Personal anecdote from younger days in NYC. True story: I was having a few beers at the Blarney Stone on Second Avenue and started talking to a reporter from the NY Post. I stared at the headline of the folded newspaper he placed on the bar.
Begin to Knesset "SORRY RON DUMPED ME"
Dumbfounded I told him, "Don't you know the Post is one of the most revered papers in the country? And it was founded by Alexander Hamilton, fa Christ sake. Look at that headline. The Post is becoming a rag."
He turned to me and calmly replied; "Take it easy. The New York Post is the most entertainment you can possibly buy for a quarter. Think of all the hours of fun you have and it barely cost you anything."
So it is with my Kindle Book Pot Stories. Hours and hours of fun and you'll even learn some interesting concepts. Barbara Walker is an expert on medieval church history. Here's a taste:
Fun with the Book of Revelation
And where does The Book of Revelation fit in? After all, it’s St. John the Divine’s bad LSD trip. There has to be something sacred about that.
How the heck do you get a name like St. John the Divine? Do you think he called himself John the Divine when he was alive? He was a prisoner/slave working in the quarries on a remote Roman prison island called Patmos. So the logical inference is that he so-called himself to his fellow prisoner/slaves and his tyrannical slave masters. Surely, doing such important work, John must have spouted out his predictions to everybody he ran into. "I tell you prepare yourselves for the Four Horsemen: Conquest, War, Famine and Death. Frogs, cockroaches, slimy worms and bloody lobsters everywhere. And don't forget about the anti-Christ, the sign of the beast and the infamous sick six six. You know, Gog n Magog, Gog n Magog. A burly, leather-aproned slave driver must have said to himself: “John the Divine, eh. Another fuckin’ nut to deal with. All right, John the Divine, you just keep hammering on this boulder stone ‘til you smack it to the size of grains of sand. (He held up tiny specks of sand to show John the size he wanted.) God will bless thee and some day they’ll call you Saint John the Divine.”
Outcome: Two thousand years later The Book of Revelation is one of the widest read books in human history. People live by it. The true prophet was the slave driver and not the beloved saint.
Moral: One never knows do one?
Ironic note: The Cathedral of St. John the Divine up on Riverside Drive and 126th St in NYC is the largest house of worship in the United States.
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6 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.I do not know if John was divine or if he was a saint. What I do know is that so many religious world event freaks read world headlines through the ideas of the Book of Revelation. A store clerk that I knew once asked me how I thought things would play out and she was a Mormon. Nothing is factual in Revelation and if you put a devil in their or world wars and even Donald Trump, you are just showing your ignorance.
DenoPenno
Level 9
June 16, 2019
1
What in the actual fu_ck was that?
BufftonBeotch
Level 8
June 16, 2019
3
It was just some fun creative writing, to my mind at least. Picture the prime minister of Israel standing before his parliament and saying: Sorry Ron dumped me.
In the bit about St. John the point is about how weird the belief system is. Yet people still believe it throughout the centuries even thought it is destroying the world and causing unimaginable suffering.
BTW, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine is NOT the largest house of worship in the US. It is 121,000 square feet.
I haven't bothered to look up some of the mega-churches, but Christ Cathedral, formerly the Crystal Cathedral (aka the Windex Palace) in Garden Grove, California is 132,000 square feet, and that doesn't include the drive in.
mcgeo52
Level 8
June 16, 2019
2
Just a snide note: A lot of stones were thrown in that glass house.
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make ?. The book of revelation is a wild story by someone who has obviously ingested magic mushrooms or something similar. "the most widely read book". It is part of what is probably"the most widely purchased book". there is a big difference.
Moravian
Level 8
June 16, 2019
2
Book gets off on the wrong foot in the first entry regarding the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. If you are going to include historical events, be at least basically accurate or say up front that elements may be fictionalized, exaggerated, or distorted for the sake of entertainment.
evidentialist
Level 8
June 15, 2019
1
How am I wrong here. The point is that chaos theory was at play. If the caravan would have quit, as they did get lost, and the chauffer not review the mistaken itinerary, the archduke might not have been assassinated.
@Aristopus -- That he might not have been assassinated is true enough, and I have no argument with that and chaos was certainly running full tilt. The misleading here was in how they wound up in their predicament -- which in itself was additional support of the notion of chaos at work. You made it sound as if the bumbling driver just got lost, missing the panic that led them to that spot. Even when forming the motorcade at the start there was chaos. If the security officers who were supposed to be with Franz and Sophie had not missed their appointed duty, there may also not have been the assassination. This assassination was the result of a series of errors on the parts of several people and circumstances. It was one of the best opportunities for a teaching moment about your whole point.
This was a personal disappointment and it is quite likely few, if any, will notice it. This was not a critique of the writing or of the book as a whole, simply a complaint about a moment lost.
Anecdote: I had a friend named James who decided he wanted to be a priest. He went through all the stuff would-be priests go through and several years later he was ordained. He knew I was a heathen atheist, but friends we remained through the whole process. The punch line here is his last name. When he finally made it, he became Father Devine. I took great delight in pointing that out to him. I know the word is not the same, but the sound is.
@evidentialist I see you're my age. I had a Father Divine at Boston College -- Jesuit professor of Philosophy.
What do you think about this one? About chaos theory. I wrote a short story on it: "The Moron and the Mouse." Briefly, if W. Bush didn't get admitted to Yale as a "legacy student" the misery and suffering in the Middle East due to the invasion of Iraq might not have happpend. The corruption of the people in the Admission Office caused untold misery because W. Bush was an undeniable imbecile and puppet of corporate oligarchs -- like Dick Chaney of Halliburton.
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