Read God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible Online
Authors: CJ Werleman
Ok, maybe his description of heaven is confined to just the administrative office but I will credit him with at least making an imaginative, descriptive attempt. But thus far just the usual elementary school level imagery of heaven: gold, white, lightning, thunder, crowns and thrones. All images one would expect a 1
st
grade child to use to illustrate heaven. But John’s illustration begins its bizarre twist hereafter:
“
In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures and they were covered with eyes, in front and behind. The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had the face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night the creatures never stopped saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.’” (Revelations 4:6-8 NIV)
Holy, holy, holy is more than likely what I too would have said if I was taken to this place in the clouds. ‘Holy fucking shit,’ would probably be more like it.
John watches on from his heavenly front row as a man seated in one of the thrones fumbles around in his hands with a scroll containing seven seals that he is unable to open. An angel walks in and tells the occupier of the throne that the seal cannot be opened because no one present is worthy for such a ceremonial duty. Next, in walks a lamb that appears to be slain, but as John makes closer inspection the lamb is not only still alive but has seven horns and seven eyes. This mutant lamb takes the scroll from the angel and all twenty-four elders of Heaven’s throne fall down in worship before the lamb, whilst simultaneously all began playing harps and burning incense. Now, I can’t be sure what drugs John was on, but I feel like I am having an acid flashback just retelling this.
The elders then all broke into song and sang to the seven eyed lamb:
“
You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God and they will reign on the earth.” (Revelations 5:9-10 NIV)
The obliging lamb then begins to open the first of the seven seals, which seems problematic given that lambs don’t have the benefit of opposable thumbs. Regardless of my cynical observation, the lamb opened the first of the seals and my golly gosh
boom
a white horse flew out of the scroll, with a rider holding a bow and wearing a crown. The horse and its jockey rode off purposefully into the distance as if in a rush to go to battle.
The second seal was opened and
boom
another horse flew out of the scroll, but this time the horse was a fiery red in color.
“
It’s rider given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.” (Revelations 6:4 NIV)
The third seal produced a black horse, with its rider carrying a set of weighing scales in his hands.
The fourth seal produced a pale horse and its jockey was named ‘Death’. This horse and rider were given power to slay a quarter of the earth’s population by means of famine, plagues and wild beasts. Blood, slaughter, war, the end of times ain’t pretty business!
The fifth seal produced no horse and thus the reason why scholars refer to the first four seals as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Seal number five enabled John a view to the graves of all godly men who had died till now and, who in their state of death, were asking when the Lord would return to rise them up to heaven. The dead were each given a white robe and reassured that they would only have to wait a little longer. Footnote: They are still waiting!
The sixth seal produced a tremendous earthquake, the sun turned black and the moon blood-red in color. The stars fell from the sky to earth and every mountain and island was removed from its place. John, with his ringside seat to the future, watched as non-believing men, from Kings to slaves, cowered in the refuge of caves as they watched the end of times draw near. Four angels then appeared to hold back the slaughter of the infidels until the angels had had their chance to place a seal on the forehead of all those living that were to be saved as servants of God. This is the total number of men to be saved into heaven at the time of the rapture.
Ok, here comes the kicker: somewhat perplexing is that the number of men given keys to the city of heaven is not as high as I might expect considering there are more than 2 billion people that consider themselves Christians today. The total number permitted into heaven when the end of times comes will be a staggeringly low number of only 144,000 souls. That’s it! That is not a large number of tickets for the big dance! That leaves room for the Christian population of Albany, NY only. I pity the guy standing in the doorway of the pearly gates, as there is going to be a big line of disgruntled Jesus fans who were sold phony entrance passes by enterprising ticket scalpers such as Billy Graham and the like.
With the 144,000 saved, now standing around gleefully with the seal of God on their foreheads, it was time for the godly dead, dressed in their splendid white robes, to be given their entry stamps. As the dead approached, one of the elders asked John who these men were, to which he replied:
“
These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelations 7:14-17 NIV)
My advice then is if you think you have missed the lottery-like odds of being one of the 144,000 entrants to heaven, then
it’s party time
! Let’s order the cocaine and strippers now. Start dialling Pastor Ted.
Before moving on to the next step of God’s doomsday scenario, I’d like you to think about this for a moment. Accepting that The Bible states only 144,000 lucky souls will enter the kingdom of Heaven at judgment day; your chances, by means of pure mathematical probability alone, are slim. Let’s, however, say that the sheer weight of odds runs with you rather than against and you do get the ultimate back stage pass, what then are the odds that everyone you know and love will enter with you? The odds just went from one in 5 billion to one in 100 trillion for that happening. Which means your wife, your husband, your children will all run with the odds, leaving them on the celestial outer. Isn’t this some kind of Hell in its own right then? A psychological Hell! Knowing that the people you love most are not only not with you, but are now being tortured for eternity in Hell?
