Speculative Antichrist
There’s a website called “The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became an Evil Overlord.” In that spirit do I compose my list of things the Antichrist should avoid or implement.
Kaci Hill on Jun 8, 2012 ·
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· Series: Observations of a Youngling
For those who don’t know, there’s a website called “The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became an Evil Overlord.” The point is to poke fun at all the silly, clichéd and rather dumb things that fictitious overlords tend to do. In that spirit do I compose my list of things the Antichrist should avoid or implement. This is, after all, the place of speculation, fiction, and faith. I doubt I can get to 100 on my own, so feel free to add to this. (And I had a little help from some friends to get this list. The double asterisks are numbers contributed by people other than myself.)
- I will not use a microchip or tattoo to brand my followers.
- If I am somehow talked into this, I will not use my own name or insist that the microchip or tattoo be placed on the right hand or the forehead. The Christians are waiting for that.
- I will make the state religion Christianity and create a Christian Hall of Fame.
- I will not actively persecute Christians or any other religious persons.
- I will not wear clothing that looks like something Jesus wore.
- I will appear as pious and moral as possible.
- I will not antagonize my girlfriend. When she dumps me, I will not antagonize her as my ex-girlfriend.
- I will ban the numbers 666 and 616.
- I will not use a guillotine to execute opponents.
- In fact, I will put my opponents on my advisory staff. Opponents help me see blind spots.
- I will not use the phrase “new world order.”
- I will befriend Israel, insist their borders be returned to their pre-Exile boundaries, and build a Jewish temple where it’s supposed to go.
- I will refrain from outright defiling sacred religious things.
- I will not crown myself. That’s a bit arrogant.
- My military arm will be civil and uphold justice to the best of their understanding, rather than persecute the helpless.
- I will advocate social and political justice.
- I will not antagonize the hero.
- I will refrain from thinking playing with demonic creatures or things is a good idea.
- If two prophets of the Judeo-Christian God show up, I will invite them to dinner.
- If said two prophets turn out to be two prophets centuries dead, I will assume I should consider carefully before angering them.
- I will not be the one to implement money-less economic systems. That’s a bit obvious.
- I will not form a 7-year treaty with Israel only to break it halfway through. That’s likely to tip someone off.I will instead remain bound to my contract for the entire seven years.
- I will seat my primary headquarters in Israel and chase out the Muslims.**
- I will not slaughter a pig in the temple.** This is counterproductive to maintaining civic order on the streets and to proving to the world I am in fact a benign, competent,good leader.
- My number of advisers shall be nine or eleven, not 10, just to throw everyone off.
- I will hold all life equally valuable at all times.
- I will be clear and honest in my speech and dealings; there will be no double meanings or underlying threats.
- I will have an accountability structure in place so that in the event I begin to appear evil, I will already have measures in places to restrain me.
- I will not be a satanist.
- My spiritual authority will come from a religion everyone has heard of and considers legitimate, not kooky.
- I will not lie to journalists, preachers, or social advocates.
- My motto shall be fairness, equality, and justice.
- I will not allow anyone to make a statue in my name.
- I will not allow people to worship me.
- If my personal mentor/accountability partner/priest decides to make himself a high priest of a new religion in which I am god, I shall feed him to lions.
- I will memorize the entire book of Revelation and all eschatological texts of the Christian Bible and pay very close attention to the events in the book and do my best to avoid anything suspicious.
- In light of this, I will plan for the pending judgments and set into place plans for sustaining human life during natural disasters, pandemics, wars, economic fallout, and political upheaval. This way I might last a little longer,and, even if I don’t, at least people know I cared and that I did my best to keep from making it worse.
- I will enhance my own physical, social, and emotional flaws, rather than attempt to hide them, to make sure everyone is aware I am, in fact, human rather than divinity. If no such flaw can be found, I will either make one up or maim myself.
- I will not fake my own death.
I will allow full investigation as to my origin and personal history, just so there is no confusion.- 41. I will not employ overly charming speech and behavioral patterns. My speech, behavior, body language, and clothing shall reflect the region I grew up in and convey that I am a normal human being.
- I will attend a church, just to prove I don’t have a demon.
- I will not abuse those weaker than myself, nor attempt to dominate them. They are human beings.
