Left Alone Ch6

[farla]

Careful/What You Say is up.


Jason Gall - Jason, as in the husband of Medina and close to 'Jonah'; Gall "A native of the Lowlands of Scotland; any one ignorant of the Gaelic language; a foreigner, stranger. Gal, Gaelic and Cornish British, battle, evil warfare; Gal, Welsh, clear."
Matthew - "if your hand causes you to sin..." My initial thought was to have the one left behind be a Gay Pedophile Priest! but I thought that was overdone, and more to the point a gross misrepresentation of gays, pedophiles and molesting priests. Remember, kids - most pedophiles are heterosexual and most molesting priests are situational ephebophiles, kind of like how some people are situational misogynists in response to not getting laid. Also, gay molesting priests appear to be mostly confined to the Catholic Church. Baptists hire rent boys because they are hypocrites. (This is ironic because the Catholic church is the one with the doctrine of forgiveness.) The more you know!

This chapter is largely adapted from the book's video - in fairness, it's plausible that they have some sort of master rapture-video-sermon passed around, since they apparently do sell rapture tapes. Or he might have been a fan and lifted it from the books first. Since the story is about taking their premises and exploring them, I really couldn't write my own. Also, if I tried to write it, I'd feel like I was being unfair in creating a ridiculous strawman, so it's just tweaked and reworded.

The Corinthians bit is pure coincidence. Isn't it amazing how it seems otherwise?

The abortion line isn't a joke, by the way. In all honesty, if God decides that the unborn are covered by his blanket child rapture, I would seriously consider the idea they have souls. And that's part of what the story's about - having proved that they really are right, what now?

The prayer is creeps me out and will be revisited later.

Comments

[purplekitte.livejournal.com]

I agree with the priest thing, about how it would be overdone and the statistics of the pedophilia thing (looking it up in the soc book I was researching yesterday I get 2 out of 269 cases in one study).

This really is going for a certain seemingly-fairly wide view of what counts as Christianity (though evidentially not televangelists). I mean, it's not like someone has sat down and figured out exactly what constituted being taken, not that anyone really could. I was just noticing that from whatever I know of Catholic original sin, babies would be unclean and demony until baptised, and would end up with the Greek philosophers in one of the better circles of Hell.

[farla.livejournal.com]

With the priests, the only thing certain is that it's a lot more common then reported - the majority of cases get covered up. However, because the churches tend to shuffle the priests around rather than doing anything about it, a lot of the cases are just the same handful of people at different times or areas. So the incidence is a lot higher, but the number of priests may actually be less than it appears.

I mean, it's not like someone has sat down and figured out exactly what constituted being taken, not that anyone really could.
And yet, that's what the authors actually did. They seem unaware that the idea's pretty heretical, to say nothing of the level of outright hubris it involves.

As to the kids and original sin, they really have to. Baptists have the whole thing about having to be baptized as an adult. The Catholic church had to create purgatory just for the stillborn babies they couldn't baptize in time - imagine trying to deal with that when all children who die before adulthood are similarly condemned, and when you're already rejected the concept of purgatory. You've going to need to jump through some major theological hoops to avoid telling parents their dead child is not so much frolicking in Heaven as boiling in Hell simply because they didn't live long enough to make it to the baptism. The only real solution is just to sidestep the whole original sin problem.

This ends up having some disturbing implications in that if you kill children before the age of majority, they automatically go to heaven, while if you wait it's possible they won't. It also means every abortion is another soul in heaven, so you'd think their only objection to the pro-choice camp is the idea women could choose not to have an abortion. Theology is weird.

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

Which is why when people ask me "So shouldn't you just kill yourself?" when I tell them I don't believe in Heaven and Hell, I'm always tempted to respond, "No, no. You've got it backwards." I will never understand that logic.

It also means every abortion is another soul in heaven, so you'd think their only objection to the pro-choice camp is the idea women could choose not to have an abortion.

Which I guess is the answer to the "Abortions after the Rapture?" question. It'd be a lot worse to allow the child to be born into the Tribulation.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Which is why when people ask me "So shouldn't you just kill yourself?" when I tell them I don't believe in Heaven and Hell, I'm always tempted to respond, "No, no. You've got it backwards." I will never understand that logic.

Natural selection. Christianity originally sat down and realized the solution was mass suicide. That turned out not to work so great, and the survivors instituted a suicide ban.

It'd be a lot worse to allow the child to be born into the Tribulation.
I intend to take this to its far more worrisome logical conclusion. But not for a while.

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

Natural selection. Christianity originally sat down and realized the solution was mass suicide. That turned out not to work so great, and the survivors instituted a suicide ban.

I know. I laughed so hard when I figured that out. There's all sorts of theological reasons given, ranging from the pedantic ("It's a violation of the First Commandment.") to the downright creepy ("You don't own your body, God does, and suicide is vandalism.") But the obvious reason is that since Earth is so shitty and Heaven is so awesome, if the Church God didn't prohibit suicide, there would be no Christians left to vote Republican spread His word.

I intend to take this to its far more worrisome logical conclusion.

Ah, yes. That. 'Course, since the Tribulation is only seven years, it isn't as though any child born after the Rapture will live long enough to be held accountable for their actions. They would do if L&J had used the original "age of reason", but since in their mind sin is synonymous with sexuality they set it at puberty instead.

[farla.livejournal.com]

They had similar issues with castration (that whole "if your hand..." bit) and women wanting to stay virgins. Really, the more I learn about Christianity, the more impressed I am at the amount of rationalizing they did to make what's basically a death cult viable.

'Course, since the Tribulation is only seven years, it isn't as though any child born after the Rapture will live long enough to be held accountable for their actions.

:) But what decent person, knowing about Tribulation, would leave them to live through the whole of it? God's will leads to strange situations at times.

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

Wow. This was more uncomfortable than Chapter Four. "What now?" indeed.

If you've read the books already, then I'm sorry, and I'm also sorry if you find some of the pastor's speech a rehash because of that.

*SNERK*

[farla.livejournal.com]

It gets worse.

^.^ And yes, I'm wondering how many will pick up on the author note.

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

You mean the fact that it reveals your position on the whole mess to anyone who bothers to take the two seconds required to notice something odd and reason it out?

Not many, I would think.