Think about it.
Finally, the seventh seal was then opened and there was silence in heaven for about thirty minutes. Thank God! That incessant harp music would be driving me to hysterics too. But the elevator-style music continued soon thereafter as seven angels appeared before God, this time playing trumpets. Seven of them. Naturally, you would assume the angels trumpeted to the tune of ‘Oh when the Saints come marching in’. Makes perfect sense to me, but God commanded that each angel was to sound his trumpet individually upon his order. Henceforth, the first angel stepped forward, blasted out a pithy little tune and down rained hail and fire, mixed with blood onto the earth, resulting in one-third of the planet being consumed by fire.
The second angel stepped forth and, as he hits his crescendo, an enormous mountain, completely ablaze, was lifted out of the ground by an invisible hand and thrown into the sea, killing one-third of all living creatures in the sea. Willy, Flipper, Nemo all dead!
The fourth angel sounded his trumpet and a burning star came crashing down from the sky and landed on one-third of all of earth’s rivers. Given that stars aren’t as small as they seem without a telescope and are hundreds of times larger than our earth, I can’t see how this is possible, but let’s bear with it for a moment. The star made the water in a third of the rivers undrinkable thus killing many from thirst.
The fifth angel then belted out a Louis B. Armstrong classic and
bam
another star fell from space and crashed into the earth causing a gigantic crater filled with fire and smoke. Out of the smoke emerged locusts with the power of scorpions. These nasty gnats were given instructions from the angel that they were not to harm the trees, or plants but only to attack those people that did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. What John foretells next is purely evil:
“
They (scorpions dressed as locusts) were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. During these days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.” (Revelations 9:5-6 NIV)
So, I don’t know what you Christians against torture at Gitmo were on about, God loves torture! Which, no doubt, is where the Christian Inquisitors took inspiration from as they inserted hot irons into the anuses of those falsely accused of heresy and blasphemy during the dark and middle ages. When God sanctions torture, it makes it difficult for those in power with religious beliefs to challenge the morality of its use, don’t you think?
Now if your kids aren’t terrified yet, just read them John’s description of the locusts before they go to sleep tonight:
“
The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was like women’s hair and their teeth were like lion’s teeth. They had breastplates of iron and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle.” (Revelations 9:7-9 NIV)
Never mind the kiddies, I just scared the crap out myself. If I read this to my children I’d need 5mgs of Xanax to put me out. Bang! Shit! What was that?
The sixth angel sounded his trumpet and four angels that had been assigned to the Euphrates River were released to kill one-third of mankind.
Bam
more slaughter. One-third of mankind wiped out in an instant, thus I assume this to be the attack on China. So, goodbye all you Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists and Confuscists. There’s no sentimental farewell, Dear Friend. It’s
au revoir
courtesy of plagues of fire, sulphur and wild horses with snakes as their tails. Surprisingly, more like unfuckingbelievably, it is written that the remainder of surviving mankind, having witnessed all this blood and gore, continued on their merry-way to worship other gods. What the fuck? If there was ever a time to convert to this brutish cult, then surely this is it.
The seventh trumpet sounded and against a backdrop of thunder and lightning, the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell face down and worshipped him, crying out:
“
We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and begun to reign. The nations were angry; and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great – and for destroying those who destroy the earth.” (Revelations 11:16-18 NIV)
As the elders finished their praise of God, the temple in heaven was opened and within the temple was the Ark of the Covenant.
As John continued on his Contiki tour of Heaven he saw a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. We are talking about one gigantic behemoth of a woman! This woman was pregnant and she cried out in pain, as she was about to enter into labor. If this event wasn’t fantastic enough, enter an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns. The tail of the dragon swept through the sky knocking a third of all the stars out of orbit. Yes, a big fucking dragon here folks. The dragon made its way over to the woman that was using the moon to rest her feet, so as he could devour the newborn child the moment it was born. The woman gave birth to a son, predictably so and God stepped in and snatched the child before the dragon could dine on his favorite baby-back ribs. (Sorry, bad joke!) The woman fled into the desert to a sanctuary prepared for by God himself and she stayed in this fantasy witness protection plan for the next 1,260 days.
A war then erupted in heaven; a battle between Michael and his angels versus the dragon. This smashes the illusion of heaven for me, because I would be ever so hopeful that if any place could be devoid of the horror of warfare then it would be paradise. We have too much of it here on earth, so where is the sanctuary? What kind of impotent God is this? Surely, God had enough power to maintain a little peace and harmony in heaven for crying out loud? C’mon really? Anyway (huge sigh), the angels did battle and the dragon was hurled down to the earth and a loud voice shouted down to the surviving earthlings: