Antichrist Part 6, Belief and Bigotry

By: George Wallace

In Part 1, I related the history of the development of the idea of Hell in Persia. The creator God Marduk defeated the monster and exiled him. The “place of exile” idea was transmitted to the Hebrews, to Christianity, and to today. This concept of Hell was greatly modified between AD 1000 and AD 1600 by “embellishments”, lurid paintings, and the invention of the printing press.

The printing press allowed two major works of FICTION to generate widely accepted ideas about Hell that are not contained in scriptures. This is an illustration of the real power of mass marketing and good advertising.

In Part 2, I explained how some few people find Hell to be useful and do things for them like provide employment, or sustain one’s position. I explained how this is done. I also explained that war is as close to Hell as it is possible to get. General Sherman said it correctly, “War is Hell.” War is an excuse for violence. There has never been an end to war because for male humans, war is “fun”. War is addictive. War provides a wonderful adrenal “rush”. Like coke, crack, and meth heads, we endlessly spend huge sums to “do” war just one more time.

In Part 3, I explored the aspect of the concept and portrayal of Hell, the Devil, Lucifer, the Antichrist. My dictionary says that the Antichrist is Christ’s great antagonist expected to cause chaos in the last days before the Second Coming. That same book calls the Devil, the foe of God. The Antichrist is the Devil, or his minion. What we are really talking about is one of those great delusions that transfix humankind. A fantasy in which people gladly immerse themselves for escapism entertainment.

In Part 4, I attempt to suspend judgment to attempt to learn the basis of such a belief in fantasy.
The story of the Antichrist and the Second Coming of Jesus continues. People will be able to tell when His Appearance is Nigh. The Antichrist (the Bad Guy) will lead off the tale, do his “thing”. He will create havoc and chaos around the world. Then Jesus (the Good Guy) will lead the cavalry charge of the angels ( the rest of the posse) over the hill and save the day.

The key in this story is in the creation by the Antichrist of havoc and chaos when he “arrives”. There will be the “signs”. Just what these signs are, is widely unclear and open to lots of highly fallible interpretation. Some are said to be natural occurrences of Nature. Other “signs” are supposed to be particular calendar dates. Other “signs” are more obscure at best. Some supposed “signs” kind of drift and change and are often just something “new”, “strange”, and “irritating”. Some supposed “signs” can be anything the person wants it to be. The most important of the supposed “signs” is the actual coming of “the Antichrist”. No one is supposed to be able to identify him / her. It is said that he may have only one eye, which puts anyone with an eye patch, a glass eye, and the one-eyed, flying purple people eater at a huge disadvantage.

In Part 5, I attempt to examine what is supposed to happen when Jesus comes again. First, its a little confusing. According to some, certain events are supposed to occur, and others leave it “cloudy” at best. As I understand the timeline, it works like this: during the period when the Antichrist is in charge, there will be world wide peace. No wars. However, there will be more and more restrictions on personal freedom. Yet, things will appear to be going well.

Suddenly, “all Hell will break loose”, perhaps as a revolt against diminished personal freedom? Perhaps for freedom of religion? This is unexplained. The “events” escalate into wars that escalate into the “final battle” at Armageddon, the battle at the “end of the world”.

The question is, why would Early Christians develop such a belief? Twelve related ideas are explored

In this Part 6, I attempt again to examine what is supposed to happen when Jesus comes again. I also examine what belief in such events might actually mean. For early Christians, persecution lasted for centuries. It lasted until the reign of Constantine. Until then there was no deliverance, no relief from constant tension, terror, anxiety, and deadly fear. Despite hope, deliverance never came. All that was left was pallid hope, and in the meantime there was a constant searching, a desperate searching for “signs” of the Second Coming.

Think, and if you can, try to imagine the intense sense of sheer, incredible joy and the wonderful tsunami of emotional relief when Constantine declared and ruled, imposing Christianity as “The Official Religion” of the Roman Empire. If the Christians were not dancing in the streets and singing Hallelujah at the tops of their lungs, they had to be sucking on lemons at the time. That had to be as close to the ecstasy of “Deliverance” as any group has ever experienced in history. It must rank right up there with the emptying of the death camps at the end of W.W.II.

