I see a bad moon arising

I see trouble on the way

I see earthquakes and lightnin’

I see bad times today

This coast-to-coast solar eclipse happening on Monday: could it be a sign from God? Nah! What a quaint notion.

You would think we’re past such superstition as we venture into the third millennium. Didn’t Y2K teach us anything in 2000? What about the Mayan “doomsday” calendar in 2012?

Remember Y2K? Information Technology gurus made a fortune feeding the media hype with speculation that the jump from 1999 to 2000 would lock up computer networks and trigger a global recession.

Remember stashing away the macaroni and bottled water in the basement? Sure you do — 26 percent of Americans planned to stockpile food and water, according to a National Science Foundation poll in December 1998. That number nearly doubled within the year, while 16 percent said they would withdraw all their money from the bank; 47 percent planned to avoid airline travel on the New Year’s holiday.

Don’t go around tonight,

Well, it’s bound to take your life,

There’s a bad moon on the rise.

Y2K didn’t happen, of course. Neither did the Mayan “doomsday” calendar, when polls showed nearly 30 percent of American adults said they believed the abrupt end of an ancient Mayan calendar in December 2012 might signal the end of time. It didn’t.

And now we’re getting excited again over speculation — this time over an eclipse.

Some spiritual radicals see Monday’s solar eclipse across the continental United States as a sign of God’s judgment.

Remember God? We profess to trust him, according to the four-word slogan on our coinage. “In God We Trust” — that’s just a quaint notion too.

I hear hurricanes a-blowing

I know the end is coming soon

I fear rivers over flowing

I hear the voice of rage and ruin

Anyway, these radicals point to a passage from an ancient text — not from the Maya this time, but from the Hebrews’ Torah — where God says, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times.”

Of course, there’s no merit to such claims. Scientists can project the paths of celestial events like solar and lunar eclipses, the orbit of comets and the alignments of stars and constellations. Their paths are preset and predictable. Astronomy has been that way since — well, since the dawn of creation. There is no way they are signs from a creator.

And yet, even from a purely academic perspective, the phenomenon of a total solar eclipse is rare enough to stir a frenzy of excitement. From Oregon to South Carolina, hotels, campsites and state parks all along the eclipse path are booked solid with gawkers willing to plunk down millions of dollars collectively to get an unobstructed view.

Here’s another quaint coincidence to dismiss:

As the last vestiges of the eclipse fade from sight off the coast of South Carolina, the clock will strike midnight in Jerusalem, marking the eve of the holy month of Elul. The month will start with the “rosh chodesh,” or new moon — that same moon that just blocked out the sun, now races across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to rise over Jerusalem, heralding the birth of a new month in the Holy Land.

Who knew the moon had such a busy social calendar, dashing off from one spectacle to arrive headlong at another?

For Jews, Elul is a special month set aside for fasting and repentance in preparation for the new year. According to tradition, the first of Elul commemorates Moses’ second ascent of Mount Sinai, where he fashioned a replacement set of stone tablets bearing the Ten Commandments. The Bible story says the original tablets were broken when Moses threw them, frustrated that his tribes were worshipping an idol. Moses spent 40 days there praying for forgiveness for the Israelites’ sinfulness.

Some traditions also identify 1 Elul as the start of Jesus’ 40 days in the desert, which brings up another tasty tidbit: it’s exactly 40 days from 1 Elul until Yom Kippur, the final day of repentance and fasting to usher in the new year. Yom Kippur is the most solemn day of the Jewish year.

But that’s all just coincidence. Never mind the Jewish people are big on numbers — numerology, they call it. It would be silly and old-fashioned to assign any symbolism to the solar eclipse. We’re too sophisticated for such nonsense.

I hope you got your things together

Hope you are quite prepared to die

Looks like we’re in for nasty weather

One eye is taken for an eye

No. There’s not even a remote possibility that God wants to speak to America through a celestial sign as unique as a coast-to-coast solar eclipse.

Besides, what more could the stars tell us that we don’t already know? We’ve been fairly busy judging each other recently. It seems everyone’s offended by their neighbors’ words and actions.

The blunt truth is that all humankind is capable of hatred, evil, greed and vanity.

We have become adept at inflicting pain and deflecting blame on others. We steal dignity from our old and innocence from our young.

We go on denying that all of us bear the guilt of national sins, from racism to excessive pride, to envy and addiction.

And lately, we condemn our foes when they don’t condemn the ones we condemn as quickly or as thoroughly as we condemn them.

No, God’s not coming to judge us. We don’t really need a deity blotting out the sun to tell us what we already know.