Sacrilegious Sunday: Kumbaya Armageddon!

God, Allah and Jehovah walked into a bar and ordered the end of the world.

“You are only a true believer if you believe the other side will be hurt. That’s the flaw in religions getting along. True faith is war, which is why I have a problem with faith.”

I was thinking about Gaza when I commented the above on Counterspin: Lies, Damn lies, and Spin!. A mistake because my brain has since been like a fish on a hook, as if I were my younger, brainwashed self taking turbulent years to escape religion. To overcome the distraction, I imagined the following exorcism.

ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS

Abraham. A long-ago, long-living dude whom Christians, Jews and Muslims think was important (kumbaya).

There’s no proof he existed but, if we use our imagination, he was was from Chaldea (which was later absorbed by Babylon in Mesopotamia, which we know as Iraq). He probably spoke Aramaic and looked Arabic.

Christianity, Judaism and Islam are considered Abrahamic religions i.e., they follow his God which, because of serial prophets, became religious schizophrenia calling him God, Allah and Jehovah.

There are more Abrahamic faiths but only the successful ones are fishing for us as we waggle our fins to the end of time (kumbaya).

Mentioning Zoroaster, the founder of modern religion and the cause of the popularity of a Saviour, would only muddy the waters. Truth should never interfere with religion.

TERMINAL TERMINOLOGY

Megiddo, the pretty hill where Christians expect Armageddon

DEVILS:

”When he [the Antichist] appears during the Tribulation period, he will be a full-grown counterfeit of Christ. Of course he’ll be Jewish. Of course he’ll pretend to be Christ.” - Rev. Jerry Falwell

Christianity - Antichrist (once a Jew, then the Pope, now a CEO who will pretend to be Jesus the Messiah).

Judaism - Armilus (non-Jew born of Satan and a virgin, making Christian Mary uncomfortable).

Islam - Dajjal (A Christian who’ll rise from the East, pretend to be Jesus the Messiah, and be followed by 70,000 Jews).

HAPPY PLACES:

Christianity - Heaven (originally “heofon”, also known as Paradise, one place though “many mansions” is open to interpretation).

Judaism - Shamayim (divided into 7 heavens, as it was for earlier Babylonians living in Mesopotamia which is present day Iraq).

Islam - Jannah (divided into 7 layers, also known as Paradise, where virgins wait for good men and angels sing only in Arabic).

SCREAMING PLACES:

Christianity - Hell (a place of fire, New Testament referring to it by the Hebrew words Hades and Gehenna, the place of fire, the word “Hell” a newer invention, and imagined as 9 circles by the poet Dante who was inspired by the Greek philosopher Aristotle).

Judaism - Gehinnom (also known as Gehenna, Jewish mystics describe 7 layers, Hades the most well known)

Islam - Jahannam (derived from the Hebrew word “Gehinnom” rather than the Greek word “Gehenna”,a place of fire with 7 gates for different sinners)

THE FINAL BATTLE PLACE:

Christianity - Armageddon a.k.a. the Hill of Megiddo (where Bruce Willis doesn’t live). Megiddo was an ancient city of Palestine but the Israeli’s took it over long before WW2. 25 layers of civilization were built atop each other between 3000BCE and 700BCE. “Megiddo is the only site anywhere in the ancient world where you have the entire sequence of the Bronze Age and Iron Age represented, excavated and radiocarbon dated,” said Prof. Israel Finkelstein. It was an important transport between kingdoms, which meant many battles, likely inspiring associated religious prophecy. Here, the forces of the Christ (Jesus) and the AntiChrist are meant to war.

Judaism - Jerusalem is considered to be the Messiah’s destination for the end times (much to the relief of Megiddo Kibbutz and its swimming pools). Jesus is not the Messiah, opinion on him divided between those who thought he was a good Jew and those who believe him to have been a false prophet attempting to eradicate Judaism. They both agree he was not the son of God.

Islam - Dabiq is a village in Syria, 40 kilometres northeast of Aleppo (and near the Turkish border). Here the Muslims will begin fighting the kafir (non-believers), before conquering Istanbul and then Europe. Mahdi (the Guided One) will have united Muslims in preparation for the retun of Jesus.

THE END OF EVERYTHING

With the caveat that one person’s fatalism is another’s hope…

CHRISTIANITY:

"When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, for these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written.

Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles (non-Jews) are fulfilled."

- Gospel of Luke

and

“They gathered them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Har-Magedon (Armageddon/Megiddo)... And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image; these two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone.”

- Revelations

JUDAISM:

"God will redeem Israel from the captivity that began during the Babylonian Exile in a new Exodus.

God will return the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.

