irishstu, are you sitting down? I’m going to tell you something very shocking.
‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ is not real. It was a a story, not a documentary.[/quote]
Pfft, I know THAT. I was referring to that OTHER documentary… “Face-Off”.
Oof, that’s a relief.
Yeah, ‘Face Off’ is good. Learned a lot from that!
Has anyone ever considered that whoever wrote Revelation was off his nut, or high on hallucinogens?
It’s a religious book, not a predictive operating manual. Let it go, guys!
BFM, you say that as if it is a bad thing, or as if it removes its ‘power’ as a religious text. Hallucinogen use in religious experience is well documented. Doesn’t make the religious experience not ‘real’.
His name was John something or other. And he was obviously too immersed in his visions to give us his last name… not even his neighbors knew who he really was. He kept to himself mostly, except when the moon was full…
…if you believe in that sort of thing.
Given the completely lucid manner in which it was written, the complex literary structures, the depth and breadth of allusions to a very wide range of Old Testament passages (demonstrative of considerable familiarity and study), the carefully and intricately assembled septenary apocalyptic schema, and the deliberately coordinated inclusion and expansion of a number of previous apocalypses, the scholarly consensus considers this less than unlikely.
So where do they get the stuff about the money? I used to watch Prophecy in the News, but I didn’t take notes. Signs include one world currency and money that is more and more colorful. Maybe it’s something about the mark of the beast.
Given the completely lucid manner in which it was written, the complex literary structures, the depth and breadth of allusions to a very wide range of Old Testament passages (demonstrative of considerable familiarity and study), the carefully and intricately assembled septenary apocalyptic schema, and the deliberately coordinated inclusion and expansion of a number of previous apocalypses, the scholarly consensus considers this less than unlikely.[/quote]
In other words, it was written after a trip. Ergot fungus, perhaps (from which LSD is derived).
It’s from Rev. 13: 16-18. The second beast, who is like a dragon,
“…compelled everyone–small and great alike, rich and poor, slave and citizen–to be branded on the right hand or on the forehead, and made it illegal for anyone to buy or sell anything unless he had been branded…”
…and guess what his lucky number is. I learned growing up that this refers to barcodes. Only the UPC system is the one that uses 666, and the beast will be a European, which means the EU system, so…I guess we’re not meant to understand EVERYTHING.
Anybody see “The Prince of Darkness”? Scientists dig up some high-tech whoozit from ancient Palestine–disregarding dream voices from the future year 1999 warning them not to open it–and with the help of Aramaic scholars, slowly piece together the text (“I Jesus have sent mine angel…”) without ever realizing that it is from the Bible. Or I should say, expecting the viewers not to notice.
I read the first four Left Behind books, which are Ed Wood-level bad. My favorite part is the appearance of Apollyon in book four, who is presented literally, as a giant angelic being hurtling from space. Then some astronomers discuss what they’ve seen in their telescopes, and God help us all, confuse comets with meteors, or some such. (Going by memory here.)
A good book on th Revelation is “Apocalypse” by D.H. Lawrence (who grew up in a nonconformist family).
From 20th century morons speculating wildly.
You can turn it into anything if you remove it from its cultural context.
Consistently this forum reminds me never to expect anything better than this.
The second beast, who has two horns like a lamb but speaks like a dragon.
[quote]“…compelled everyone–small and great alike, rich and poor, slave and citizen–to be branded on the right hand or on the forehead, and made it illegal for anyone to buy or sell anything unless he had been branded…”
…and guess what his lucky number is. I learned growing up that this refers to barcodes. Only the UPC system is the one that uses 666, and the beast will be a European, which means the EU system, so…I guess we’re not meant to understand EVERYTHING.
Anybody see “The Prince of Darkness”? Scientists dig up some high-tech whoozit from ancient Palestine–disregarding dream voices from the future year 1999 warning them not to open it–and with the help of Aramaic scholars, slowly piece together the text (“I Jesus have sent mine angel…”) without ever realizing that it is from the Bible. Or I should say, expecting the viewers not to notice.
