Oh goody!!! People are dying in the Holy Land!!!! [Updated Again]
Silly me. When I heard about people getting killed in the Middle East, I thought it was bad news. Humans are suffering and dying, religious, ethnic, and territorial hatreds are running high, and stupid old me was under the delusion that these were negative developments. The Chicken Little here at Internal Monologue was worried that the conflict might spread. What a poor, misguided fool was I.
Because you see, all this killing and hatred is actually good news! It’s a sign that the great orgy of apocalyptic Christian comeuppance, THE RAPTURE, is nigh. It’s a time to rejoice, or at least pant with eager expectation along with the folks on the Rapture Ready End Times Chat forum.
What can one say to such deluded fools? That end of the world cults have been around a long time (like my favorite whipping boy, the Heaven’s Gate cult), and that they have a long track record of being embarrassingly wrong? It’s “end times” crap like this that makes me believe you can’t heap too much scorn, contempt, and derision on supernaturalist belief. The fact that anyone respects this kind of thinking absolutely boggles my mind. If you think I was disrespectful to Roman Catholicism for its ridiculous marriage rules, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Like digby I worry, “How much influence do these people have on United States foreign policy?” And I shudder at the answer: probably more than people like me.
UPDATE: Sullivan weighs in. (I always love it when a major blog posts on a subject after I do.)
UPDATED AGAIN: Jon Swift, who strikes a faux-conservative pose a la Stephen Colbert, does a similar post, but it's much more in depth. (For Internal Monologue fans, see if you can find the place he links to this post!)
Because you see, all this killing and hatred is actually good news! It’s a sign that the great orgy of apocalyptic Christian comeuppance, THE RAPTURE, is nigh. It’s a time to rejoice, or at least pant with eager expectation along with the folks on the Rapture Ready End Times Chat forum.
What can one say to such deluded fools? That end of the world cults have been around a long time (like my favorite whipping boy, the Heaven’s Gate cult), and that they have a long track record of being embarrassingly wrong? It’s “end times” crap like this that makes me believe you can’t heap too much scorn, contempt, and derision on supernaturalist belief. The fact that anyone respects this kind of thinking absolutely boggles my mind. If you think I was disrespectful to Roman Catholicism for its ridiculous marriage rules, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Like digby I worry, “How much influence do these people have on United States foreign policy?” And I shudder at the answer: probably more than people like me.
UPDATE: Sullivan weighs in. (I always love it when a major blog posts on a subject after I do.)
UPDATED AGAIN: Jon Swift, who strikes a faux-conservative pose a la Stephen Colbert, does a similar post, but it's much more in depth. (For Internal Monologue fans, see if you can find the place he links to this post!)
Comments
However, I don't think there's anything wrong with being happy when this war eventually ends, and all these people are still stuck here with us. We could ask them to autograph these or something.
Yes, that would be funny. I just can't believe that every end-of-the-world cult thinks that they've got some insight that the zillion other ones that came before got wrong.
I know the New Testament is clear that the wheat will be separated fromt he chaff, but is it Christian to look forward to that?
Yes, I've always felt that Christian morality and Christian eschatology have always been at odds. Christianity tells us to love our enemies and our friends equally, to be like the sun that shines on good and evil alike. It urges us to throw off our "moral scorekeeping" and be a continual source of benevolence. But in the end God is actually gonna make those unbelievers burn in hell for eternity. So God must not really be so loving after all. In asking us to forgive our enemies, Christianity asks us mortals to be more loving than God, who is supposedly all good. It makes no sense. I think Neitzsche pointed out that Christian morality, if taken seriously ultimately destroys Christian theology.