Our World’s Cataclysmic Reality of an End
Times Wrapped Within Biblical Mythology
Part 2
By a Mortal Man
[Note: If you have not read Part 1, it is important you do to better understand the context that this part 2 is written. The next several paragraphs are a summary of part 1 even though it cannot do justice to important insight from the entire reading]:
Our World’s Cataclysmic Reality of an End Times Wrapped With-in Biblical Mythology (Part I)
First we addressed there are various levels of human understanding (and confusion) within the wider world of news and fake propaganda: 1) those things we can know as verifiable, 2) those things we know because we believe we know—such as religious scripture based more on faith, and 3) those things we believe based mostly from selected points of view (biases we trust) and assumptions we have already acquired over time, and 4) other ideas we are often unsure because we live in an information environment so riddled with new sources and various kinds of disinformation and lies, and various attempts to manipulate our thoughts and assumptions.
An additional filter that we focused was on how many people, because of their belief in Christianity and the Book of Revelations, also filter and evaluate current events from the perspective as to how they anticipate End Times Theology to play out. We will continue to explore this religious filter and its political examinations in Part 2 herein.
Overall, we especially became aware there is enormity of news and disinformation coming from so many different sources, on so many subjects, that they potentially load down the average person of curiosity with a great burden. Those of us who try to stay abreast are swamped in our own kind of quagmire of a swamp (few who are adept at trying to sort through or drain).
Consequently, as we try to pay attention to this explosion of various news sources and motivations we come to realize we can be easily misled into many smokescreens of subterfuge. Alex Jones got at least one thing right: “There is an Information War for you mind.”
On top of the steep amount of information, and a recognized significance of deception, there is also more of a burden of stress, anxiety and worry (affect) because, rightly enough, too many things seem to be changing in our world of technology, whilst there is much “cultural warfare” being enacted as “psychological warfare,” which is aimed to curtail our individual and collective power.
Hence, given so much of a hostile or inimical propaganda environment, and so many potential things to be concerned, and an apparent increased level of deceit (a seeming so) with red herring issues (to distract us) many of us know millions have either given up trying to make sense of this chaotic time in history (as too much of a burden for the individual mind) or by falling prey to spending time on sideline issues that are not as relevant (or as not as likely to actually take place (space alien invasion versus pending major wars)).
All this thus far mentioned is in addition to the usual built-up dependency on staid and corrupt political parties. We have mostly let the politicians and public relations experts worry about governance and running of society (in the details and in even at the macroscopic level). Most common people focus more on more mundane personal matters and business, or going golfing and not sweating the pictures. We are happily consumed with our busy and less insignificant lives (at least from perspective of the big dramas of national and world history).
We are consumed with driving, shopping, talking on our cell phones, working, etc. But one exceedingly important arena of making sense of current events, for multi-millions of Americans, even in our time of modernity, is through the lens of religious belief, such that many millions of Christians filter world events through their assumptions based on the Book of Revelations of the New Testament. We therefore need to be concerned if such religious beliefs could be somehow biasing, or essentially blinkering people, who are otherwise objectively trying to figure out reality.
As theoretical exercise we ask: “Is it at all possible that religious belief, no matter how ardently cleaved, could actually be deluding people from understanding reality—in the sense that certain religious beliefs, scriptures, prophesies, etc. are not based in reality or real history but rather are on the imagination and purported assumptions”? This matters if such beliefs have serious consequences in the real world of the here and now.
Even if some people feel it is sacrilegious to ask such questions at times they are of such import they need to be asked anyway. There can in fact be religious delusions (and frankly mass psychosis).
How Ideas can Trigger a Mass Psychosis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFie-UCFV_s
So, overall, given this environment of information complexity, diversity, motive and conspiratorial monies that create news and deceptive disinformation, along with our different personal, cultural and religious filters, we could wonder: “Why does anyone in our seemingly mad-max-land of loony tunes even bother to try to make sense of any of it?
When it is so easy to be misled, why not do what most people do—make up excuses, like: “Why even bother worrying about it all”? (… as complementing the bromide: “You can’t do anything about it anyway”).
This is as far as most people go. Beyond this: “There be dragons.”
[Note: The word ‘spiritual’ comes to us from Latin spiritus “to breathe” such as inspire or expire (essentially anything that inspires including a second wind on the tread mill). Dragons in the West are often considered evil. Heroes supposedly slay the dragon. They do not give the dragon any time to get his side of the story because good propaganda has already determined he is the bad, evil one. You, the chosen warrior are just supposed to kill him and his kind. But what if the dragon were, at times a bit more complex, a bit more ambiguous—not either totally good or evil—having his own unique character? What if the fire a dragon breathes is symbolically truth that burns through the lies of all the dead air of propaganda. Would not such propaganda demand the immediate destruction of such a fire breathing monster? Of course it would and this is a good metaphor for a Christian world to contemplate where the bias is that every hero is a St. George and every devil is a demonic dragon because too often those running around assume they are of the side of goodness and justice when in fact it is not always so. In a world of fair play—does not a dragon too deserve equal justice? There be dragons. Amen]
Actually it would be nice if most people really did take a vacation from mainstream fake news, but so many people seem to have an acquired an opinion on current events anyway. They somehow have managed to accumulate impressions about current events because they are bombarded with memes and news headlines all the time without much effort. Plus many are still comfortable with a given news organization deciding for them what topics, angles, biases, and what conclusions they should focus and think about (while staying ignorant of those subjects deliberately ignored).
