Jesus and The Doctor.

As we were discussing "The Second Coming" in class, Dr. Talmage and I were privately discussing the notion of the second coming being detrimental to some people. I then shared part of my theory about the poem, but alas I got cut off before I could fully explain myself. So, I'm going to attempt to explain it here.

Yeats was an atheist who had been raised with a christian background, as we learned in class the other day. Therefore he would be familiar with Christian beliefs and 'lore', if you will. Since the majority of Europe was also well versed in christian 'lore', it would be a perfect subject to make a point with. For an atheist, the second coming would/will be a terrible time. Basically, this man, the "son of God", will drop out of the sky one day and take all of his friends out of the world, and then, quite literally, all hell breaks loose. While he is a savior to Christians, he will also be a harbinger of death to the rest of humanity.

I drew a big parallel here to the Doctor from the popular BBC show "Doctor Who". In the episodes "The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang", the world's oldest and most secure prison in the world, a box hidden under stone henge called the "pandorica", is opening. The box is said to contain the most feared being in the universe--something so terrible that it could just drop out of the sky one day and rip apart entire civilizations. The Doctor willingly goes to try to stop whatever being is going to escape, only to find that it is a hoax. The pandorica is empty and all of the races he has ever thwarted in the past imprison him inside of it. This makes the viewers, and the Doctor, contemplate his actions over the course of the TV series. The Doctor always appears, makes friends and protects them, and stops evildoers. However, from the perspective of the evildoers, they are doing right and he is the evil one for thwarting their plans. He is the destroyer of worlds, usually for the common good, but he brings destruction nonetheless.

All of the same could be said about Christ and the second coming. I would draw the argument out even further, but I'm exhausted.

So, what did we learn this week? Ben will use any excuse to talk about Doctor Who? Nothing? The purpose of stonehenge is to hide the most secure prison ever? All good answers. Tune in next week… seriously, just do it.

P.S. I commented on Nick Hampton's "Poetry=Art"