- I will not tell any heroes my plans.**
- I will not kill the prophets at the Wailing Wall. Again, I wish to prevent riots, not cause them.**
- No intercourse with women who appear to be of celestial descent.** (Addendum: Apparently some people think the child born in Revelation 12 is the antichrist. This sounds a bit insane, but just to make sure even the insane don’t get suspicious…)
- I will not call for worldwide disarmament. This is counterproductive to peace and security.
- I will do my best to show mercy whenever possible.
- I will allow nations to maintain their autonomy.
- I will abide by the rules of war as stated in treaties made prior to my rise to power.
Oh wow, the Evil Overlord List is still around? I wrote a co-op story with some friends once, where we took every major villain we could think of and sent them to an Evil Overlord Conference where they revised their villainy in accordance with the List. It was hilarious. (I remember the room got dark whenever Sauron moved or spoke.)
I don’t have anything to add to the antichrist one. Oh! Although here’s one from Stephen King:
51. I will not kick the dog to death.
Haha. Yeah, it is. The trick with this list was to *not* overlap with Evil Overlord. That made things a bit harder.
But following this list seems to prevent one from being the antichrist….
I suppose, but what I’d really like to see in an antichrist character is a three-dimensional, real person – not a figure lacking actual goals and motivations. (“World domination” is about as specific as “world peace” and delusions of divinity are madness in the eyes of most.)
That’s only assuming that the dispensational premillennial version of the Antichrist is the correct one. If it’s not, then this list fits quite well.
You win two internets.
Actually, it was the final Left Behind book, Kingdom Come, that put me off dispensational premillennialism. It just doesn’t fit “reality” when fleshed out like that! However, I’m also not sure what to make of Ezekiel’s nine-chapter long temple vision, which acts as though the Old Covenant’s fulfillment is … more Old-Covenant practice and sacrifices. So I’m in the market for a new end-times view. John, here’s your chance to make a convert. I’m literally open to anything, here!
My reasons for being an amillennialist are a bit too numerous to go into in this comment. My objections have to center mostly around the Rapture, the nature of the True Israel, the nature of the True Temple, and how the book of Revelation is actually structured.
I can try to answer in my own fumbling way the business about the Temple in Ezekiel. It’s my belief that what Ezekiel was seeing was a picture of Christ. God was making a promise about the fact that He would once again dwell among His people since the Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians. However, since Ezekiel wouldn’t understand the concept of God becoming human and dwelling among us, God used imagery that he would be familiar with to communicate the concept.
Part of the reason why I believe that is because, if you look closely at the measurements Ezekiel takes of the temple, he rarely records how tall a room is supposed to be. If this was supposed to be a divine blueprint for an actual building, you’d think that would be included too.
But I will also say this: it’s ironic that Kaci brought up this this week. In my next video, I was planning on touching on various eschatological schools of thought. I don’t know how much depth I can get into in said video, but there you go.
John, sorry, what’d you mean by ‘that’?
And, on the pending video post: Ha. I wrote this in the spirit of fun, but that is ironic.
Stephen – Personally, I’m no longer convinced a “rapture” takes place. And, really, we were entirely wrong on the events leading to the first coming; why the heck would we get the second one right?
The “that” referred to Galadriel’s comment about how following the list would disqualify someone from being the Antichrist.
Oh! Thanks. Yes….they let me graduate……I promise…. 0=)
If a group of Christians accuses me of being the anti-Christ, I will not have them executed, but will instead praise the greatness of their faith, and will hold them up as the models of what good citizens are like.
I will not post my codes of conduct in the internet. It makes me far too easy to predict.
Timothy and Sockpuppet – Ha! I like it.
23 would only endear him to Christians of certain theological/political persuasions. Not trying to be controversial or anything, but someone who threw people out of their homes because of their religion would not make me think he was a good guy!
Apart from that, good list!
I have to say I found Nicolae Carpathia to be a good picture of the antichrist (in the first book anyway – I haven’t read the others.) Despite knowing who he was, he still didn’t come over to me as evil, but genuinely nice.
Maybe it was hyperbole. 0=) But you are right.
I read up through…Armageddon. I never read Glorious Appearing or any following.
Brilliant list! As for the Left Behind series, I found the final book to be beyond awful. I didn’t know it was possible to make Jesus seem so boring and distant. Thank God the reality will be so much better!
Haha. Jesus rides in on a white horse and punt-kicks the Devil into the Lake of Fire. Can’t get much better.
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