And if a lot of people do little work acquiring their prefabricated assumptions, some still defend such positions with the ferocity of a badger, as if any contrarian point of view were poison to even contemplate.
How many Americans think Vladimir Putin is a bad guy? Pew Research Center listed a poll May 8, 2024 giving: “Negative ratings for Russian President Vladimir Putin remain very high: 67% of Americans have no confidence at all in the Russian leader to do the right thing in world affairs”.
Think of all the expense, effort and manpower that it takes to get so many Americans to have a view they are willing to express on a foreign leader (when they would normally likely not have much of an impression one way or another).
A January 2021 report from University of Oxford says: “Almost $60 million has been spent on firms who use bots and other amplification strategies to create the impression of trending political messaging”. (Presumably in Great Britain)
[Note: this author has never been paid one nickel to write or create any political message. Nevertheless it takes time, dedication and research to put out a message of value. Any biases herein are based on personal judgements.]
Whereas at a gas station you can find a poster cartoon picture of Putin being punched with a punching glove saying: “Punch Putin” requesting for you to donate to the Ukrainian cause. Within is a cheap balloon punching bag with a donation box. Such messages are specifically geared to Joe six-pack buying beer or a doughnut at some fast food gas station (people who normally do not look for news stories or read the newspaper much).
[Note: Viewing the University of Oxford’s website for undergraduate courses in Theology and Religion there is no specific listing of courses but we get this nugget: “Oxford has been at the very heart of religious debate, reform and turmoil in the British Isles for eight centuries and so the faculty here wears a mantle of history not available in many other universities”]. Undoubted true.
However, there is no apparent emphasis at hoity-toity Oxford that you can study religion as related to either psychology or politics (as advocated important in Part 1). Is something amiss? Can this be real? Also, from University of Oxford homepage in general, to clicking first on ‘About’ and then ‘Facts and Figures’ it starts off: “Oxford was ranked first in the world in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings for 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 – a record eight consecutive years”.
That’s quite an astounding achievement is it not!?
This suggests real, exceptional superiority. And we are talking the oldest English speaking college.
Were we not to think those bloody blokes across the pond are so on top of everything? Instead maybe they are as slow, stupid and dumbfounded as are most Americans?
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN! Oh My God! The Western world is done for. Check the tabloids. What does Harry got to say?
Well, regardless, some people, even if is it only a few measly number of us, have to study such connections as how religious belief effects the real world. Religions do NOT exist in a bubble!!
And given all the hoopla, we can overtly and consciously presume religious beliefs, like any other kind of belief, can be subject to delusion and misinformation. Headlines easily found on the Internet:
Is it bad to worry about the end times/rapture… Quora
Anxious About the End Times?
Scrupulosity.com
Should We Be Worried About Signs of the End Times? davidjeremiah.org
How can I overcome my fear of the end of days? gotquestions.org
Besides if we are at all sophisticated or sane, we cannot possibly believe everything ever claimed to be the will and whim of a God (especially when such messages about God are almost always based on the trust of what other humans have said, written or inscribed in scripture). Not all contrarian points of view can possibly be true.
Or why would there have been so much contention, disagreement and battles fought over different religious belief systems over much of recorded history (and even within the same umbrella religious systems like Sunnis versus Shias or Catholics versus Protestants)?
[Note: The French Wars of Religion were a series of civil wars between French Catholics and Protestants (called Huguenots) from 1562 to 1598. Between two and four million people died from violence, famine or disease directly caused by the conflict, and it severely damaged the power of the French monarchy. Prior to the French Revolution. French Wars of Religion – Wikipedia]
One example of practicing some skepticism in regards to End Times Prophesy is to actually do a simple inquiry by examining this ‘entry’ at Wikipedia.com as:
“List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events”
[Note: this list was introduced in Part 1. We refer again to it because it effectively demonstrates humans can be wrong about God, the Messiah and such things we think Divine—namely God’s intentions supposedly elaborated in Gospels.]
… then herein we quickly discover the Biblical End of Times was ‘predicted’ to have taken place dozens (and dozens!) of times over the last many centuries, yet obviously all those predictions were wrong!? (…because we are still living normal, run-of-the-mill lives today into the 21st century).
