An Influential Psychosis

Anyone who believes the Christian Bible is boring has never read the Book of Revelation, the last canonical book of the New Testament. This is the part of the Bible based on prophesies of the last days of Earth. It's all about the second coming of Jesus, God's final judgment of humanity, and the apocalypse that destroys the Earth and condemns all non-believers to an eternity of suffering in Hell ... exciting stuff.

The Book of Revelation was written by somebody called "John of Patmos" (Patmos is an idyllic little Greek island situated in the Aegean sea), but nobody really knows exactly who John of Patmos was. All we know is that, for reasons never adequately explained, John was exiled to Patmos. It's quite clear though, from reading the book, that whoever he was, and for whatever reason he was exiled to Patmos, John was profoundly mentally ill and suffered from severe psychotic episodes. John's book is based entirely on two of these episodes, which clearly had a big impact on him. In the book he calls these psychotic episodes; "Visions" and relates how during these visions, first Jesus, and secondly God himself, appeared to him and told him some extremely scary stories.

At the time John wrote the Book of Revelations (somewhere between 60AD and 100AD) the science of Psychiatry was yet to be invented and it was not uncommon for the "visions" of psychotics to be misinterpreted as messages from the divine. Ironically, during the middle ages the reverse tended to be believed by Christians. Far from experiencing messages from God, people with a mental illness were considered to be "possessed" by Satan and were consequently imprisoned, tortured and frequently killed. In modern times, mentally ill people still experience scary episodes but thankfully we now have science, which attempts to explain these episodes in non-metaphysical terms and therefore help the sufferers progress to a less-scary place in life.

Despite the long litany of visions experienced by other mentally ill people throughout the ages since 100AD, for some reason not one of them ever joined the visions of John of Patmos in the Christian Bible as examples of God's Word.

Today, despite our understanding that visions such as those experienced by John of Patmos, are actually the result of an ill brain, there are many, many people who choose to believe the psychotic episodes described in the Book of Revelations represent a true and accurate prophesy from God Himself about actual events to come. A lot of these people believe the events described in Revelations are due to befall the current generation, and they are actively preparing for, and looking forward to the end of the world when they will be saved and taken to Heaven to live with their friend Jesus.

Despite being described by some commentators as a dangerous lunatic fringe, this movement of Apocalyptic Christians has been able to wield considerable political power in America and has been largely responsible for placing the current President in office and keeping him there for two terms. The reason they have chosen to support this particular president is because they believe he is one of them.

Though it has not been firmly established, it is the source of wide conjecture, that as a born-again Christian, George W. Bush is, in fact, also a believer in the impending Biblical apocalypse. He has often publicly identified with and shown strong support for the far Christian right and claims that God speaks both to him and through him. Since the failure and stagnation of his war on Iraq, Bush has turned his posturing to strengthening an enmity with all sworn enemies of Israel, most particularly Iran. Israel also happens to be the focal point of the final apocalyptic battle prophesied in Revelations. This battle occurs in a town called Megiddo, (the Hebrew Har-Megido, or Hill of Megiddo, became known as "Armageddon" in the modern Bible). Is it simply coincidence that America’s foreign policy under the current administration has consistently sought to increase the divide between Israel and its enemies?

Imagine for a moment the scenario where an insane, apocalypse-believing fundamentalist religious sect is allowed to significantly influence the foreign policy of a major military power. Imagine if control over the fate of the planet was handed over to a man who believed in, and actively looked forward to its destruction, in order that he and his brethren got to ascend to some fictional salvation?

Sounds scary doesn’t it? But we’d never be so stupid as to let something like that happen ‘round here, would we?

