Believe it or not, I was a little boy once with little boy foibles.

Between the ages of 4 and 6, I was a victim of the Superman Cult. I faithfully watched the re-runs of an American television program called “The Adventures of Superman: Man of Steel.” This was during the 1960s. Yes, it was the black and white version.

I convinced my parents to buy me a Superman suit because I believed that if I wore it, I would be like Clark Kent who would change into Superman when he put on his suit. They did so, and worried. I was tempted to “leap tall buildings in a single bound” and would brag about my super powers. I can still hear my grandmother’s giggles.

Of course, my peers didn’t believe me. “Are you really Superman, Jamie?” a little neighbor girl asked me once in her tiny voice while I was “in costume.” “Sure, I am. Give me a punch.” So, she punched me in the belly – with no affect. Standing there unfazed by her harmless efforts, she was followed by the vain attempts of her playmates as they all tried to put to the test this “man of steel.”

Then the neighbor boy, Butch, thought he would give it a go. “Man of steel, huh?” And then he laid one on me. I lost my wind, of course, turned red in the face trying to catch my breath and hoped no one noticed. I kept my composure, but right then and there I learned that a Superman suit does not make you into Superman. I moved on to the next phase of life.

The comment sections on the Internet are like a continuous school yard brawl – and they demonstrate the same immaturity. Some things are just too important for sport. There is a difference between football practice and military training. One is for sport; the other is for killing. A good drill instructor will continuously remind his recruits of the difference. If you lose at hand-to-hand combat, you don’t get to try again next Friday night.

The websites we offer as sources for your further research are produced by serious men who are genuinely alarmed by world events. Ben Davidson, Douglas Vogt, Robert Felix, James McCanney, Don Patten, and Rob Skiba could be doing other more profitable activities. They generally are not given to hyperbole and making personal attacks on others; unless, out of frustration from many provocations, they may respond in kind with sarcasm or name-calling. They are only human. Trying to use the internet to warn the public is like swimming in a sea of sharks.

I don’t believe everything these men say. I don’t think that Ben Davidson has discovered the secret of predicting earthquakes. But hey, he is as accurate as my weatherman in predicting the next weather forecast.

Douglas Vogt has a view of the biblical story that I find incredulous, but his scientific analysis has spanned five decades and is based on real, peer-reviewed data.

With the exception of James McCanney, and maybe Douglas Vogt, none of these men are scientists. They are interpreters of information provided by scientists. I, too, am an interpreter. I can tell the difference between a square and a circle. I can tell the difference between a large number and a small number. If a scientist tells me that data show the results of a nova from a celestial object within one tenth of a light year away – wink, wink – I know there is only one star that could qualify – our Sun.

Rob Skiba is a computer artist and Bible teacher. He wants to believe the Earth is flat because he thinks the Bible teaches that it is. I can respect that. The use of CGI to manipulate the public is a bigger problem. The government agencies are guilty; journalists are guilty. He has raised questions that need a better explanation than the claim of debunkers who say that “he can’t do science” – evidently, neither can they.

I don’t care about the political or religious views of these men. For the most part, they keep to the subject matter that concerns me, and ought to concern you. Sometimes, politics is unavoidable. Science has become political; maybe, it always has been. Isaac Newton was Chancellor of the Royal Mint. He knew how his bread was buttered and made sure that nothing critical of the British Throne was published until after his death. Do you think that scientists today are any more noble than he was?

Douglas Vogt wants public pressure brought to bear on the governments of the world to do something in preparation. He doesn’t believe survival is possible without government action. He warns against end-of-the world cults.

Ben Davidson wants to start a survival community in the mountains of Colorado. He doesn’t trust the government; at least, he doesn’t trust the government to care about him and his family. Neither do I.

He has already been labeled a “doomsday cultist” and con man. “Professor Dave” on the YouTube channel is otherwise interesting to listen to, but he crossed the line on that one. The government will use that kind of public smearing first before making a move against you. We have to hope that Professor Dave was speaking ungracefully on his own. If he is speaking as a part of a covert operation, then we all are in deep trouble. If the government is taking action against the efforts of citizens to protect themselves from natural disasters, it can only mean a policy of genocide. Someone has made a decision that you do not deserve to survive the coming cataclysms.

Let us hope that our leaders will at least allow us to inform ourselves and prepare as best we can. Surely, they have enough humanity and good sense to respect our constitutional rights. Who knows? They may discover they need us in order for all of us to survive in the bleak and dangerous world which must surely follow.

— JWS