I read the first four Left Behind books, which are Ed Wood-level bad. My favorite part is the appearance of Apollyon in book four, who is presented literally, as a giant angelic being hurtling from space. Then some astronomers discuss what they’ve seen in their telescopes, and God help us all, confuse comets with meteors, or some such. (Going by memory here.)[/quote]
The usual idiotic nonsense. The ‘number of the name’ is simply standard gematria of the 1st century CE, which was at that time common to both Jewish and Greek culture (Greek gematria was already around 500 years old, and Jewish gematria at least 150 years old by this time). It is not mysterious, and the interpretation ‘lateinos’ given by Irenaeus (185 CE, the earliest extant interpretation of the number), is considered by many scholars to be the most likely given that the beast is clearly a symbol of the Roman government, and ‘lateinos’ means ‘Roman’.
Suggestions attempting to relate the gematria to the name of the Roman emperor Nero have been (and still are), popular in some circles, but all rely on somewhat contrived renditions of his name, as opposed to the names which appear in contemporary numismatic sources (none of which add up to 666). They also typically require Hebrew gematria, even though John wrote in Greek and Nero’s name was Latin.
If you like reading books by kooks with hangups from living in strange families, yes. Here’s a classic example of the brilliance of DH Lawrence (to whom my parents introduced me at an early age):
[quote=“Book A Minute Classics”]Walter and Gertrude
The short-lived passion that brought us together as a couple isn't enough to carry us beyond our social and moral differences. Our marriage has shattered our emotional integrity and spoiled all hope for our children.
William
I have found a beautiful but stupid woman who has enthralled me. My inability to resolve my attraction to her with my devotion to my mother has left me in ruin. (dies)
Paul
I am frustrated and confused. (dumps some girlfriends)
THE END[/quote]
Does anyone have an opinion on this who actually knows anything about hallucinogens? It always makes me roll my eyes when someone says; ‘Oooh! He must have been tripping on acidwhen he wrote/said/did/verb of choice that!’. All it makes me think is; you have never been near hallucinogens in your life and have no concept of their actual effect and you are a rather provincial and dull person who cannot conceive for a second that someone could actually create (in whatever sense of the word you want to choose) a ‘vision’ of anything with drugs or without.
Seven headed beasts, etc, are not beyond the realms of the natural workings of many people’s minds, yet nowadys we choose to call them ‘hallucinations’ or ‘symptoms’. While some humans may think it preferable to cobble together some pedestrian set of culturally relevent ethics as a giant work of the great big collective liberal love-in, some humans prefer wormwood and the lamb and the valley, etc.
And fortigurn, you are being a prig, as usual. Yes, you know more about many things. Apart from humility and gratitude for your gifts.
Well said.
Multi-headed beasts were already a well established feature of Jewish apocalyptic, whether canonical, apocryphal, or pseudepigraphal (Ezekiel, Daniel, etc). Their appearance in Revelation is to be expected.
I have no idea why you continually denigrate me in this way. I had no objection to you correcting me when I was declaring my understanding of a particular subject in an unnecessarily combative fashion with Guy In Taiwan, but this situation is not analogous. I don’t claim any special knowledge, I have disclaimed any special formal qualifications, I don’t air my knowledge for the sake of it, I don’t pretend to knowledge I don’t have, and I don’t make self-aggrandizing posts. I simply provide verifiable facts on the very few subjects concerning which I believe myself sufficiently informed to comment.
I don’t have any knowledge which couldn’t be acquired (without significant effort), by anyone else with a bit of spare time and a genuine desire to inform themselves on matters before they discuss them publicly. I don’t have any particular ‘gifts’, I’ve just chosen to read in my leisure time instead of bonging my brains out.