God will restore the House of David and the Temple in Jerusalem.

God will raise up a regent from the House of David, the Jewish Messiah, to lead the Jewish people and the world and to usher in an age of justice and peace, the Messianic Age.

Non-Jews (Gentiles) will recognize that the God of Israel is the only true god.

God will resurrect the dead.

God will create a new heaven and earth."

- Wikipedia summary

and

“I will make Jerusalem (Yerushalayim ) a cup that will stagger the surrounding peoples… I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who try to lift it will hurt themselves, and all the earth’s nations will be massed against her… When that day comes, I will make the leaders of Judah (Y’hudah) like a blazing fire pan in a pile of wood, like a fiery torch among sheaves of grain; they will devour all the surrounding peoples, on the right and on the left… I will seek to destroy all nations attacking Jerusalem. When that day comes, there will be great mourning in Yerushalayim, mourning like that for Hadad-Rimmon
in the Megiddo Valley.” - Zechariah, Chapter 12 (never left out beloved Megiddo a.k.a. Armageddon).

ISLAM:

"When the sun is put out, and when the stars fall down, and when the mountains are blown away, and when pregnant camels are left untended, and when wild beasts are gathered together, and when the seas are set on fire, and when the souls ˹and their bodies˺ are paired ˹once more˺, and when baby girls, buried alive, are asked for what crime they were put to death, and when the records ˹of deeds˺ are laid open, and when the sky is stripped away, and when the Hellfire is fiercely flared up, and when Paradise is brought near- ˹on that Day˺ each soul will know what ˹deeds˺ it has brought along."

- Surah At-Takwir 81:1-14, Koran

and

The appearance of smoke; forming a huge black cloud (dukhan) that covers the earth. The appearance of the Antichrist. This false messiah, Dajjal, shall appear as an apostle of God,appearing to have great powers as a one-eyed man with his right eye blind and deformed like a grape. Although believers will not be deceived, he will claim to be God, to hold the keys to heaven and hell, and will lead many astray. In reality, his heaven is hell, and his hell is heaven. The Dajjal will be followed by seventy thousand Jews of Isfahan wearing Persian shawls.

The Beast of the Earth (Dabbat al-Ard) will crawl out of the earth to talk to people; followed by Gog and Magog will break out of their imprisonment isolating them from the civilized world and run wild; They will ravage the earth, drink all the water of Lake Tiberias, and kill all believers in their way.

God eventually will send disease and worms to wipe them out. The return of Isa (Jesus), from the fourth sky, to kill Dajjal.

A major war between the Muslims (including Jews and Christians who believe Jesus is a prophet and Muslim and not divine after his return) led by the Imam Mahdi, and the Jews plus other non-Muslims led by the Antichrist.”

-Wikipedia summary

AMEN

Thanks to me, you completely understand these religions, why Muslims must fight Jews, not why Christians aren’t fighting Jews, that none of this is Netanhayu’s fault (unless he’s a false Messiah), and that there’s no need to attend Atheists Anonymous anymore.

I managed to say all this tactfully, without mentioning evangelists…

…or Father Marilyn Manson…

“The worms will live in every host
It's hard to pick which one they hate the most
The horrible people, the horrible people
It's all anatomic as the size of your steeple
Capitalism has made it this way
Old-fashioned fascism will take it away.”

…or Saint Slipknot…

“You are wrong, fucked, and overrated
I think I'm gonna be sick and it's your fault
This is the end of everything
You are the end of everything.”

…or Young Wicked Mike…

A Poem for Each Commandment

Ten
God inspired, created to sate his boredom ache
and so committed his first mistake

Nine
Life’s unprecedented evolution race
‘cause of inborn desire to build a domination base

Eight
Since lust and hate are the hottest fuels for further gain,
the species Man climbed to the top of the superiority chain

Seven
Our fatal discovery was that power called Word
for never again would reason be heard

Six
Jealous men became holy men and diseased religion
became war’s devil legion

Five, Four-
Murder, masochism, rape, anarchy, wills that wouldn’t bend;
all commandments to the end

Three, TWO!
An explosion and the sky bled and the earth bled,
Man’s soul was condemned and Man was dead

One
But a child survived, testimony to Man’s lies
To hide his shame, God ensured its demise.

OPTIONS

Gaza’s kids

“Belief can only exist through action. Action is choice. Don’t believe if you’re not going to act. Please don’t act.”
- Mike the Messiah.”

If you’re too lazy to live up to Aristotle’s interpretation of happiness (self-actualization), unwilling to steal every missile and nuclear bomb, or don’t find my music taste religious enough, the only option left is to find the red cow.

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