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fundie xians have this thing about the end times, i'm sure a lot of you know that.
there's also this belief that jesus will come "as a thief in the night", and "no man will no the day nor hour" of his return.
so I always get a kick when these very fundies are expecting his immanent return. Any day now! So they're always expecting it, but by the very definition, this expectation defeats the return, because you're watching.
then I thought of this concept in magic(k) (chaos and otherwise) of "Lust for results" and the idea is that once you cast a spell, you forget all about it, you don't worry about it, just don't ponder upon it. The idea is that being conscious of it spoils the results.
So is this story of "Christs return" really a parable about lust for results?
there's also this belief that jesus will come "as a thief in the night", and "no man will no the day nor hour" of his return.
so I always get a kick when these very fundies are expecting his immanent return. Any day now! So they're always expecting it, but by the very definition, this expectation defeats the return, because you're watching.
then I thought of this concept in magic(k) (chaos and otherwise) of "Lust for results" and the idea is that once you cast a spell, you forget all about it, you don't worry about it, just don't ponder upon it. The idea is that being conscious of it spoils the results.
So is this story of "Christs return" really a parable about lust for results?
no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 09:57 pm (UTC)But many scholars believe the Revelation According to John was a coded story about the fall of Rome, which was, at the time "the world". It seems reasonable to believe that the entire apocalypse is really a story of final justice against the oppressors.
That said, you do have an important point about the whole thing-- the return cannot be anticipated, so trying to spot the signs is futile. There was an amazing series of lectures about this on EWTN (the Catholic cable network). I think, however, that it's not so much that trying to predict it will keep Christ from returning. Instead, it is scriptural error to try and do it. It's not quite sin...kinda a procedural foul, if you get my drift...but it's still improper.
That said, you should check out dispensationalism, because I believe much of our religious doom watching derives from that.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 10:06 pm (UTC)I like to take the bible stories and recontextualize in my own world view (in the same way I read Hindu scriptures or other myths in my own map). I guess I was more pondering it as a map for myself, I suppose I asked the wrong question.
I know about dispensationalism. IIRC, that's the theory of various "ages" right? What's crazy is that about 6th grade or so I mapped the idea of "the day is as a thousand years to God" to the idea of god resting on the sabbath, and using the 4004 bc date, arrived at this idea that each "day" was a period of god's special history (every millenium), and since we were about the 6th millenium in, it was soon to be the 7th millenium/day. I didn't realize at the time that this was sorta the thought of many others.
There was this wretched book our Pastor brought up called "88 reasons the rapture will happen in '88" and it was dismissed as false prophecy due to that "no one knows the hour" thing.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 10:13 pm (UTC)That was a cool little thing you came up with there. I'd often pondered the difference between "God time" and "regular time" but never come up with all that stuff.
Yes...you got the idea of the dispensations right.
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Date: 2008-03-01 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 07:23 pm (UTC)The important thing is that I hope you feel better. Are you still in Chicago, now? I don't pray (curse us agnostics!), but you'll be in my thoughts today. Sending big bear hugs your way.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 07:25 pm (UTC)