Well, I guess I object to your tone. Remarks like this;
are never going to endear you to people or, more importantly to you, engage with your ideas. You constantly use the words ‘moron’ and ‘idiot’. You bully people you consider beneath you, intellectually, and few people ever call you on it because they don’t want to be on the end of one of your diatribes.
Because I’m a bigger bully than you are? Because I have a lot of time at work to post garbage on the internet too?
No, you don’t, but you consistently talk down to people who don’t share your leisure interests yet are still your peers and members of your community, and not necessarily unintelligent or ‘bonging their brains out’, whatever the hell that means. Lord knows, it can be frustrating to be surrounded by folk who don’t read and are not particularly smart, but nobody knows everything, and why not share what you know instead of using it as a weapon?
WHOA! Like, DUUDE! That’s harsh, man. Anyway, some of us can do both.
Yup, my eyes skimmed over some of the details about the second beast. I suppose this leaves me vulnerable to that final curse against people who delete stuff from this book.
By “nonconformist” I mean that Lawrence’s family were not Church of England, but some strange Protestant sect that regularly preached from the book of Revelation. Lawrence’s commentary on Rev. (not a novel) is actually quite learned, though I do appreciate the “Book a Minute” site!
Personally I do more wanking than either reading or bonking. Perhaps they ought to produce some Library Awareness posters aimed at my demographic. (“Let go of yourself–grab a book!”)
[quote=“Buttercup”]Does anyone have an opinion on this who actually knows anything about hallucinogens? It always makes me roll my eyes when someone says; ‘Oooh! He must have been tripping on acidwhen he wrote/said/did/verb of choice that!’. All it makes me think is; you have never been near hallucinogens in your life and have no concept of their actual effect and you are a rather provincial and dull person who cannot conceive for a second that someone could actually create (in whatever sense of the word you want to choose) a ‘vision’ of anything with drugs or without.
[/quote]
I disagree. I have known at least a dozen folks that went deeply religious after a bad trip. When they claimed The One Truth was revealed to them. They weren’t exactly writing scripture as a result, but they had plenty of colorful theories which they would let loose on any with earshot. All it takes is some bad gear to completely take away someone’s basic mental foundation, and they need to quickly superimpose some other framework to mesh their mind back together again.
As for The book of Revelation in it’s modern form, I would argue that a great deal has been lost in translation, and the faulty interpretation of modern phenomenon onto a work that was meant for consumption in the 1st century.
It’s still a smashing read, though. Lots of violence, intrigue, no-name actors and a happy ending for those that repent.
It has all the makings of a modern made-for-TV movie.
I dunno what’s so bad about bonging. I learned all I know about Ezekiel when I was stoned.
Bad ass!
[color=#dce1e5]YHBT YHL HAND[/color]
I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘bad gear’, especially when it comes to LSD. LSD is such a fiendishly complex molecule that it is difficult to make, and one doesn’t generally make any of its congeners by accident. even if one does manufacture a congener, such as the monoethyl lysergic acid derivative instead, it’s really the only one of its family that does anything at all, especially at the concentrations used, that you either have a workable batch of LSD, or you have nothing.
what does happen is that it triggers a different trip due to changes in the person’ mental environment, imagined or otherwise. also, while low doses of LSD simply alter one’s perception by modifying external inputs, larger doses do allow for the internal generation of novel variations on a theme, though these are also at least initially based on extant memes within that person’s experiential database, as it were. repeated iterations of alteration of previous alterations can, nonetheless, generate some truly unique and novel experiences.
so, there is no such stuff as bad gear, only a wide variety in the kinds of trip one can take.
as for needing a framework to reassemble one’s brain after a big trip, yes, that does happen. one can also reassemble a different framework than one originally had.
in fact, i suspect most people who trip deeply do reassemble a slightly different conscious framework each time they come down, which may be why a habitual tripper is often a rather weird person.
this analysis breaks down with some of the other hallucinogens and entheogens, but we can talk about that in a different thread if you want.
Oh, bonging. Not banging or bonking. Whoops.
(Didn’t know that was a verb.)