Dismayed? Dumbstruck? Is any modicum of skepticism worthy here? Any Doubting Thomases out there? Check out audio:
Elaine Pagels: Trump and Doubting Thomas
https://almostheretical.com/elaine-pagels/
[Note: Dr. Elaine Pagels is a very important historian and writer about religion. She has written several (many) important or revealing books on Early Christianity and the Gnostic Bibles. You could say she is a modern day heretic. Her heresies are not really her’s; rather, they are reborn and re-acquainting us to hidden gospels that were supposedly all destroyed many centuries ago.
Authoritarians back then too, wanted to dominate what ideas were to be informing of their conforming religion (anything questionable to their own assumed authority had to be eliminated). This is how authoritarian institutions get taken over by authoritarian personalities such as selected Bishops.
Regardless, since the fact the Gnostic Manuscripts were discovered in 1945 in Upper Egypt, until now, these unknown Gospels have been added to the potentiality of what could have been included to the official 27 gospels of the New Testament as we know today (selected by much political wrangling and personality politics back around the from the early centuries of the early Christianities (plural) past the 4th century A.D. (Anno Domini ‘year of our Lord’) when Constantine Council of Nicaea in AD 325).
WHO CHOSE THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT?
There was a great deal of heretical controversy in the early centuries on the formation of the Christian religion, as most assume to understand it today, but such an ‘officiated’ collection was compiled from the wreckage of a lot of censorship and squashing out of alternative ideas (you know how human politics and society does indeed happen—how the sausage is made).
[Note: “If you want to see how the sausage is made, you want to see a complex or messy process. You want to know the secrets, even if they are not very pleasing. We use this expression for any situation or process that happens away from the view of others. And most people would find that situation or process unpleasant.” learningenglish.voanews.com]
Constantine’s Bible: Politics and the Making of the New Testament 2006 by David L. Dungan book:
“…David Dungan re-examines the primary source for this history, the Ecclesiastical History of the fourth-century Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, in the light of Hellenistic political thought. He reaches startling new conclusions: that we usually use the term “canon” incorrectly; that the legal imposition of a “canon” or “rule” upon scripture was a fourth- and fifth-century phenomenon enforced with the power of the Roman imperial government; that the forces shaping the New Testament canon are much earlier than the second-century crisis occasioned by Marcion, and that they are political forces…”
Amazon.Com
So now, with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, we have an entirely “new era” of more controversy uncorked because, after all, early Christianities (plural) were brimming with alternative conspiracy theories about the Good News of Jesus.
Dr. Elaine Pagels who has written and lectured on these New Revelations has much to say—some of her critics consider her ideas as threateningly evil because they question modernity’s assumptions built over hundreds of years of the 27 Gospels. [Some say it was really Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, who in the year 367 was the first to specify all twenty-seven books of the New Testament]. Pagels is one pioneer and leading light and scholar of these ideas—certainly not the last—and certainly, giving that she is but human and too has imperfect knowledge, still she has a very interesting and undaunting take on this all. People who truly are interesting in discovering truth would not shy away simply because they seem iconoclastic.
Elaine Pagels wrote specifically on the Book of Revelation and other similar genre books of early Gnostic Christianity:
Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation
Here is a link to one interesting book review:
Into the Apocalypse With an Unruffled Tour Guide
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/books/revelations-by-elaine-pagels.html
There are many video podcasts with Elaine Pagels discussing her books on the Internet (giving quick access to her interesting and provocative ideas) which deserve a fair hearing, because many Christians, especially many Zionist Christians, as well as secularists, are not familiar with her scholarship or that of other Gnostic Gospel researchers in general. This allows so many authoritarians to assume all the nasty things claims to happen in John’s Book of Revelation will in fact happen. But what if, for example, such notions as “The Kingdom of Heaven” are not as clear cut and obvious as some afterlife, other-worldly heaven chasers think? Would they still be allowing the mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza today?
So in this cusp of a new age era, when so many assumptions about the early Christians can legitimately be questioned, we still deal with multi-millions of traditionalist Christians who view the Book of Revelation as gospel truth regardless that it is so different from any of the other gospels of Christianity (both orthodox and apocryphal (Apocrypha are biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of scripture)).
[Note as well: The word ‘gospel’ comes to us Old English god “good” spell “story, saying, tale, story in prose as opposed to verse; history, narrative, fable; discourse, command” in late Old English “sermon, religious instruction”. Witches supposedly had their own spells as supposed ways of magical power—it’s the way words work—they wind and wonder and wand around like a wizard’s workings. If this sounds a little like a Harry Potter fiction, well, just know the core meaning of a wizard’s power is the study of power (in all its various forms) and words can, at times, wield a lot of power—hence they be spellbinding.]
And what gospel of the Bible has had more of a grip on the human imagination than the Book of Revelation? Millions of people alive today, assume that this time—in our own imminent lifetimes—it—the end of history as we know it—will finally be the real McCoy. These end times predictions as preached by hundreds of preachers across America, from sea to shining sea, are undoubtedly the final truth.
But how can so many people be so sure, when so many other times human or mortal predictions were wrong? Were all those other peoples, prior to now, so much more naïve then we are today?
