(no subject)

[symbioidlj]

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?

Comments

[roadriverrail.livejournal.com]

Probably not, if I had to guess. It probably grew out of the revenge fantasies of persecuted early period Christians. Christ had redeemed everyone but had not wiped evil from the world, so there was still one last, and ultimate reckoning. It's also worth noting that there are echoes of a latent belief of an ultimate end as far back as the tale of Noah, when God makes a covenant with Noah and his sons that he will never again destroy the world with water. That with water clause seems really strange, unless he was keeping his options open.

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.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I pretty much think it was more allegory about the fall of Rome, and that we just recontextualize it through the centuries since Jesus never came riding back on that white horse.

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.

[roadriverrail.livejournal.com]

Well, at least your pastor was decent enough to do that. A lot of evangelicals fall for that crap. It's nonsense. I mean, I'm not Christian, but I think I could probably tell you a prophet when I see one. There hasn't been anyone in my lifetime who qualifies. I remember going to an "end times" seminar put on by my local Seventh Day Adventist church once. Eh...newp. Interpreting a past prophet's vision of a statue made out of different things and what it meant for the nations of the world...is not prophecy.

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.

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

This is perhaps the best argument that god exists, simply because the rapture will never happen because someone, somewhere, is always expecting it to.

[rayefrenzy.livejournal.com]

i wanted to write a whole lot of thoughts on this. mostly about the fact that the book of revelation is NOT a book of prophecy, but a book of encouragement. but, i'm just too depressed and can't be bothered. you can pretend my heart is in it, though.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

Well you just weren't going to the right fundie xian churches ;) I disagree with you, btw, considering the apocryphal tradition, but...

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.

[rayefrenzy.livejournal.com]

yeah. im back in chicago for a bit. i'm trying to figure out what the fuck to do. i appreciate the thoughts, i really do. and the hugs.