Now that its the 22nd of September we need to take stock of those that were "raptured" during the night; anyone still reading this is presumably a hopeless sinner and now faces 7 years of trials and tribulation (another Labour term?) never mind though there are some advantages; I suggest you pay one of your Christian neighbours a visit on your way to work this morning (traffic should be lighter), if they aren't in then they have clearly been whisked up to heaven, so help yourself to their house, car, that nice flat screen TV you've had your eye on. In other news apparently the Daily Mail has shut down, sales of Barbour jackets have crashed and the Conservative party has evaporated.
6 comments:
Love the rapture photo! I'm sure I recognize Lisa in it. :)
E, I think you're right, and, hold on, is that a cup of coffee in one hand and an ice pick in the other?
Oh Eliz, if only it were me. I could be in the midst of pure happiness right this minute if only I would submit to some tempestuous god or other who has some deep-seated need for human adulatation and gratitude blah blah blah.
See? This is why I don't deserve rapture.
And Steve, I think G is correct from the comment on the previous post on rapture; the very pinnacle of religious theory is the unfalsifiable claim. Religion hinges on the idea that something might be both unfalsifiable and true.
Hi Lisa,
Perhaps we should start an "Atheist Rapture" myth, prophesied by the FSM and blessed by his noodley appendage; some tropical island somewhere were rational people could be transported by "winged Boeing" and be free of people trying to flog us (or force down our throats) their wacky delusions.
About as likely as the rapture, unfortunately..
"the very pinnacle of religious theory"? - Now being on the religious side here... (as opposed to atheism, that is, not Science - I've got a proper Science degree from a proper university and I don't believe in literal 6-day creations)...
In uncertain times people want certainty. The original apocalypse-writers were in an environment where their (Jewish) nation or their (Christian or Jewish) faith was under threat from other forces - mostly Rome, but also Greece and maybe Babylonia in the earlier writings. They had to give their people hope. So they wrote about a world where, whatever it appeared on the surface, one day the bad guys would get theirs and the good ones would win out. Apocalypse is an amazing form of writing, looks utterly surreal to most of us now, but that race and those faiths survived.
So far so good. Apocalyptic is powerful if you're the underdog. Now suppose you're the top dog. Apocalypse tells you that God still hates the bad guys, but the good news is that you're the one with the power. The hard bit is re-reading the story and finding out that maybe you're the one on the other side of the good guy / bad guy divide now.
The third scenario is where somebody uses the fact that apocalyptic prophecies give power.
They don't have to be religious apocalypses either. The Green motif has done well for Al Gore, the fear of asylum seekers and the politically-correct conspiracy sells copies of the Daily mail. But religious prophecy gives people the certainty they want. It says that, in a melting world, God is in charge. And, more to the point - so is the prophet. It's an abuse of trust. It is in fact falsifiable - because the end of the world doesn't come - but it can be constantly refreshed by further revelation.
There's a great list of failed forecasts here: http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl2.htm although I'd disagree with the first one... I'd argue that a lot of what Jesus is recorded as prophecying actually did take place in the Fall of Jerusalem, which did occur during the lifetime of many of those listening.
By the way, from what I make of that website the date of the end is actually 23 Sept. But it's not really the end, just the start of the beginning of it.
See you after the tribulation...
Hi G, Many thanks for your post; I agree with your main point, i.e. what you are talking about (generally) is leadership aka. the process of getting people to do things they otherwise would not naturally do. There are many ways of achieving it, and as you point out religions over the years have traditionally had a plethora of tools in their armoury for that very purpose as do governments, generals, dictators, corporations, teachers, parents and anyone else engaged in this task. However, just because something is useful it doesn’t make it true, deception is useful in this context, but “you can’t fool all the people all the time” as the famous quote goes.
I think anyone that foretells of violence in Jerusalem is onto a dead cert. winner; shame they never put precise dates on these things, without them it’s just hearsay really, not something that would stand in a court of law as evidence for example.
As for this site, I think it’s a great example of the kind of “thinking” that some spiritual, religious or plain irrational people apply to their lives, a triumph of how they would like the world to work over how it actually works, harmless in most, very dangerous in some. I love the failed predictions page you quote (I might just re-use that one!), I find it baffling that people like Pat Robinson continue to have such a huge following; it just goes to show how little “reality” matters to some people.
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