Moreover, why has not the recent discovery of the Gnostic Gospels of the Nag Hammadi library (2024 – 1945 = 78 years) made more of a difference in how people think about what Christianity really means (or different variations of it) even if such more writings bring more confusion and perspective)?
Does change in religious thought, at least for the masses, in our age of technology, take a long time, or are most people either not privy to such discovery, or are they closed-minded (to which they remain more ignorant of all the multifaceted controversies (heresies) that existed back in the early centuries of the first millennium of the Common Era?
Regardless, Christianity, in some more scholarly circles, has always remained controversial throughout. It was especially controversial in the first centuries. Checkout Wikipedia’s;
List of Christian heresies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_heresies
This alone is a vast subject of scholarship. How could there have been so many variations on humans, many claiming to know such things, have had so many variety of opinions on the nature of Christ and Christianity?
[Note: The word ‘heresy’ comes to us from ancient Greek hairesis “a taking or choosing for oneself, a choice, a means of taking.” Yes a mere mortal individual decides to choose a particular way of looking at something that may not likely agree with a lot of other people on a specific matter. On this matter she or he stands out! This could make others feel uncomfortable because he or she is not reinforcing another’s opinion or way of acting. Perhaps a minority of individuals are choosing not to wear the mask even those most people are? Could they expect to be labeled with negative slurs and connotations? Will they be referred to as heretics? You bet. This happened a lot when individualized tracts or gospels were floating around before and after Jesus Christ was reputed to have lived.]
[Note: It is the ‘individual’ who is judged as an independent agent, be it in a secular court of law or in God’s judgement—because it is the individual who makes choices. The individual gets either credit or opprobrious blame for his or her actions—this is how society functions. This is why certain individuals stand out in history and the history of religion.]
Thus we contemplate, as individuals, asking this question: “With so many heresies being suppressed back then, early on in the evolution of the Christian religion, by multiple sources and numerous censors, trying to enforce specific versions of “orthodoxy” how did ‘one’ man, by the name of John of Patmos, come to dominate how people, even into our 21st century, think (because he solely supposedly came up with the tract or gospel called the Book of Revelation)?
Perhaps, we readers need to scratch our heads and cogitate this supposed fact—one mere mortal man, who had seemingly elaborate and outlandish dreams, and claimed they were directly from Jesus Christ as prophesy—and over time millions upon millions upon millions to this very day came to believe this as Gospel truth!
One mere person with an, arguably, exceedingly ‘abnormal’ claim (projecting a future world of events as bizarre and screwy-atypical as the imagination of dreams can get) or such a series of hallucinations gets, becomes institutionalized into one of the super Major Religious traditions, accepted for hundreds and hundreds of years, lasting way past the Renaissance, Age of Enlightenment, the Scottish Enlightenment, etc., to this very day post-modernity!
A few definitions can ground us slightly:
“Renaissance: the period of European history between the 14th and 17th centuries marked by a flourishing of art and literature inspired by ancient times and by the beginnings of modern science.” Merriam-Webster
“Enlightenment: a European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and humanity were synthesized into a worldview that gained wide assent in the West and that instigated revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics.” Encyclopedia Britannica
[Note: There are some who think such humanities-based movements called enlightenments ended in a worser-case scenarios for humanity as they were questioning the appropriateness of institutions like monarchies and its hereditary rule, as well as an ordained King’s Divine Right, and the legitimacy of Religions and their doctrines in general, such as even the validity of God (male pronoun).
These questions were re-highlighting Pythagoras of Abdera (485-415 BCE) famous claim “Man is the Measure of all things” casting aside much notion of faith in supernatural beings, such as a monotheistic Divinity (being humanity’s lodestar).
[Note: the term ‘atheist’ is often thought one who claims to know there is a god or not and claims from human knowledge there is no god. However many atheists really reject established religious conceptions of God, such as the God of Judeo-Christianity etc. Their sentiments are really based on how religion more or less rubbed then the wrong way for one reason or another. Philosophically this has hampered some peoples’ capacity to imagine any supernatural deities in ways other than what authoritarian takes on religion have pushed over history. After all it is possible there could be some kind of God no human being could ever possibly know, or speak for, or describe adequately with human words and human created scripture.]
We note as well, from the likes of Pythagoras and man being our measure, that long ago there was then a contrast between ancient Greece versus Judaic contributions’ to the Western (once mostly Caucasians’ European world) which still is in conflict. Here is from Wikipedia:
“The Maccabean Revolt (Hebrew: מרד החשמונאים) was a Jewish rebellion led by the Maccabees against the Seleucid Empire and against Hellenistic influence on Jewish life. The main phase of the revolt lasted from 167 to 160 BCE and ended with the Seleucids in control of Judea, but conflict between the Maccabees, Hellenized Jews, and the Seleucids continued until 134 BCE, with the Maccabees eventually attaining independence”.