However, in terms of the Second Coming of Christ, deliverance has never come. It has never come because it is a falsehood wrapped around an improbable illusion, or delusion. I explored that background and the reasons of its existence in Part 5. That does not change its status as a false promise of relief from pain, suffering, and persecution. Just because some unknown human being thought it up, for whatever reason, a long time ago and wrote it on papyrus, for whatever reason, does not make it true. Nor does believing in a such a falsehood make it more likely to be true, or likely to occur. It is simply, a lie.

The concept has proven to be a lie many, many times. Many times over the centuries, huge numbers of people have entered into activities and events of mass hysteria at the instigation of charismatic religious leaders. Check it out on the internet. The history of such instances of mass hysteria are well documented. Here are three dates to check, 1848, 1988, and the Year 2000 phenomenon.

Every generation has small, and sometimes large groups, that think that they have seen “the true signs” and that they are the “last generation” before, or at, the Second Coming. The generation that will see the Second Coming of Christ. All have proved to be false. The leaders are false, in at least the sense that they were wrong. They “read the signs incorrectly”. They were” led astray”. They calculated “in error”. They “made a mistake”. They “goofed”, or they might say, “the Antichrist tricked me”.
Every generation of “believers” both fervently desires and fears for this event. This condition is abnormal. It is abnormal because the individuals are deliberately suspending their reason in favor of belief, and pursuing an inner psychological conflict that has no resolution, except that which may result in personal death. That is another way to say, to have a death wish. That is not psychologically healthy. That is not “normal”. That, by definition, is abnormal.

All that anyone can realistically do, if confronted by the choices given, is to worry about it. The pairing of “belief” and worry, anxiety, tension, terror, and deadly fear is not mentally healthy. It is at this point that some individuals and groups slip, slide, drop, fall, or enthusiastically leap willingly into “unreason”. Their belief system overrides sensible, normal, usual, common sense behavior.

Why? Because an additional conflict of the psyche creating emotional and mental inner conflict now comes into play. This is called the irresistible allure, the sirens song, of “the Rapture”. Rapture has three principal meanings. One is an emotional state of ecstasy. Another is an expression of that feeling of ecstasy. The third is the kicker. The third is, “the transporting, or carrying away, of a person from one place (i.e. Earth) to another (i.e. Heaven)”. In TV land, the expression for this is, “Beam me up, Scottie.”

It is my understanding that “the Rapture” is supposed to happen when Christ arrives on Earth, and He counteracts the Antichrist, by His Word, and transports all “the believers” directly to Heaven. Nonbelievers, all non-Christians, two-thirds of the human race, are just out of luck. They are to be left behind to continue to suffer and die in the wars and at the hands of the Devil. Which I take to mean that Earth is, by that definition, then and now, Hell, the dominion of the Devil.

Life can be a little tough from time to time, but I’ve never quite taken much credence to an idea of Earth as really being Hell. I’ve, of course, heard the phrase, “I’ll make your life, Hell On Earth”. That is just an expression, a threat, a promise perhaps, but these “Rapture” believers apparently take that to be literally true. Worse, they look foreword to your, and my, suffering. That means that they will, not be suffering. And, they don’t even want to feel guilty about being glad that we are continuing to suffer. You see, it is our “fault”. They were right. We were wrong. We chose not to believe. That is what is called an enclosed circular argument. Also known as, Catch 22. It is also called bigotry.

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(c) Copyright 2006: George Wallace recently published a book on religion which lashes out at nearly all of the comfortable ideas about God, the trappings of organized religion, and the priesthood. His pithy comments and suggestions for a return to a God-centered personal religion will interest everyone. This article may be freely reprinted so long as all copyright attributions, and the full content of this resource box are included. www.OhGodIsThatYou.com

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