Revelation 12:1-6
A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.
Discuss.
Hogwash. Let’s just get right to the point of the Bible – stoning gays.
I’d hate to see the obstetrician’s bill for that delivery.
So, like, does the seven-headed dragon have ten horns on each head, for a total of 70, or are there only ten horns total? And if only ten total, then how are they apportioned? Like one on each head, then a few of them each have an extra horn? Or is there one asshole dragon head who is hogging a majority of the horns? And what of the ten crowns on each of its heads? Does each head have ten crowns? That doesn’t seem practical. And if only ten total, then why does it need three extra crowns? That’s just fucking stupid. And speaking of apportionment, how were they going to divide the baby they were going to consume? Was that one asshole head with all the horns and three extra crowns going to eat the entire baby itself? How do the other heads feel about this one domineering asshole head? Christ, this book just raises more questions than it actually answers. No wonder religious folk are so nuts.
That’s quite a vivid scene depicted in that passage. Somebody had to be doing mushrooms back then when St. John the Devine wrote that stuff. As recall, he was a dude who lived in a cave. Maybe he got into some cave fungi and thought up that little scenario.
Didn’t Muhammed also spend some time in a cave before coming up with Islam?
There’s a proud history of setting off alone, ingesting the holy smoke or liquid or toad slime or mushroom or cactus and having a deep religious experience. Why should Christianity be different?
Wait for the oh so seriously devout to explain why THIS drug trip us the truth while any by those savage tribes in the America’s are just drug trips in 5..4..3..
It sounds like the Bible is for 3.45 years of paid maternity leave. I like it.
5
Yeah, the stuff is all just made-up junk in order to control the true believers.
@7 Religion has always been about social control. That’s why if God doesn’t exist people have to invent her.
What happens if a religion claiming to speak for God, for example the Catholic Church, goes along with Nazi genocide of the Jews? Wouldn’t that acquiescence lend a patina of legitimacy to what the Nazis are doing to the Jews? Wouldn’t that make the Church a co-agent of the social control sought to be exercised by the Nazis? Or should we accept the Pope’s cowering silence as morally neutral and its effect on his flock as a mere unintended consequence of the Church’s cowardice?
Mighty strong plants or mushrooms ingested by John on the Isle of Patmos.
@3 ah, biblical numerology. So far out of context it must be satan’s ATM PIN? This was written by some guy, doing the mystic hermit schtick, who looked out onto a confined geography ruled by numerous unsavory warlords, (actually how different are we? it’s just multinational corporations now). So the numbers themselves, aside from having well-understood stand-alone significance (3, 7 oh so popular among numerological mystics and Pythagorians) refer to number of hilltop fortifications (“heads”), numbers of warlords (“horns”) number of kings (“crowns”) which would’ve been obvious to most mildly educated people at the time. satan being a composite of all the warring factions, except, of course, the one the writer was backing. Then comes Gematria, which was practiced in the bible, though a lot less than the Dan Browns of the world would have you think.
Awesome LOTR fan fic!
9
Around 1100, Henry II had the Pope of the day, Adrian, declare that it was God’s will that the king of England, Henry II, should rule over Ireland. Look what a long-running drama the Irish-British mess has provided, and it was all done with the Pope’s blessing.
I don’t have time to get too much into this, but here’s a quick synopsis, which relates what’s being said as an allegory of the conflict then ongoing between the Roman Empire and Christianity…
http://www.christnotes.org/com.....&c=12