Now days the Western World, as we suppose it, that expanded with the English Empire and language, is severely being attacked culturally and demographically (and frankly militarily with more major wars pitting Caucasians from once Christian nations like Ukraine and NATO against other Christian nations like Russia. The same thing happened in WW1 and WW2 white goyim Christian nations motivated to go to war with other goyim Christian nations). Statistics from The Russia-Ukraine War Report Card, June 11, 2024
Russia: 200,000 killed, severely wounded and missing.
Ukraine: 130,000+ killed, severely wounded and missing. Includes 15,000+ missing.
Sorry such sidetracks seem relevant.
Regarding the Book of Revelation, some people claimed John of Patmos was also the person who wrote the Gospels of Johnbut many scholars doubt any connection, and also doubt any connection to several other important Johns like John the Baptist.
John who? There are 5 different men named John in the New Testament
https://aleteia.org/2018/06/23/john-who-there-are-5-different-men-named-john-in-the-new-testament
“John is considered to have been exiled to Patmos during a time of persecution under the Roman rule of Domitian in the late 1st century. …”
‘Apocalypse’ is an interesting word, from Church Latin apocalypsis “revelation” from Greek apokalyptein “uncover, disclose, reveal”.
Etymonline: Online Etymology Dictionary: … the revelation in John of Patmos’ book: “Its general sense in Middle English was insight, vision; hallucination. The general meaning “a cataclysmic event” is modern…
So essentially we are talking ‘one’ obscure man with a ‘vision’ like some of us engage a dream. Yet, we, ourselves, do not readily assume our dreams are direct communiques from On High. For most of us the dream world can be a bit nebulous. In fact now days there is a whole cottage industry on interpreting dreams (and all manner of theory). From Wikipedia:
“Revelation 1:9 states that John was on Patmos, an Aegean island off the coast of Roman Asia, where according to most biblical historians, he was exiled as a result of anti-Christian persecution under the Roman emperor Domitian …
… Christian tradition has considered the Book of Revelation’s writer to be the same person as John the Apostle, purported author of the Gospel of John. … Some Christian scholars since medieval times separate the disciple from the writer of Revelation”
John who, John what, John where? This entry also adds:
Adela Yarbro Collins, a biblical scholar at Yale Divinity School, writes:
“Early tradition says that John was banished to Patmos by the Roman authorities. This tradition is credible because banishment was a common punishment used during the Imperial period for a number of offenses. Among such offenses were the practices of magic and astrology. Prophecy was viewed by the Romans as belonging to the same category, whether Pagan, Jewish, or Christian. Prophecy with political implications, like that expressed by John in the Book of Revelation, would have been perceived as a threat to Roman political power and order.
What we read here so far, and what we can surmise, is there ought to have been a lot of controversy about the legitimacy of John of Patmos’s claims? It’s not like the world has never dealt with hucksters and mad men before?
Given the amount of influence of the New Testament this particular phenomenon is important to investigate (and entertain a variety of heretical or ‘chosen’ alternative opinions). We have the right to choose our own assumptions and takes about what we can assume, know and hypothesize (and they do not have to conform to absolutist claims from the early centuries). We are unique individuals with our own minds.
The Truth About the Book of Revelations | Elaine Pagels (video podcast)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0-reoYHKUw
“The strangest book in the Bible … dreams and nightmares …“
[Note: These papers (now Part 2) has more than one theme, but one primary focus involves questioning “how does belief in the Book of Revelation, in particular, has such an enormous influence in modern Middle Eastern wars and in American politics today and into the future.]
If you read some run-of-the-mill inquiries questioning the Book of Revelation you might find this sincere set of questions at: Reddit blog: r/AskHistorians curiosityreigns:
“Is there evidence to suggest John the Revelator was schizophrenic? … This might be a bit of an inflammatory question, but I am absolutely fascinated by mental illness and the role it played in history … The book of revelations reads like a pretty careful chronicling of some powerful schizophrenic delusions, and it seems that something like that would be really poorly understood at the time. …?”
This line of questioning, no doubt, is a choosing (heresy) to challenge what is commonly accepted religious orthodoxy (gospel truth). Nevertheless, we do not automatically respond: “Who is this dunce claiming the “King has no clothes” on?” We allow for innocent or spontaneous questions, even if they may seem naïve to many (or lacking common sense—because common sense is not really all that common).
In fact, a few, rare individuals have come to conclude the entire world today is pretty one big insane asylum. They marvel so much of humanity, id. Est., so many billions and billions of people are actually walking around thinking themselves sane! Imagine that!
Are we duping ourselves—taking our little ego-selves so seriously (and everything we choose to believe and presume)?
Nevertheless, a serious and sobering question is: Why has the fields of psychology and psychiatry not asked more questions, like this above, on Johnny of Patmos not in fact being some kind of whack job (or all the centuries of people willing to believe his claims? Could this not be considered a bit loony tuney? (Or why has so little of their professional literature and opinion not seeped into layperson literature—could it be because there is little professional opinion)? Is it really science if taboos of sorts keeps these so-called professionals from going there—when the boy can see the king has no clothes?
