Notes from Evil Bender

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about why the ultra-religious fundie types are so confident in their beliefs, and why they’re so confident about their particular vision, not just their religion of choice, but for every single aspect of it. You rarely see a fundie saying things like “I could be wrong about this interpretation.” In fact, the more minor, petty, and lacking in evidence an idea is, the more desperately fundies will fight to preserve it. While I am not a mathematician, I believe the following formulation expresses the idea: x = 1/y where x is confidence and y is evidence. Put in MS Paint form, we have:

Why do I say this? Well, when I previously posted on, say, geocentric conspiracy theories or creationism, I’ve noted that lack of evidence and counter-evidence seems to encourage these people. They concoct elaborate conspiracies, ignore all evidence that counters their position, and distort everything they can to “prove” they are right. And in the end, they don’t care if you have proof they’re wrong, because they believe, damn it, and belief in the face of evidence is a matter of pride for these people.

The bad news here is that they have tons of public policy sway in the US, and they like pushing people around. The good news is their insanity is frequently hillarious, as we can see on this site:

The Rapture Index has two functions: one is to factor together a number of related end time components into a cohesive indicator, and the other is to standardize those components to eliminate the wide variance that currently exists with prophecy reporting.

The Rapture Index is by no means meant to predict the rapture, however, the index is designed to measure the type of activity that could act as a precursor to the rapture.

You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we’re moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.

That’s right, folks. You or I might think that time is passing at a constant speed (or at least that it varies according to our speed), but it actually varies based on how quickly we’re moving toward the rapture! Finally, proof that Einstein was wrong. And by “proof” I mean “batshit crazy theories presented as proof by people who have a desperate need to be right about everything.”

And it’s rough needing to be right about everything, as it tends to alienate people who might otherwise be your allies, but who don’t agree with you on positively everything (why do you think there are so many Christian denominations?), get booted to the curb.

Despite the PTSG, “Left Behind,” and sites like Rapture Ready, the enemies of the end-time message have been gaining much ground. Satan’s strategy has been death by a thousand cuts. Movements like the prosperity gospel, the church growth movement, and competing views on prophecy have been chewing away at the pre-trib rapture’s evangelicals base. We now have whole denominations and educational institutions that have turned their backs on Bible prophecy. During the past 15 years, Dallas Theological Seminary has largely abandoned the traditional dispensationalism view.

For those of you who don’t know, Dallas Theological Seminary is so dogmatic that they make their graduates agree in writing not to teach against any of their views, including their particular interpretation of what a man writing two thousand years ago said was going to happen in the end times and expressed through ridiculously vague language like this (Revelation 9:1-10):

 1The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. 2When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. 3And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. 4They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. 6During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.

7The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. 8Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. 9They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. 10They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.

And Christians are condemning other Christians over what passages like this mean. When a reasonable person would look at the above and decide that either a) it means nothing, b) it has a meaning, but that meaning is unavailable to us as it is being conveyed in a manner that makes it wholly or partially inaccessible, or c) it could mean anything, and therefore means nothing anyway, those people who are so devoted to end-times “theology”* what astrology is to science** believe they know exactly what it means and that anyone who disagrees is at best misguided by Satan and at worse evil people working directly for their pitchfork-carrying dark master.

So to recap: not only should you believe in a very, very specific account of the “end of the world” based on a particular interpretation of a text that seems like it was written under the influence of LSD and then run through babelfish, but if you don’t you’re probably going to hell. And don’t say that’s wrong, because they’re “absolutely certain” of it, and if you think they are misguided it is the devil telling you that.

Remember, folks, if you believe it hard enough, reason be damned!

Next Time: You don’t need to be a fundie to be a bigot, but it sure don’t hurt!

* I’m not much for theology, but those who study it seriously at least attempt to use actual evidence (albeit within a religious framework) for their views.

**Real Science, that is, not Behe’s “science”