Well I'd have to say Revelation. But I also have other favourites.....Romans, Ecclesiastes, 1 John and Isaiah. But Revelation is my favourite of all, because its so full of hope!!
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I actually burst out laughing when I read this...
Yeah, so were the Terminator movies, Orwell's 1984, The Matrix trilogy, American Idol...
Well, everyone but 144,000 virgin Jewish males suffering for all eternity is full of hope if you compare it to, say, Lovecraft. But that's really about it.
Well I'd have to say Revelation. But I also have other favourites.....Romans, Ecclesiastes, 1 John and Isaiah. But Revelation is my favourite of all, because its so full of shit!!
Fixed.
A book written by a reclusive lunatic stranded on an island for decades with only a few goats for company and sea-water to drink? Then this "book" is added without question to a so-called bible 300 years after the rest and regarded as the absolute unquestionable truth!
Revelation was actually written as an inspirational text for a people suffering from genuine oppression (no, that does not mean they had to hear to "happy holidays" instead of "merry X-mas").
The problems start when people forget that it is an inspirational text and assume it is prophetic.
[But Revelation is my favourite of all, because its so full of hope!! ]
You're shitting us, right? Now a quiz. Revelations was written by:
A) God
B) Jesus
C) A Greek exile on the Island of Patamos some 90 years after jesus died
D) Moses
E) Charleton Heston
Answer: C Yes "C". Look it up.
As a 25 year veteran of christian theological studies, I'd have to say Revelation is full of shit. All the bloodshed, disharmony, discord, unrest, war, disease, natural disasters, all to kill off those god chose to die in such a way. Of course, there's dozens of different interpretations of Revelation, including the one called "idealism", which sees Revelation as not symbolic of literal events, but symbolic of spiritual events. This is a bit less disturbing than modern dispensational-historical interpretations. But it's all shit, and shows just what an ass their god is.
personally my favorites are Cat in the Hat, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Jeeves and Wooster. But Alice Through the Looking Glass is my favorite of all, because it's wizzlenutsfucnizzle
To be fair, The Revelation was originally written to provide hope for the early Christian community. In those days just about every major group had a set of gods to be worshiped by all members. This included social clubs, trade guilds, schools and of course the Roman Empire itself. By refusing to worship pagan gods, the Christians excluded themselves from most of the major sources of influence in the Empire. More importantly though, refusing to worship the state gods in bad times (when the help of the gods was most desired) was seen as an act of treason. The theme of Revelation is a message to Christians not to give in to the expectations of the state and their neighbors. It encouraged them to hold true to their beliefs because their god would avenge their persecution.
In light of that, Revelation is worthless for modern Christians. It is heavily laced with idioms and images that would have made perfect sense to its intended audience, but would be baffling to outsiders (and modern day Christians). More importantly, Christianity is no longer the renegade cult it once was. It is now a major world power, albeit one that has splintered into rival, and often warring, denominations. It is a situation the John of Patmos could never have imagined when he wrote the book. Indeed, if John could have seen modern Christianity, he probably would have tossed Revelation in the trash and written another book to get them to pull their collective heads out. And he could have dedicated it to the good folks at RR.
"Revelation is my favourite of all"
Because it's what you fap to, amirite? All that death & destruction to get your juices flowing, eh?
...but I must admit that the Whore of Babylon gets me hard! Just the thought of her looking like Bettie Page makes my nipples explode with delight!
"And I stood upon the sand of The Sea, and I saw a beast rise up from The Sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of Blasphemy"-Revalation 13:1, KJV.
@ HazelHolly
I work with a fundie that I've known for 30 years. During that time I've learned that he has read very little of his book, in fact, much less than I have, and I could give a shit about it. About Revelation he says:
Well, if I were compiling a list of my favorite books in the Bible, Ecclesiastes would probably be on my list too. The writing wasn't half bad. It's one of the few books in the Bible I enjoy reading. I might even consider Revelation to be one of my favorites as well -- mostly because I've never taken any sort of hallucinatory drug and I can't help but feel that reading Revelation is the closest I will ever get to that experience without actually taking acid. Revelation is also great because it's freaking crazy that it's useful for trying to show that people who claim to take the Bible literally don't take it literally. There is no way to take Revelation literally. Besides, without Revelation, Pratchett and Gaiman wouldn't have written Good Omens , and that would be a serious loss.
Yeah -- I have a sort of perverse fondness for Revelation. But it's got nothing to do with hope. My vision of hope doesn't include giant-scorpion-monster-things and a third of the seas turning into blood, if you know what I mean.
@#1371787: For themselves. More specifically, they hope to live to see a world empty of everyone except for people who are exactly like them. Also, many of them hope to live to see God exact gory, everlasting revenge on everyone who ever called them out on the callous things they say, rejected their heavy-handed conversion pitches and refused to kowtow to them and ONLY to them.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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