A Brief History of Specialness

Human beings lack the capacity to understand that events may occur in the world that are beyond the control of a sentient, conscious being. Very young children imagine their toys are invested with consciousness and that their teddy bear will provide them with security and defense against unforeseen nasty events that may occur during the night. This concept of investing non-conscious things with consciousness is known as "Animism". Some children even invest such diverse and unlikely objects as the common blanket with this property. Similarly, it was impossible for our ancestors, several thousand years ago to accept that meteorological events such as drought or rain were the result of natural forces that were beyond human influence. They developed the belief that the forces of nature were influenced and controlled by the whims of conscious, sentient beings, and they named these beings; "gods".

Humans in these ancient times coexisted in extended family groupings known as tribes. Although the beliefs of these tribes were essentially very similar, each tribe held its own derivative set of beliefs, and each tribe felt that they were held in the particular favour of the gods, and that by performing certain ritual acts, such as sacrificing animals, or even other tribe members, they could win the favour of the gods and influence them to direct the natural forces in such a way as to bring prosperity to the tribe. This made them feel special.

Now, about 5000 years ago, one of these ancient tribes, a nomadic people known as The Jews, who lived in a largely infertile desert region now known as the Middle East, developed an idea that was a little different to the other tribes. Their idea was that, rather than many gods, there was only one God. In most other respects though, their particular variety of theism (belief in a God) was essentially undifferentiated from those of the other tribes. This God still controlled natural resources and outcomes, and could be influenced by the performance of human rituals. The Jews also felt that this one God held their tribe in special favour as differentiated from all the other humans on the planet. There was only one God, and he was a God that loved the Jews best among all humans. This belief made the Jews feel very special.

Nearly 3000 years later, a tribe known as The Romans learned to rely on their own ingenuity more than on the influence of the gods, and as a consequence they became highly skilled in the art of war. Successful conquests of other tribes provided the Romans with slaves and other resources with which to support their own tribe, which consequently expanded into something known as an empire. The Jews were among the many tribes conquered and subjugated by the Romans, and like most of the other tribes they were not very happy. During this time, one particular Jew named Jesus expressed dissatisfaction with the Romans, and for a brief time he was able to carry out a brave program of political dissidence, until the Romans got wind of his antics and had him executed.

Subsequent to Jesus' execution a breakaway tribe of Jews, known as the Christians formed and proclaimed that God no longer held the old Jewish tribe in his favour. This new Christian God held the Christians in special favour. The Christians introduced an important innovation into their belief, which was that people from other tribes were welcome to break away, join the Christian tribe and by so doing, win the favour of the Christian God. Because of this innovation the Christian tribe grew swiftly throughout the Roman Empire. This made the Christians feel very special.

A few hundred years later, in the 7th century, the issue became really confused when an elder of another nomadic desert tribe named Muhammad started telling people that God didn't favour the Christians after all, and that in order to win God's favour they needed to join his new tribe called the Moslems. Becoming a Moslem made people feel very special.

As the Christians grew more numerous they split into different tribes that each believed they were so special and that God loved them so much that they refused to talk to each other. The Moslems also grew and split into separate tribes and, like the Christians, they were also too special to have anything to do with each other. As for the Jews, they'd been special for so long that everyone had had plenty of practice not talking to them.

Eventually God told the Christians that they needed to murder as many Moslems as possible, and conquer a city in the desert named Jerusalem. So Christians went to Jerusalem and killed as many Moslems as they could. This was known as "The Crusades".

Later, a period of intellectual exploration arrived during which humans invented science - which explained that events are not directed by Gods, but rather by natural laws which are not influenced by prayer, sacrifice or any other ritual. But the Jews, Christians and Moslems all felt so very special that they decided to ignore science and instead continue pretending that events on Earth are directed by God.

Hundreds of years later, Christians, Jews and Moslems continue to feel so special about being Christians, Moslems and Jews that they need to slaughter each other on a daily basis just to reinforce how special they are. A very small minority of humans called Atheists wish that everyone could just learn to deal with their insecurities enough to feel special without requiring the endorsement of a God to do so. These Atheists are understandably hated and pitied by everyone else and no-one is paying any attention to them. Meanwhile, sales of Teddy Bears, Bombs and Bibles are skyrocketing.