Meanwhile, go ahead! Ask your local censoring, AI-gorithmed, know-it-all, see-it-all, special-interest controlled, Google search engine: “How many mental illnesses are there?”
Mental Health America says there over 200 classified forms. Wikipedia has a list of mental disorders of around 450 classifications according to the ‘indubitably’ professional American Psychiatric Association (more or less evolving from Psychoanalysis camps that were strictly bereft of any mind altering illusions). Anyway there are a whole lot of them. Look over the many categories in Wikipedia Lists of Mental Disorders.
So, generally psychiatry and psychology don’t seem to have a problem classifying people as a bit crazy (oh no! ‘crazy’ is not a professional term and it is demeaning!) No one in our politically correct world gets ‘cracked’ like in schizoid (Greek skhizein“to split”… ‘craze’ crasen, craisen “to shatter, crush, break to pieces,” … no not the witch whose broom just crashed into a tree.
Someone could write a song or poem about John of Patmos (or even a little novel) to give us some semblance of the time back then—you know like what they call historical fiction?
Historical fiction is a literary genre in which a fictional plot takes place in the setting of particular real historical events (more serious than Monty Python’s The Life of Brian).
Also, it’s not like no one was smoking marijuana or mind-altering back then in ancient Greece? See all the cannabis classifications in Wikipedia’s APA List of Mental Disorders. There are a whole lot of recognized drug-induced disorders today.
Whereas, archeologists have discovered ancient Greek pottery jugs resembling opium poppies found in ancient Egypt. Maybe it was not just religious ‘asceticism’ that may have contributed to spiritual experiences of ancient peoples. Still there had to have been, back then, some skepticism as to what dreams are made?
Granted, an inquiry search with Google search engine is not delving into the professional index of Medicus Indicus, but why, when searching: “psychiatry on book of revelation?” we do not get much from professionals that seem relevant?
Judeo-Christian concepts related to psychiatry from the Indian Journal of Psychiatry (India!)? Indian J Psychiatry. 2013 Jan; 55 (Suppl 2): S201–S204
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705683/
Whereas the related search “psychology on book of revelation” brings us to such immediate links in Google as related to Carl Jung, William Blake, religiously inspired biased explanations and very little skeptical or scientific links? Quite suspect. Instead these are more liberal-like humanities takes—apologetics if anything. Nothing from which to say: John of Patmos was a nut job with a creative imagination.
Meanwhile, if you google: “mental disorders related to religion” you immediately get this gem:
“Hyperreligiosity is a psychiatric disturbance in which a person experiences intense religious beliefs or episodes that interfere with normal functioning. Hyperreligiosity generally includes abnormal beliefs and a focus on religious content or even atheistic content, which interferes with work and social functioning.”
Apparently a lot of religion is too much of a good thing if it gets hyper-charged? That is pretty broad and abstract.
It almost seems either algorithms by Google (or taboos within psychiatry and psychology) are meant to insure there is little controversial questioning anything about modernity’s here-to-now established Bible. (After all it’s not like the world’s universities could not have been corrupted themselves and politicized? Course not.)
Regardless, could it be professions of mental illness, themselves, demurs from the fray? Crazy huh? Too much the hornet’s nest.
So are we really to assume few people have never suspected this particular gospel on Revelation a bit, well, psychiatric? Or its claimant?
Has it been possible there were, and are, political influences trying to censor what questions and doubts people have about Judeo-Christian religious literature?
We would like to think a certain amount of fair play can be found in what we call the sciences—at least if we get to a point in which we are—where religious zealots are determining the future of billions of people around this more and more inter-connected planet.
House Speaker Mike Johnson addresses crowd at the March for Israel rally in DC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqX3Z9dzXa0
Can people who are normally considered sane and intelligent suffer from particular forms of religious insanity or political capture?
Is this not a highly relevant question (even if shunned)? How important is one’s religious bias, in relation to a given nation (or group of nations) in relation to serving one’s own people in an objective sense?
Do sciences, generally, exist independently anymore—if they ever did? We know that medicine in general was turned on its head, politically, with the Covid-19 scare. We know many doctors speaking out were intimidated and censored (as they still are).
Actually, there has been some modicum of questioning the sanity of certain Judeo-Christian motifs (but nothing too elaborate). Instead we get broad statements about how studies show religious faith, in general, promotes mental health and social connection (which is probably true).
There seems too few, to zero, heretics like a Martin Luther in the fields of psychology and psychiatry (or maybe there are well-censored). Imagine, with all those Ph.Ds. out there, and little inclination to question what people have claimed fantastical things about God or the supernatural (both within Scripture as well as not)?
Sure you have your occasional dude who thinks he is Jesus Christ returned (or some other Messiah-like creature). Certain obscure non-famous people can get the psychiatric tag schizophrenic. Anything complacent in modernity from affluent muck-a-mucks in white smocks or their professional associations?
