy of barrel girls near the Dog Star,
but that's not important right now.
So there you have it.
I'm not Ned Wordner, and that's life.
At least for you lot, anyway. Ciao!
Music
Explosion
Music
Music