Torcer Arcana

Humanity’s fear of annihilation is as at least as old as human history. Civilizations express this primal fear through various myths. I use the term “myth,” not as commonly understood as “fiction,” but in the anthropological sense of a story expressing a particular cultural meaning. The “annihilation myth’s” forms are as varied as they are fascinating, but exhibit several common traits:

1. Humanity’s immoral actions have offended the god(s) or G-d ;
2. The god(s) or G-d decide to visit destruction upon humanity and do so;
3. The gods or G-d stops before humanity is destroyed.

…and these myths usually involve water.

The ancient Egyptians told the following myth of destruction. The Sun god Ra grew angered when man came to disrespect him, engage in evil acts and disobey his laws. Ra sent vengeance upon Man in the form of the mother goddess Hathor, in her destructive aspect as Sekhmet. Appearing as a great tiger, Hathor/Sekhmet slaughtered all she could find in the land of the Nile, becoming literally drunk on slaughter and blood. Such was Hathor’s slaughter that Ra became frightened she would kill all of mankind, so Ra eventually tricked her into relenting, and as a result she was transformed from a goddess of destruction, into a goddess of love.

For thousands of years, the Mesopotamians told the following myth of destruction. The 11th tablet if the Epic of Gilgamesh recounts the world’s first flood story. Gilgamesh’s quest for immortality leads him to Utnapishtim (Summerian Ziusudra). Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that he and his wife are the sole survivors of a great destructive flood that the gods visited upon mankind. The god Enki warned Utnapishtim of the flood, and after surviving it, was granted immortality.

The Biblical Flood myth holds much in common with the Sumerian and Akkadian version. The moral dimension is much more explicit in the biblical myth though (Perhaps because we’re missing some of the Mesopotamian version). G-d destroys mankind because it was wicked, and saves Noah because of his righteousness.

The modern secular humanist myths of destruction currently manifest in the same form of a climate catastrophe. Unlike the ancient myths which generally followed the same form with some variation, the Information age provides nearly infinite variety. The outline of the myth is that modern Humankind has sinned against nature in the form of CO2 (i.e., the by product of industrial civilization), and unless humankind repents, nature will visit destruction upon mankind.

A modern secular person may object to the later comparison of climate catastrophe to Ancient Near Eastern myths of destruction. After all, anthropomorphic climate change is born out by scientific consensus. However, I'm concerned with the Mythic aspects of Global Warming, the nexus of Science and Myth in modernity, and most importantly, Global Warming destructive myth existing independent of the consequence indicated by the science.


While there is a scientific consensus concerning Anthropomorphic Global Warming, there is not a scintilla of scientific support for the Armageddon scenarios I have grouped under the rubric of modern secular humanist destruction myth. Myth isn’t supposed to be literal though; myth expresses a cultural meaning. In the case of our modern myth though, what meaning? In understanding the meaning, it may help to compare and contrast the modern secular myth with the ancient Near Eastern myth.

All of the destructive myths express human fear about the end of civilization brought about by nature. In the Egyptian myth, the mother goddess is the destroyer, in the Mesopotamian, it’s the gods, in the biblical, it’s G-d, and in the modern version its climate. The commonality is an awareness of the dependence of human life and civilization on the whims of nature. The ancient myths reflect the reality of the early river valley civilizations and the periodic nature of feast and famine. The Egyptian and Mesopotamian myth differ in detail because their concerns are slightly different, given the predictable nature of the Nile’s annual inundation, as compared to the more varied patterns of the Tigris and Euphrates, nevertheless, both involve gods and goddesses visiting destruction upon humanity.

Our modern Secular myth differs too given that our concerns and perceptions are slightly different than that of the ancient world. We’re no longer dependent upon a river valley; modern civilization is Global, interdependence of civilization is Global, and perception is global. Whereas the ancients abstracted various forces of nature to deities, with our global perception we have abstracted these forces into “Climate,” or more anthropomorphically “Mother Earth.”

“Mother Earth” and Global Climate are concepts, abstract labels we apply to systems we scarcely understand, much as the ancients created the myths of Hathor/Sekhmet and the Flood in order to warn about the relationship of civilization to the destructive forces of nature. In this regard, there is no meaningful mythic distinction between the abstractions of the ancients and this abstraction of modernity.

Then too there is the moral dimension. Egyptian’s conceived of a world order (Maat), by disobeying this order, humanity invited destruction. The lesson from ancient Israel was to obey G-d’s commandments, or suffers divine retribution. The modern secular destruction myth has a moral dimension too, namely that the state of Modernity is immoral. The modern myth implicitly holds that global technical industrial civilization has sinned against a pure state of nature, and in response, nature will take vengeance upon humanity, unless it repents by rejecting aspects of modernity and returning to the natural state.

The modern may object that the modern destructive myths differ from the ancient myths because the modern myths are grounded in Science. This is a distinction without difference for two reasons. First, the Science supports a link between human industrial activity and temperature, but the Science does not support a link between human activity and Armageddon scenarios. The later is only finally understood when examined through the prism of myth.

Secondly, there was a rational basis for the destruction myths of Egypt and Mesopotamia, a basis as valid as our “scientific” basis. These were complex civilizations that required the hierarchical control necessary for irrigation, cities, trade and a complex web of social relationships. The well being of Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilization did depend upon adherence to a set of rules, and they used myth as a means of conveying this message. The rational basis for these myths did not transform them into literal truth.

I’d argue that the relationship between Egyptian and Mesopotamian Civilizations and catastrophe if fundamental rules were violated was far more immediate and obvious than that between CO2 emission and Global Climate catastrophe. Not to argue that their myths were more rational than ours, myths by their very nature defy rationality and convey meaning without reference to logic. I consider rationality solely because the modern secular climate catastrophe myths cloak themselves in the guise of Science and Rationality.

The ancients understood myth and didn’t necessarily literally believe that mother goddess Hathor was going to transform into a tiger and obliterate humanity in an orgy of blood. In this regard, the Ancient Egyptians were far wiser than we are, and had the good sense to include the world’s biggest kegger in their destruction myth.