Wikipedia says:
The term “Messiah Complex” is not addressed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), as it is not a clinical term nor diagnosable disorder. However, the symptoms as a proposed disorder closely resemble those found in individuals with delusions of grandeur or with grandiose self-images that veer towards the delusional.
We do not hear of people classified with criminal capacities or mental disorders, you know the cornucopia of schizophrenics and deranged-damaged running around every big city, having the kind of power and pressure as do some religious fanatics in Washington D.C? Why is that?
To directly question much regarding the sanity of big box religions is apparently beyond the pale? To even question one major gospel of the New Testament as the Book of Revelation seems to be itself, socially, considered deranged (stepping on the sacred). Who wants to suggest Jesus may not return or Jews may not have some Other-Worldly-Supernaturally-Inspired Messianic Age?
The Messianic Age in Judaism
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-messianic-age-in-judaism/
Granted, if these questions were not so important to our time, the answer could be yes—you are stepping into dangerous territory—especially when too many people take their religious beliefs so seriously.
These questions are beyond questioning the Scofield Bible (which is definitely questioned as manipulating Christians in their thinking about the End Times). See article (and as it start out):
The Scofield Bible—The Book That Made Zionists of America’s Evangelical Christians by Maidhc Ó Cathail
“For a nation to commit the sin of anti-Semitism brings inevitable judgement.”
Cathail—The New Scofield Study Bible
Since it was first published in 1909, the Scofield Reference Bible has made uncompromising Zionists out of tens of millions of Americans. When John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), said that “50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel,” it was the Scofield Bible that he was talking about.”
“Although the Scofield Reference Bible contains the text of the King James Authorized Version, it is not the traditional Protestant bible but Cyrus I. Scofield’s annotated commentary that is problematic. More than any other factor, it is Scofield’s notes that have induced generations of American evangelicals to believe that God demands their uncritical support for the modern State of Israel.”
Or speaking of John Hagee (another famous religious John) check out this little video clip:
Of Blood Moons, Lunatics, and Snark
https://heidelblog.net/2014/04/of-blood-moons-lunatics-and-snark/
“This is a kind of lunacy and, to paraphrase Billy Joel, Hagee just might be the lunatic we’re looking for. The nouns lunacy and lunatic are derived from the Latin lunaticus, which refers to a person driven out of his mind by the moon. He might be crazy like a fox, however. Hagee has a penchant for latching on to events to stir interest in his entrepreneurial enterprises”.
Moreover, and especially important, is the fact that millions and millions of Christian Zionists are essentially giving the Israeli government, and the United States Government as well, a free pass to continue to commit genocide against the Palestinians when it is clearly a case of massive war crimes, in practically every sense of the meaning of genocide.
There is no real debate on truth–only massive levels of deceit and propaganda from the usual streams of propaganda trying to counter the ugly truth (as was the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson doing in the above referred to video). Here is the same link for your convenience:
House Speaker Mike Johnson addresses crowd at the March for Israel rally in DC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqX3Z9dzXa0
We do not turn to politicians for objective news or leadership. Checkout:
Is Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza? New Report from BU School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic Lays Out Case
The report comes from researchers at the University Network for Human Rights, a consortium of human right centers
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2024/is-israel-committing-genocide-in-gaza/ BU = Boston University
The more objective and scrutinizing facts have been slow coming in this forever information war—after months of lies deluging us endlessly. As much as the Powers-That-Be, who control and dominate the mainstream and much alternative media, they still have not stopped truth from coming to those seeking. Regardless, as never before, important voices were, and are, being either censored or substantially down-played.
And as usual, in our Western Jewish dominated mainstream media, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, and equally in many alternative media their suppression has been heavy.
[Ryan Cristian, at his now famous (or infamous) website, TheLastAmericanVagabond.Com, continues to do outstanding investigative journalism on this subject, especially since October 7th, and despite so many attempts have been utilized to censor his work, in so many ways, he still seems to reach, and maybe even increase, his audience. His energy and passion seems ‘indefatigable’ (not to be defeated). He, and his crew, again wins the Persons of the Year Award hands down. Checkout his website: TheLastAmericanVagabond.Com if you are not afraid of learning the truth (in detail with sources disclosed).]
Consequent to all the exceeding censorship, and unfortunately, masses of people are still ignorant on the extent of cruelty and violence being played out there in the Middle East, or they are passively accepting the lies spewed out, as excuse to not having to strenuously investigate something so ugly and alarmingly profound.
Still, the MSM, itself reluctant for so long, has had to come to reveal some of the devastation and massive death (but not in all its horrific, hell-pain forms of ghastly criminality). Enough people are learning from alternative sources (which especially face censorship).
Even when Jewish college students, who protests against this known and obvious genocide, and they too get smeared, harassed as anti-Semitic, arrested and beaten by pro-Zionists (just as they are in Israel proper) then who can be safe to tell truth?
