One of the short stories Arthur C. Clarke is famous for is "Nine Billion Names of God."  It's a neat little nugget, but not terribly well-written, one of those stories where it's just as good to read the synopsis, and not much longer.  He has two computer engineers (from the days where computers were not only novel, but also the size of an F-150), who've been asked by some religious ascetics to help transcribe the nine billion names of God, the completion of which, they believe, will fulfill the purpose of the universe.  They'd been doing it for years by hand, but computer technology, that could make the earth achieve its purpose a whole lot faster.  Well, it does, and so equipped, the forgotten monks start printing.  As the engineers make their way down from the mountain cloister, one looks up and observes that "overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."  (Hey, it's online for free, how about that?)

(Parenthetically, nine billion words is still a lot.  If your typical novel contains about 25,000 of them, then that's like an entire print run.)

Yeah, good times.  I did a little googling, but it was hard to discover whether Clarke was playing with any established theological notions or just making stuff up. As I read about demographic predictions, expected to peak at nine billion or so if we're (less un)lucky, it was hard not to remember that old story.   Nine billion names?  Can you spell doomsday cult?  I'd feel kind of guilty making money off of a pseudo-religion based on a 1950s science fiction story, but, well, I wouldn't be the first one.  

What?  This doesn't seem relevant to anything?  It will soon--I'm sure Mike's going to put that thing up any minute now.