Certainly not the duopoly of both Republican and Democratic parties, as fraudulent and debasing as they now are—not addressing truth—some blackmailed or bribed (or both) by the Israeli Lobby. Many of these members of Congress can only be described as diabolically controlled (because true evil existed even in a secular and existential world). They are zombies with the inertial imbecility of dead, nauseating souls. Where is there any real political salvation when you need it?
Meanwhile, malevolent Benjamin Netanyahu is again invited over to address our criminal Congress so he again can tell the policy setters in the White House to “Go Fr..k Yourselves” (Congress showing absolute bipartisan support for Israel) regarding any potential attempt by the State Department for plans of having a cease fire or real negotiations or anything deviating from the rabid, criminal goals of Israel’s Zionists).
Many sources still report truth.
[Note: Truth seekers do not find truth only by studying only one side of a story. And despite what can be argued as Socialism and Marxism being bad solutions to political and social problems, sometimes some within their camps have some of the best takes and understandings of real problems. Take for example this interview between Brian Becker of A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) and Rania Khalek of Break Through News (both *excellent* sources of real news: Israel’s Real Plan: Expand War, Reject Ceasefire, and String Biden Along
Pablo Picasso’s painting ‘Guernica’ does not begin to do justice to the evil and true hell of any war, including what continues to happen in Gaza (or what is left of their civilized infrastructure and people). There is nothing of the blood, the burning of charred skin, the breakage of bones and muscles, etc. in Picasso’s art. It is tame and sanitizing to what people can see from TikTok (which is why evil vice of power in the United States is trying desperately to stop these truths from being known).
Again, a continuously recurring theme in history, the power to utilize vast quantities of money to control events (such as censorship) and the equivalent of negative powers such as bribes or intimidation will work. Therefore, despite what anyone might think of occult labels like “Satanism” there are absolutely evil, dark forces operating on this planet.
And eternally true forms of evil resides in the satanic power of deceit and deception allied with the cruelty of psychopathic will to violate anything considered sacred or frail.
Genocide in broad daylight while trying to cover it with brazen lies over and over and over again is what constitutes real demonic power—not all the sensationalizing bullshit like amateurs pointing to hexagrams and symbols like Baphomet (or a ton of other ‘pagan’ rituals called Wiccan or whatever). Who cares about numerology and Gematria—most of all this stuff is mostly red herring trash talk (whether intentional or not—much naïve).
For example, not so long ago commentators who possess real intelligence and sophistication, on the right (still when it comes to their hyper-vigilante questioning of anything that might be threatening their brand of Christianity) were elaborating dark and clandestine messages in the recent Barbie movie, starring Margot Robbie as the title character and Ryan Gosling as Ken. It was not all that dark even if it had under-pinning motifs to biblical stories like Adam and Eve. Oh, yes, to protect the innocent children. OK then.
Or people with exceptional intelligence and training (will not name names) recently dwelling on 06-06-2024 as 666. Can they not see 2 + 2 + 2 + 4 = 8? They had to ignore the 20… of 2024 to stretch a 668 into a 666 because they are, seemingly, infatuated with nonsense, or like anything seemingly pagan, or mysteriously subversive, so they get side tracked with red herring analysis. With propensity to dwell on superstitious bullshit like numerology and other childlike, sophomoric preoccupations that can be categorized within the “dark arts” they are distracted from learning and revealing the real evil that operates in the open, that does not need a clear, defined and known historical or dynastic lineage.
Throw a little blood on some artsy alter and a lot of Christians go ape dip. How about reminding them that is was Judaism, in the primacy of their lustrous history that essentially used the sacrifice of animals to smear blood on the tabernacle in the Old Testament. Yes trace the origins of the word ‘bless’ as in “Blessed Be” and you see it is derived via from Proto-Germanic ‘blodison’ “hallow with blood, mark with blood,” from ‘blotham’ “blood”. Originally a blood sprinkling on pagan altars.” Etymonline.com
Funny how so much supposed satanic imagery comes from the Old Testament such as the killing of goats. A bit of Halloween from time to time reminds us how capricious is nature, and how we, as mammals, require the sacrifice of animal meat to survive.
So yes this world operates in a frenzy and fog of war, and hyper-propaganda, and we, the American people, continue to lose more and more of our political power. The Empire does not care about us average people. We are the flotsam and jetsam of modernity whether there is a Divine creator or not (or so it seems).
We, the many, resigned and foolish Americans we often seem, are again awaiting for ‘another’ election, and we are again willing to vote for more Democrat and Republican candidates (when it has been obvious for years neither party is going to do anything much for us common people).
We just can’t seem to wake up despite all the supposed real a-wakism these days. How is that for being animated and energized by reality?
YES indeed, we ‘all’ know both parties are resolutely corrupt and compromised! And yet, as the corruption keeps skyrocketing, we, the cowed and benumbed masses, continue to blindly expect Big League Politics to come up with some viable strategies that will benefit us (even as we really know this will never happen—and all should have learned this lesson ten times over!!).
End of Part 2 (to be continues).